What's New in Global Mapper v19.0

Significant New Features

The Search Vector Features is now the Attribute Editor. In addition to Search, this tool now allows for spreadsheet style editing of feature attributes in a drag and drop, dockable window enabling more powerful attribute data management.
Added large list of built-in sources for individual U.S States and Canada (both the entire country and some provinces). These are available in the COUNTRY DATA->Canada and U.S. DATA->State Sources groups in the online dialog.
Added the ability to simultaneously play multiple videos associated with a feature.
Added new tool to dynamically position the Hillshading light source(s) in real time via an interactive, click and drag control.
Added Normalized Difference Snow Index (NDSI), Normalized Difference Green Index (NDGI), Normalized Difference Moisture Index (NDMI), Normalized Pigment Chlorophyll Ratio Index (NPCRI), and Advanced Vegetation Index (AVI), Bare Soil Index (BSI), and Shadow Index (SI) to the prebuilt Raster Analysis tools.
Added drag and drop docking for 3D Viewer, Path Profile, and Attribute Editor windows.
Flythrough paths can now be imported and exported from several formats including GPX, KML, and ASCII text.
Changed the 3D viewer to allow it to display only the data enclosed by the 2D view, which makes it easier to focus on particular areas in 3D.

Significant New LiDAR Module features

Added support for gridding the RGB(I) color values in Lidar point clouds to create an orthoimage layer. The Grid Type selection for the bin grid methods now include 'Color (RGB)' and 'Color (RGBI)' options. [Item #16202]

3D Viewer Changes

Added a new control on the 3D Viewer Properties dialog for enabling/disable mesh textures on meshes [Item #19506]
Added a new checkbox to the 3D Viewer Properties dialog that controls whether the 3D viewer clips data to the bounds of the 2D view. [Item #22420]
Resolved problems with selection boxes for 3D point models [Item #21987]
Fixed a problem in the 3D viewer with selecting vector features that have no intrinsic elevation that are rendered relative to terrain. [Item #21990]
In the 3D viewer, allow user to select geometries that extend beyond the 2D bounds if 2D bounds clipping is not enabled. [Item #22075]
Fixed a where measuring in 3D got invalid results when selecting points or vertices on features that have an explicit elevation of 0 [Item #20886]
Fixed a problem that caused features whose Altitude Mode settings changed to not be selectable in the 3D viewer. [Item #22547]
When digitizing points in 3D, make the right-click behavior match what happens in 2D (go to selection mode and pop up a context menu). [Item #21748]
Make the 3D viewer behave the same way as the 2D view when cancelling feature creation; i.e. clear previously digitized points, but remain in feature creation mode. [Item #22180/22185]
In the 3D viewer, made digitizer snap setting be independent of the 2D snap setting. [Item #22266/22172]

Analysis Function Changes

Added formula and formula description fields for predefined formulas in the Raster Formula dialog. [Item #22538]

Scripting Changes

Added support for changing the native projection of a layer using the PROJ (and related parameters) with the SET_LAYER_OPTIONS script command. [Item #20973]

Online Source Changes

Sped display of tiled online sources in cases where the layer bounds do not completely cover the view bounds. [Item #22574]
Added built-in Hurricane Harvey and Irma impact sources under Weather->U.S. Hurricanes group. [Item #22457]
Updated built-in online Weather sources to include a number of NOAA nowCOAST sources, including updated NEXRAD weather radar, satellite imagery (visible and infrared), and weather watches and warnings (including hurricane forecasts). [Item #22530]

Projection/Datum Changes

Fixed issue where GeoCalc layer projection could not be modified when it was incorrectly determined that no transform to global projection exists. [Item #20140]
Corrected projection definition of Wisconsin Langlade County projection. [Item #22583]

Format Specific Changes

Export/import fly-through path data to/from GPX and KML. [Item #14375]
Can now export fly-through path data to XYZ text file, and import as Generic ASCII text file. [Item #22144]
Modified LiDAR export to LandXML so that elevations get converted to the output vertical unit. [Item #22337]
Fixed issues saving GeoCalc vertical coordinate systems to workspace. [Item #20141]
Added support reading and writing LAZ (LasZip) files with the LAS 1.4 files, like 255 classifications and NIR color bands.

Rendering/Style Changes

Added new label formatting options: number of decimal digits, remove trailing zeros, and use scientific notation. [Item #9807]

User Interface

Added an export button to fly-through path edit dialog which will provide a list of file format options compatible with path data. [Item #22261]
Now checks for internet connection when checking out licenses by order number. Also brings the dialog back up after a failure. [Item #18873]

Misc. Changes

Added handling for borrowed licenses so they can't be checked in earlier than a day [Item #22157]
Fixed detection of image links with non-English characters in some code pages. [Item #22567]

What's New in Global Mapper v18.2

Significant New Features

Added support for Amazon Web Services (AWS) Amazon Simple Storage Service (S3) Open Cloud Datasets which allows sources to be imported from S3 buckets and data formats can now be exported to writeable S3 buckets.
Added a toolbar to the Control Center for easy access to common functions (i.e. Options, Metadata, Close Layer, Select All Features, Zoom To, and Toggle Show/Hide).
Added dockable Overview Map window to the main view. The Overview Map displays the full bounds of loaded data, with rectangles representing the current bounds of all 2D view windows. This is useful for working in a small area in one window while retaining the full map view in another.
Added new ability to digitize Points, Lines, and Area features, by snapping to other data in the 3D Viewer.
Added new built-in sources for the 1-arc-second (30m) resolution SRTM and ESA CCI Land Cover data for the entire world.
Added 3D fly-through playback loop option.
Fly-through view position and heading now displayed in 2D View during playback and preview.
Added support for Geographic Calculator 2017.

New Supported Formats

Added support exporting for Styled Layer Descriptor (.SLD) format for exporting styling information for vector exports.
Added support for loading Adobe DNG (Digital Negative) image files. [Item #21301]
Added support for importing vector features from Esri XML Workspace files [Item #13969]
Added support for loading the USGS Standard Format (SF) Binary Grid. [Item #21303]

LiDAR Module Only Highlights

Added the ability to apply 3D breaklines and flatten 3D areas when gridding Lidar data using a Bin Grid method. This allows for the creation of Hydro-flattened terrain surfaces from LiDAR and other point clouds. [Item #13382]
Added LIDAR_COMPARE script command for performing Lidar to control point compare and adjust in a script. [Item #20849]
Added ability to set shared Lidar draw mode with SET_OPT script command and the LIDAR_DRAW_MODE parameter. [Item #21694]
Made saved workspaces include shared Lidar draw mode setting if Lidar data is loaded and the Lidar module active. [Item #21694]
Added LIDAR_COMPARE script command for performing Lidar to control point compare and adjust in a script. [Item #20849]
Added new Lidar draw modes for coloring by the withheld, overlap, and model key point flags. [Item #19162]
Added ability to filter Lidar points (either selected or when performing operations like gridding) by the withheld, overlap, and key point status flags. [Item #19162]
Fixed Lidar Compare tool to work with point clouds with unknown return types (i.e. point clouds with missing return counts). [Item #21162]
Fixed load of small Lidar files (i.e. < 512 points) causing them to fail load as empty. [Item #21233]

LiDAR Changes

[LIDAR MODULE ONLY] Added the ability to apply 3D breaklines and flatten 3D areas when gridding Lidar data using a Bin Grid method. This allows for the creation of Hydro-flattened terrain surfaces from LiDAR and other point clouds. [Item #13382]
[LIDAR MODULE ONLY] Made saved workspaces include shared Lidar draw mode setting if Lidar data is loaded and the Lidar module active. [Item #21694]
[LIDAR MODULE ONLY] Added LIDAR_COMPARE script command for performing Lidar to control point compare and adjust in a script. [Item #20849]
[LIDAR MODULE ONLY] Added new Lidar draw modes for coloring by the withheld, overlap, and model key point flags. [Item #19162]
[LIDAR MODULE ONLY] Added ability to filter Lidar points (either selected or when performing operations like gridding) by the withheld, overlap, and key point status flags. [Item #19162]
Added option to Lidar import dialog to control whether or not withheld points are marked as deleted. [Item #20920]
Updated LAS 1.4 export to place the WKT CRS (projection) in a variable length record in the header rather than an extended variable length record at the end of the file as some applications do not support reading it from an extended record. [Item #21192]
[LIDAR MODULE ONLY] Fixed Lidar Compare tool to work with point clouds with unknown return types (i.e. point clouds with missing return counts). [Item #21162]
[LIDAR MODULE ONLY] Fixed load of small Lidar files (i.e. < 512 points) causing them to fail load as empty. [Item #21233]
Fixed issue where Hill Shading Highlight affected Lidar point color by elevation. [Item #21561]

3D Viewer Changes

Improved lighting model for display of vector features and models in the 3D Viewer
Fixed display of water level in 3D view when vertical exaggeration is something other than 1. [Item #20792]
Fixed issue with fly-through look angle when path crosses north-south line and smoothing is applied. [Item #21078]
3D path profile cutaway walls are now rendered translucently, without artifacts. [Item #20809]
Fixed problem with selection boxes for rotated 3D point models. [Item #20987]
3D Point models are no longer loaded backwards [Item #20739]
3D Model heights can now be supplied from attributes named other than “Height” [Item #20786]
Line features now display at correct elevation when DEM is disabled [Item #20723]

Path Profile/Line of Sight Function Changes

The Path Profile dialog no longer automatically closes when you choose to save the profile to a BMP and add to the main map view as a fixed screen position layer. [Item #21505]

Analysis Function Changes

Made ‘Flatten 3D Areas’ option work properly when gridding area features with a single elevation along with other feature types, such as Lidar. The areas were not being flattened if other data was inside the area. [Item #20892]
Added a ‘Shader’ selection to the Combine/Compare Terrain dialog allowing direct choosing of the elevation shader to use for the new terrain layer. It now defaults to a layer-specific shader rather than the default shared shader. [Item #21121]
Fixed error calculating volumes from the Measure Tool in 18.1.0 release. [Item #20932]
Fixed issue causing generated contours to not go all the way to the bottom or right edges of data when there are no-data regions between the data and the edges of the map data. [Item #21180]

Digitizer Tool Changes

When cropping selected area features to selected line features, always place the cropped area result(s) in the original area layer. Previously if either the line or area layer was reprojected the cropped area would go in User Created Features layer. [Item #20942]
Added the ability to copy the layer's attributes when adding a new feature to a layer. [Item #10166]
Sped up operation to Move Selected Point Feature(s) to Nearest Line. Also added progress dialog when large numbers of points are selected. [Item #21674]
Removed <Feature Name> and <Feature Type> columns from feature measurement / volume dialog results when on named features are present. [Item #20932]
Implemented "Prepend A to Letters to Make Same Length" option on Grid Setup dialog when creating rectangular grid. [Item #9979]
Fixed issue with calculation of SIDE_OF_LINE attribute when calculating chainage for points and lines. [Item #21210]
Updated option to create points at selected area centroids to not create points at island/hole area centroids if the parent area is also selected. [Item #21669]

Scripting Changes

[LIDAR MODULE ONLY] Added LIDAR_COMPARE script command for performing Lidar to control point compare and adjust in a script. [Item #20849]
Added new script command CROP_AREAS_TO_LINES to allow cropping loaded area features to loaded line features in a script. [Item #21310]
[LIDAR MODULE ONLY] Added ability to set shared Lidar draw mode with SET_OPT script command and the LIDAR_DRAW_MODE parameter. [Item #21694]
Added new JOIN_TABLE script command option to duplicate features whenever duplicate join attribute values are encountered by using ALLOW_DUPLICATES=”COPY_FEATURE”. [Item #20757]
Added the ability to export feature attributes to DWG and DXF files. [Item #13335]

Online Source Changes

Added new built-in source for the 1-arc-second (30m) resolution SRTM data for the entire world. It is available under the ‘Terrain Data’ and ‘Worldwide Data’ sources as ‘SRTM Worldwide Elevation Data (1-arc-second Resolution Data). [Item #14419]
Added built-in sources in Land Cover group for ESA CCI (Climate Change Initiative) 500m global land cover data from 2000, 2005, and 2010. [Item #20981]
Updated built-in online source for NOAA Digital Coast (Lidar/Terrain) to automatically zoom to the specified area of interest when the web site opens from the online data download dialog. [Item #20896]
Improved selection of projection to use for WMS/WMTS sources when the ‘Automatic’ option is selected. It should no longer select projections that are poor choices for the area covered by layer. This was especially a problem for DigitalGlobe WMS sources. [Item #21003]
Added option to tiled web format exports of terrain to the GMG format to ‘ADVANCED: Clamp GMG Tiles to Data Resolution’. This option will cause the most detailed zoom level to export at no more than the resolution of the most detailed data for the tile. [Item #20921]
Made File->Export->Export Web Format options dialog for OSM/TMS/Google Maps formats remember the tile size and image format selected between runs. [Item #14419]

Projection/Datum Changes

Added new built-in zones to the Korea TM projection. [Item #20904]
Added new built-in HTRS96 (Croatia) datum. [Item #21427]
Made Tools->Coordinate Convertor dialog obey the precision settings on the Measure/Units tab of the Configuration dialog when displaying projected system coordinate values. [Item #21684]

Format Specific Changes

Added the ability to export feature attributes to DWG and DXF files. [Item #13335]
Fixed issue with BMP export always using palette file and being flipped vertically when vector data included. [Item #21005]
Added support for importing GeoPackage 1.1 databases. [Item #21586]
Significantly sped up raster/terrain exports from map catalogs to raster/terrain formats. [Item #14419]
Improved support for P6/98 seismic bin files that are missing some standard header fields. Also improved automatic projection decoding from these files. [Item #20944]
Automatically recognize code page (character set/language) when importing DXF/DWG files so that labels will be properly displayed automatically regardless of the system language. Also write out the appropriate code page when exporting DXF/DWG files. [Item #21053]
Added option during KML/KMZ export to enable or disable splitting of lines that contain too many vertices to be displayed in Google Earth. [Item #20941]
Added option to MB Tiles export to create from an existing tile data set using the TMS tiling scheme, similar to the existing option for RMaps exports. [Item #21166]
Improved support for PCI PIX format files, including allowing loading single-band PIX files as terrain grids. [Item #21228]
Reduced memory usage when exporting large TIN datasets to STL [Item #19203]
Added support for newer SOSI files using UTF-8 encoding. [Item #20660]
Fixed handling of elevation units when importing and exporting Land/XML files. Also added the ability to select an elevation unit when exporting Land/XML files. [Item #20963]
Fixed an issue where the input zoom level was not being respected when exporting an MBTiles database based on existing TMS tiles. [Item #21058]
Fixed an issue where the Elevation Legend was not being included in some PDF exports. [Item #21269]
Fixed rendering issue when importing some PDF files with rotated pages. [Item #21245]
Modified the SQLite/Spatialite export so that the database always contains a spatial index. [Item #21250]
Suppressed the progress messages that are generated on the command line while processing a script that imports DWG and/or DGN files. [Item #21681]

Rendering/Style Changes

Updated rotated map display so that only point/area labels that are explicitly rotated will rotate additionally based on the map rotation. Non-rotated labels stay horizontal regardless of map rotation. [Item #21157]
Fixed clamping of shader colors to visible elevation values for map catalogs. [Item #20877]

User Interface

Added Layer Order group to Control Center right-click menu. This contains new Move Layer to Top and Bottom items for quickly moving selected layers to the top or bottom of the layer order. The previous items affecting layer order (i.e. Order Maps, Move Layer(s) After Layer, and Reverse Map Order) have been moved to this group. [Item #21600]

Misc. Changes

Added "Link 2D Map View Centers" option to View Manager. When this option is set, the center point for all 2D views will be linked to the center of the current view. [Item #21344]
Added "Zoom to Visible Layers" command to the View Manager's context menu and main window's View | Zoom menu. [Item #21342]
Updated behavior of many check lists, such as the Control Center, so that holding down Ctrl when left-clicking on checkboxes with a mixed check state will toggle all of them rather than checking all of them. This allows you to easily flip the enabled/disabled state of loaded layers like the old Show/Hide button allowed. [Item #21128]
Added new Layer->Join Attribute Table option to duplicate features whenever duplicate join attribute values are encountered. [Item #20757]
Fixed issue with grid lines always showing up in exported raster formats when including vector data even when the option to ‘Save Map Layout’ items is unchecked. [Item #21038]
Fixed issue when the number of bins is changed while creating a histogram. [Item #21049]

What's New in Global Mapper v18.1

Significant New Features

Enabled the 2D/3D link button to pause the draw of 3D in-order to prevent the immediate updating of data in the 3D view. This is useful when working with large data sets in 2D that require 3D visualization.
Overall significantly improved usability/speed of model and raster display in 3D View with large amounts of data loaded.
Significantly sped up display and other operations on vector data sets. This includes significantly faster load of large Shapefiles.
Added support for many new formats, including LandXML(export), RMaps/MBTiles (import), BPF Lidar (import), Autodesk FBX (import/export), and GSF (import).
Improvements to 3D fly-through creation, including the ability to apply a bank angle value to each flight segment, to vary the fly-through velocity for each segment, and to record and save multiple fly-through paths at once.
Added support for calculating cut-and-fill volume results for multiple line features at once
Derivation of radius value for range ring calculation from an attribute. Could be used for thematic representation of point features
Numerous online data source updates including replacing 1-meter NAIP Imagery with 1-foot National Map Imagery using new USGS National Map server and the addition of GEBCO (General Bathymetric Chart of the Oceans)
Made scroll of mouse wheel immediately cancel current draw, allowing you to interactively zoom slow-drawing layers with the mouse and zoom in much more quickly. This is especially useful for online layers
Added script command CALC_VOLUME_BETWEEN_SURFACES for measuring the volume between two surfaces
Added option to automatically reformat Shapefile (DBF) numeric attribute values using scientific notation as normal decimal numbers
New function to calculate color statistics within an area

New Supported Formats

Added support for exporting 3D points, TINs, contours, and watershed areas to Land/XML files. [Item #10738]
Added support for loading MapBox MBTiles data sets. [Item #14462]
[LIDAR MODULE ONLY] Added support for loading BPF (Binary Point File) Lidar data sets. [Item #15755]
Added support for loading Generic Sensor FormatNew (GSF) files. [Item #14852]
Added support for loading old USGS DOQ grayscale imagery files. [Item #20333]
Added support for loading VDatum GTX Geoid/Tidal grid files. [Item #20151]
Added support for loading USGS National Map Coverage CSV files. [Item #19586]
Added support for importing NSIDC Ice Velocity Extraction (GoLIVE) data from an HDF5 file as a velocity grid and optional quiver plot. [Item #20296]
Added support for loading EGM (Earth Gravitational Model) files. [Item #20436]
Added support for importing Autodesk FBX files, versions 7.1 (Autodesk 2011) to 7.4 (Autodesk 2014/2015). [Item #15649]
Added support for exporting Autodesk FBX files, versions 6.1 (Autodesk 2010) through 7.5 (Autodesk 2016). [Item #11684]
Added support for loading RMAPS Spatial Databases. [Item #12732]

LiDAR Module Only Highlights

Added support for loading BPF (Binary Point File) Lidar data sets. [Item #15755]
Added support for displaying statistics about selected Lidar points in the Digitizer Tool under the right-click Analysis menu. [Item #16856]
Added support for displaying statistics about selected Lidar points in the Digitizer Tool under the right-click Analysis menu. [Item #16856]
Update application of color/NIR values from loaded 16-bit imagery layers to keep the full raw 16-bit values rather than using the contrast-adjusted 8-bit values. [Item #20277]
Allow applying colors to Lidar from grid layers. [Item #20099]
Fixed error auto-classifying powerline points for some very dense clouds. [Item #19742]
Fixed filter of selected Lidar points by NDVI/NDWI. The filter dialog was only allowing whole number values, now allows any number. [Item #20009]
Fixed calculation of average and max spread for extracted tree polygons from classified Lidar data. [Item #20665]
Added new Lidar QA option to the Lidar module toolbar allowing the comparison and adjustment of Lidar point cloud elevations to 3D control points. [Item #16855/13172]
Added support for working with the density of Lidar points clouds. [Item #15350]
- You can now color Lidar point clouds by density using an elevation shader.
- Lidar point attributes now also include a DENSITY item reporting the local density in points per square meter.
- You can create grids of the density of Lidar points clouds by selecting a ‘Grid Type’ of ‘Point Density’ on the grid options dialog.
- You can filter by density on the Lidar filter dialog, including to filter a selection and when gridding or classifying Lidar. [Item #20588]
Added support for filtering Lidar points by density using the LIDAR_DENSITY_RANGE parameter for relevant commands. [Item #20588]
Added support for separately controlling what to do with detected noise points when using LIDAR_CLASSIFY. You can now use CHANGE_CLASS, MARK_WITHHELD, and DELETE_FEATURES to control whether detected noise points have their class changed, are marked as withheld, and/or are marked as deleted. [Item #20753]
Added support for setting the class of Lidar points using the EDIT_VECTOR script command using the LIDAR_CLASS parameter. [Item #20847]

Global Mapper Mobile

Global Mapper Mobile is a free iOS application that allows you to take your Global Mapper data into the field. Through the use of Global Mapper Mobile Package format, all of the file formats accessible through Global Mapper can be viewed and edited on the mobile device in the field.

Map Layout Editor Changes

Fixed the computation of the bounding rectangle for a map scale when the projection is a distorted projection. [Item #18974]

LiDAR Changes

[LIDAR MODULE ONLY] Added support for displaying statistics about selected Lidar points in the Digitizer Tool under the right-click Analysis menu. [Item #16856]
Added option to only load Lidar points within a particular elevation range. The new option is on the Lidar import dialog displayed when loading one or more Lidar files (like LAS/LAZ). [Item #11590]
Further improvements in the speed of rendering Lidar point clouds in 3D, especially very large or modified point cloud. [Item #17216]
Greatly sped up the export of Lidar point cloud data to Shapefiles. [Item #20253]
Made status bar display text relevant to the selected Lidar draw mode when a Lidar point is under the cursor. [Item #20615]
[LIDAR MODULE ONLY] Update application of color/NIR values from loaded 16-bit imagery layers to keep the full raw 16-bit values rather than using the contrast-adjusted 8-bit values. [Item #20277]
Added ‘LIDAR POINT SPACING’ to metadata reported for Lidar point cloud layers. This will be a good representative spacing between returns. [Item #19600]
Added display of elevation of Lidar points in the current Elevation Display/Export Units to the end of the Feature Info dialog Geometry field. [Item #19725]
Updated Lidar filter dialog to NOT remember the state of the ‘Keep Lidar Points with Colors Below’ checkbox between runs. The list of colors and color fuzziness values are remembered so you can easily restore the color filter. This just prevents accidentally maintaining color filters from old data sets that you might easily miss. [Item #20009]
[LIDAR MODULE ONLY] Allow applying colors to Lidar from grid layers. [Item #20099]
Updated load of LAS 1.4 files with both embedded GeoTIFF tags and WKT PRJ strings to prefer the WKT PRJ string for determining the projection. [Item #20408]
Fixed incorrect placement of Lidar data saved to GMP files in a different projection than the point cloud natively uses. [Item #20766]
Fixed inconsistent display of some Lidar point clouds when zoomed out and coloring by intensity. [Item #19747]
[LIDAR MODULE ONLY] Fixed error auto-classifying powerline points for some very dense clouds. [Item #19742]
[LIDAR MODULE ONLY] Fixed filter of selected Lidar points by NDVI/NDWI. The filter dialog was only allowing whole number values, now allows any number. [Item #20009]
Fixed error calculating the spacing to use for Lidar operations on reprojected point clouds when working with some multiple of the native cloud resolution. For example a point cloud reprojected to lat/lon would generate an error when creating a grid. [Item #20587]
[LIDAR MODULE ONLY] Fixed calculation of average and max spread for extracted tree polygons from classified Lidar data. [Item #20665]
[LIDAR MODULE ONLY] Added new Lidar QA option to the Lidar module toolbar allowing the comparison and adjustment of Lidar point cloud elevations to 3D control points. [Item #16855/13172]
[LIDAR MODULE ONLY] Added support for working with the density of Lidar points clouds. [Item #15350]
- You can now color Lidar point clouds by density using an elevation shader.
- Lidar point attributes now also include a DENSITY item reporting the local density in points per square meter.
- You can create grids of the density of Lidar points clouds by selecting a ‘Grid Type’ of ‘Point Density’ on the grid options dialog.
- You can filter by density on the Lidar filter dialog, including to filter a selection and when gridding or classifying Lidar. [Item #20588]

3D Viewer Changes

Made 3D viewer no longer automatically update when the 2D/3D link button is unchecked. The 3D viewer will update when the user interacts with the 3D view (i.e. click on window or move view). This prevents a slow-down in the 2D view when interacting with data caused by the 3D view window updating in the background. [Item #19281]
Added 2D/3D link button to the 3D viewer toolbar. [Item #19401]
Added ability to select one or all paths for fly-through play and save. [Item #15303]
Added ability to vary fly-through bank angle. Bank angle can be auto-generated or specified per path vertex. [Item #15883]
Added ability to vary fly-through velocity. [Item #15884]
Improved visibility of path profile line on terrain [Item #17999]
Removed arrow buttons from 3D toolbar as they no longer serve a purpose. [Item #19401]
Fixed 3D selection of point and area features with elevations measured relative to the ground. [Item #19160]
Fixed issue where selection of a high elevation Lidar point could cause data to go off-screen. [Item #19283]
Fixed 3D display of terrain and Lidar layers when the elevation values have been altered, especially to apply a negative scale. [Item #19204]
Fixed issue where fly-through cam direction would be incorrect when projection does not display as true north up, such as UPS. [Item #17503]
Fixed issue where features with no elevation defined were not selectable in 3D view. [Item #19222]
Fixed issue where 3D View would not pick up changes to fly-through paths. [Item #19173]
Fixed issue where fly-through preview would not work when walk mode enabled. [Item #20743]
Made auto-generated fly-through bank angles more realistic. [Item #20741]
Added a smoothing option to fly-through path edit dialog. [Item #20773]

Path Profile/Line of Sight Function Changes

Clear the path profile in the main view when the path profile view is closed. [Item #19544]
Clear the current selection or select polygon on the path profile dialog when pressing the ESC key rather than closing the dialog. The user will be prompted to confirm any close of the profile dialog by pressing ESC. [Item #19726]
Fixed issue with path profile corridor (i.e. for Lidar profile or elevation corridor) having a V or other shape rather than straight edge, depending on Bearing settings and projection. [Item #19727]
Fixed issue with path profile elevation corridor showing min/max/avg elevations to twice the specified distance from the line. The rendered corridor box was correct, but the actual sampling went twice as far as specified. [Item #20028]

Analysis Function Changes

Fixed problems performing pan sharpening on input color imagery with more than 3 bands. [Item #18962]
Fixed coloring of area features created as part of a roughness grid operation when choosing a different shader to use than the toolbar shader. [Item #20087]

Digitizer Tool Changes

Added new function to calculate color statistics within an area. [Item #13872]
Added support for calculating cut-and-fill volume results for multiple line features at once. The results of line volume calculations for selected lines now also use the same results dialog that area volume reporting uses. [Item #15954]
Implemented tapering when creating rectangular buffer. [Item #17879]
Allow radius value for range ring calculation to be specified via an attribute. [Item #17174]
Made selection of ‘select by polygon’ mode automatically switch to selection mode rather than waiting for cancel of current edit operation. [Item #19756]
Updated selection with stacked areas to always select the top-most area. [Item #19823]
[LIDAR MODULE ONLY] Added support for displaying statistics about selected Lidar points in the Digitizer Tool under the right-click Analysis menu. [Item #16856]
Sped up selection of large number of Lidar points within multiple selected area features. [Item #20026]
Ensure operations on selected features do NOT work on features in layers that are hidden. When you un-hide a layer with selected features the features will stay selected, but they will not be editable while the layer is hidden. [Item #19843]
Make newline escape sequences (\n) in labels be displayed in the label field on Feature Edit dialog so you can edit them. [Item #20251]
Fixed calculation of CHAINAGE distance calculated when connecting point features to the nearest line. [Item #18910]
Fixed error when adding attributes with count of lines/points in area features when one of the selected areas has invalid geometry. [Item #19399]
Fix errors about invalid polygons when combining initially valid polygons. The combine areas operation should no longer keep invalid combine results. [Item #20450]

Scripting Changes

Removed requirement to start scripts with GLOBAL_MAPPER_SCRIPT command. You can now go directly in to useful commands and default values will be assumed for any parameters from the missing header command. [Item #19606]
Added script command CALC_VOLUME_BETWEEN_SURFACES for measuring the volume between two surfaces. [Item #15442]
Added support for applying elevation values from terrain layers to vector data directly in a script using the EDIT_VECTOR script command. Use the APPLY_ELEVS=YES parameter to enable this. See documentation for additional related new parameters. [Item #19672]
[LIDAR MODULE ONLY] Added support for filtering Lidar points by density using the LIDAR_DENSITY_RANGE parameter for relevant commands. [Item #20588]
[LIDAR MODULE ONLY] Added support for separately controlling what to do with detected noise points when using LIDAR_CLASSIFY. You can now use CHANGE_CLASS, MARK_WITHHELD, and DELETE_FEATURES to control whether detected noise points have their class changed, are marked as withheld, and/or are marked as deleted. [Item #20753]
[LIDAR MODULE ONLY] Added support for setting the class of Lidar points using the EDIT_VECTOR script command using the LIDAR_CLASS parameter. [Item #20847]
Added support for specifying a metadata file to be displayed on the Metadata dialog for a layer by adding a METADATA_FILENAME parameter to an IMPORT or SET_LAYER_OPTIONS command. A metadata URL (XML, HTML, text, etc.) can be specified using a METADATA_URL parameter. [Item #20706]
Added support for marking islands/holes in matching area features as deleted using the EDIT_VECTOR command and the new DELETE_ISLANDS parameter. [Item #19606]
Added support for an elevation threshold to the SIMPLIFICATION parameter on the EDIT_VECTOR script command. [Item #19321]
Added WEB_FULL_TILES_ONLY parameter to the EXPORT_WEB script command. [Item #17035]
Updated EXPORT_ELEVATION script command to support using VERT_CITATION and/or VERT_CS_CODE parameters for GeoTIFF export to specify the vertical datum information to store in the GeoTIFF tags. [Item #20067]
Updated parsing of parameters to ignore white space between the parameter name and the equal sign as well as any white space between the equal and the start of a quoted parameter value. [Item #20705]
Fixed calculation of layer bounds used when processing the APPLY_FORMULA script command so that it matches the bounds computed when using the Raster Calculator via the UI. [Item #17948]
Fixed save of Lidar file using height above ground via script when a Lidar module license is active. [Item #19124]
Added option to sort appended attributes via the JOIN_TABLE script command, and added the same functionality to the JOIN command in the UI. Added new dialog to consolidate JOIN options in the UI. [Item #17463]
Updated tiled export using GRID_TYPE_CELL_SIZE to allow adjusting the cell size to be an exact multiple of the specified spatial resolution if GRID_KEEP_CELL_SIZE=NO is provided. [Item #20376]
Allow use of script variables when processing the DEFINE_SHADER command. [Item #21468]

Online Source Changes

Updated NAIP Imagery (1m resolution) source to ‘National Map Imagery (1 foot or better Resolution)’ using new USGS National Map server. [Item #19313]
Added built-in US National Map Imagery sources for Hawaii, Guam, Puerto Rico, US Virgin Islands, and parts of Alaska. These are under the Imagery->United States and U.S. Data->National Map->Imagery Layers groups. [Item #19313]
Added built-in GEBCO (General Bathymetric Char of the Oceans) Shaded Relief layer to the built-in source list under the Worldwide Data group. This is a 30-arc second resolution global imagery layer with shaded relief for bathymetry covering the entire world. [Item #19528]
Added built-in GeoFly - Poland Orthophoto premium source (also under Imagery->Poland and Country Data->Poland groups). This source requires a login from www.geofly.eu <https://www.geofly.eu> to access. [Item #20672]
Greatly sped the draw of some tiled sources that weren’t making proper use of locally cached tiles. [Item #19142]
Improved consistency of results when batch geocoding over 50 addresses. [Item #19534]
Added support for providing a custom tile size for custom tiled sources (i.e. OSM, TMS, ESRI RESTful, Google Maps) sources. [Item #19932]
Added option to display tile boundaries for tiled online layers when the draw fails to find any tiles to draw. This option is on the Control Center right-click menu for a tiled online layer. [Item #19998]
Updated web format export to Bing tiles to generate .gm_source_def.xml file for easy load of the source back in to Global Mapper. [Item #19359]
Added reporting of download statistics for online layers in DOWNLOAD_STATS field on Metadata dialog for layer. [Item #19166]
Fixed use of ‘texture mapping’ on top of online terrain layers. [Item #17730]
Fixed display of newer OGC WMS/WMTS sources using SWEREF99-based systems (like EPSG 3006) with flipped axes. [Item #20325]

Projection/Datum Changes

Added inGCS (Indiana Geospatial Coordinate System) as a built-in projection system with a separate zone for each county. [Item #18760]
Added built-in EPSG codes for all inGCS (Indiana County) and WISCRS (Wisconsin County) projections. [Item #18760]
Added built-in CR05 (Costa Rica 2005), PNG94 (Papua New Guinea 1994), and RDN2008 datums. [Item #19885]
Added support for ‘International Foot’ as recognized unit name in PRJ files. [Item #19555]
Made NAD83(CSRS) in WKT PRJ file/string be recognized as NAD83(CSRS) datum. [Item #19794]
Improved automatic datum selection when loading WKT PRJ strings (or getting projection from EPSG code) when the datum name is not known and the specified TOWGS84 transform is all zeroes on the WGS84 ellipsoid. Previously NAD83 would be auto-selected rather than WGS84. [Item #19885]
Updated EPSG codes 2945-2951 (MTM Canada / NAD83 CSRS) to use the NAD83(CSRS) datum rather than base NAD83. [Item #20367]
Fixed discontinuity in Robinson projection around 40N latitude. [Item #20606]

Format Specific Changes

Added option to automatically reformat Shapefile (DBF) numeric attribute values using scientific notation as normal decimal numbers. This option is on the General->Vector Formats tab of the Configuration dialog. [Item #20593]
Added Packbits as an available compression option for GeoTIFF RGB and multi-band exports. [Item #18469]
Improved PDF rendering during import.
Added support for loading TIFF files with EXIF information as picture points. [Item #20860]
Added code page support to feature templates. [Item #19296]
Can now save feature template layers in a workspace. [Item # 18965]
Added warning message when loading a workspace created in a later version of Global Mapper. In addition, hide warning messages about unrecognized parameters when loading in such a ‘future’ workspace. [Item #19405]
Added .grd as an allowed extension for the ZMap+ Grid export. [Item #19706]
Made automatic collar crop work for Mexican 1:50K topographic maps. [Item #19474]
Sped up export to ECW/JP2 formats targeting network folders. Now the export is done locally and copied to the network at the end. [Item #20635]
Added ‘use for all’ option when loading MDB spatial databases and selecting which table(s) to load. This provides a way to load multiple MDB files at once without having to select the table(s) to load and coordinate attributes to use for each file. [Item #19811]
Updated BMP file support to use the alpha channel for 32-bit BMP files and allow band selection (i.e. re-order bands). [Item #19995]
Updated PLS-CADD XYZ export from Lidar data to use the Lidar class code and description rather than the point feature type. In addition, if you have the Lidar module, the calculated height-above-ground is included for the height of each point in the PLS-CADD file. A progress dialog was also added to the export. [Item #20017]
Fixed issue where features added to a template layer were not given the feature type specified in template. [Item #17685]
Fixed export of multi-band data from map catalogs. [Item #19249]
Fixed behavior of DXF/DWG entities with color 7. Rather than always being white it is now black if the background color is light and white if the background color is dark. In addition, the color index 0 is no longer used on export as it is not valid. [Item #12659]
Fixed shapefile import so that the file can be loaded even though the .dbf file is missing. [Item #19317]
Fixed issue with NAD83 CSRS datum coming back in as NAD83 when exporting raster layers to a GMP and using JP2 compression. [Item #19635]
Fixed issue loading Lidar PLY files using double precision coordinates. [Item #19728]
Fixed issue with ELEVATION attribute not showing up for XYZ point files loaded with File->Open Text File. [Item #19772]
Fixed half-bin shift of UKOOA P6/98 bin grid files that have the bin origin at the bin edge rather than center (i.e. P6/98 files created by P1Tools). [Item #19840]
Fixed error exporting to BSB when no palette-based raster layers are loaded. [Item #19870]
Allowed user to specify folder that is not empty for the MBTiles intermediate tile folder. Changed error message to a warning. [Item #19863]
Applied the font/text scale to fixed height text during PDF export. [Item #19852]
Fixed issue with text size calculation when exporting to PDF. Applies to features where the text size is fixed height in meters. [Item #19852]
Fixed issue where all map frames were not being loaded from a PDF with multiple map frames. [Item #20073]
Fixed write of custom point symbols to KML/KMZ. The <Icon> tag was missing the embedded <href> around the symbol path. Some software could still handle them (i.e. Google Earth), but many others could not, including Global Mapper. [Item #20712]
Fixed positioning of image files with rotation referenced in KML/KMZ files. [Item #20039]
Fixed issue with images referenced in KMZ/KML files being loaded twice if the KML file specified the filename path with forward slashes. [Item #20039]
Modified the XTF importer to handle files with 4-byte samples, and display an image even though some ping samples are missing. [Item #14121]
Fixed handling of 3D vector data when exporting to SQLite/Spatialite database. [Item #20320]
Fixed error with vector exports to GMP when reprojecting the data. [Item #20209]
Fixed issues loading massive Arc Binary Grid (w001001.adf) files (i.e. > 50GB or so). [Item #20429]
Fixed issues with load of KML files with incorrectly formatted <coordinate> tags. [Item #20406]
Fixed error loading OTF database. [Item #20609]
Fixed exception error loading some GML files in v18.0.3-v18.04. [Item #20707]
Fixed half-pixel shift in load of WorldClim.org .bil files. Also improved layer description for WorldClim.org .bil files. [Item #18913]
Fixed an issue that was causing errors when importing a VTerrain BT file. [Item #21464]
Applied the time zone offset when reading timestamps from a GPX file. [Item #21478]
Fixed issues with PDF text location and size. [Item #21475]

GPS Tracking Changes

Added separate Heading and Course values in saved GPS log. [Item #20303]
Added ‘Stop Tracking’ button to the GPS toolbar. [Item #20038]
Fixed issue with reported heading always being 0 degrees when tracking a GPS device using proprietary Garmin mode. [Item #20303]

Rendering/Style Changes

Made scroll of mouse wheel immediately cancel current draw, allowing you to interactively zoom slow-drawing layers with the mouse and zoom in much more quickly. This is especially useful for online layers. [Item #20311]
Made layer style based on attribute names be case-insensitive for strings with wildcards (‘*’ and ‘?’) just like it is for normal string matches. [Item #19893]
Updated built-in ‘Text’ point type to use a default font label placement of ‘Center’ rather than ‘Automatic’ so labels don’t move around by default. [Item #20257]
Fixed cropping of raster/terrain layers to area features with islands/holes. [Item #19831]
Fixed issue with pan/zoom keys not working in main map view after highlighting layers in the Control Center. [Item #20168]

Misc. Changes

Fixed licensing errors when a license file in the default license location (C:\ProgramData\GlobalMapper\GlobalMapper18) cannot be written to or has an old .lic file that cannot be deleted. [Item #20242]
Updated Feature Info Tool to handle features that have multiple attribute with values that are URLs or paths to files. Now if multiple ‘link’ attributes are detected, all of them are listed as available options to open immediately. [Item #19431]
Included features selected using the Feature Info tool when cropping a raster overlay. [Item #20261]
Made double-clicking on Current Workspace item of Control Center open the Projection selection on the Configuration dialog rather than options for all layers. [Item #19787]
Allow pasting features to layers that are currently hidden. [Item #19430]
Added new ‘Display default precision’ option to Measure/Units tab of Configuration dialog to handle the default case when not showing extra precision or rounding values to the nearest whole number. [Item #20577]
Restored right-click options to save the elevation legend and map legend to a BMP file. [Item #20186]
Added ‘All Files (*.*)’ option to all export file selection dialogs to allow using a custom file extension for any format. [Item #19706]
Changed "nm" to "NM" when displaying distances in nautical miles. [Item #17909]
Made option to snap export bounds to the nearest pixel boundary apply when batch converting. [Item #18922]
Added option to sort appended attributes on the JOIN command. Added new dialog to consolidate JOIN options. [Item #17463]
Added progress dialog (including ability to cancel) when splitting vector layers by attribute. [Item #20638]
Made the metadata histogram respect cropping of the associated raster overlay. [Item #16266]
Made the Refresh button on the Histogram tab of the Raster Options dialog always refresh the histogram, instead of only refreshing when the number of bins is changed. [Item #16266]
Added option to right-click menu on Feature Vertices dialog to control whether or not selecting a new vertex will re-center the map on that vertex when it is not on the main map. [Item #20057]
Fixed issues working with User Created Features when features were added to those layers when different projections were active. Problems started with v18.0.0 release. [Item #20301]
Made the north arrow get redrawn when the view rotation gets changed. [Item #20266]
Fixed error when closing the Graph Properties dialog. [Item #20332]
Fixed issue where previous tile column start number was not being used to initialize the default grid naming definition. [Item #20262]
Fixed issue where the "Reset to Last Exported Bounds" button was being inadvertently disabled when exporting an MBTiles data set. [Item #20441]
Fixed bug in Search-and-Replace causing label attribute to always be changed if the layer is set to use an attribute dynamically from a label rather than the attribute selected to be updated. [Item #20765]

What's New in Global Mapper v18.0

Significant New Features

Completely re-designed user interface
Massively improved 3D viewer, particularly in regards to Lidar and raster/terrain display
- New high performance, asynchronous, multi-threaded, 3D renderer
- Advanced compression to allow the display of much larger datasets
- Adaptable performance based on the user’s CPU and GPU resources
- Full range of Lidar and raster/ terrain, 3D, data is immediately available for display and will dynamically display more detail as you zoom in on data. Level-of-detail is only restricted by a user’s available machine resources
- “Infinite Terrain”: The data displayed is no longer restricted to your current 2D bounds and dynamically updates as you zoom and pan
- New Option to display multiple elevations surfaces in 3D at different heights or depths
- Improved 3D selection tool with more exact selection and better feedback while selecting
- Improved 3D measurement tool with better selection feedback and more accurate measurement
- Added new 3D point styles and improved rendering speed for 3D point styles
- New mole’s-eye view capability in 3D allowing view of data while underneath it
Significantly sped up the display and export of most raster/terrain formats, especially with large amounts of data loaded
Changed Overlay Control Center to a dockable pane that shows by default
Added support for importing and exporting OGC GeoPackage format files
Added support for importing PDF files as vector layers (lines, points, and areas) rather than a raster image
Reorganized the Configuration Dialog
New Single User Floating License available for porting a machine locked license from machine to machine

New Supported Formats

Added support for importing and exporting OGC GeoPackage format files, including both vector data and tile pyramids [Item #13200]
Added support for S-63 v1.1 files [Item #15562]

Global Mapper Mobile

Global Mapper Mobile is a free iOS application that allows you to take your Global Mapper data into the field. Through the use of Global Mapper Mobile Package format, all of the file formats accessible through Global Mapper can be viewed and edited on the mobile device in the field.

Map Layout Editor Changes

When exporting a map layout to PDF, the scale bar is now filled in with the correct scale [Item #18254]
Can now generate a unique PDF file name for each page when the user chooses the "Export a Separate PDF File for Each Page" option while exporting to geospatial PDF [Item #18235]
The background color can now be included in the page definition when exporting the map layout to a PDF file [Item #17838]

LiDAR Changes

Added option to batch conversion to Lidar formats when applying color from imagery to allow replacing existing Lidar point colors with the imagery colors rather than only adding new colors from imagery [Item #18458]
New option to automatically group all areas that form an automatically extracted building roof area with the associated floor and side-wall areas if selected to generate those. Also made generated floor/ground area have the type ‘Building - Floor’ rather than ‘Building - Wall’ [Item #18811]
Changed default building colors to gray with black roofs.
Updated extract building areas to add a 3D_EX_HT attribute with the maximum height of the building above the ground so that the building can display as an extruded feature properly in 3D even with no available ground surface to extrude to. [Item #19213]
Fixed problems with withheld and other flags being set for E57 Lidar data [Item #18478]

3D Viewer Changes

Massively improved 3D viewer, particularly in regards to Lidar and raster/terrain display
- Full range of Lidar and raster/ terrain 3D data is immediately available for display and will dynamically display more detail when zoomed in on data. Level-of-detail is only restricted by the available machine resources.
- "Infinite Terrain": The data displayed is no longer restricted to the current 2D bounds and now dynamically updates with zoom and pan.
New option to display multiple elevation surfaces at different heights or depths.
New mole's-eye view capability in 3D allowing view of data while underneath it.
New option to save fly-through to MPEG-4 file. [Item #18699]
Expanded list of codec (compression) options for fly-through AVI files. [Item #16375]
Fixed issue where camera would not point in correct direction during last segment of fixed point fly-through. [Item #18096]
Enhanced 3D feature select for digitizer and measure tools. Cursor snaps or changes appearance when near a selectable feature vertex. Will now select at vertex elevation rather than z=0. [Item #18729]
Fixed errors when trying to load more than about 500 .laz files. [Item #18854]
Fixed issue where skybox would not show unless set to also display vector or Lidar features. [Item #16926]
Added option to center 2D View on selected features. [Item #18876]
Improved 3D point model workflow and behavior. [Item #18763]
- Custom symbol and 3D model management are now in their own subtab of the Point Styles section of the Configuration dialog.
- New model placement options for point layers and individual point features allow you to place a 3D model above, below, or centered on its associated position.
- 3D Point Models now take altitude mode into account.
Added a dozen new 3D point styles to choose from.
Prevent vector features from drawing in the 3D viewer when “Display Lidar Features” is checked in the 3D View Properties, and “Display 3D Vector Features in Space Above/Below Terrain Surface” isn’t checked. [Item #18829]
Fixed issue where point features that did not use a 3D model were always drawn at absolute elevation in the 3D view. [Item #18831]
Added toolbar buttons to the 2D viewer to allow the user to enable/disable water level display, and raise it and lower it when enabled. [Item #16262]

Path Profile/Line of Sight Function Changes

Made Lidar points displayed in path profile save to XYZ file. [Item #18541]
Added right-click option to ‘Clear Sub-Path Line’ so you can easily get rid of a drawn sub-path on the Path Profile window. [Item #19192]
Fixed issue with profile corridors for multi-point paths not always showing the corridor correctly at internal vertices. [Item #19059]

Analysis Function Changes

Sped up view shed calculations on most machines. [Item #18858]
Fixed issue with spurious contours when generating contours from map catalogs or online sources. [Item #18758]
Fixed issue with calculation of watershed not working over flat areas when a maximum depression fill depth of 0 was provided. [Item #18619]
Fixed issue where TIN grid of point data set would mark the lower-right sample as no data. [Item #18932]

Digitizer Tool Changes

After selecting line features outside one or more selected area features, deselect the areas. [Item #18251]
Fixed combining of 3D area features so that the per-vertex elevations from all combined areas are used to fill in the per-vertex elevations of the new combined area. [Item #18973]
Fixed the automatic fix of invalid polygons to maintain the per-vertex elevations of the original area features. [Item #18973]

Scripting Changes

Added support for including full alpha band values (rather than just 0 or 255) when exporting to RGB PNG files using the EXPORT_RASTER command. The SAVE_FULL_ALPHA parameter allows you to activate this behavior. [Item #18393]
Added support for looping over a list of files from an external text file or inline list using the DIR_LOOP_START…DIR_LOOP_END commands. Use the LIST_FILENAME parameter with DIR_LOOP_START to specify either the name of a filename list defined with DEFINE_TEXT_FILE or with the name of an external text file. [Item #18395]
Added support for automatically defining a variable with the index of the file being iterated over using DIR_LOOP_START…DIR_LOOP_END. Add an INDEX_VAR parameter to the DIR_LOOP_START command to specify the name of the variable to place the index in. [Item #18395]
Updated the GCP parameter defining control points for the IMPORT command to support simple mathematical formulas in addition to raw numeric values. [Item #18395]
Added support for using wildcard characters (* and ?) in the DIRECTORY parameter for the IMPORT_DIR_TREE command to allow loading from multiple folders at once. [Item #18460]
New option to export CSV files with the Y/latitude coordinate before the X/longitude coordinate. Use COORD_ORDER=Y_FIRST in the EXPORT_VECTOR command to do this. [Item #18201]
Now allows tiling raster KML/KMZ exports using the EXPORT_RASTER command with the KML_SUPER_OVERLAY option to multiple KML/KMZ files. [Item #18452]
Improved assignment of default ELEV_UNITS for EXPORT_ELEVATION command if none is explicitly provided. Now higher resolution units (like CENTIMETERS) will be used automatically if the format supports it. [Item #18802]
Fixed issue with parameters with an implied YES value at the end of command lines being ignored. [Item #18247]

Online Source Changes

Added new built-in OpenStreetMaps.org sources using Toner, Terrain, and Watercolor rendering styles by maps.stamen.com. [Item #18710]
Added option when using ‘Delete Cached Files’ on online source dialog to free only the locally cached files for the selected source. [Item #17834]

Projection/Datum Changes

Added built-in TWD97 (Taiwan Datum 1997) datum and EPSG codes. [Item #18893]
Added built-in JGD2011 (Japan) datum and EPSG codes. [Item #18992]
Fixed storage and read of NAD83 HARN/HPGN datum for projections other than State Plane in GeoTIFF and Lidar LAS/LAZ files. [Item #18532]
Changed SIRGAS 2000 datum shift to be equal to WGS84 rather than having a small sub-meter shift. [Item #18766]
Fixed read of Kansas HARN/HPGN datum from PRJ file (was coming in as Arkansas HARN/HPGN). [Item #19226]

Format Specific Changes

Added support for importing PDF files as vector layers (lines, points, and areas) rather than a raster image. [Item #13290]
Add option to use map background color as PDF background color. [Item #18782]
Hide deselected PDF layers when importing PDF file. [Item #18783]
Automatically load quiver plots from GRIB2 files with pairs of grids (like U and V vector values for current). When detected, you now get a grid with the magnitude of the value (i.e. total Current Speed) and arrow points (quiver plot) showing the direction. [Item #18780]
Update the display of map catalog layers so that the description of map tiles is displayed inside the bounding box for the catalog if it fits and the ‘Map Catalog Layer Bounds’ area style hasn’t had label display enabled. [Item #17998]
Now allows exporting CSV files with the Y/latitude coordinate before the X/longitude coordinate when batch converting. [Item #18201]
Automatically convert ^M, ^J, and ^L escape sequences in DXF MTEXT entities to normal multi-line/tabbed text values. [Item #18461]
Now support negative and more precise elevations from EXIF-tagged images. [Item #18587]
Added support for SRTM HGT files of non-standard size (as long as they are square). [Item #18634]
Now automatically reverse track log lines with times in the wrong order when exporting to KML/KMZ so that Google Earth can display them. [Item #18640]
Updated web tiled export format behavior of ‘ADVANCED : Only Export Fully Covered Tiles’ option when no tiles are fully covered at the minimum zoom level. Now when that happens rather than getting an error about no fully covered tiles, the export bounds are set to the bounds of the fully covered tiles at the first zoom level that does have some fully covered tiles. [Item #19026]
Support Arc ASCII Grid files using comma rather than period for decimal point. Previously anything after the comma was dropped. [Item #19061]
Updated import of DGN v8 files with 3D lines (i.e. lines with per-vertex elevations) to use an ELEVATION attribute for any lines with per-vertex elevations that all have the same value (like contour lines). [Item #19206]
Fixed rectification or MrSID and JPEG2000 images when prompted to rectify during load. [Item #18266]
Fixed issue where template layers without features added would not get exported when export bounds set to “Visible Data”. [Item #18221]
Fixed issue where map would not be properly centered when loading package containing template layers. [Item #18222]
Fixed handling of Swiss Grid CH1903 projections for MapInfo files. [Item #18387]
Fixed placement and orientation of GML files using the Hong Kong 1980 grid. [Item #18859]
Fixed coordinate order read from HTF sounding files. [Item #18937]
Fixed error loading Shapefile with DBF files over 2GB in size or truncated DBF files. [Item #18972]

GPS Tracking Changes

Made all 2D map views obey the ‘Keep GPS Vessel Onscreen’ option so you can track a location in multiple views simultaneously. [Item #18824]
Updated Garmin JNX export to fill the right and bottom JNX tiles all the way to the tile edge rather than cropping at the specified export bounds. [Item #17424]
Fixed display of range rings around the GPS vessel location in projections other than Geographic. [Item #18824]

Rendering/Style Changes

Fixed issue with visible seams drawing on the border of terrain data in map catalogs and online sources. [Item #18758]
Fixed inconsistency in height of fixed height fonts in projections with lots of distortion along the Y axis (i.e. Mercator). [Item #18472]

Misc. Changes

Ensure system will not go to sleep while Global Mapper is performing a lengthy operation (like exports). [Item #19278]
Added current projection WKT string and EPSG code (if known) to View->Properties dialog output. [Item #19025]
Fixed display of elevation samples using the Feature Info Tool. They now use the raw value rather than a resampled (i.e. interpolated) value. [Item #19198]
Fixed issue with borrow of license not working when the system date/time formatting is not English. [Item #18196]
Fixed paste of features copied from the User Created Features layer when the user selects to add them to the same feature with COPY appended. [Item #18029]

What's New in Global Mapper v17.2

Significant New Features

Added the ability to create a PDF MapBook that applies the same layout to multiple pages, and sets the bounds for each page by tiling the specified data bounds. Once created, each page is a separate map layout that can be modified, as needed.
New ability to render a path profile in the 3D Viewer as a cut-away of the terrain.
Added support for pan sharpening color imagery using higher resolution panchromatic (grayscale) imagery. There is a new Analysis menu command that provides this functionality.
Added support for creating a distance/bearing/COGO line using the IMPORT_ASCII command. Use TYPE=DIST_BEARING_LINE to create a line from the series of segment lengths and bearings rather than a series of points.
Dramatically sped up exports of multiple tiles to raster (image) formats. Tiled raster and web exports will now make use of all available processor cores to dramatically speed up exports in most cases, both when using the File->Export->Export Raster Format menu option and the EXPORT_RASTER script command.
Significantly reduced the memory requirements and increased draw speeds for Lidar point clouds loaded from text-based formats (i.e. .ply, .xyzi, etc.) as well as MrSID Lidar formats.
Global Mapper Mobile - COMING SOON - 17.2 will be compatible with the Global Mapper Mobile v1.0 for IOS. This new mobile application for field data collection will work with Global Mapper through the use of Global Mapper Mobile Package Files.

New Supported Formats

Added support for loading ENVI .ima multi-band imagery layers. [Item #17862]

Global Mapper Mobile

Global Mapper Mobile is a free iOS application that allows you to take your Global Mapper data into the field. Through the use of Global Mapper Mobile Package format, all of the file formats accessible through Global Mapper can be viewed and edited on the mobile device in the field.
We are excited to announce the upcoming release of Global Mapper Mobile for iPhone and iPad! This mobile application offers tools to use in the field for data collection, GPS tracking, template-based attribute collection, and camera integration. Data is transferred to the new mobile app via iTunes or email in the new Global Mapper Mobile Package format, exportable directly from Global Mapper 17.1 and later.
Global Mapper Mobile features include:

Map Layout Editor Changes

Added support for multiple map layouts in a workspace. The user has the ability to select one or more layouts to be printed or exported to a single PDF file.
Added the ability to create a MapBook that applies the same layout to multiple pages, and sets the bounds for each page by tiling the specified data bounds. Once created, each page is a separate map layout that can be modified, as needed. [Item #9967]
Added the capability to export a layout that uses a large page size to PDF as a mosaic. The pages in the PDF can be printed, then stitched back together to create a full-size map. [Item #17767]
Added support for macros in the text element so that the element text can include the projection, scale, date, and time. [Item #17961]
Allowed labels on the grid frame to be aligned with the tick marks instead of being drawn next to the tick mark (top and bottom), above it (left side), or below it (right side). [Item #17441]
Added the ability for calculating paper size from scale and bounds, if there is no match with a predefined paper size, users can use a custom size. [Item #17925]
Fixed issue with transparency for the scale bar and legend making things other than the background color translucent. Now the slider only makes the background translucent. [Item #17457]
Fixed issue with ampersand (&) in legend header/footer showing as an underscore rather than the & character. [Item #17591]
Fixed issue where the border was not being drawn on all four sides of the Map Legend. [Item #17601]
Fixed issue where scale text was being replaced with a string from the drop-down list when the scale text matched the beginning of the string in the list. This made it appear that extra zeroes were being added to the text. [Item #17621]
Fixed issue where grid frame custom spacing value, when formatted as DM or DMS, was being changed after being read from a workspace or template file. [Item #17622]
Fixed issue where changes to point styles were not being reflected automatically in the Map Layout Editor. [Item #17633]

LiDAR Changes

Significantly reduced the memory requirements and increased draw speeds for Lidar point clouds loaded from text-based formats (i.e. .ply, .xyzi, etc.) as well as MrSID Lidar formats. [Item #16174]
Added option to reset existing noise points to unclassified prior to performing an automatic Lidar noise classification. [Item #17684]
Sped up some Lidar gridding, classification, and extraction operations, particularly in low-memory situations in the 32-bit version. [Item #17693]
Fixed change of Lidar type class on the Lidar tab of the Configuration dialog. [Item #17531]
Fixed error editing the classification of Lidar points. [Item #17674]
Fixed banded display of some Lidar point clouds at some intermediate zoom levels. [Item #17786]
Fixed crash/lock-up drawing huge Lidar point clouds in 3D on some machines with large amounts of video memory. [Item #17825]
Fixed assigning of NIR color band to loaded Lidar point using the Apply Color Lidar toolbar option when the NIR band source has high bit depth (i.e. 16- or 32-bit samples) but the values are small. [Item #17885]
Fixed read of intensity values from Leica PTS values that use intensity values between 0 and 1 rather than -2047 and +2048. [Item #17944]
Fixed error gridding Lidar point clouds using feet for the elevation units when also applying an offset/scale/etc. on the Alter Elevation Values tab of the Options dialog for the layer. [Item #17946]

3D Viewer Changes

Fixed size of selection box displayed around Lidar points in the 3D viewer. The size was much too large in most cases in v17.1.0. [Item #17544]
Fixed vertical placement of 3D axis and North arrow when displaying vector data with no terrain data present. The axis elevation is now set relative to the lowest elevation in the vector data, rather than at 0. [Item #17699]
Added the ability for the fly-through to get much closer to terrain when the path is generated with “Relative to Ground” elevation mode. [Item #17809]
Made changes to automatically check the reported minimum value for Erdas Elevation files, plus a change to automatically check 3D viewer elevations used to create the height map for terrain. [Item #17917]
Fixed issue with 3D Model placement where neither feature nor layer altitude mode settings were honored. [Item #18795]

Path Profile/Line of Sight Function Changes

New ability to render a path profile in the 3D Viewer as a cut-away of the terrain.
Added Restore Defaults button on Path Profile Settings dialog. [Item #17486]
Added right-click Path Profile options to Clear Profile, Remove Line of Sight, and Remove Volume Cut Line. Also automatically remove line-of-sight and volume cut line when changing the path drawn on a profile if the new path doesn’t support those. [Item #17574]
Allow performing line-of-sight analysis on a path with more than 2 vertices if all intermediate points are exactly along the specified path. [Item #17574]
Made the mouse mode drop-down on the path profile dialog (the one where users choose to draw sub-path, select Lidar points, etc.) remember the last selected mouse mode. [Item #17761]
Fixed issue with path profile text display when the main map display is rotated. This affected both the cursor text on the profile window as well as text exported to PDF files from a path profile window. [Item #17636]
Fixed segment index stored in CSV file exported from path profile. It was starting at 0 rather than 1. [Item #17522]

Analysis Function Changes

Added support for pan sharpening color imagery using higher resolution panchromatic (grayscale) imagery. There is a new Analysis menu command that provides this functionality. [Item #13383]
Allow for creation of large numbers of view sheds without running out of memory. Also added progress bar when calculating multiple view sheds at once. [Item #17817]
Added FLOW_ANGLE attribute to flow direction points created during Watershed Analysis. [Item #17663]

Digitizer Tool Changes

Updated the Quick Point Creator to work with automatic point creation so you can skip the Feature Edit dialog for quicker placement of points, particularly from the current GPS location. [Item #17698]
Fixed creation of min/max points when calculating elevation stats for selected areas/line when the selected area/line features are in different projections than the terrain. [Item #17501]
Fixed calculation of chainage distances from lines and points in different projections. [Item #17530]
Fixed creation of point features at area centroids. The centroids were not correctly calculated in v17.0.0-v17.1.0. [Item #16337]
Made sure that the "Don't Add Measure Attributes to New Features" option is respected when automatically creating new lines and areas. [Item #17811]
Added PAN_SHARPEN script command for pan sharpening color imagery using higher resolution panchromatic (grayscale) imagery. [Item #13383]
Dramatically sped the export of tiles of raster data using the EXPORT_RASTER script command. Exports will now take advantage of multiple cores to do multiple exports at once. [Item #10991]
Updated SORT_LAYERS command to consider the group names when sorting the layer lists in order by description. [Item #17521]
Added CLIP_COLLAR_POLY_EXCLUDE parameter for IMPORT (and related) commands to allow easily cropping a raster/elevation layer to the region outside of defined polygon(s) specified with the CLIP_COLLAR_POLY parameter. [Item #17613]
Added support for creating a distance/bearing/COGO line using the IMPORT_ASCII command. Use TYPE=DIST_BEARING_LINE to create a line from the series of segment lengths and bearings rather than a series of points. You can also add TYPE=DIST_BEARING_SEGS to create a separate 2-point line for each dist/bearing line. The line connects the START_POS to the point created at the end. You can also now specify START_POS=”SELECTED” to use the position of a selected point feature as the start location. [Item #17752]
Added support for aborting the script but not closing the application by using the FORCE_EXIT command with new CLOSE_APP=NO parameter. [Item #17651]
Updated SHIFT_LAYERS script command to support non-linear units, like DEGREES. [Item #17856]
Added support for skipping load prompts when adding files to a map catalog using the EDIT_MAP_CATALOG script command by using the LOAD_FLAGS parameter. [Item #17709]
Fixed XYZI export from script using the EXPORT_VECTOR command. Was including columns other than XYZ and intensity before. [Item #17542]
Fixed error about missing file when using the ADD_MEASURE_ATTRS command with a FILENAME parameter that doesnt point to a file on disk. [Item #17554]
Fixed BLACKISMIN palette for GeoTIFF exports using the EXPORT_RASTER command. It was producing a 24-bit RGB file rather than 8-bit palette-based file. [Item #18012]

Online Source Changes

Added PAN_SHARPEN script command for pan sharpening color imagery using higher resolution panchromatic (grayscale) imagery. [Item #13383]
Dramatically sped the export of tiles of raster data using the EXPORT_RASTER script command. Exports will now take advantage of multiple cores to do multiple exports at once. [Item #10991]
Updated SORT_LAYERS command to consider the group names when sorting the layer lists in order by description. [Item #17521]
Added CLIP_COLLAR_POLY_EXCLUDE parameter for IMPORT (and related) commands to allow easily cropping a raster/elevation layer to the region outside of defined polygon(s) specified with the CLIP_COLLAR_POLY parameter. [Item #17613]
Added support for creating a distance/bearing/COGO line using the IMPORT_ASCII command. Use TYPE=DIST_BEARING_LINE to create a line from the series of segment lengths and bearings rather than a series of points. You can also add TYPE=DIST_BEARING_SEGS to create a separate 2-point line for each dist/bearing line. The line connects the START_POS to the point created at the end. You can also now specify START_POS=”SELECTED” to use the position of a selected point feature as the start location. [Item #17752]
Added support for aborting the script but not closing the application by using the FORCE_EXIT command with new CLOSE_APP=NO parameter. [Item #17651]
Updated SHIFT_LAYERS script command to support non-linear units, like DEGREES. [Item #17856]
Added support for skipping load prompts when adding files to a map catalog using the EDIT_MAP_CATALOG script command by using the LOAD_FLAGS parameter. [Item #17709]
Fixed XYZI export from script using the EXPORT_VECTOR command. Was including columns other than XYZ and intensity before. [Item #17542]
Fixed error about missing file when using the ADD_MEASURE_ATTRS command with a FILENAME parameter that doesnt point to a file on disk. [Item #17554]
Fixed BLACKISMIN palette for GeoTIFF exports using the EXPORT_RASTER command. It was producing a 24-bit RGB file rather than 8-bit palette-based file. [Item #18012]

Projection/Datum Changes

Updated New Brunswick Double Stereographic projection to be recognized when loading PRJ files and to also save to WKT PRJ files as Double_Stereographic for better compatibility with ESRI products. [Item #17468]
Added Miles (US Survey) as a built-in unit for projections. [Item #17856]
Fixed small (1-2 cm) shift doing datum conversions with some NTv2-based datums (like Potsdam). [Item #14689]
Fixed issue with Potsdam/DHDN (Ferro) datum being saved to Global Mapper formats (GMW, GMP, GMG) and coming back centered on the Prime Meridian. [Item #17719]
Fixed decode of Alaska State Plane projections from some GeoTIFF files. [Item #17829]

Format Specific Changes

Added additional options to PDF import dialog to allow selecting the DPI at which to load the PDF as well as an option to use a much faster PDF render engine. [Item #17529]
Added package export option to save imagery layers in JPEG 2000 format. This can allow you to produce dramatically smaller GMP files when imagery is involved. Note that the imagery layers in the GMP will not be recognized in earlier versions of Global Mapper. [Item #17871]
Sped the import of many text-based file formats. [Item #15071]
Sped up the display of multi-band high bit-depth (>8 bits per band) imagery when changing the bands used for the displayed color bands on the Band Setup tab of the Options dialog for the layer. [Item #17885]
Added support for double-precision coordinates for the 3D model formats (OBJ, DAE, PLY, STL). This allows models that use large coordinate values (like UTM) to maintain precision when loaded into Global Mapper. [Item #17573]
Improved resolution of XTF mosaic. [Item #15966]
Improved export dialog for Vertical Mapper Clutter (GRC) files. You can now select which palette to use for the file, including a palette from an existing loaded layer. [Item #17599]
Added option to BSB export to allow disabling the inclusion of polynomial conversions to the exported KAP files as some software cant handle them. The batch conversion also includes this option as well as scripting via the INC_POLYNOMIALS parameter for EXPORT_RASTER. [Item #17318]
Updated export of image layers with per-pixel alpha channels and/or feather-blending enabled to Global Mapper Package (GMP) files to keep the original alpha values rather than storing the blended color as fully opaque. [Item #17455]
Updated import of ESRI File Geodatabase data sets when you aren’t using an ESRI license to import to automatically convert text to UTF-8 and mark the layer as such so that text conversions will work properly. [Item #17476]
Sped the import of vector formats with potential type name attributes (like descriptions). [Item #17475]
Added support for cropping CDF exports to selected polygons. [Item #17850]
Fixed issue with files loaded from sub-folders in archives (.zip, .7z, etc.) loading back from workspaces with all upper-case layer names in some cases. [Item #17456]
Fixed issue with elevation units being always assigned as meters for Erdas Imagine .img grids loaded from map catalogs or workspaces. [Item #17472]
Fixed text file export with blank line separator to use CR/LF rather than just LF so the blank lines show up in Windows applications like Notepad. [Item #17483]
Fixed text imported from generic text files encoded using UTF-8 or Unicode when characters are not displayable in the system language code page. Now text of any language from such files should come in as UTF-8 and display properly on any system. [Item #17898]
Fixed issue with text aligned anywhere other than the default (top right of point) showing up at the origin in AutoCAD when exported to DXF. [Item #17475]
Fixed issue with world files for PNG files being ignored when adding PNG files to map catalog. [Item #17580]
Fixed issue where the full connection string was not being used when exporting data to an ArcSDE spatial database connection. This was causing an additional pop-up window requesting connection information. [Item #17571]
Ensure that the correct Database Type is displayed when editing the definition for a Spatial Database Connection. [Item #17570]
Designate output field type as floating point when it contains integer values greater than the maximum value for a signed, 32-bit integer. Applies to spatial database exports. [Item #17512]
Fixed issues exporting to Vertical Mapper Clutter (GRC) files. The palette is now correctly written (and interpreted on import) and a half-pixel shift is also fixed. [Item #17599]
Prevent textures from being exported to 3D formats that don’t support textures (STL and PLY). [Item #17624]
Fixed export of elevations for 3D feature labels to DWG. [Item #17643]
Fixed problem with extremely thick area borders for some features loaded from DXF/DWG files. [Item #17749]
Fixed issue with Null BORDER_STYLE attribute being ignored for styling when loading a text file if no color was also specified. [Item #17826]
Fixed small inaccuracy in position stored in PDF file when using Adobe ISO 32000 extensions. This was noticeable when saving precise data to PDF files, like Lidar. [Item #17776]
Fixed display of TIFF files using a 16-bit palette. [Item #17923]
Fixed issue with DXF text colors not coming in from block entities correctly. [Item #12659]

GPS Tracking Changes

Ensured that all COM ports are listed on the GPS->Setup dialog, including virtual COM ports. [Item #17065]
Added option to start tracking GPS immediately when the application starts. This option is under the GPS menu. [Item #17191]
When a GPS source provides separate track/course (direction of movement) and heading (direction vehicle is pointed) information, made the GPS vessel render in the heading direction, while the course line (if enabled) points in the direction of movement. Useful if you have something like a boat that is pointed in a different direction than it is moving. [Item #17270]
Fixed issue with the GPS heading not being properly used if the NMEA GPS stream provides only a GPS course (track) but no heading. Broken in v17.1.0-17.1.2. [Item #17270]
Fixed issue with GPS course line not drawing properly if the display is rotated, either manually or automatically to match the GPS heading. [Item #17723]

Rendering/Style Changes

Added option to Crop to Outside of Currently Selected Polygon(s) to Cropping tab of Options dialog for Raster/Elevation layers. This allows easily setting up an exclusionary crop. [Item #17613]
Updated Init from Values button on Styles (Area/Line/Point) tabs of the Options dialog for vector layers to use the existing assigned styles for the features matching the selected attribute values if all features for each attribute use the same style. [Item #17494]
Made the middle-button drag-to-pan functionality work correctly when used with the Pan Tool or Swipe Tool. [Item #17509]
Fixed issue with swiping layers using the Swipe Tool being slow when the 3D view was also open. [Item #17575]
Fixed issue with area border styles that have a different background color or strip not drawing properly. [Item #17662]

Misc. Changes

Made any changes to settings immediately save so that they aren’t lost if Global Mapper crashes or is forcibly shut down. Also allows new instances opened while one is running to get the updated settings. [Item #17678]
When pasting features from the clipboard, added option to create a new layer to paste to with whatever layer description is desired. [Item #17688]
Renamed Open Generic ASCII Text File menu command to just Open Generic Text File to better reflect the commands support for non-ASCII text files, including Unicode and UTF-8 encoded files. [Item #17610]
Added information about grouped (multi-part) areas in Metadata dialog for layer. If grouped areas are present (either loaded from a Shapefile or grouped in Global Mapper), the AREA COUNT field includes group information and a new AREA GROUPS field shows detailed information. [Item #17616]
Fixed value saved for no-data areas for 16-bit per channel multi-band exports when the background color is a gray value other than black. [Item #17705]
Fixed display of options on Batch Convert/Reproject dialog in the Japanese version of Global Mapper. [Item #17650]

What's New in Global Mapper v17.1

Significant New Features

Support for displaying perpendicular profiles to an original defined path and easily stepping through the series of paths perpendicular to the original path. Users can right-click with the Path Profile Tool active to switch to perpendicular profile mode and set the length of the perpendicular profiles.
New Custom Feature Extraction Tool for extracting 3D area and line features by graphically selecting the associated location for each feature on the perpendicular profile display. This provides a very easy way to digitize highly accurate 3D features from Lidar or terrain data, such as road edge and curb lines, powerlines, and buildings.
Added support for adding the path profile display to the multi-view layout. Users can now choose to add a new view of type Profile and the Path Profile Tool will use that for displaying the active path profile. Users can also add any path profile dialog to the multi-view interface via a new button or pop a multi-view profile view to its own dialog through a right-click option.
Added support for loading and saving the multi-view layout. By default the multi-view layout is now saved to and restored from workspace (GMW) files.
Added support for filtering which layers are displayed in each 2D map view in the multi-view interface. Users can right-click on a 2D map view on the View Manager dialog and choose to select which layers are displayed in each view.
Added support for Geographic Calculator 2016.
Added support for Feature Templates. This allows creation of predefined pick lists for faster attribute entry for field data collection.
Add support for custom paper sizes in Map Layout Editor.
Implemented Grid Frame (Graticule, etc.) on Map View Element. This allows placement of grid line tick marks and labels to be placed outside the neat line of the Map View Element.
Improved display for hi-resolution monitors
Can now export attribute search results to a CSV file

New Supported Formats

Added support for loading text files with multiple coordinate pairs on a single line of the file, such as TINs in simple text and 2-point paths on a single line. [Item #10827]
Added support for loading ASTER GED data (GDEM, emissivity, temperature, etc.) from HDF5 files. [Item #16742]
Added support for loading text files with multiple coordinate pairs on a single line of the file, such as TINs in simple text and 2-point paths on a single line. [Item #10827]
Added support for loading ASTER GED data (GDEM, emissivity, temperature, etc.) from HDF5 files. [Item #16742]
Added support for GlobeLand30 land cover data via a built-in palette (with classification names) and roughness tables for calculating roughness based on land cover. [Item #16780]
Added support for GlobeLand30 land cover data via a built-in palette (with classification names) and roughness tables for calculating roughness based on land cover. [Item #16780]

LiDAR Module Only Highlights

Added button to Lidar toolbar to allow quickly marking points as a ground point (class 2). [Item #16524]
Added support for editing which classification groups a Lidar class belongs to. Right-click on a class on the Lidar filter configuration dialog and choose to Set Class Group(s) to choose if a class is a surface point (i.e. ground, water, road), vegetation, structure, etc. This makes it easier to use a classification system that differs from the standard ASPRS classifications. [Item #16561]
Fixed issue with the height above ground for some non-ground points being marked as 0 rather than the actual height above ground. [Item #15370]
Fixed issue with per-vertex elevation values for extracted building and tree features being interpreted as feet rather than meters when the Elevation Display/Export Units setting set to Statute. [Item #16593]
Fixed color “fuzziness” selector on Lidar filter dialog. The selected value was previously ignored and a value of 16 always used. [Item #16661]
Fixed issue with elevation modifications from Alter Elevation Values tab of Options dialog for Lidar point cloud layers (i.e. scale, offset, etc.) not saving to workspace files. [Item #16872]

Map Layout Editor Changes

Fixed the ruler bar so that the numbers go the full length of the bar, and made the ruler bar line up better with the page. [Item #16482]
When a new [Item is added to the layout, it is now in "selected" mode. [Item #16414]
Used a better initial size when inserting a new text or image element. [Item #16483]
Added ability to select [Item even when it is on top of the currently selected [Item. [Item #16512]
Can now use Delete key to delete selected features. [Item #16531]
Fixed scaling used when printing map so that the point symbols are the right size. [Item #16547]
Modified logic so that translucent area styles will be printed. [Item #16538]
Removed the conflict between background color and frame style in legacy elements (elevation legend, map legend, scale bar) to allow for transparent background. [Item #16452]
Added temporary pan functionality by having user click and drag the middle mouse button (or by clicking and dragging while pushing down on the mouse wheel). [Item #16587]
Fixed problems when changing the group element buffer size. [Item #16591]
Fixed bug in Map Layout Editor when attempting to display quiver plot data. [Item #16595]
Added "ungroup" option for grouped map elements. [Item #16599]
Added ability to export a map layout to a Geospatial PDF. [Item #16477]
Allowed map view element to be drawn using fixed scale or fixed bounds. [Item #16791]
Added support for custom paper sizes in Map Layout Editor. [Item #16917]
Added option to combine all data and layout elements into a single PDF layer when exporting from the Map Layout Editor. [Item #16966]
Added format tool to make selected elements the same size as another element. [Item #16788]
Allow user to choose units used to display rulers, margins, element size and position, etc. [Item #16786]
Fixed hang when displaying Map Layout Editor when the main Global Mapper view includes a text element. [Bug #17048]
Added Undo/Redo functionality to Map Layout Editor. [Item #17067]
Added option to maintain aspect ratio to the Position and Size tab on the Element Properties dialog. [Item #17179]
Implemented Grid Frame (Graticule, etc.) on Map View Element. This allows placement of grid line tick marks and labels to be placed outside the neat line of the Map View Element. [Item #17148]
Implemented enhancements to Scale Bar element that allow user to control spacing and placement of labels. [Item #17093]
Added ability to fine-tune element position using arrow keys. [Item #17094]
Cleared [Item selection (instead of closing the editor) when user presses the Esc key. [Item #17083]
Fixed crash when enabling margins for the workspace layout with a size of 0 for any margin. [Item #17200]
Adjusted location when pasting so that all pasted elements will be visible. [Item #17196]
Made sure that the grid marks on the map view element frame get written to the output PDF file during export. [Item #17237]
"Print" the map layout to an image file instead of the printer. [Item #16682]

LiDAR Changes

New Custom Feature Extraction Tool for extracting 3D area and line features by graphically selecting the associated location for each feature on the perpendicular profile display. This provides a very easy way to digitize highly accurate 3D features from Lidar or terrain data, such as road edge and curb lines, powerlines, and buildings.
[LIDAR MODULE ONLY] Added button to Lidar toolbar to allow quickly marking points as a ground point (class 2). [Item #16524]
[LIDAR MODULE ONLY] Added support for editing which classification groups a Lidar class belongs to. Right-click on a class on the Lidar filter configuration dialog and choose to Set Class Group(s) to choose if a class is a surface point (i.e. ground, water, road), vegetation, structure, etc. This makes it easier to use a classification system that differs from the standard ASPRS classifications. [Item #16561]
Made Lidar point clouds render before line features by default so that line features are more visible on top of dense Lidar point clouds even when zoomed out. [Item #16716]
Improved load of Lidar point clouds from generic ASCII text files. Additional column layouts are recognized, including XYZI, XYZRGB, and XYZIRGB. In addition, if the file has named columns, any column layout works as long as it has recognized column names, like RED, GREEN, BLUE, INTENSITY, NIR, etc. [Item #16811]
When selecting with a left click in the Feature Info and Digitizer Tools, make normal line and point features be of higher precedence than Lidar point cloud points, making it easy to select normal features that are drawn with Lidar data. [Item #16716]
Made Lidar Model Key Points be treated as surface/ground points so they can be used for calculating height-above-ground. [Item #15370]
Reduced load time for Lidar point clouds, GMP files in particular. [Item #16313]
Added display of 24-bit RGB color as RGB attribute in Feature Info dialog for Lidar points in clouds with 16-bit per band colors to make it easier to filter based on color. [Item #16641]
When loading LAS/LAZ files that have points outside the bounding box specified in the header, give the user the option to keep or toss these points for all files in the current load operation rather than prompting for each one. [Item #16813]
[LIDAR MODULE ONLY] Fixed issue with the height above ground for some non-ground points being marked as 0 rather than the actual height above ground. [Item #15370]
[LIDAR MODULE ONLY] Fixed issue with per-vertex elevation values for extracted building and tree features being interpreted as feet rather than meters when the Elevation Display/Export Units setting set to Statute. [Item #16593]
[LIDAR MODULE ONLY] Fixed color “fuzziness” selector on Lidar filter dialog. The selected value was previously ignored and a value of 16 always used. [Item #16661]
[LIDAR MODULE ONLY] Fixed issue with elevation modifications from Alter Elevation Values tab of Options dialog for Lidar point cloud layers (i.e. scale, offset, etc.) not saving to workspace files. [Item #16872]

3D Viewer Changes

Selections for Lidar points are now rendered as cubes rather than squares. [Item #16618]
When adding models in the Configure Features dialog, the units chosen by the user are now used to scale the models in the 3D viewer. Any units/scaling information in the model itself is ignored. [Item #16455]
Fixed 3D display of Lidar point clouds when loaded with raster layers or from a map catalog when no gridded terrain data is loaded. The flat raster surface now draws at the height of the lowest Lidar point rather than at a height of 0. [Item #16644]
Made Flythrough Path Edit dialog resizable. [Item #16772]
Fixed display of model points added by creating a new feature type with a 3D model on the Edit Feature dialog. [Item #16625]
Fixed crash generating fly-through path data when the fly-through line does not have known lat/lon coordinates. [Item #16772]
Fixed handling of 3D point features that have height values that are interpreted as “Above elevation” in the Feature Types/Labels/Elevations tab of the Vector Options dialog. [Item #17005]
Fixed scaling of 3D point models that have height of 0, and use a symbol scale that is a fixed distance in ground units. [Item #17090]
Path profiles are now automatically added to the 3D view, and tracking of the profile in a path profile view is now reflected in the 3D view, similar to how its done in a 2D view. [Item #17022]
Fixed issue with 3D view dialog not remembering its size and position. [Item #17354]

Path Profile/Line of Sight Function Changes

Added support for extracting/digitizing 3D area and line features along linear paths using the path profile tool while displaying perpendicular profiles along the source path. This powerful new feature includes the following capabilities: [Item #15950]
Support for displaying perpendicular profiles to an original defined path and easily stepping through the series of paths perpendicular to the original path. Users can right-click with the Path Profile Tool active to switch to perpendicular profile mode and set the length of the perpendicular profiles.
Support for extracting 3D area and line features by graphically selecting the associated location for each feature on the perpendicular profile display. This provides a very easy way to digitize highly accurate 3D features from Lidar or terrain data, such as road edge and curb lines, powerlines, and buildings.
Added support for adding the path profile display to the multi-view layout. Users can now choose to add a new view of type Profile and the Path Profile Tool will use that for displaying the active path profile. Users can also add any path profile dialog to the multi-view interface via a new button or pop a multi-view profile view to its own dialog through a right-click option. [Item #16294]
Improved responsiveness of path profile dialog when dragging a path. [Item #16669]
Fixed error in v17.0.0-v17.0.1 when a path profile is being displayed and user unloads all data or change the view projection. [Item #16520]

Analysis Function Changes

Updated reported results for volume between surfaces to include information about the layers being compared, the time the analysis was performed, and the area features the volume was calculated within (if applicable). [Item #15803]
Updated reported cut-and-fill volume results so that the net volume (cut minus fill) is now reported as a NET_VOLUME value and the TOTAL_VOLUME is the sum of the cut and fill volumes. [Item #15812]
Added support for TRANSMITTER_HEIGHT_MS and RECEIVER_HEIGHT_MS as recognized attributes when creating view sheds from selected point features. They contain the transmitter and receiver heights relative to sea level (as compared to relative to ground for the non-MS versions). They respectively are the same as the OFFSETA_MS and OFFSETB_MS attributes. [Item #16710]
Added option to copy the results of measurement (including volume) of one or more features to the clipboard as text, either from the Analysis menu or Digitizer Tool right-click menu. [Item #17044]
Added new functions to the raster calculator: the trigonometric functions sin, cos, tan (sine, cosine and tangent, angle specified in radians), asin, acos, atan (arcsine, arccosine and arctangent, result specified in degrees), sin_deg, cos_deg, tan_deg (sine, cosine and tangent, angle specified in degrees), and sqrt (square root). [Item #17184]
Updated Layer Statistics dialog to include ‘Check All’ button for quickly selecting all attributes as well as be resizable. [Item #17364]

Digitizer Tool Changes

Improved display of selected area features using a solid fill style. Now rather than being completely transparent with a cross-hatch, they will be filled with a partially transparent background the same color as the fill style of the area. The same applies for the Feature Info Tool. Those selected areas will be filled with a partially transparent background as well. [Item #17230]
Updated calculation of chainage (connecting selected points to nearest selected line) to include the name and layer of the connected point and line in the attribute list for the chainage line. Also renamed the right-click menu entry for this option to add CHAINAGE at the start to make it easier to find. [Item #15867]
Added option when copying attributes from point features to area features they are included in to create cloned copies of the area features for each point if there are multiple points within an area. [Item #15774]
Fixed placement of point features created at centroid of selected area features. Some centroids were not exactly where they needed to be. [Item #16337]
Fixed issue with selection of vertices only in selected areas by holding down S when dragging a selection box. This operation was correctly updating the selection, but was not automatically redrawing so users couldnt see the results until user forced a redraw. [Item #17036]

Scripting Changes

Added support for exporting ADRG or ASRP format files using the EXPORT_RASTER script command. [Item #17109]
Added EXPORT_PDF3D command to export to 3D PDF file from a script. [Item #17116]
Added PDF_USE_ADOBE_EXT parameter to EXPORT_PDF and EXPORT_PDF3D commands to specify Adobe ISO 32000 Extensions for georeference. [Item #17116]
Added support for changing area and distance measurement units using the SET_OPT script command via new AREA_UNITS and DISTANCE_UNITS parameters. [Item #16816]
Added support for changing whether base, large, or a mix of measure units are used for measure attributes using the new MEASURE_UNIT_TYPE parameter for the SET_OPT script command. [Item #17209]
Added support for all measure options from the SET_OPT script command when using the ADD_MEASURE_ATTRS script command. [Item #17209]
Added support for specifying the COVERAGE_SMOOTHING_FACTOR when using the GENERATE_LAYER_BOUNDS command to create polygonal coverages rather than prompting the user for the smoothing to use. [Item #16586]
Added new parameter, USE_EXACT_BOUNDS, to be used when defining the bounds in a script command so that the command uses the specified bounds instead of the intersection between the specified bounds and the full data bounds. [Item #16827]
Added progress reporting when exporting multiple tiles from a single EXPORT_ELEVATION/EXPORT_RASTER/EXPORT_VECTOR script command. [Item #17031]
Added option to DEFINE_SHADER script command to control whether or not the shader is saved between runs to the custom_shaders.txt file. Enabled by default, add SAVE_SHADER=NO to cause defined shader to NOT be saved between runs. [Item #17150]
Allow loading workspace (.gmw) or script (.gms) files using the IMPORT script command. Just provide a workspace or script in the FILENAME parameter and it will now act like EMBED_SCRIPT was used. [Item #17188]
Fixed bug with specified SAMPLING_METHOD not being obeyed when exporting from the EXPORT_RASTER or EXPORT_ELEVATION script command. [Item #16903]
Fixed bug causing extra pixel to be added to right and bottom of EXPORT_RASTER results in some cases. [Item #16997]
Fixed crash using LAYER_LOOP_START…LAYER_LOOP_END with a script command that unloads some layers that were loaded when the loop started, like SPLIT_LAYER. [Item #17168]

Online Source Changes

Added support for loading data from additional WCS online sources and improved error reporting when we try to load too much data. [Item #16627]
No longer export an HTML file for OSM/TMS tiled export of GMG tiles as web browsers cant display those. [Item #16659]
Added support for adding online source definitions directly from MapInfo tile server XML files. [Item #16257]
Fixed issue with slow display of some tiled online sources. [Item #16575]
Fixed issue with exporting high resolution terrain to OSM web tiles for display as a streaming source. Now the full elevation units will be maintained for all zoom levels that can handle that much detail and not just the most detailed layer. The default elevation units selection is now also much better based on the loaded data. [Item #16575]
Fixed issue with initial display of elevation legend range when loading streaming online sources. [Item #16659]

Projection/Datum Changes

Changed priority to prefer projections from .aux.xml and .prj files when loading raster/image files that have known position information but not known projections (i.e. ECW). [Item #16768]
Added support for ground-to-grid scale factor in load-time coordinate transformations via a .gm_xform file in the same folder as the projected vector file being loaded. [Item #17001]
Fixed reprojected display of some images when converting between orthogonal projections (i.e. Mercator and Geographic). At some zoom levels the display would look striped. [Item #16869]
Fixed issues using a custom datum based on a control point file when transforming coordinates outside the control point convex hull. [Item #16976]
Fixed displayed lat/lon locations on the status bar when the option is checked to always display using WGS84. [Item #17207]

Format Specific Changes

Added support for batch converting data to ADRG and ASRP format files. [Item #17109]
Allow high bit depth JPEG2000 files to be exported from the 64-bit version of Global Mapper. [Item #16528]
Significantly sped up display of NITF images with embedded JPEG2000 data, especially when zoomed out. [Item #16838]
Added code page (language) support to GMP files. Any exported GMP files retain the code page of the layers being exported. If the GMP files includes multiple layers with varying code pages in a single GMP layer, all text is converted to UTF-8 so all text can be properly maintained. [Item #16744]
Added option to generate PRJ (projection) files when exporting BIL/BIP/BSQ files. [Item #16727]
Updated import of 3D model formats to show the import options dialog at least once for each group of 3D models loaded. The Use for All button on that dialog now applies just to the current load operation, so the options dialog is no longer gone forever. [Item #16740]
No longer show prompt to confirm load of file when a layer based on the same filename is already loaded for file types that provide a list of layers to the user to select from, like HDF5 or NetCDF format files. [Item #16742]
Improved export to multi-band image files with 32-bit float samples to support filling gaps by interpolating nearby values. [Item #16760]
Updated the load of NITF images with RPC geolocation information. Now if both RPC and corner positions are known, the user is prompted for which to use as RPC is not always the desired choice. If RPC is used, the coordinate conversions are now done at the elevation for each location rather than a height of 0. If terrain data is loaded that is used to get the elevation, otherwise the mid-point elevation for the entire file scene is used from the header. [Item #16782]
Updated Control Center right-click option to add selected layers to a new map catalog to allow adding to an existing map catalog file rather than always creating a new one. [Item #17153]
Added option to Advanced section of General tab of Configuration dialog to allow the use of an alternate PDF rendering engine when loading PDF files. This option can be useful if the default rendering engine is not providing the desired results. [Item #16859]
Made 3D text imported from DGN files keep the elevation. [Item #16987]
Updated GeoJSON export to keep per-vertex elevations. [Item #17051]
Updated addition of style attributes when exporting to Shapefile to update existing 10-character Shapefile style attributes rather than creating duplicates for style attributes over 10-characters if style attributes had previously been added. [Item #17003]
Updated MapInfo import to use font information for text point features so imported data looks more like it did when saved from MapInfo. [Item #17201]
Added support for additional projections when exporting to GeoTIFF. Now projections that cant be directly encoded will store their WKT projection string in the PCS citation key. For example this now allows storing Mollewide projections. [Item #17266]
Added support for reading and writing DPI values for PNG files. Now a PNG file with a DPI set will display that in the metadata. Exports to PNG via a script also now support the DPI parameter. [Item #17351]
Added ability for user to specify that a base be added to the generated STL mesh when exporting DEM. A new script option, “ADD_BASE” is also provided for the export script command. [Item #17340]
Fixed crash displaying some TIFF files in v17.0.0-v17.0.1. [Item #16503]
Fixed issue with transparency not working for TIFF files in v17.0.0 at some zoom levels. [Item #16492]
Fixed load of KMZ raster files in v17.0.0-v17.0.1. [Item #16497]
Fixed export of Lidar point clouds to point Shapefiles. Attributes were not coming through. [Item #16459]
Fixed error drawing ECW, JPEG2000, Erdas IMG, and MrSID layers with contrast adjustment (i.e. high bit depth layers) in v17.0.0-v17.0.1.Item #16528]
Fixed error exporting Float/Grid file in v17.0.0-v17.0.1. [Item #12429]
Fixed display of palette-based TIFF files with an alpha channel for transparency in v17.0.0-v17.0.1. [Item #16572]
Fixed zoomed in display and export of TIFF files with a resampling method other than nearest neighbor in v17.0.0-v17.0.1. [Item #16632]
Fixed problem with very slow export from map catalogs in v17.0.0-v17.0.1. [Item #16624]
Fixed problem with lockup exporting to ECW in v17.0.0-v17.0.1. [Item #16650]
Fixed error loading some TIFF files with overview layers. [Item #16652]
Fixed issue with leading or trailing double quotes being removed from GNIS file fields when the pairing quote was not at the opposite end.Item #16667]
Fixed issue with exporting projection information to PDF in ISO 32000 format when in GeoCalc mode and data crosses antimerdian. [Item #16680]
Fixed problem with maximum elevation value being set to just about zero for GeoTIFF elevation exports with all negative values. [Item #16746]
Fixed crash exporting to any multi-band image format with 32-bit float samples for each band. [Item #16760]
Fixed issue where area borders would have incorrect elevation in exports to U3D or 3D PDF. [Item# 16793]
Fixed issue with the ELEVATION value for some line/area features coming in incorrectly as 0 when loading DWG/DXF files. [Item #16810]
Fixed error loading Ozi .map files for raster data. [Item #16820]
Fixed crash exporting from MrSID/JPEG2000 files in some cases. [Item #16875]
Fixed bug with all Shapefile attributes exporting as type String by default if Users go to the Attribute Setup tab of Shapefile export dialog in v17.0.1-v17.0.2. [Item #16873]
Fixed zoomed out display of TIFF files with overview layers when an image uses control points to set the location. [Item #16913]
Fixed problem with Elevation Units selection for JPEG2000 elevation grid export being ignored and meters always being written out. [Item #17007]
Fixed problem with blank output exporting online sources to ECW or JPEG2000 files. [Item #17064]
Fixed error loading some Vertical Mapper GRC (clutter) files. [Item #17027]
Fixed slow performance creating elevation grid from 3D vector data when specifying that the heights are relative to ground and the ground heights come from terrain data in a map catalog with a large number of layers. [Item #17154]
Fixed a problem with SketchUp imports, where the model geolocation information was not being determined correctly. [Item #16692]
Fixed error doing reprojected multi-band exports from some formats (i.e. TIFF). [Item #17198]
Fixed issues loading text with embedded quotes from MapInfo MIF/MID files. [Item #17201]
Fixed errors loading TIFF files with 12-bits per band. [Item #17283]

GPS Tracking Changes

Added support for getting GPS heading from $GPHDG messages (only $GPHDT was supported before). [Item #17270]
Updated GPS tracking when a heading (direction vessel is pointed) is available but not course/track (i.e. direction vessel is travelling). In this case the heading will now be used for the course/track so that we can still display the vessel rotated in the correct direction. [Item #17270]
Updated GPS Information dialog to display both the GPS heading and course/track if both are available. If they are both available and different, the value will show the course and then the heading in parentheses. [Item #17270]
Fixed crash trying to use the GPS->Send Raster Maps to Connected Garmin Device menu command. [Item #16589]
Fixed display of available COM ports on GPS setup dialog. We were showing COM3 for any port with a friendly name rather than the actual COM port number. [Item #15583]
Fixed GPS location display in the current projection on GPS status dialog when the current projection is not based on WGS84. [Item #17207]
Fixed insertion of pad sites in the Digitizer Tool using the current GPS location when the current projection is not based on WGS84. [Item #17207]

Rendering/Style Changes

Made application display properly on high-DPI displays. For now the application just scales up. Eventually we will provide the option of displaying at the full device resolution. [Item #13483]
Updated default font character set to be based on the system locale (code page) set for non-Unicode applications. If set to Polish (for example), the default character set will be Eastern European. Users can change the setting from Default to a specific character set if users don’t want it based on the current system locale. [Item #16739]
Added built-in Band Setup presets for Worldview 2/3 DigitalGlobe images for easy selection of Natural Color and Color Infrared (CIR) bands from those 8-band products. [Item #16838]
Made point/text features with rotated text keep the text rotated the same angle relative to the map features when map view rotation is also used. [Item #16987]
Fixed issue with changes to the Band Setup not being correctly reflected in images using shared automatic contrast adjustment settings. [Item #16838]
Fixed issue with right-click options on elevation legend and scale bar to hide the [Items or change their styles not updating them until user zooms or pans the map. [Item #16633]
Fixed error rendering lines with some styles when they are small enough to be a single pixel on the screen. [Item #16639]
Fixed slope display and hill shading for layers using a distorted projection (i.e. Geographic, Mercator, etc.) covering a large area and using native elevation units other than meters. The calculated slope and applied shadow would be off by the elevation unit conversion factor to meters. [Item #16453]
Fixed issue with display of area features using some complex border styles (i.e. offset line styles). [Item #16852]
Allow map layout elements (scale bar, legend, grid lines) to be included when exporting selected layers from the Control Center to a raster image format (i.e. JPG, GeoTIFF, etc.). Before the export of selected layers would only include the layer even if user selected to include map layout [Items on the export options dialog. [Item #16541]
Improved image rectification and vector layer transformations based on control points in many cases where the results were not ideal. [Item #16976]
Made files loaded by dragging and dropping from Windows Explorer be added to the recently opened files list and used to update the Recently Used File Types filter. [Item #16815]
Added option to Restore Original Elevation Range on the Alter Elevations tab of the Configuration dialog to allow easily showing all elevation values in a layer. [Item #16904]
Added option to save selected result [Items to a CSV / Excel file on the Search dialog. [Item #17026]
When generating polygonal coverage areas from vector/Lidar layers from the Control Center only show a single dialog prompting the user for the smoothing factor to use rather than a separate dialog for each layer. [Item #16586]
Assign feature description from recognized attributes (i.e. LAYER, DESC, etc.) when loading vector formats. [Item #16530]
Updated export option to keep an input pixel if any part of the pixel is inside the export crop area to also work for non-polygonal crops. This means that if the option is checked in the Advanced section of the General tab of the Configuration dialog, any source pixels that at least partially overlap an output pixel bounds will be used and not just those that include the output pixel center. [Item #17193]
When cropping to area features for export or loading Lidar LAS/LAZ files and area features are selected both in the Feature Info Tool and Digitizer Tool, prefer the Digitizer Tool selection over the Feature Info selection. Previously the reverse order of preference was used, making it impossible to crop to a selected polygon while loading a Lidar file referenced in attributes of an area selected with the Feature Info Tool. [Item #17370]
Fixed issue with image rectification with 2 points using the automatic mode if the points result in negative X or Y scales. The rectifier was switching to Helmert in some situations that didnt provide good results. [Item #16502]
Fixed crash with large amounts of data loaded (several hundred layers) with some operations, like view shed. [Item #16713]
Fixed bug exporting to raster format (i.e. JPG, GeoTIFF, etc.) when all that is loaded is vector data in the User Created Features layer. No data was exported in that case. [Item #17006]
Fixed a bug in the Feature Types/Labels/Elevations tab on the Vector Options dialog: the height attribute value and height above/below elevation setting value were not handled correctly, so that the settings did not affect Global Mapper operations, particularly 3D display. [Item #17054]
Fixed a bug where the Export model as Y-up setting in the 3D File Export Options tab was ignored. [Item #17101]
Fixed join of attributes to a vector layer from a text file encoded using UTF-8 when non-ASCII characters are present. [Item #17220]

Misc. Changes

Added support for adding the path profile display to the multi-view layout. Users can now choose to add a new view of type Profile and the Path Profile Tool will use that for displaying the active path profile. Users can also add any path profile dialog to the multi-view interface via a new button or pop a multi-view profile view to its own dialog through a right-click option. [Item #16294]
Added support for loading and saving the multi-view layout. By default the multi-view layout is now saved to and restored from workspace (GMW) files. There is an option on the Map View Manager dialog to disable the save and restore of the multi-view layout. There are also Load and Save buttons on the Map View Manager dialog. [Item #16292]
Added support for filtering which layers are displayed in each 2D map view in the multi-view interface. Users can right-click on a 2D map view on the View Manager dialog and choose to select which layers are displayed in each view. [Item #17089]
Added support for splitting containers of multiple map views. This allows adding a new map view that crosses multiple existing maps, like have 2 side-by-side maps, then adding a new view (like a path profile) above or below those and spanning both maps. Previously users could only insert a new view by splitting an existing single map view. [Item #17281]
Added multi-view button on the 3D view toolbar to allow easily embedding the 3D view window in the main map view interface or popping it out to a floating dialog. [Item #17328]
Added Close All Views button to Map View Manager dialog allowing users to quickly reset the multiple view interface to the default of a single 2D map view. [Item #16292]

What's New in Global Mapper v17.0

Significant New Features

Dramatically sped up nearly all Lidar operations, including load, display, gridding, and automatic classification.
Added support for automatically classifying powerline points from a Lidar point cloud. The new powerline classification options are available on the non-ground Lidar classification dialog and via the LIDAR_CLASSIFY script command.
Added support for automatically extracting powerline line features from a Lidar point cloud with Lidar points classified as a powerline type. The new powerline extraction options are available on the Lidar extraction dialog and via the LIDAR_EXTRACT script command.
Added support for automatically identifying high and low noise points from a Lidar point cloud. There is a new button on the Lidar toolbar providing this option as well as support in the LIDAR_CLASSIFY script command.
Added support for editing which classification groups a Lidar class belongs to. Right-click on a class on the Lidar filter configuration dialog and choose to ‘Set Class Group(s)’ to choose if a class is a surface point (i.e. ground, water, road), vegetation, structure, etc. This makes it easier to use a classification system that differs from the standard ASPRS classifications.
Added new Multi-View interface, allowing the embedding of multiple resizable 2D and 3D map views inside the main map view. The new Add/Remove Map Views toolbar and menu option allows adding any number of additional map views to the main map window. The maps fit together like a puzzle and can be dragged to resize within the main map view as desired. The views are independently zoomed and panned, allowing you to visualize your data in new and exciting ways!
Dramatically sped up nearly all Lidar operations, including load, display, gridding, and automatic classification.
Made Lidar Model Key Points be treated as surface/ground points so they can be used for calculating height-above-ground.
Support 3D Models as Custom Symbols for Point Types. The Configure Point Styles dialog allows the user to add 3D models to be used for rendering point features in the 3D viewer. Models can be attached to point styles or to individual features. Models can be sized automatically or by attribute.
Added several built-in online sources, including US National Map sources (w/ 1 foot color imagery source), World Navigation Charts (1:1M Scale ONC Charts), and Australian water sources.
Fixed issue with the height above ground for some non-ground points being marked as 0 rather than the actual height above ground.
Fixed issue with per-vertex elevation values for extracted building and tree features being interpreted as feet rather than meters when the Elevation Display/Export Units setting set to Statute.

New Supported Formats

Added support for loading Lidar PLY files. [Item #11666]
Added support for reading EXIF information from PNG files. Any PNG images with embedded EXIF information will load as picture points. Selecting them will display the image. [Item #15843]
Added support for using CPT palette files, both for layer color palettes and for initializing elevation shaders. [Item #15892]
Added support for new USGS EarthExplorer coverage CSV files with comma delimiters. [Item #15992]
Added support for loading NetCDF4 SPEI (Standardized Precipitation-Evapotranspiration Index) files. [Item #16272]

LiDAR Module Only Highlights

Updated the filter dialog for Lidar to allow filtering by intensity, height-above-ground, NDVI and NDWI (when available), and return type in addition to the filter settings that were already there. [Item #16034]
Improved the speed of calculation and display of filled gaps when doing a binned grid of Lidar points. [Item #15811]
Added option to treat the intensity values as a NIR (near infrared) channel for Lidar point clouds. Some Lidar point clouds store the NIR value in intensity as NIR wasn’t available in older LAS/LAZ versions. In other cases the intensity value can act as an approximation for the NIR channel. [Item #15781]
Updated the Powerline button on the Lidar toolbar (both main view and on Path Profile dialog) set change selected points to ASPRS class 14 (Wire Conductor) rather than class 15 (Transmission Tower). [Item #15370]
Fixed problem with points classified as type 10 (ASPRS Railroad) being used to determine height-above-ground when the points are actually Overlap or something similar. [Item #15879]
Fixed crash after automatically classifying Lidar points when zoomed out on the data. [Item #15918]
Fixed issue with option to ‘Reset Existing Points’ to Unclassified not being remembered classify operations when automatically classifying Lidar points. [Item #15919]
Fixed issue with calculating height-above-ground grid for point clouds with elevations in feet rather than meters. [Item #15955]
Fixed issue with elevation legend colors initially being incorrect when changing draw mode to ‘height above ground’ or ‘return height delta’. [Item #15968]
Fixed automatic classification and extraction when the view projection is different than the native projection of the Lidar layers. [Item #16070]
Fixed bug when extracting separate roof pieces from Lidar data that caused very high or low spikes in some vertices of the roof. [Item #16350]
Allow undeleting deleted Lidar points on the Lidar path profile. If deleted features are displayed and some deleted Lidar points are selected, the user will be prompted whether to undelete the deleted points or to delete the selected normal points. [Item #16018]
Fixed issue with extraction of separate roof pieces from classified Lidar point clouds. It would not work if the point cloud used linear units other than meters. [Item #16380]
Fixed issue with deleted Lidar points still being used for selection on the Lidar path profile when deleted features aren’t being displayed. [Item #16018]

LiDAR Changes

Dramatically sped up nearly all Lidar operations, including load and display. In some cases operations will be 10 times faster or even more. [Item #15811]
[LIDAR MODULE ONLY] Updated the filter dialog for Lidar to allow filtering by intensity, height-above-ground, NDVI and NDWI (when available), and return type in addition to the filter settings that were already there. [Item #16034]
Added support for loading Lidar PLY files. [Item #11666]
[LIDAR MODULE ONLY] Improved the speed of calculation and display of filled gaps when doing a binned grid of Lidar points. [Item #15811]
[LIDAR MODULE ONLY] Added option to treat the intensity values as a NIR (near infrared) channel for Lidar point clouds. Some Lidar point clouds store the NIR value in intensity as NIR wasn’t available in older LAS/LAZ versions. In other cases the intensity value can act as an approximation for the NIR channel. [Item #15781]
Added support for setting the GUID field in exported LAS/LAZ files when using the EXPORT_VECTOR script command. [Item #15875]
Made Lidar filter dialog modeless so you can modify the map while the filter dialog is visible. [Item #15881]
[LIDAR MODULE ONLY] Updated the Powerline button on the Lidar toolbar (both main view and on Path Profile dialog) set change selected points to ASPRS class 14 (Wire Conductor) rather than class 15 (Transmission Tower). [Item #15370]
[LIDAR MODULE ONLY] Fixed problem with points classified as type 10 (ASPRS Railroad) being used to determine height-above-ground when the points are actually Overlap or something similar. [Item #15879]
[LIDAR MODULE ONLY] Fixed crash after automatically classifying Lidar points when zoomed out on the data. [Item #15918]
[LIDAR MODULE ONLY] Fixed issue with option to ‘Reset Existing Points’ to Unclassified not being remembered classify operations when automatically classifying Lidar points. [Item #15919]
[LIDAR MODULE ONLY] Fixed issue with calculating height-above-ground grid for point clouds with elevations in feet rather than meters. [Item #15955]
[LIDAR MODULE ONLY] Fixed issue with elevation legend colors initially being incorrect when changing draw mode to ‘height above ground’ or ‘return height delta’. [Item #15968]
[LIDAR MODULE ONLY] Fixed automatic classification and extraction when the view projection is different than the native projection of the Lidar layers. [Item #16070]
[LIDAR MODULE ONLY] Fixed bug when extracting separate roof pieces from Lidar data that caused very high or low spikes in some vertices of the roof. [Item #16350]
Fixed bug with the flight date in LAS/LAZ files. The reported flight date for loaded files was one day earlier than the stored date. In addition, when exporting to LAS/LAZ, the date exported was actually one day before the requested date. [Item #16101]
[LIDAR MODULE ONLY] Fixed issue with extraction of separate roof pieces from classified Lidar point clouds. It would not work if the point cloud used linear units other than meters. [Item #16380]

3D Viewer Changes

Support 3D Models as Custom Symbols for Point Types. The Configure Point Styles dialog allows the user to add 3D models to be used for rendering point features in the 3D viewer. Models can be attached to point styles or to individual features. Models can be sized automatically or by attribute. [Item #14378]
Behavior of 3D Viewer Zoom and Arrow toolbar button change. The Zoom In and Zoom Out toolbar buttons in the 3D Viewer move behave the same as the mouse scrollwheel. The Left, Right, Up, and Down toolbar buttons now behave the same as their respective arrow keys on the keyboard. They no longer cause redraws in the 2D view, nor do they affect the bounds of the 3D view scene. [Item# 15805]
Allow cancelling a draw of 3D Lidar that is taking a while by pressing the Escape key, an arrow key, or clicking with the mouse. [Item #15811]
Made 3D progress bar display progress while rendering Lidar point data. [Item #15811]
Fixed an issue where, if the 3D viewer had point features visible, and the layer containing the points was closed, the points were not removed from the 3D view. [Item #15798]
Fixed a problem with the 3D Viewer where selected features were not displayed as unselected when their selection status changed. [Item #15791]
3D Viewer window now remembers its last position when reopening. [Item #15805]
When selecting Lidar points, the point selection box is not drawn at the correct altitude if z-level units are not meters. [Item #15971]
Line selection was not working in some cases where multiple overlays were loaded. [Item #16054]
Title Bar does not immediately appear when launching 3d Viewer using a Windows 7 basic theme [Item #16047]
Added a new mode to the 3D viewer where mesh features are displayed without their textures, similar to wireframe. User can toggle this mode using the ‘T’ shortcut key. [Item #16093]
Added ability to save fly-through frames as a series of BMP, JPG, or PNG files. [Item #15970]
Fixed issue where fly-through would not maintain height above terrain surface between key frames. Regenerate path data using “Relative” altitude mode to enable. [Item #15253]
Fixed issue where fly-through view would not be correct if path layer is not in global projection. [Item #16125]
Fixed issue where toolbar buttons would not show correct option enabled state when clicked during fly-through. [Item #16371]
Support 3D Models as Custom Symbols for Point Types. The Configure Point Styles dialog allows the user to add 3D models to be used for rendering point features in the 3D viewer. Models can be attached to point styles or to individual features. Models can be sized automatically or by attribute. [Item #14378]
Speed up performance of texture-based point symbols in the 3D viewer. For point features that use a standard bitmap-based rendering in the 2D viewer, panning and zooming is greatly enhanced in the 3D viewer. In general, texture handling for point symbols and meshes has been improved in the 3D viewer, and some standard symbols (e.g. the dot symbols) are now implemented using a non-texture based approach. [Item #16312]

Path Profile/Line of Sight Function Changes

[LIDAR MODULE ONLY] Allow undeleting deleted Lidar points on the Lidar path profile. If deleted features are displayed and some deleted Lidar points are selected, the user will be prompted whether to undelete the deleted points or to delete the selected normal points. [Item #16018]
Fixed display of path profile for a multi-point line when changing the sampling to only show the heights at vertices/endpoints. [Item #15817]
Save N/A in saved CSV when no surface elevations are present rather than -999999.0 meters (or feet version). [Item #15846]
[LIDAR MODULE ONLY] Fixed issue with deleted Lidar points still being used for selection on the Lidar path profile when deleted features aren’t being displayed. [Item #16018]

Analysis Function Changes

When creating/modifying attributes via formula, either in the Attribute Calculation Setup dialog or by script, the formula is now persisted, along with the associated attribute, into the layer(s) being modified. The Attribute Calculation Setup dialog can now reference and display the previous formula for the new attribute, if one exists, so that a user can have an idea of what changes a previous formula made to an attribute. [Item #15322]
The Attribute Calculator and Raster Formula Calculator have new Excel-like AND() and OR() logical functions, which function similarly to equivalent infix operations. That is, the formula “AND( A, B, C )” is equivalent to the formula “A AND B AND C”; likewise for the new OR() function. [Item #15322]
Updated Watershed analysis tracing flow to or from selected area, line, or point features to include a TRACE_FLOW_DIR attribute in each generated area with the traced flow with a value of ‘FLOW_FROM’ or ‘FLOW_TO’ to indicate what direction the flow in the area is indicating. This can be useful for modifying styling based on the type of flow watershed. [Item #16289]

Digitizer Tool Changes

Added a new right-click option on the Feature Vertex dialog so you can easily duplicate vertices for an area feature. This allows you to use the “Pen Up” draw mode option to turn off the drawing of some segments of the area border. [Item #15997]
When creating a regular grid of features with the cell count or size calculated from a rectangle, make the rectangle bounds option of all loaded data actually use all loaded data and not the screen bounds. [Item #16108]
Fixed crash when adding point/line count in area attributes to a large number of selected area features. [Item #16108]
Now highlight selected vertex when using fly-through path edit dialog. [Item #15419]
Fixed crop of lines to areas while keeping the portion of the line outside the area. This was adding duplicate vertices at all interior vertices of the cropped result. [Item #16134]
Added a toolbar button to Video Playback dialog to control whether or not the main display centers on the current playback location and automatically rotates to keep the heading towards the top of the display. [Item # 16160]
When playing back a video associated with a line feature, left clicking on the line while the Digitizer Tool is active and in the default select mode will move the video to the associated time in the video. [Item #16443]

Scripting Changes

Support writing any script messages to the command prompt when running a script on the command line. Add LOG_TO_COMMAND_PROMPT=YES to the GLOBAL_MAPPER_SCRIPT command at the start of the script to enable this. [Item #16023]
Support using parts of the filename for each grid cell in the parameters for an EXPORT command that grids the operation in to multiple pieces. You can use one of %TILE_DIR%, %TILE_FNAME_W_DIR%, %TILE_FNAME%, and %TILE_FNAME_WO_EXT% in the parameter list for the gridded command to have the corresponding part of the grid cell filename replaced in the parameter value. [Item #16247]
Support sending LOG_MESSAGE text to a different file than default script messages by using SET_LOG_FILE with a USER_FILENAME parameter specifying the file to send explicit LOG_MESSAGE text to. [Item #15940]
Fixed issue with LOG_MESSAGE command adding extra blank line. [Item #16259]
Updated LOG_MESSAGE command to support adding your own line breaks with \n and tabs with \t. [Item #16259]
Added SNAP_BOUNDS_TO_SPACING and SNAP_BOUNDS_TO_MULTIPLE parameters for EXPORT script commands to allow snapping the operation bounds either to the nearest sample spacing (for raster/elevation operations) as well as to the nearest multiple of a provided number. If SNAP_BOUNDS_TO_SPACING is not provided, the snapping for spacing will obey the option to snap export bounds to the nearest sample spacing bounds found in the Advanced section of the General tab of the Configuration dialog and set-able using the SET_OPT command with MISC_OPT=EXPORT_BOUNDS_SNAP_SPACING. [Item #16228]
Added pre-defined variables for using the script folder (%SCRIPT_FOLDER%) and Global Mapper version (%GM_MAJOR_VER%, %GM_FULL_VER_W_DATE%, %GM_FULL_VER_NO_DATE%) in a script. [Item #16285]
Added Global Mapper version (GM_VERSION) and saved time (TIMESTAMP) to the GLOBAL_MAPPER_SCRIPT command at the start of a saved workspace. [Item #15864]
Removed requirement that a VERSION parameter be included with the GLOBAL_MAPPER_SCRIPT command at the start of a script. If the parameter is there, it must have a value of 1.00. [Item #15864]
Allow providing number of sample points for CREATE_POINTS_ALONG_FEATURES, RESAMPLE_FEATURES, and CREATE_PERP_LINES_ALONG_FEATURES options for EDIT_VECTOR script command. Use a negative number for those values to specify a sample count rather than sample distance in meters. [Item #16059]
Allow selecting a file that doesn’t exist yet (i.e. filename to save) with the DEFINE_VAR script command with PROMPT=FILE. Just add FILE_MUST_EXIST=NO to the command to allow entering any filename. [item #15875]
Added support for specifying the attribute to use for the layer name in DWG/DXF exports using the LAYER_NAME parameter for the EXPORT_VECTOR script command. [Item #15935]
Added support for specifying the version of DWG to export using the VERSION parameter for the EXPORT_VECTOR script command. [Item #15935]
Added support for disabling automatic simplification of custom crop polygon for raster layers by adding CLIP_COLLAR_POLY_SIMPLIFY=NO to IMPORT command. [Item #15932]
Updated EXPORT_WEB format to use a default MAX_ZOOM_LEVEL value appropriate for the loaded data if none provided. Also automatically make the specified FILENAME have a full path if just a filename is provided. [Item #16069]
Suppress unneeded message when exiting Global Mapper after running script from command line. [Item #15873]
Allow variable replacement for lines in a DEFINE_PROJ section. [Item #16001]
Added support for extruding the edges of the generated mesh when exporting elevation data to STL format when using the EXPORT_ELEVATION command. Just add EXTRUDE_EDGES=YES to the command to enable extrusions, and optionally, add, for example, BASE_ELEVATION=50 to extrude to an elevation of 50 (the default is 0). When extrusion is enabled, any grid rectangle that has a corner that's invalid (i.e., is not present in the gridded data) or below the base elevation setting is excluded from the export. These options are also supported in the UI when exporting elevation data to STL. [Item #15914]
Added scripting control for exporting 3D models in “Z-up” and “Y-up” orientations. When using the EXPORT_ELEVATION command to export elevation data to STL format, which exports to Y-up orientation by default, add Z_UP=YES to export to Z-up orientation instead. Conversely, when using the EXPORT-VECTOR command to export vector features to 3D model formats like OBJ, STL, DAE, etc. (but not SketchUp), add Y_UP=YES to the command to cause it to export to Y-up orientation instead. In addition, you can add NO_PROMPTING=YES to the EXPORT_VECTOR command to prevent the 3D export options dialog from popping up during your script. [Item #16045]
Made EXPORT_ELEVATION and EXPORT_RASTER script commands obey the option to snap export bounds to the nearest sample spacing bounds. [Item #16228]
Fixed issue with SAVE_WORKSPACE command not writing out all of the needed DEFINE_PROJ commands for layers using user-specified projections. [Item #16347]

Online Source Changes

Added built-in US National Map sources, including 1 foot color imagery source covering about half of the US. [Item #15927]
Added built-in World Navigation Charts (1:1M Scale ONC Charts) online source. [Item #15838]
Added built-in Australia Geoscience Water online sources (see Country Data->Australia). [Item #15868]
Added option to control the detail setting for streaming online sources. The Detail slider on the download online source dialog and the Options dialog for an online source (as well as the DETAIL_MULT parameter in a script) allows you to control what zoom level is pulled from the online source relative to the calculated display/export resolution. [Item #16048]
Make it easier to add ESRI RESTful services. The [Item to use was renamed from ‘Google Maps Tiles’ to ‘ESRI RESTful/Google Maps Tiles’ to make it more obvious. In addition, common URL mistakes are automatically detected, including missing slashes at the end or incorrect tile sizes. The server will be checked to see which of several options creates a working source rather than depending on the user to get everything correct to start with. [Item #15838]
Added built-in Korean VWorld DEM streaming terrain source with high resolution terrain for part of the world. This source requires an API key from the data provider. You can script these sources with the IMPORT_OSM_TILE command and SOURCE_TYPE=”VWORLD_DEM” provided. [Item #16103]
Fixed issue with newly added sources not showing up in the source list the next time you run Global Mapper due to an incorrect <MaxVersion> value being saved for the source in the user_online_sources.xml file. [Item #15836]
Fixed issue load data from some WFS sources (like FEMA Hazards) that expect the lat/lon bounding box in a different order than the standards would require. [Item #16004]
Fixed issue with default bounds for some WMS sources not being cropped to the max lat/lon bounds specified for the source. [Item #16184]
Fixed issue with custom TMS online sources with a custom tile URL not using the correct row numbering. [Item #16227]

Projection/Datum Changes

Improved projection names stored in PRJ files and GeoTIFF headers (PCSCitation and GTCitation). Now if you load a WKT PRJ file, the projection name will be remembered and used for export. If no name is known on export, a web service is queried to try and determine the projection name. A good default is used for common projections. There is also a new epsg_codes.txt file in the user settings folder that allows overriding EPSG code definitions and adding ‘name=’ parameters to the end to specify the friendly PROJCS name. [Item #13814]
Improved assignment of datums from WKT PRJ files when a TOWGS84 transformation is defined. If multiple datums match the name specified, the datum transformation closest to the specified TOWGS84 is used. [Item #16104]
Added Nova Scotia zones 4 and 5 to the MTM Eastern Canada projection. [Item #15844]
Improved accuracy of Minnesota County projection conversions. [Item #15819]
Added built-in EPSG codes for California State Plane NAD83(NSRS2007) and NAD83(NSRS2011) zones. [Item #16020]
[16.2.4] Improved name stored in WKT PRJ files for MGA projections. Previously the PROJCS name was stored as UTM as UTM and MGA are the same. [Item #16019]
Added Minnesota County zone ‘St. Louis TM’ for the new St. Louis County Transverse Mercator Coordinate System 96’ that provides a single projection for all of St. Louis County. A new datum and ellipsoid for St. Louis county was also added. [Item #15951]
Updated Hotine Oblique Mercator B projection to save name in WKT PRJ files as ‘Hotine_Oblique_Mercator_Azimuth_Center’ rather than just ‘Hotine_Oblique_Mercator’ which is also written out for the Hotine Oblique Mercator Azimuth Natural Origin projection. [Item #15888]
Made Hotine Oblique Mercator Two Point Natural Origin projections load from WKT PRJ files. [Item #16203]
Fixed initialization of lat/lon crop boundary on Cropping tab of Options dialog and actual crop to lat/lon bounds for UPS North/South and other projections that are highly non-orthogonal to the lat/lon grid. [Item #16017]

Format Specific Changes

Automatically load grid files with no extension in the same folder as a recognized .hdr file as grid files. [Item #15990]
Automatically create palettes for ENVI grid files with ‘class name’ and ‘class value’ lists in the .hdr file. [Item #15990]
Added support for exporting GeoTIFF elevation grids with 32-bit integer samples and additional linear unit options (i.e. centimeter and millimeters). Those additional elevation units are also recognized when loading in GeoTIFF elevation grid files. [Item# 16263]
Updated SOSI import to automatically assign the proper character set for displaying the text from the file. [Item #15832]
Updated SOSI export to properly convert text to the character set being exported. In addition, more character sets are supported, including Nordic (ISO-8859-10). The best character set for the data being exported will be chosen automatically. [Item #15832]
Add progress reporting to SOSI export, including ability to cancel. [Item #15832]
Allow selecting land cover palettes (NLCD, GlobCover, CORINE) when exporting to palette-based raster formats, like GeoTIFF, PNG, etc. [Item #15859]
Fixed import of 3D Face entities from DXF and DWG files. Previously you would get both the 3D area and the duplicate border lines. Now you just correctly get the 3D TIN areas. [Item #15810]
Add support for BMP and TIFF texture files in 3D import and export, for the formats that support external textures. This includes DAE and OBJ, but not Sketchup, at this time. [Item #15802]
Greatly sped up DTED import. It is now twice as fast as 15.2 and nearly 5 times as fast as v16.2. [Item #15925]
Added support for lat/lon coordinates formatted as DDD.MMSSS in generic text file import. [Item #15862]
Fixed error exporting to PDF with Adobe ISO32000 extensions enabled when using an unusual export projection, like the ‘Natural Earth’ projection. [Item #15823]
Updated CADRG/CIB export dialog to include the file extension of the frame files that will be created in the ‘Chart Type’ field. [Item #16088]
Added ‘Originator Name’ field to the CADRG/CIB export dialog. If a value is provided, it is stored in the NITF header for the exported frame files. If no value is provided the Producer Name will be used (as before). You can also provider this via the AUTHOR parameter for the EXPORT_RASTER script command. [Item #16088]
Fixed error exporting CADRG/CIB with space at beginning or end of the Frame File Folder Name. [Item #15799]
Fixed issue in v16.2.0 loading Carlson Binary Grid Files. [Item #14882]
Added ability to import 3D models with left-handed orientation to Global Mapper’s right-handed orientation. This is now a choice on the new 3D import dialog that consolidates other options that were handled separately previously. [Item #15813]
Fixed error loading text file with single unknown non-coordinate attribute. [Item #15861]
Fixed issue loading some PDF files with the layer selection dialog show repeated groups even if the group name is the same. [Item #15865]
Fixed issue loading a workspace from Global Mapper v15 and earlier that references a PDF file with nested layers. In some cases any layers that were nested would not be loaded from the workspace. [Item #15864]
Fixed error about unexpected file size loading Geosoft Grid files. [Item #15866]
Fixed issue with projection not being automatically determined from some JP2 and MrSID files. Broken from 16.1.0-16.2.2. [Item #15890]
Fixed issue with empty DTED tiles being exported when cropping DTED export to an area that goes outside the loaded terrain data bounds. [Item #10049]
Fixed issue with some projections with known EPSG codes but no specific ECW projection code (like Austrian Grid / MGI) not saving in ECW files. [Item #15973]
Fixed crash displaying TIFF file with tile organization and separate bands. [Item #15991]
Fixed incorrect band formula calculations (i.e. NDVI), exports, and Feature Info display from TIFF files with strip organization and separate bands. [Item #16105]
Fixed error loading workspace referencing GMP files over 2GB in size. [Item #16009]
Fixed error loading 3D model files (OBJ, Collada, STL, etc.) via a workspace of script [Item #16012]
Fixed error about ‘Incorrect number of values read from tuple list for DEM’ when loading some Japanese XML DEM files (i.e. those with invalid samples at the bottom right of the terrain tile. [Item #16061]
Fixed crash exporting via a raster/elevation export plugin in v16.2.0. [Item #15828]
Fixed decode of central meridian for Albers Conic projections for ECW files. [Item #16166]
Fixed issue where some data would fail to load when GeoCalc mode enabled and Export Old Format PRJ advanced configuration options enabled. [Item #15947]
Fixed export of elevation legend to PDF files when also coloring elevation based on what elevations are in the current bounds. [Item #16128]
[16.2.5] Fixed issue with metadata for layers in a map catalog just flashing for a second and going away if that layer wasn’t already displayed. [Item #16124]
Improved performance of OTF feature load. [Item #16140]
Made OTF import as map catalog optional to permit splitting of features into separate layers. [Item #16153]
Fixed issue where GeoCalc transform information was not saved for all layers in a workspace, requiring user to pick transforms again when loaded. [Item #14051]
Updated DXF and DWG export when exporting feature labels as attributes to place the attribute at the appropriate Z (elevation) rather than at 0.0. [Item #16161]
Fixed display of Tobin BAS files with border segments turned off. [Item #16168]
Fixed case where incorrect bounds were being stored in MBTiles metadata. [Item #16207]
Fixed error about invalid size loading NrCAN .byn Geoid Grid files. [Item #16216]
Fixed warning loading GNIS text point files with CENSUS features. [Item #16286]

GPS Tracking Changes

Added support for tracking GPS devices using Glonass (Russian) or Baidu (Chinese) NMEA sentences. [Item #15984]
Added new GPS toolbar buttons to control whether or not the main display centers on the GPS vessel location and automatically rotates to keep the GPS heading towards the top of the display. [Item #16043]
Allow update of GPS location on display up to 10 times per second (vs. about 3 before). In addition, new GPS locations are drawn more immediately after they are received in most cases. This helps with high frequency GPS devices traveling at high speed, such as in an aircraft. [Item #15937]

Rendering/Style Changes

Made vertical lines and lines that are a single pixel at a zoom level draw as a single pixel on the screen rather than not drawing at all. [Item #16229]
Updated Feature Info Tool when selecting a sample/pixel from a loaded raster/elevation layer to display the full bounds of the sample when zoomed in and to also draw the circle at the center of the cell and not the clicked location. [Item #16426]
When not displaying all labels regardless of overlap and drawing each vector layer (and labels) separately based on the Vector Display Order During Draw setting, don’t draw labels further down in the layer list that would overlap an already drawn label. [Item #15913]
Allow symbol scale factor to work when applied to a custom shape symbol that is defined with a default size and color. [Item #16115]
Fixed issue with fixed screen position layers (including scale bar, legend, etc.) briefly jumping around when playing back video linked to a line feature. [Item #15897]
Fixed issue with partially see-through raster layers not updating automatically when the display of a terrain layer underneath changes. [Item #15792]
Fixed issue with display of text in a code page (language) other than the current system language on the map legend. This also allows UTF-8 encoded text to display on the map legend. [Item #15905]
Fixed a problem where dragging a rotated map using the middle mouse button didn’t re-center correctly [Item #15974]

Misc. Changes

Updated display of coordinates on the status bar. UTM projections now include the zone number. If there is a terrain value available and the Z units are not the same as the XY units, the XY and Z units will be display separately to avoid confusion. [Item #15853]
Added ‘LOAD TIME’ to metadata for all layers showing how long it took to load the layer. [Item #15928]
Fixed loading of layers with a faked position to use arc seconds rather than arc degrees for the ground units so the data doesn’t cover a huge part of the earth or become invalid. [Item #16069]
Automatically use the Helmert transformation for layer rectification when provided just 2 control points that result in the X and Y pixels being significantly different in size and/or inverted when a simple Linear transformation is used. [Item #16035]
Made changing of user settings file path on Help->About dialog copy over all files from the old settings path. Previously some settings, like the user online sources, were not being copied when changing to a new settings path. In addition you are now prompted to delete all files that were successfully moved over so you don’t end up with the old copy sticking around. [Item #15934]
New Cartographic Map Publishing tool including:
- A paper scale interface that actually lets you see the layout in the paper proportions.
- Easier addition of overlays for graphics, text, legend, scale bar, north arrows, etc. and positioning these elements through click and drag
- Template creation and template library
Made resampling method box on many dialogs (watershed, water rise, raster/terrain export, etc.) reset X and Y sample spacing to defaults when changing from a box resampler to a normal one if the user hasn't changed the spacing manually. [Item #15972]
Fixed issue with attributes containing ‘ELE’ somewhere in the string being treated as elevation attributes when no other obvious elevation choices can be found. For example, a file with a ‘PipeLength’ attribute was treating that attribute as elevation automatically. [Item #15840]
Fixed rare crash doing multi-threaded operations that also does reprojection, like roughness grid area finding, equal-area creation from rasters. [Item #15815]
Fixed issue with file associations not being correctly set on install for Global Mapper formats (.gmg, .gmp, etc.). [Item #14513]
Fixed issue with yellow border around exported image formats when drawing a box to specify the export bounds and including map layout elements (scale, legend, etc.). [Item #16204]

What's New in Global Mapper v16.2

Significant New Features

Added support for NIR (near-infrared) data for Lidar point clouds. This includes new draw modes for CIR (color infrared), NDVI, and NDWI display, export to new LAS files with the NIR channel included, improved automatic classification of high vegetation/buildings using NDVI/NDWI, and gridding the calculated NDVI and NDWI values for the NIR-enabled Lidar.
Dramatically sped up the export of high bit-depth/multi-band exports, especially from map catalogs with large numbers of maps.
Added support for writing 3D model formats, including Collada DAE, OBJ, STL, and PLY.
Added support for NIR (near-infrared) data for Lidar point clouds. This includes new draw modes for CIR (color infrared), NDVI, and NDWI display, export to new LAS files with the NIR channel included, improved automatic classification of high vegetation/buildings using NDVI/NDWI, and gridding the calculated NDVI and NDWI values for the NIR-enabled Lidar.
Added/improved support for numerous formats, including Esri zLas Lidar, SketchUp SKP, Unity RAW/JPG, ADRG, GGM Gravity Grids, and NetCDF.
Added Bridge Generation and Data Maintenance Extension. This free extension provides tools for automatically generating bridge features, editing bridge features, and locating duplicate and overlapping features. All tools can select features to be processed by parent overlay, feature type, and feature attributes.

New Supported Formats

Added support for loading Esri zLas Lidar files. [Item #15110]
Added support for writing 3D model formats, including Collada DAE, OBJ, STL, and PLY. [Item #14264]
Added support for newer format SketchUp SKP files and made SKP files load in the 64-bit version.
Added support for exporting Unity RAW terrain/texture files. This new option under File->Export Elevation Data provides an easy way to tile and scale your data out to Unity RAW terrain files with accompanying JPG texture files for easy import in to the Unity game engine. [Item #13866]
Added support for exporting a thinned grid for XYZ Grid elevation exports. The new option allows specifying a maximum allowed elevation difference in a local area. Points in flat areas will be removed to significantly reduce the exported size of the file while maintaining something close to the original terrain. [Item #14938]
Added support for ADRG (ARC Digitized Raster Graphics) export. [Item #15352]
Added support for any type of NetCDF file with recognized 2D grids in any variables, including grids with more than 3 data dimensions, 2 of which are the data grid. You can also load multiple grids at once from the NetCDF files rather than needing a separate load for each grid to extract. Data with recognized U/V vector components at a series of XY locations are also automatically loaded as a quiver plot, useful for things like ocean currents with velocity or directional wind speeds.
Added support for GGM Gravity Acceleration/Disturbance Grid Files (.ga, .dg, .xi, .eta, .ha extensions).
Added support for BIL (generic raster grid) files with 1, 2, or 4 bit samples.

LiDAR Module Only Highlights

Added support for Lidar with NIR (near infrared) sensor data. The following new functionality makes use of 4-band RGB+NIR LAS files [Item #15439]
- Three new draw modes were added, CIR for Color Infrared display of the 4-band data, NDVI for coloring points by the NDVI vegetation value, and NDWI for coloring points by the NDWI water value. [Item #15439]
- Automatic classification of high vegetation/building points will make use of the calculated NDVI/NDWI value to more accurately identify which points are high vegetation/trees and which are likely buildings. [Item #15440]
- The attributes for each Lidar point now include the NIR value as well as calculated NDWI and NDVI values. [Item #15439]
- Exports to Lidar LAS v1.4 files with color values included and input data with NIR values will write out the NIR data using LAS point format 8. [Item #15439]
- Grid calculated NDVI or NDWI values when creating an elevation grid from Lidar layers using the Analysis->Create Elevation Grid menu command. [Item #15447]
Automatically break up very large automatic Lidar classification and feature extraction operations in to smaller pieces so that the process can always do all work in memory. This allows automatically classifying much larger Lidar data sets without having to manually break the operation in to smaller pieces. [Item #14246]
Improved the default settings when automatically classifying Lidar points from high resolution Lidar scans (i.e. multiple returns per square meter). [Item #15440]
When selecting Lidar points in the path profile, the selected points are also automatically selected in the Digitizer Tool and highlighted on the main map view.
Allow changing the name to use for Lidar classifications by right-clicking on the classification on the Lidar tab of the Configuration dialog. Any exported LAS/LAZ files will also store the custom Lidar names in the header. You can also change the color assigned to Lidar points in that manner now as well. [Item #15357]
Added all Lidar class that aren’t reserved for ASPRS definition to the Favorites toolbar, including for keyboard shortcut assignment. This also includes any Lidar classes that have a custom name. [Item #15358]
Improved coloring (faster and more accurate) as ‘height above ground’ for high resolution/terrestrial Lidar data sets. [Item #15588]
Added ‘Don’t Ask Again’ checkbox on the prompt to confirm the change of classification of selected Lidar points from the Lidar toolbar (in the main view or the path profile) or from a Favorites option. [Item #15378]
Fixed issue with the Lidar draw selection of RGB/elevation on the path profile dialog using the current global setting rather than the RGB/elevation setting.
Made Alter Elevations options changes for Lidar point clouds be properly reflected when coloring by elevation and searching on the ELEVATION attribute. [Item #15551]
Fixed crash automatically classifying Lidar points from a map catalog with many large point cloud maps in it. [Item #15729]
When batch converting to LAS/LAZ 1.1 format files and checking to apply color from loaded imagery, bump the version up to 1.2 since color wasn’t added until that version. [Item #15745]
Fixed batch converting to LAS/LAZ format files and checking to apply color from loaded imagery when the projection in the main map view was different than that of the Lidar files being converted. [Item #15745]
When selecting Lidar points in the path profile, the selected points are also automatically selected in the Digitizer Tool and highlighted on the main map view.
When clicking to select Lidar points or add to the polygon selection for a Lidar path profile, allow clicks just outside the profile to make it easier to select points near the edge of the profile display. [Item #15426]

LiDAR Changes

[LIDAR MODULE ONLY] Added support for Lidar with NIR (near infrared) sensor data. The following new functionality makes use of 4-band RGB+NIR LAS files [Item #15439]
- Three new draw modes were added, CIR for Color Infrared display of the 4-band data, NDVI for coloring points by the NDVI vegetation value, and NDWI for coloring points by the NDWI water value. [Item #15439]
- Automatic classification of high vegetation/building points will make use of the calculated NDVI/NDWI value to more accurately identify which points are high vegetation/trees and which are likely buildings. [Item #15440]
- The attributes for each Lidar point now include the NIR value as well as calculated NDWI and NDVI values. [Item #15439]
- Exports to Lidar LAS v1.4 files with color values included and input data with NIR values will write out the NIR data using LAS point format 8. [Item #15439]
- Grid calculated NDVI or NDWI values when creating an elevation grid from Lidar layers using the Analysis->Create Elevation Grid menu command. [Item #15447]
[LIDAR MODULE ONLY] Automatically break up very large automatic Lidar classification and feature extraction operations in to smaller pieces so that the process can always do all work in memory. This allows automatically classifying much larger Lidar data sets without having to manually break the operation in to smaller pieces. [Item #14246]
[LIDAR MODULE ONLY] Improved the default settings when automatically classifying Lidar points from high resolution Lidar scans (i.e. multiple returns per square meter). [Item #15440]
[LIDAR MODULE ONLY] When selecting Lidar points in the path profile, the selected points are also automatically selected in the Digitizer Tool and highlighted on the main map view.
[LIDAR MODULE ONLY] Allow changing the name to use for Lidar classifications by right-clicking on the classification on the Lidar tab of the Configuration dialog. Any exported LAS/LAZ files will also store the custom Lidar names in the header. You can also change the color assigned to Lidar points in that manner now as well. [Item #15357]
[LIDAR MODULE ONLY] Added all Lidar class that aren’t reserved for ASPRS definition to the Favorites toolbar, including for keyboard shortcut assignment. This also includes any Lidar classes that have a custom name. [Item #15358]
[LIDAR MODULE ONLY] Improved coloring (faster and more accurate) as ‘height above ground’ for high resolution/terrestrial Lidar data sets. [Item #15588]
[LIDAR MODULE ONLY] Added ‘Don’t Ask Again’ checkbox on the prompt to confirm the change of classification of selected Lidar points from the Lidar toolbar (in the main view or the path profile) or from a Favorites option. [Item #15378]
Updated export of Lidar point clouds to vector formats, like Shapefiles, to not include the Lidar class name in the CLASS attribute. Where before you would get a CLASS value of ‘2 (Ground)’, you will now just get ‘2’. This allows for simpler searches and editing and smaller files.
Update the display and export of attribute lists for Lidar points to include SCAN_ANGLE and INTENSITY even when the values of those are 0.
[LIDAR MODULE ONLY] Fixed issue with the Lidar draw selection of RGB/elevation on the path profile dialog using the current global setting rather than the RGB/elevation setting.
Decoupled the point feature types for Lidar points from the Lidar class code filter for everything but styling. The point type filter on the Vector Display tab of the Configuration dialog no longer has any effect on what points will draw from a Lidar point cloud. Only the Lidar classification filter on the Lidar tab of the Configuration dialog affects that now. Previously you could inadvertently turn off the display of some Lidar classifications by turning off some point feature types. [Item #15379]
Added support for custom Lidar class names from LAS/LAZ files. Any custom type names are now displayed on the Lidar import dialog and on the Feature Info dialog when displaying information about a selected point. [Item #15591]
Updated search dialog to use the Lidar class name as the <Feature Type> value for points in Lidar point clouds rather than the name of the most similar Lidar point feature type. This allows custom Lidar class names to be displayed in the search dialog. [Item #15379]
Display point count and point density in Metadata dialog for map catalogs with Lidar point clouds in them. [Item #15729]
[LIDAR MODULE ONLY] Made Alter Elevations options changes for Lidar point clouds be properly reflected when coloring by elevation and searching on the ELEVATION attribute. [Item #15551]
[LIDAR MODULE ONLY] Fixed crash automatically classifying Lidar points from a map catalog with many large point cloud maps in it. [Item #15729]
[LIDAR MODULE ONLY] When batch converting to LAS/LAZ 1.1 format files and checking to apply color from loaded imagery, bump the version up to 1.2 since color wasn’t added until that version. [Item #15745]
[LIDAR MODULE ONLY] Fixed batch converting to LAS/LAZ format files and checking to apply color from loaded imagery when the projection in the main map view was different than that of the Lidar files being converted. [Item #15745]

3D Viewer Changes

When recording a fly-through video file, the video file will automatically be associated with the fly-through feature so you can easily play it back from the Feature Info or Digitizer Tool. [Item #15609]
Added option to play a video file synced with a selected line or point feature with time information. To do this, simply select the feature with the 3D Digitizer Tool, then right-click and select the ‘Play Associated Video File’ option. You will be prompted to select the video to play if a video has not already been associated. [Item #15609]
Fixed issue where fly-through frame rate would be accelerated for a short time after pause/resume.
Fixed a problem with shading on extruded objects. [Item #15190]
Lengths and areas reported in the 3D view now take elevations into account, if they’re present [Item #15245]
Added a new hotkey for use when measuring: pressing the Enter key operates the same as the right click menu option "Close polygon and stop measuring”.
Added a new hotkey, Ctrl+H, which toggles the mouse hover feature reporting behavior (which may be slow) on or off. This operation may also be performed using an entry on the 3D right-click context menu.
Fixed an issue where the 3D view zoom reverted to the default when switching from a scene that includes terrain to a scene that doesn’t. [Item #15247]
Added a new 3D navigational aid, the pivot axis, which shows the scene rotation pivot location. This may be toggled on or off using the 3D right-click context menu or by using the Ctrl+Shift+P hotkey.
Fixed an issue with selection in 3D allowing selection of points outside the scene boundary (which is governed by the 2D view). [Issue #15232]
Made several changes to mitigate lag when mouse hover mode is enabled. [Item #15158]
Added ability to lock the 3D mouse to either horizontal or vertical movement, when rotating the scene. To do this, hold down either the ‘H’ or the ‘V’ key while performing a rotation (e.g. When in Rotation mode, hold down the left mouse button and move the cursor; adding either ‘H’ or ‘V’ will lock the rotation to the horizontal plane or the vertical plane, respectively). [Item #15401]
Fixed an issue with rotated symbols in the 3D viewer [Item #15412]
Fixed an issue where notification text on the 3D view was hard to read. [Item #15647]

Path Profile/Line of Sight Function Changes

[LIDAR MODULE ONLY] When selecting Lidar points in the path profile, the selected points are also automatically selected in the Digitizer Tool and highlighted on the main map view.
[LIDAR MODULE ONLY] When clicking to select Lidar points or add to the polygon selection for a Lidar path profile, allow clicks just outside the profile to make it easier to select points near the edge of the profile display. [Item #15426]
Made the option to match the scale of the elevation and distance be remembered between dialogs rather than requiring re-entering that each time if you always want to match the scales.
Fixed display of crossing area/line features in a path profile when the default system elevation units are set to Statute (Feet).

Analysis Function Changes

Added option on the Shader Options tab of the Configuration dialog to select the method used to calculate slope values for the Slope Shader (and anywhere else slope is used). You can choose from the default method (Average Maximum of 4 Non-Diagonal Adjacent Samples) or 3 new methods, including the Average Maximum of all 8 Adjacent Samples, or an absolute Maximum Slope from the cell center to either the 4 non-diagonal adjacent cells or all 8 adjacent cells.
Improved accuracy of slope calculations on layers covering a large area using a lat/lon coordinate system or a highly distorted projection, like Mercator.
Updated calculation of view sheds from selected points to recognize additional attribute names to supply the view shed parameters. In particular, RADIUS can now specify the outer radius in kilometers, TRANSMITTER_HEIGHT specifies the transmitter height in meters (or feet with ‘ft’ in the string), RECEIVER_HEIGHT specifies the receiver height in meters (or feet with ‘ft’ in the string), START_ANGLE and SWEPT_ANGLE can be used to provide the angle range, and the COLOR attribute can specify the color to use. [Item #15485]
Updated calculation of area/line volumes with the Measure Tool to include the bounding box of the region being calculated so it is easy to find it from the pasted results.
Updated watershed calculation so that if multiple layers are created (i.e. stream lines, drainage areas, flow accumulation, and/or flow direction arrows), those layers are grouped together under the watershed name. [Item #15549]
Updated roughness grid calculation to not allow slope or slope direction shaders that don’t make sense and also to default the roughness grid layer to use its own shader rather than sharing the global one. This prevents the roughness grid values from affecting the coloring of other gridded layers. [Item #15777]
Fixed Flattened Pad Site creation option volume reporting and find optimum flatten height options. The volumes reported by the pad site flatten tool were not accurate.
Fixed bug causing the elevation units for a new grid layer to be set to Meters when Feet are selecting when gridding vector data. Bug in v16.0.0-v16.0.1, fixed in v16.1.1.
Fixed bug causing deleted holes/islands to still be cut out when creating terrain from 3D area features. This also made selection of areas fail when clicking inside a deleted island with the Feature Info or Digitizer Tool. [Item #15525]
Fixed bug causing generated watershed to not save to a workspace if the option to save the flow accumulation grid was also checked. [Item #15549]

Digitizer Tool Changes

Updated option to calculation point chainage along lines (connect points to nearest selected line feature) to have an option to provide a chainage offset (start distance) as well as an option to reverse the line direction when calculating chainage. Also made the calculated CHAINAGE and a SIDE_OF_LINE (‘L’ or ‘R’) attributes be added to the point feature as well as the created connecting line.
Added calculation mode setting that governs how the +, =, <=, <, >, >=, <> operations are performed. The mode can be set by a setting in the dialog box, or by the new CALC_MODE parameter for the CALC_ATTR_FORMULA script command. The calculation modes: Automatic: the operation is performed as numeric if both arguments are numeric, and as string otherwise; Numeric: the operation is performed as numeric; String: the operation is performed as string. [Item #15321]
Added option to ‘Invert Selection’ to the Digitizer Tool right-click Advanced Selection submenu.
When adding measure attributes to rectangular area features, add LENGTH and WIDTH attributes for the length and width of the rectangle. These attributes are now also displayed for rectangular features on the Display Feature Measures dialog if any of the selected areas are rectangular.
When creating distance/bearing/COGO lines and using the COGO field entry, adding a point (with Enter or by clicking ‘Add Point’) automatically selects all text in the COGO field and sets focus to that field so you can immediately type the next COGO entry. [Item #15415]
Added option to play a video file synced with a selected line or point feature with time information. To do this, simply select the feature with the Digitizer Tool, then right-click and select the ‘Play Associated Video File’ option. You will be prompted to select the video to play if a video has not already been associated. [Item #15609]
Improved connecting of line features to form longer lines or area features so that the elevation is taken in to account. This allowed correctly selecting from multiple lines to find the best one to follow based on the Z value. [Item #15531]
Fixed issue with distance/bearing/COGO line creation crashing in v16.1.0.
Fixed selection of areas within selected areas that caused areas that were inside an area but partially inside a hole/island of that area (but not completely inside the hole) to also be selected.
Fixed creation of point features at grid cell centers when creating a regular grid of features when that is the only creation option checked. [Item #15503]
Made created range rings use the font selected on the range ring dialog. [Item #15539]
Fixed copy of attributes from points to areas so that if you select to keep the minimum or maximum value when multiple points are present that actually happens. [Item #15535]
Fixed creation of min/max elevation points from terrain inside selected areas when the area layer uses a different projection than the current view projection. [Item #15723]

Scripting Changes

New command: GENERATE_VIEWSHED to perform a view shed analysis using loaded elevation grid data with a user-specified transmitter location, height, and radius. All areas within the selected radius that have a clear line of sight to the transmitter are colored with a user-specified color. [Item #14993]
New command: GENERATE_RIDGE_LINES to find ridge lines from loaded terrain data. This command uses the same parameters as the GENERATE_WATERSHED command as internally they are nearly the same operation. [Item #15703]
Updated the LOAD_PROJECTION command to allow automatically selecting the best zone for zoned projection systems, like UTM, or to specify the name of a known grid system with no parameters, like SWISS_GRID. To do this, either use the old-PRJ format in the DEFINE_PROJ command with a ZONE value of 0, or simply provide the name of a built-in zoned projection in the PROJ parameter for LOAD_PROJECTION. For example, LOAD_PROJECTION PROJ=”UTM” will set the projection to a UTM projection with the datum and units of the current projection and the best zone for the center lat/lon of all loaded data. [Item #15548]
Support changing the algorithm used for slope calculation with a new SLOPE_ALGORITHM parameter for the SET_VERT_DISP_OPTS command.
Added support for using %TIMESTAMP_MS% as a variable inside a script. This will embed the current time with millisecond resolution in the format ‘YYYYMMDD_HHMMSSsss’ (where SSsss is 2 seconds digits and 3 millisecond digits). Use to uniquely tag filenames or other values to millisecond resolution.
Added support for using a polygon crop file to only select which grid/tile cells to export, while not cropping within the cells that overlap the crop file. To get this behavior in any script command that supports both polygon crop and gridding, add POLYGON_CROP_GRID_ONLY=YES to the command.
Added EDIT_VECTOR parameters ATTR_EXISTS and ATTR_MISSING to allow features to be selected based on whether or not an attribute exists. [Item #15436]
Updated EDIT_VECTOR command so that any newly created layers from that command (i.e. from NEW_LAYER_NAME parameter) will use the code page of the original layer. [Item #15465]
Added control of the ‘use 4 point polynomial’ option for rectification via a RECTIFY_4_POINT_POLY_ONLY parameter. The setting is now saved on a per-layer basis in workspaces rather than being a global setting per computer. [Item #15557]
When getting a file extension and name w/o extension (i.e. %FNAME_WO_EXT% for DEFINE_VAR command), treat .tar.gz as the full extension and not just the .gz. [Item #15603]
Added support for adding a list of files from an external text file to a map catalog using the new ADD_FILE_LIST parameter for the EDIT_MAP_CATALOG command. [Item #15783]
Updated EXPORT_VECTOR command export to Wasp .map to default the DISCARD_ISLANDS parameter to NO rather than YES to match exports from the user interface by default. [Item #15626]
Fixed handling of EXPORT_DWG_LABELS and EXPORT_DWG_LABELS for EXPORT_VECTOR command. The new values ATTRS, FEATURE_LAYER_POINTS, and LABEL_POINTS weren’t recognized.
Fixed crash in v16.1.0 using the EXPORT_VECTOR or APPLY_FORMULA script command with a polygon crop file.
Fixed error in v16.1.0-v16.1.1 using the IMPORT_ASCII script command with no TYPE parameter. It should default to TYPE=POINT_AND_LINE if not provided.
Fixed bug with SPLIT_AT_INTERSECTIONS parameter for the EDIT_VECTOR command not adding the new split lines. The original lines that would have been split were just marked as deleted.
Fixed bug in EDIT_VECTOR where COMPARE_STR="<attr_name>=*" was matching features that do not have an attribute called <attr_name>. [Item #15434]
Fixed string replacement and comparisons using accent characters against layers using UTF-8, like OpenStreetMaps XML layers. [Item #15465]

Online Source Changes

Added support for WFS 2.0.0 sources and some other WFS sources that weren’t working. [Item #15600]
Added built-in online sources for the ‘Atlas of the Cryosphere’, providing polar data like snow and ice cover for various years. These sources are under the new ENVIRONMENT built-in group on the online source dialog. [Item #15455]
Added built-in online sources for NSW Australia Imagery and Base Map data under the COUNTRY DATA->Australia group. [Item #15725]
Removed old ASTER GDEM source from Popular Sources and Worldwide data (now only in Terrain Data) as it is very unreliable and should almost never be used instead of the ASTER GDEM v2 source.
Updated web page display dialog to be resizable when getting information from a loaded WMS source with the Feature Info Tool. [Item #15796]

Projection/Datum Changes

Allow saving the EPSG AUTHORITY tag in saved PRJ files. You must have the "Include Datum Parameters & EPSG Codes in WKT PRJ Files" option in the Advanced section of the General tab of the Configuration dialog checked for this to be saved. It is not enabled by default because some versions of Esri products are not smart enough to handle PRJ files that include the AUTHORITY. This option also turns on inclusion of datum transformation parameters in exported PRJ files (another problem [Item for Esri products). [Item #15787]
Added built-in datum and ellipsoid for ‘International 1924 Authalic Sphere’. These are used with the EPSG codes 3408 and 3409 and NSIDC EASE-Grid systems for the North and South Pole. [Item #15455]
Added built-in EPSG codes for Louisiana State Plane projections with US Survey Feet. [Item #15489]
Added additional built-in EPSG codes for Illinois State Plane / NAD83 HARN and NSRS2007. [Item #15758]

Format Specific Changes

Significantly sped up display and export of JPEG2000 and MrSID files that are aligned with external files or rotated, particularly when zoomed out further than full resolution for the layer. [Item #15358]
Updated ECW export to save a known EPSG code for the export projection if no known datum code is found but an EPSG code is. This allows the Web Mercator projection and NAD83 HARN/HPGN systems to be maintained exactly. [Item #15385]
Improved export of display labels to DWG files. Now text color and alignment is maintained and multi-line text is properly aligned.
Updated CADRG/CIB data so that the zoom level at which the frame bounding boxes appear rather than the actual data is controlled by the zoom level settings for each layer. You can right-click on the a.toc layer in the Control Center and select which zoom levels to display the data at. [Item #15633]
Updated VPF (VMAP/DNC) import to allow selecting what to load down to the feature class level rather than just selecting coverage libraries to load.
Updated VPF (VMAP/DNC) import to have a ‘Use for All’ checkbox on the category/tile selection so you can remember which types are disabled for all loads in the current command, like batch conversion and not be prompted for each file.
Improved display speed of KML/KMZ files that reference a large number of images.
Updated KML/KMZ export to split lines in to segments of no more than 8,092 vertices to ensure that Google Earth can display them properly.
When exporting 3D areas marked as ‘Extruded’ to KML/KMZ files, only add side wall 3D area features if there is an explicit 3D_EX_HT attribute to create a 3D volume. Extrusion to ground level is handled by the <Extrude> tab. [Item #15688]
Updated map catalog handling to keep more off-screen maps loaded if a lot of memory is available. This prevents extra loading/unloading as you pan and zoom around. [Item #15353]
Allow batch converting from map catalog files. When you add a map catalog, the individual maps from the catalog are added to the list of files to convert. [Item #14078]
Support reading elevation units from Erdas IMG files that include that information. If present those files are also automatically interpreted as elevation rather than prompting the user. The vertical datum is also added to the layer metadata as a VERT_DATUM value if present. [Item #15717]
Updated elevation TIFF import to prompt the user for elevation units if we can’t automatically determine them from the header rather than assuming meters. [Item #15717]
Added support for reading and writing Polar Stereographic and Gnomonic projections from/to BSB charts. [Item #15383]
Improved error reporting when loading a workspace file that has been truncated.
Added option to WorldWind export to control whether or not the tiles are filled or cropped to the export bounds/crop area.
Improved automatic recognition of projections from NetCDF files.
Automatically recognize Landsat8 GeoTIFF files downloaded from Earth Explorer and treat the 0 values as transparent (no-data) and display the contents of the MTL.txt metadata files on the Additional tab of the Metadata dialog for the layer. [Item #15603]
Made alpha channels (transparency) work for GeoTIFF files with more than 8 bits per band. [Item #15603]
Update GeoTIFF import to display the GDAL metadata XML on the Additional tab of the Metadata dialog for the layer.
Updated GeoTIFF elevation export to include a GDAL metadata XML with the elevation units.
Allow changing the band display order for 24-bit RGB JPG files. [Item #15386]
When loading CSV files with a NAME or LABEL attribute, or just a single un-recognized attribute per feature, assign the layer to automatically use that attribute for the label rather than copying to the feature label and removing the original attribute. [Item #15380]
Allow loading Shapefiles with invalid version codes of ‘0’ in the header. [Item #15367]
Show progress bar for the total operation progress when exporting Shapefiles to a tile set or when splitting based on a particular attribute value. [Item #15655]
Added option to not include the GeoTIFF header when batch converting to GeoTIFF files. [Item #15406]
Updated Global Mapper Grid (GMG) export to default to millimeters for the elevation units for input grids with cells smaller than 2 meters across. [Item #15464]
Made ‘export to fixed scale’ option work for GeoTIFF elevation export. [Item #15491]
When exporting to GeoTIFF and using the ‘export to fixed scale’ option, make the export bounds drawn on the map reflect the bounds that would be used based on the provided scale and DPI value. [Item #15500]
Added support for reading and writing WKT PRJ strings for Erdas Imagine IMG files, allowing more projections to be automatically handled. [Item #15657]
Updated simple ASCII text (XYZ vector) export to allow creating files over 2GB in size. [Item #15517]
Made display of layer metadata from map catalog options dialog show the full metadata dialog for the selected layer, including Lidar Statistics and Histogram when appropriate, rather than just the metadata attribute list and projection information. [Item #15527]
Updated CDF export to create separate label records for each line of a multi-line label so they display properly in Geographix. Also made label point records from CDF files come in with the ‘Text’ point type. [Item #15543]
Improve search for PERMIT.TXT files for S-63 chart files. [Item #15756]
Use ETRS89 rather than WGS84 for UTM zones 32-35 for SOSI files. [Item #14328]
Remove quotes from attribute values from SOSI files. [Item #14328]
Append numeric suffix to attribute names from SOSI files that have multiple values per feature to avoid duplicate attribute values (like STOFFGRUP). [ [Item #14328]
Fixed export of Shapefiles splitting on a particular attribute value. In v16.0.2 and later this export would stop if an empty export of a particular attribute was encountered. This would typically been when cropping the export to an area. [Item #15655]
Fixed shift loading some Surfer Grid ASCII files with very long records.
Updated Surfer Grid load to default the elevation units to the horizontal units of the projection (if meters or feet) if no projection prompt is shown. [Item #15775]
Fixed export of labels as attributes for area features to DWG files.
Fixed problems in v16.1.0-v16.1.2 with negative values in SRTM bathymetry grids showing up as large positive values.
Fixed rare error using large MrSID files.
Fixed display of 24-bit uncompressed ADRG files. Broken since v15.2.
Fixed export of fly-through path data to GMP files. [Item #15429]
Fixed issue loading OTF from a workspace file. [Item #15428]
Made significant OTF import performance improvements. Added import options dialog that allows user to select import terrain data as raw TIN, import terrain as an elevation grid, and import features. [Item 15522]
Now import OTF databases as a map catalog. Data for individual geotiles will be automatically loaded and unloaded as needed based on zoom and pan. [Item #15625]
Fixed export of Eastern European, Greek, and Turkish text to PDF files when the code page is not explicitly set for the layer. [Item #15478]
Fixed issue export a single point/label feature to a PDF file. [Item #15478]
Fixed issue with contrast adjustment for some Erdas Imagine IMG multi-band files not applying correctly to bands other than the first 3. [Item #15487]
Fixed import of FCC ASR (Antenna Structure Registration) text files. [Item #15511]
Fixed error loading some Leica PTS Lidar formats. [Item #15536]
Fixed error with BSB export causing a criss-cross pattern to show in other chart applications or when cropping in Global Mapper. [Item #15556]
Updated GMP (package) exports including raster layers to create files compatible with Global Mapper v9 and earlier in most cases. [Item #15599]
Fixed problems loading some CPS-3 format files. [Item #15631]
Fixed crash displaying Erdas Imagine IMG files with per-band no-data values in files with 4 or more bands. [Item #15648]
Fixed rare error that caused 3D annotation to be placed incorrectly in 3D PDF export. [Item # 13925]

Rendering/Style Changes

Added Preset Band Configuration on the Band Setup tab for imagery with 3 or more bands. Now you can easily change the displayed bands to a number of presets, including normal RGB, CIR (Color Infrared), several Landsat7/Landsat8 band layouts, and a grayscale option for each band. [Item #15351]
Added option on the Shader Options tab of the Configuration dialog to select the method used to calculate slope values for the Slope Shader (and anywhere else slope is used). You can choose from the default method (Average Maximum of 4 Non-Diagonal Adjacent Samples) or 3 new methods, including the Average Maximum of all 8 Adjacent Samples, or an absolute Maximum Slope from the cell center to either the 4 non-diagonal adjacent cells or all 8 adjacent cells.
Added built-in NDWI shader for coloring NDWI (Normalized Difference Water Index) calculated values. This shader is automatically used when you apply a NDWI formula to multi-spectral raster imagery or display 4-band NIR Lidar data with the new NDWI Lidar draw mode. [Item #15439]
Made cancel of draw with Esc key press much more responsive for large raster layers, especially, ECW, JPEG2000, and MrSID. [Item #15368]
Updated live video tracking from a selected feature in the Feature Info Tool to keep the video playback location on the screen if the GPS menu option to ‘Keep the Vessel On-Screen’ is enabled. The current video playback location is also now displayed using the same icon as the GPS is set to use and will also be oriented how the line being tracked is oriented. [Item #15375]
Added new ‘Aerial Coverage’ built-in area type. [Item #15375]
Fixed zoom with mouse wheel when the view is rotated. The view would zoom correctly but the location under the cursor would not stay fixed in place.
Fixed problem with elevation legend for slope or slope direction shaders being tinted by water if water display was enabled at a value over 0.
Fixed crash in Feature Info tool clicking on a grayscale raster layer. [Item #15386]
Fixed issue with ‘FROM TYPE’ symbol names being selected by default on Point Styles tab of Configuration dialog and other places rather than the actual symbol name. [Item #15793]

Misc. Changes

Added numeric rounding functions: FLOOR(num), CEILING(num), TRUNCATE(num), MOD(numerator, denominator). Also added ISNUM function: ISNUM(str): returns true if str denotes a floating point value, and false otherwise, new regex function FIND(str, regex): returns 0-based index to start match in str if the regular expression matches, -1 otherwise, new string concatenation function: CONCAT(str [, str]*) : concatenate the arguments to form a single string: e.g. CONCAT(“a”, “b”, “c”) evaluates to “abc”, and allow MIN/MAX functions to take multiple arguments: e.g. MAX(1, 2, 3) evaluates to value 3. [Item #15611]
Added trig functions: SIN(radians), COS(radians), TAN(radians), ASIN(num), ACOS(num), ATAN(num), DEGTORAD(degrees), RADTODEG(radians), plus the constant PI. [Item #15293]
String comparison additions: new operator ‘~=’ that performs case-insensitive string comparison (e.g. “abc” ~= “ABC”); returns true of the strings are equal, and false if not, plus COMPARE(str1, str2), and COMPARENOCASE( str1, str2), which perform case-sensitive and case-insensitive string comparison, returning 0 if the strings are equal, a negative number if str1 is less than str2, and a positive number if str1 is greater than str2. [Item #15694]
Added calculation mode setting that governs how the +, =, <=, <, >, >=, <> operations are performed. The mode can be set by a setting in the dialog box, or by the new CALC_MODE parameter for the CALC_ATTR_FORMULA script command. The calculation modes: Automatic: the operation is performed as numeric if both arguments are numeric, and as string otherwise; Numeric: the operation is performed as numeric; String: the operation is performed as string. [Item #15321]
Allow cropping and tiling to selected closed line features for exports and other operations that allow cropping/tiling. Previously you could only crop to selected areas, not closed lines. [Item #15413]
Added option to reverse the order of selected maps on the Control Center right-click menu.
Update graph display for vector layers/features to support treating attribute values with text after a starting number, like a degree symbol after a slope, as numeric values for graphic purposes. [Item #15420]
Made case-insensitive searches using accented characters work. [Item #15465]
Made the Batch Convert/Reproject dialog resizable.
Update GPS Setup dialog to only show COM ports that are actually available on the system and to also show the friendly name for the COM port (if any) rather than just COM1, COM2, etc. The auto-detect will also check named COM ports for a recognized data signal before un-named ones, with those with Garmin in the name taking the highest priority. [Item #15583]
Fixed issue when displaying/exporting feather-blended terrain layers when multiple terrain layers overlap at a single location where feathering is applied. The wrong underlying terrain was being used in some cases to blend with the top-most terrain.
Fixed crash in v16.1.0 when “Apply settings from previous feature” button on Modify Feature dialog clicked and previous feature does not use the default font.
Fixed load of point types/styles from .gm_style files to read in default attribute lists if present. They were previously saving to .gm_style files, but not loading.
Fixed display of info tips for data sets using a code page other than the system code page, like layers with UTF-8 encoded text. [Item #15666]
Fixed rare crash using data sets with thousands of point features at the exact same location. [Item #15366]
Fixed issue with custom shortcut keys for Favorites not working for shortcuts using / or \. [Item #15663]
Fixed issue with option to ‘Show Crosshairs Across Entire Map’ on Image Rectification dialog Options menu being disabled so you can’t turn it on and off. [Item #15760]

What's New in Global Mapper v16.1

Significant New Features

Sped up online sources by downloading data in the background. The display and export of online sources is now several times faster in many cases. You can also immediately cancel the drawing of any online source by pressing Escape without having to wait for the server to respond.
Added ability to select features in the 3D viewer. This is a new mode initiated by selecting the selection tool on the 3D viewer toolbar. Any selections are shared by both the 2D and 3D viewer, and the right-click menu allows you to perform operations on the selection.
Added Measure Mode to the 3D viewer. This is a new mode initiated by selecting the Measure tool on the 3D viewer toolbar. Measurements are shared by both the 2D and 3D viewer, and the right-click menu allows you to perform operations on the selection.
Added option to rotate the map view under the View menu. The new menu command allows you to easily rotate the map view to whatever angle you want. You can also use Backspace to rotate the view counter-clockwise.
Added option to automatically rotate the map in whatever direction a connected GPS device is pointing. This new option under the menu allows you to use ‘track up’ mode when connected to a GPS so that forward is always to the top of your display.
Added option to display a video file synced to any line feature with per-vertex times or point features with recognized timestamp attributes. This option is available on the right-click menu of the Feature Info dialog whenever times are found. This allows you to easily play a video file that tracks a line feature and sync up the playback and the location on the map.
Updated the Control Center CALC ATTR dialog (Attribute Calculation Setup) with the ability to calculate new attribute values using spreadsheet-like formulas. The new attribute formulas allow numeric, Boolean and string operations, using standard mathematical notation and predefined functions, which include sophisticated text match, search and replace operations using regular expressions.
Numerous scripting updates, including exporting from specified layers, cropping export to a polygon selected in the user interface, a SET_OPT command to define general options and type filters, and support for using formulas when calculating attribute values (new CALC_ATTR_FORMULA command) and defining variables.
Improved exports using image-optimized palettes for data with more than 256 colors but large areas with the same color.

New Supported Formats

Support loading data directly from .7z archive files. Just like .zip or .tar.gz, Global Mapper will extract the .7z file and automatically identify known file types and load them.
Support loading Landmark Graphics Vector files.
Support loading ZFS Lidar point clouds.
Support ArcGIS Layer Pack (*.lpk) archive import.
Support Rockworks RW16 (.rwgrd) XML grid files.
Support Landsat Imagery, ESA CCI Soil Moisture, and Gravity Grids in HDF5/NetCDF format.
Support Carlson 2015 binary grid files.
Support Carlson GSF Geoid Grid formats.
Support loading Trimble WM applied survey XML files.

LiDAR Module Only Highlights

Allow cropping Lidar points to selected area features when automatically classifying.
Default NO_DATA_DIST_MULT value when generating a bin grid with the GENERATE_ELEV_GRID script command to use a value of 6 for filling gaps rather than 0 which is more appropriate as a default for traditional TIN gridding.
Improved automatic classification of high vegetation (trees) from point clouds with lots of high return count (3 or more) points, such as highly forested areas.
Improved assigning of elevation values/attributes when extracting building outlines from classified Lidar data. Also added MAX_ELEV and MIN_ELEV attributes to capture the minimum and maximum elevation of any points used in the building.
Fixed extraction of separate roof pieces when performing building extraction in a projection using linear units other than meters.
Fixed issue with option to filter which Lidar points are considered when gridding a Lidar point cloud not working when doing a TIN grid rather than one of the binned grid methods.
Fixed issue with Lidar points not deleting properly in the Lidar path profile view.
Made automatic classification of Lidar points in map catalogs work. You will want to immediately export the results as the modified Lidar data will be unloaded without saving if the catalog no longer needs them for display.
Support using SPATIAL_RES_METERS for any operation that used GRID_BIN_SIZE for binned Lidar gridding or other Lidar operations.

LiDAR Changes

Made crop of Lidar point clouds to selected area features on load crop to the actual area boundary and not just the bounding box of the area(s).
[LIDAR MODULE ONLY] Allow cropping Lidar points to selected area features when automatically classifying.
[LIDAR MODULE ONLY] Default NO_DATA_DIST_MULT value when generating a bin grid with the GENERATE_ELEV_GRID script command to use a value of 6 for filling gaps rather than 0 which is more appropriate as a default for traditional TIN gridding.
Support use of R, G, and B columns as color in a generic ASCII text file being loaded as a Lidar point cloud.
[LIDAR MODULE ONLY] Improved automatic classification of high vegetation (trees) from point clouds with lots of high return count (3 or more) points, such as highly forested areas.
[LIDAR MODULE ONLY] Improved assigning of elevation values/attributes when extracting building outlines from classified Lidar data. Also added MAX_ELEV and MIN_ELEV attributes to capture the minimum and maximum elevation of any points used in the building.
[LIDAR MODULE ONLY] Fixed extraction of separate roof pieces when performing building extraction in a projection using linear units other than meters.
[LIDAR MODULE ONLY] Fixed issue with option to filter which Lidar points are considered when gridding a Lidar point cloud not working when doing a TIN grid rather than one of the binned grid methods.
[LIDAR MODULE ONLY] Fixed issue with Lidar points not deleting properly in the Lidar path profile view.
Fixed crash exporting to LAS/LAZ when the current projection doesn’t have a known exact EPSG code.
[LIDAR MODULE ONLY] Made automatic classification of Lidar points in map catalogs work. You will want to immediately export the results as the modified Lidar data will be unloaded without saving if the catalog no longer needs them for display.

3D Viewer Changes

Added ability to select features in the 3D viewer. This is a new mode initiated by selecting the selection tool on the 3D viewer toolbar. Any selections are shared by both the 2D and 3D viewer, and the right-click menu allows you to perform operations on the selection.
Added Measure Mode to the 3D viewer. This is a new mode initiated by selecting the Measure tool on the 3D viewer toolbar. Measurements are shared by both the 2D and 3D viewer, and the right-click menu allows you to perform operations on the selection.
Add option to create a fly-through path from selected line features when using the fly-through controls in the 3D view and no pre-defined fly-through paths are available.
Added fly-through pause toolbar button.
Fixed skybox zoom issues.
Fixed issue where some fly-through avi files were not playable. Allow larger compressed avi files.
Fixed issue where fly-through avi compression options were not available in 64-bit version.

Path Profile/Line of Sight Function Changes

Added the 3D segment and total distance to a CSV file for a 3D path saved from the File menu on the Path Profile/LOS dialog.
Change display of separate lines for multiple overlapping terrain layers to not draw any line for the layer where it does not have valid values rather than drawing a straight line connecting regions with valid elevations.
Limited the available formats when exporting the rendered path profile to a vector format to only include those formats that support non-spatial data, like PDF or CAD (DXF, DGN, DWG, etc.) formats.
Fixed issue with the cursor displayed on the path profile dialog changings to an arrow.
Fixed issue with the option to draw crossing lines on the path profile not being remembered properly.

Analysis Function Changes

Added option to Watershed calculation to create a flow direction point layer with a selected symbol. This allows you to quickly create a quiver plot showing the flow direction and quantity on a terrain surface.
Made the Advanced option to snap bounds to an even multiple of the export spacing also apply when generating an elevation grid from 3D vector/Lidar data, both from the user interface and using the GENERATE_ELEV_GRID script command.
Fixed major issue in volume calculations (any type other than a range of elevations) when the default vertical units are Statute (Feet) rather than Metric (Meters). The results were off by the conversion factor from feet to meters (about 3.28) before this fix.
Ensure volume results when doing a single cut height are the same as for a range of cut heights. Also show 3D surface area when doing a single cut height.
Improved precision of generated contour labels when creating contours with a very small (<0.1 meters/feet) contour interval.
Added option to select the volume units when measuring the volume between surfaces.
Fixed bug in v16.0.0-v16.0.3 with area features used as obstructions in view shed calculations making everything not blocked by the areas visible.
Fixed issue with contrast adjustment automatically being enabled for all multi-band images created by the Raster Calculator and not just those with more than 8 bits per band.
Fixed crash gridding point data sets while cropping to a selected area feature.

Digitizer Tool Changes

The CALC ATTR dialog (Attribute Calculation Setup) may now be invoked on the current feature selection. This option is accessed from the “Attribute/Style Functions” submenu in the right-click menu for selections.
Added “Cut Selected Area(s) from all Overlapping Areas” option. Similar to exiting “Cut Selected Area(s) from Another Area” function, except all areas in specified layers are processed rather than a single layer.
Cropping to selected areas will automatically fix any invalid area geometry when they cause the crop to fail. This will allow many more crop operations to complete without error without needing to manually find and fix invalid polygons before doing the crop. In addition any exports to selected areas will also fix invalid polygons that cause the crop to fail.
Updated creation of strike-and-dip points to visually show the orientation of the point as you drag after left-clicking to much more easily get the desired orientation of the strike/dip. The dip and strike angle are also now displayed on the status bar as you drag with the left mouse button down.
Invalid area geometries where an island is on or outside of the parent are now automatically fixed by the invalid polygon detection and fixing tool.
Added support for copying attributes from points to other nearby point features using the Copy Attributes option in the Digitizer Tool.
Added “Edit Feature Vertices” option under Vertex Editing right-click sub-menu of Digitizer Tool. This allows displaying and editing the vertex list (including per-vertex elevations and times) of any single selected line or area (including hole/island) feature.
When creating lines connecting point features to line features, rename the DIST_ALONG_LINE attribute to CHAINAGE to reflect the more common usage.
Add option to select the native projection for a new layer created from the feature edit dialog. This allows moving/creating new features in a layer with a custom name and whatever projection is desired.
When creating point features from a line feature with per-vertex time-stamps, add SPEED, AVG_SPEED, and ELAPSED_TIME attributes. Do the same if adding from the Feature Vertices dialog for selected points.
Added option to disable the selection of holes/islands in area features when clicking/dragging to select. The option is under the right-click Options menu in the Digitizer Tool.
Updated creating of perpendicular lines to selected lines to add the non-measure attributes of the line/area to the perpendicular lines.
Updated calculation of area elevation statistics to more often determine a predominate slope aspect and report that as an ASPECT attribute. In addition the average slope direction will always be added as an AVG_ASPECT attribute even if there isn’t a dominant direction.
Fixed issue with the orientation of the last line when creating perpendicular lines to selected lines.
Fixed selection of layer in the feature edit dialog when multiple features are selected for editing.
Fixed crash creating new features in a layer other than User Created Features if nothing in User Created Features and auto-save backup workspaces option checked.
Fixed issue with option to chop up areas to reduce the vertex count not always being available if multiple areas are selected.
Fixed issue with option to chop up areas to reduce the vertex count not always reducing all the way to 3 vertices if you want to create triangles from the areas.
Added units of arc seconds and arc minutes for creating a regular grid of features.
Fixed issue with using the Edit->Select All menu command or the right-click Select All Features in Layer option in the Control Center selecting features in the Digitizer Tool that are disabled for selection, such as is if you turned off selection of lines.
Added Create Buffer option to list all attribute values of combined areas, which has been the default behavior, or simply assign a single representative value to each attribute instead.
Fixed issue where square buffers would sometimes have incorrect shape near start/end vertices.

Scripting Changes

Added support for exporting only specific layers from an EXPORT script command. You can now add one or more EXPORT_LAYER parameters to an export command and only those layers that match one of the EXPORT_LAYER filters will be exported.
Added support for exporting everything outside of selected polygons rather than inside by adding POLYGON_CROP_EXCLUDE=YES to any script command where you are cropping to one or more polygons.
Added support for cropping a script EXPORT* command to an area feature selected in the Digitizer Tool. Just add POLYGON_CROP_NAME=”SELECTED” to the command parameters to use any selected area feature(s) from the user interface in the crop.
Updated EDIT_VECTOR command to allow filtering what is operated on to a bounding box. Any of the normal bounding box parameters (i.e. LAYER_BOUNDS, GLOBAL_BOUNDS, LAT_LON_BOUNDS, etc.) are applicable.
Added support for setting a large number of advanced options with the SET_OPT command using new MISC_OPT and MISC_OPT_VALUE parameters. This includes global settings for the snapping of export bounds to pixel or spacing boundaries and maintaining export bounds over sample spacing. You can also set the base temporary files folder used by Global Mapper. See documentation for complete list of options.
Added support for more built-in variable names to allow easily logging the time required for scripts to run. Now %TIME_SINCE_START%, %TIME_SINCE_LAST_LOG%, and %SCRIPT_FILENAME% are available as built-in variables. You would likely use them with the LOG_MESSAGE command.
Added facility for calculating new attribute values using formulas using the new CALC_ATTR_FORMULA script command. The CALC_ATTR_FORMULA is similar to the existing CALC_ATTR formula, except that that you can specify new attribute values using formulas. See the documentation for more information, including a description of attribute formulas.
Added support for new script variables using formulas in the DEFINE_VAR script command. There is now a FORMULA parameter that accepts a formula for assigning a value to a script variable. See the documentation for a more complete description of variable formulas.
Updated export bounds when cropping operations to polygon features. By default, the export bounds will be the intersection of the crop area bounds for the operation and the data export bounds (either default all-data or the explicitly provided bounds). You can also provide a POLYGON_CROP_INT_DATA_BOUNDS=NO parameter to indicate that the export bounds should be the crop area bounds unless you explicitly listed another bounding box (i.e. GLOBAL_BOUNDS or LAYER_BOUNDS parameter), in which case that explicit bounding box will be used.
Support exporting unsigned 16-bit and signed/unsigned 8-bit values with the BIL and GEOTIFF type export with the EXPORT_ELEVATION command. The new USE_UNSIGNED parameter is used to specify that unsigned values should be exported.
Moved type filter functionality to SET_OPT command and deprecated the LOAD_TYPE_FILTER command. It will still work, but any new global options will be part of the SET_OPT command.
Added support for specifying a Lidar return filter both for global display and export with SET_OPT as well as for individual IMPORT and EXPORT commands with a new LIDAR_RETURN_FILTER parameter.
Updated EDIT_VECTOR command to allow just providing a NEW_LAYER_NAME parameter to allow creating any new features from the command in a layer with that name rather than placing them in the layer of the feature(s) they were created from.
Updated EDIT_VECTOR command to support resampling line or area feature vertices by distance using the RESAMPLE_FEATURES parameter.
Added support for copying attributes from points to other nearby point features using the COPY_ATTRS script command.
Support wildcards in the FILENAME parameter for an IMPORT command to allow easily loading all files that match a particular wildcard string, like FILENAME=”*.tif” to load all TIFF files in a folder.
Support NOT recursing sub-folders when using the IMPORT_DIR_TREE command to load files matching a mask string. Now add RECURSE_DIR=NO to the command to only load files in the specified folder.
Added the GRID_OVERLAP_NUM_PIXELS parameter to indicate whether or not the value specified in GRID_OVERLAP should be interpreted as the number of pixels (EXPORT_RASTER command)
Added new command SHIFT_LAYER to move one or more layers by the specified offset distance.
Added support for using the default position and/or projection when loading a layer and that data cannot be automatically determined by adding USE_DEFAULT_POS=YES and/or USE_DEFAULT_PROJ=YES to an IMPORT command.
Added support for setting the vector detail offset (slider from Vector Display tab of Configuration dialog) with a DETAIL_OFFSET parameter for the SET_OPT command.
Added support for hiding any windows that would be shown by a RUN_COMMAND command. Add HIDE_WINDOW=YES to the command to hide the window.
Allow layers to be specified with just a filename with no path rather than requiring a full path or wildcards. Applies to any command where you provide the filename/description of a layer to work on.
Added nested progress dialogs when running a script which loops over a set of files or layers providing much better monitoring of the script progress and allowing simpler cancel.
Added support for specifying the altitude mode for elevations in a layer with an ALT_MODE parameter for an IMPORT or SET_LAYER_OPTIONS command.
Added support for creating a flow direction point layer with the GENERATE_WATERSHED command by adding GEN_FLOW_DIR_POINTS=YES. This layer will have points for each sample location showing the flow direction and magnitude.
Allow specifying the CODE_PAGE for KML vector and GPX exports with the EXPORT_VECTOR command. The default is to use the UTF-8 code page.
[LIDAR MODULE ONLY] Support using SPATIAL_RES_METERS for any operation that used GRID_BIN_SIZE for binned Lidar gridding or other Lidar operations.
Provide more options for label export to DXF/DWG files using the EXPORT_VECTOR command. Now the EXPORT_DWG_LABELS/EXPORT_DXF_LABELS parameters support exporting features labels as attributes, separate points on the features’s layer, or separate points on a label layer. The existing Yes/No support still works as before.
If you explicitly provide bounding box parameters for a command and also crop to one or more polygons, the explicitly provided bounds are used rather than the bounds of the crop polygon(s).
Fixed issue with EDIT_VECTOR command not doing anything if no COMPARE_STR parameter were provided (in v16.0.0-v16.0.3).
Fixed bug passing variables on the command line in v16.0.0-v16.0.3.
Fixed crash using EXPORT_VECTOR command with %SPLIT_ATTR% in the FILENAME parameter in some v16.0.x builds.
Fixed issue with EXPORT_RASTER command that caused the display bounding box in the main application view window to change after running the script in some cases.

Online Source Changes

Sped up online sources by downloading data in the background. The display and export of online sources is now several times faster in many cases. You can also immediately cancel the drawing of any online source by pressing Escape without having to wait for the server to respond.
Added option to create world files for each downloaded tile from an online tiled source. This allows you to directly load the files in to Global Mapper from the local cache, which is especially useful if you create a map catalog for offline use of the data. The option is found in the Advanced section of the General tab of the Configuration dialog
Added support for finding the location associated with a MapCode (www.mapcode.com). The Search->Find Address menu command allows specifying a MapCode as the location to find.
Added Mexico layers from INEGI as built-in sources under the new COUNTRY DATA group. This includes orthophotos and many other types of data covering Mexico.
Added CORINE Land Cover 2006 (100m Resolution) as built-in online source. The previous CORINE online source was from 2000. That is still available as well. The new source can be used for roughness grid/area calculations.
Added FEMA Hazard maps as built-in online sources. Both the WMS (Raster) and WFS (Vector) FEMA sources are available under the U.S. Data group and provide flood and other hazard maps for the entire U.S.
Added built-in link to ESA CCI Soil Moisture global database. This is just a website link so you still have to download the actual data you want and then load it.
Allow easily adding multiple sources at once from a WFS server. You can now select more than one feature when adding a WFS source. If multiple are selected, you get a separate source for each selected feature.
Added right-click option to save any selected online source definitions to a XML file to the online source dialog. This allows easily exporting user-added source definitions to load on another machine and add to that machine’s source list.
Added new option to Add Source dialog when adding a WMS source to allow preferring the use of WMS v1.1.1 rather than whatever the source reports as the default version (i.e. v1.3) if desired. This is useful as some servers don’t properly handle the axis order as the WMS v1.3 specification requires for some coordinate systems.
Allow removing multiple selected sources at once from the online source download dialog. If you have selected a group of source and none of them are built-in sources, they will all be removed when you use the ‘Remove Source’ button.
Improved automatic selection of a SRS (projection) to use for WMS sources with a large list of available projections.
Fixed issue with Brazil Topo Maps source no longer working.
Fixed issue with right-click on source list causing multiple [Items to be selected.

Projection/Datum Changes

Improved speed of reprojection in some cases, particularly map catalogs with a large number of maps to reproject. This was slower in v16.0.0-v16.0.3 than it needed to be.
Fixed issue with small missing sliver near anti-meridian (+180/-180) when reprojecting data that crosses the ATM to Geographic (lat/lon). This affects both display and export to formats that force the projection to lat/lon, like KML/KMZ.
Added built-in EPSG code for MOLDREF99 (EPSG:4026).
Added built-in EPSG codes for Idaho State Plane projections using NAD83 (NSRS2007).
When changing projections on the projection selection dialog and the new projection doesn’t allow the previously selected datum, default to the first datum in the allowed list for the new projection rather than keeping the dis-allowed datum.
Fixed issues with some reprojected maps being cropped when the original bounds go slightly outside the valid bounds, like a Mercator map with a corner that goes just slightly west of -180 or east of +180 with a map centered on 0.

Format Specific Changes

Restored ESRI File Geodabase (FDGB) load to 32-bit Global Mapper with no ESRI license (only for Windows Vista and later).
Added Band Setup tab to Options dialog for multi-band PNG image layers, allowing re-ordering the bands and also disabling the alpha channel.
Updated GPX export to allow including elevations and timestamps in track log (line) exports, descriptions and symbols for export waypoint features, and to choose character encodings other than UTF-8 and ISO-8859-1.
Fixed issue rendering dashed lines in PDF layers in v16.0.0-v16.0.3.
Sped up the load of VPF format data (i.e. VMAP0, VMAP1, etc.).
Added support for loading SHP files over 4GB in size.
Improve load and display of text from XML files that is in a language (code page) other than the current system code page. For example you can now load OSM data with Cyrillic/Korean/Chinese/etc. text and display on an English language Windows machine.
Made DXF export store text justification tags so that text placement is preserved based on what was selected in Global Mapper.
Improved export of ECW and JPEG2000 files when using a projection with International Feet for the units (typically a State Plane projection). The coordinates are no longer converted to US Survey Feet but instead kept as International Feet. The State Plane projection default units for the zone or an external .prj or .aux.xml will be used on import to determine if the file coordinates should be US Survey Feet or International Feet since the ECW format doesn’t have separate unit codes internally for the different flavors of feet.
Fixed issue in DXF export with duplicate POINT and TEXT entities being exported at the same location in some situations when the point feature only has text and no symbol.
Added “Add ELEVATION Attribute” option to batch conversion to Shapefiles.
Added option to export unsigned 16-bit samples for BIL and GeoTIFF elevation exports. There is now an option next to the select for 16-bit elevation export to choose Signed or Unsigned. Previously only signed 16-bit values could be exported.
Update map catalogs to not draw map bounding boxes if zoomed in too far to draw the map when you have the display set up to a range of scales/sizes.
Sped up changes to the map list for very large map catalogs, including sorting the maps and saving modifications.
Automatically use 24-bit RGB PNG files in raster KML/KMZ export if an output file has 256 or more colors. Otherwise a palette-based PNG will be used.
Improved sorting of layers by resolution for map catalogs and when sorting from the Control Center right-click menu, especially for maps in polar regions.
Added progress reporting and option to cancel when embedding large layers in a workspace and exporting large vector layers to a Global Mapper Package (GMP) file.
Corrected progress reporting when loading a workspace file over 4GB in size.
Updated Platte River/Geographix export to use proper number of digits for township and range.
Updated DXF export to include TABLES section at the top to fix problems loading in software that requires that section.
Fixed more issues loading some XTF files with bad ping values.
Improved accuracy of OTF elevation grid.
Made KML/KMZ files that reference images load properly as a map catalog rather than loading as a non-functional map catalog layer and separate working image layers that are always displayed.
Fixed issues loading some Trimble GGF Geoid, including rotated and flipped grids.
Don’t export empty Shapefiles if no features intersect the clip area(s)/bounds. Previously if you exported to a Shapefile and some features had bounding boxes that intersected the clip area(s)/bounds, you would get a file even if none of the features actually intersected the clip area(s)/bounds.
Fixed bug with the attributes loaded from text files without a blank line between features. The first attribute from each feature could be assigned to the previous feature.
Support DGN files with 3D holes/islands in 3D area features. Previously the per-vertex elevations for the holes were not being used.
Save some settings on the Generic ASCII import dialog between runs, such as coordinate order, import type, and coordinate prefix.
When loading multiple ESRI File Geodatabase (gdb) files (or adding to a map catalog), add a ‘Use for All’ button on the table selection dialog so you can load the same set of tables from each GDB being added.
Import benchmark point features when loading Trimble Field Survey XML files.
Made generic ASCII text import with ‘Auto-Detect’ or ‘Space or Tab’ delimiter prefer tab over space so that tab-delimited files with spaces in the coordinate fields can be correctly loaded without having to select ‘Tab’ explicitly.
Fixed issue with exported CADRG/CIB files not working in some software that required a particular ordering of the components in the frame files. Now frame files should order the data internally the same way other CADRG data sets do.
Fixed issue with missing tiles when exporting from map catalogs to PNG files, including as part of a web export.
Fixed problems loading some NetCDF files with time-dependent variables.
Fixed storing of Web Mercator projections in JP2 exports.
Fixed issue in v16.0.0-v16.0.4 with some rare JP2 files being rotated and incorrectly positioned.
Fixed issue in v16.0.0-v16.0.4 with some OCAD files with spline curves failing to load.
Fixed issue with S57 file loads showing warning messages about ignored or mis-placed attributes.
Fixed issue with S63 files only loading the first 10 update files (i.e. no updates over .010).
Fixed issue with BSB charts in map catalogs not displaying.
Fixed export of text in right-to-left character sets (i.e. Hebrew and Arabic) to PDF files.
Fixed issue with font style attributes (like FONT_ANGLE) only applying to the first feature in a file for Shapefiles that only had font-related style attributes.
Fixed issue with cropped export to GMP format losing per-vertex time stamps and fly-through information for any lines that are cropped.
Fixed issue with gaps in OTF terrain layer.

Rendering/Style Changes

Improved visibility of cursor for Measure Tool so that it shows up better on dark backgrounds.
Don’t show font rotation and placement options for features that don’t support those options, like line features.
Updated dialog for naming and saving the current view to have a drop-down list of existing view names to choose from in addition to allowing typing a new name.
Fixed issue with deleted line features disappearing when you zoom in on them far enough that much of the line is offscreen and you have render deleted features enabled.
Fixed issue with small render and selection offset when zoomed in on some reprojected data sets.

Misc. Changes

Updated right-click option to export selected layers from the Control Center to support raster and terrain layers.
Updated the Control Center CALC ATTR dialog (Attribute Calculation Setup) with the ability to calculate new attribute values using spreadsheet-like formulas. The new attribute formulas allow numeric, Boolean and string operations, using standard mathematical notation and predefined functions, which include sophisticated text match, search and replace operations using regular expressions. The new formula language is used in the associated new CALC_ATTR_FORMULA script command, and also in the DEFINE_VAR script command (See Scripting Changes section).
Improved exports using image-optimized palettes for data with more than 256 colors but large areas with the same color.
Added support for embedded generated layers (such as from the Raster Calculator or a gridding operation) over 4GB in size in a workspace file.
Made 64-bit Global Mapper work on 64-bit Windows XP (broken in v16.0.0-v16.0.1).
Add group name to the name of any layers in a layer selection list, such as selecting a layer to move another layer after in the Control Center.
When re-ordering vector layers in the Control Center and your Vector Display Order During Draw setting is set to prefer type over layer order, prompt the user to change this as you typically want the change in layer order to have some visual effect.
Added support for panning the Zoom and Reference map views on the Image Rectification dialog using the Page Up/Down and Arrow keys. These keys work when the cursor is over one of the map views.
Allow use of module licenses, such as the Lidar module, from a USB dongle when the main license is not from a dongle.
Improved the automatic backup of workspaces to save backups when changes are made other than just creating new features, including editing and deleting features.
Add new Histogram tab to the Metadata dialog for elevation grids and Lidar data
Updated Attribute Calculation from Control Center right-click menu (or CALC_ATTR script command) to support numeric operations on formatted degree values or numeric values inside parentheses, braces, or brackets.
Updated Configuration dialog so that resizing it grows the feature type lists on the Area Styles, Line Styles, Point Styles, and Lidar tabs.
Improved display of speed on the Feature Vertices dialog for features with multiple vertices in a single second (i.e. tracklogs with sub-second resolution). Now the speed for the 5 seconds around a point is displayed instead of just the instantaneous speed at the point.
ADVANCED: Added support for a registry key (DWORD key at ‘HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Global Mapper\MaxThreadCount’) to specify the maximum number of background threads/cores to use for operations that support multi-threading. The default value of 0 will use all but one available system thread in most cases.
The Feature Info dialog now shows the index of the feature in the layer in the ‘Map Name’ field.
Fixed error in v16.0.0 saving a workspace with a view shed layer in it.
Fixed issue with right-click in Control Center sometimes keeping extra layers selected.
Fixed issue where the “?” wildcard character was not being recognized as such.
Fixed issue right-clicking on User Created Features layer and exporting to a file from the Overlay Control Center. This option would duplicate the layer.
Fixed crash when displaying GeoCalc dialogs.
Fixed issue with crash when searching Shapefiles with large DBF files in v16.0.0-v16.0.4.
Fixed issue loading workspaces with references to GeoCalc pass-through coordinate transforms.
Fixed issue with copy-paste with both parent areas and islands selected pasting duplicate copies of the selected islands.
Fixed issue with the elevation or color of a clipped layer being shown in the status bar even when you hover over a clipped portion of the layer.
Fixed bug in v16.0.0-v16.0.5 with layers cropped to a polygon becoming a single color when loaded from a workspace which contains the crop.

What's New in Global Mapper v16.0

Significant New Features

Dramatically sped up many operations by making use of multiple cores. The following operations are now much faster in most cases:
- Contour Generation
- View Shed Calculation
- Gridding of 3D vector features
- Search by Attributes/Name
- Creation of area features from equal colors/elevation/slopes
- [LIDAR MODULE ONLY] Automatic classification of Lidar ground points (20X as fast or more)
- [LIDAR MODULE ONLY] Initial display of height-above-ground color for Lidar point clouds
Added option to automatically classify building and high vegetation (i.e. tree) points from a raw Lidar point cloud. This is a very powerful option on the Lidar toolbar (and via the LIDAR_CLASSIFY script command) that, combined with the existing (and much-improved) option to automatically classify Lidar ground points, allows automated classification of over 90% of ground, building, and high vegetation points from a raw Lidar point cloud.
Added option to automatically extract building outlines from classified Lidar point clouds. This is a very useful option on the Lidar toolbar that, combined with the automatic classification and manual cleanup tools, can allow very efficient extraction of 3D building outlines from Lidar point clouds.
Added option to automatically extract tree points/areas from classified Lidar point clouds. This is a very useful option on the Lidar toolbar that, combined with the automatic classification and manual cleanup tools, can allow very efficient extraction of tree points (with crown height and width attributes) as well as approximate tree coverage areas from Lidar point clouds.
Added options to filter Lidar points by class/elevation/color/scan-angle/source-ID/etc. when exporting, gridding, and selecting from point clouds.
Added option to plan and record a 3D fly-through as a video file. New toolbar buttons on the 3D dialog allow setting up and recording a high-definition 3D fly-through.
Support rendering textures on 3D polygons in the 3D view. This allows for the creation of photo-realistic 3D model views when loading 3D data that has texture images included. There is a drop-down on the 3D toolbar to select the Skybox background for the 3D display.
Added a Graph and Chart Manager under the Analysis menu to allow creating graphs and charts from loaded data. The following type of operations are supported:
- Bar graph, histogram, line chart, or bar chart from any attribute field in loaded vector layers.
- Histograms for gridded terrain layers (i.e. DEMs)
- You can save the graph to a BMP file and place it on the map as a fixed screen position layer.
- Graph definitions are saved in the workspace file for easy saving and sharing.
Added option to export selected layers with new right-click option in Control Center. This finally lets you easily export just one or more layers without having to disable the others, export, and then re-enable them.
Added built-in streaming online ASTER GDEM v2 worldwide terrain data set at higher resolution (just over 30 meters) and from a much faster/more reliable server than the previous streaming ASTER GDEM v1 data set.
Removed GEM module. All functionality that was present with the GEM add-on module is now part of the base package.
Added new GeoCalc toolbar to access Blue Marble’s Geographic Calculator coordinate transformation library if you have that installed. The new toolbar has buttons to enable/disable GeoCalc projections and settings and also a dedicated button to launch the Geographic Calculator.
Fixed security issue with MAPI.DLL. Secunia Advisory SA 51510/CVE-2013-0727.

New Supported Formats

Support Numerous New 3D Model Formats:
- Collada: *.dae
- PLY (Stanford Polygon Library) : *.ply
- Blender : *.blend
- OBJ (Wavefront): *.obj
- 3DS (3DS Max): *.3ds
- STL (StereoLithography) : *.stl
Added support for MrSID MG4 format image and Lidar files.
Added support for loading RDTED (terrain data in CADRG/RPF format) files.
Added support for exporting Vertical Mapper Classified (clutter) Grid GRC Files.
Added support for loading LCV Land Cover Files.
Added support for ZMap+ Fault Polygon Files.

LiDAR Module Only Highlights

Added option to automatically classify building and high vegetation (i.e. tree) points from a raw Lidar point cloud. This is a very powerful option on the Lidar toolbar (and via the LIDAR_CLASSIFY script command) that, combined with the existing (and much-improved) option to automatically classify Lidar ground points, allows automated classification of over 90% of ground, building, and high vegetation points from a raw Lidar point cloud.
Added option to automatically extract building outlines from classified Lidar point clouds. This is a very useful option on the Lidar toolbar that, combined with the automatic classification and manual cleanup tools, can allow very efficient extraction of 3D building outlines from Lidar point clouds. This option is available on the Lidar toolbar and in a script via the LIDAR_EXTRACT command.
Added option to automatically extract tree points/areas from classified Lidar point clouds. This is a very useful option on the Lidar toolbar that, combined with the automatic classification and manual cleanup tools, can allow very efficient extraction of tree points (with crown height and width attributes) as well as approximate tree coverage areas from Lidar point clouds. This option is available on the Lidar toolbar and in a script via the LIDAR_EXTRACT command.
Dramatically improved automatic classification of ground points. The following improvements have been made:
- Improved classification to filter out likely buildings and trees before finding nearly certain ground points. This fixes the common issue of the top of flat buildings being classified as ground points. There are parameters controlling this on the ground classify dialog.
- Tremendously sped up automatic classification of ground points. The operation can be 20 times faster or even more on machines with a large number of cores.
- Added option to ground classify dialog to filter the Lidar points that are considered as possible ground. You can manually filter the points by elevation, color, scan angle, etc.
- Allow performing a ground-point automatic classification just on selected Lidar points.
Added option to Lidar LAS/LAZ export to filter the export so that only points that are within a given elevation range, near any one of a list of colors, within a list of allowed classes, within a scan angle range, and/or within a list of point source IDs are exported.
Added option when gridding Lidar point clouds to filter what points are considered in the grid. You can use that to grid only points that are within a given elevation range, near any one of a list of colors, within a list of allowed classes, within a scan angle range, and/or within a list of point source IDs are exported. For example you might use this to quickly create a ground grid from a Lidar point cloud.
Added option to grid Lidar intensity values rather than elevations when doing a bin-based grid of Lidar point clouds. The intensity grid will default to a grayscale rendering, like an aerial image, but can be customized to use any shader. The option is a new Grid Type selection on the grid options dialog. You can also do this from a script by adding GRID_TYPE=INTENSITY to the GENERATE_ELEV_GRID command.
Added option to grid Lidar height above ground values rather than elevations when doing a bin-based grid of Lidar point clouds. The option is a new Grid Type selection on the grid options dialog. You can also do this from a script by adding GRID_TYPE=HEIGHT_ABOVE_GROUND to the GENERATE_ELEV_GRID command.
Enhanced option to filter the selected Lidar points in the Digitizer Tool to also allow filtering the selection by classification, point source ID, and scan angle range.
Greatly improved filling of gaps when doing binned gridding of Lidar point clouds. The filled gaps should now be much smoother and also calculate more quickly.
Sped up display of height-above-ground color for Lidar point clouds on multi-core machines.
Added support for coloring Lidar point clouds by the difference in height between the first and last return of a multiple return pulse. This is useful for visualizing things like potential tree heights or non-penetrable objects like buildings.
Made path profiles through Lidar points in a map catalog show those Lidar points
Made Feature Info dialog and status bar display modifications to elevations from Alter Elevation Values tab of Options dialog for point cloud layer.
Made the elevation legend display with height colors for a ‘height above ground’ rendering of a point cloud.
Fixed coloring of Lidar path profile as height-above-ground if the main map view is not also using the same draw mode.
Fixed coloring of Lidar path profile as height-above-ground if the main map view is not also using the same draw mode.
Added right-click option on main map when the Path Profile Tool is active but nothing is drawn to set the corridor width for a Lidar path profile .
Support automatically classifying building and high vegetation (tree) points using the LIDAR_CLASSIFY script command.
Support automatically extracting building outlines and tree points/outlines from classified Lidar point clouds using the LIDAR_EXTRACT script command.
Support filtering exports to Lidar LAS/LAZ files by point attributes like elevation, scan angle, classification, color, etc. with the EXPORT_VECTOR and GENERATE_ELEV_GRID commands using new parameters LIDAR_FILTER, LIDAR_COLOR_FILTER, LIDAR_COLOR_DIST, LIDAR_SCAN_ANGLE_RANGE, LIDAR_ELEV_RANGE, and LIDAR_SOURCE_ID_LIST.

LiDAR Changes

[LIDAR MODULE ONLY] Added option to automatically classify building and high vegetation (i.e. tree) points from a raw Lidar point cloud. This is a very powerful option on the Lidar toolbar (and via the LIDAR_CLASSIFY script command) that, combined with the existing (and much-improved) option to automatically classify Lidar ground points, allows automated classification of over 90% of ground, building, and high vegetation points from a raw Lidar point cloud.
[LIDAR MODULE ONLY] Added option to automatically extract building outlines from classified Lidar point clouds. This is a very useful option on the Lidar toolbar that, combined with the automatic classification and manual cleanup tools, can allow very efficient extraction of 3D building outlines from Lidar point clouds. This option is available on the Lidar toolbar and in a script via the LIDAR_EXTRACT command.
[LIDAR MODULE ONLY] Added option to automatically extract tree points/areas from classified Lidar point clouds. This is a very useful option on the Lidar toolbar that, combined with the automatic classification and manual cleanup tools, can allow very efficient extraction of tree points (with crown height and width attributes) as well as approximate tree coverage areas from Lidar point clouds. This option is available on the Lidar toolbar and in a script via the LIDAR_EXTRACT command.
[LIDAR MODULE ONLY] Dramatically improved automatic classification of ground points. The following improvements have been made:
- Improved classification to filter out likely buildings and trees before finding nearly certain ground points. This fixes the common issue of the top of flat buildings being classified as ground points. There are parameters controlling this on the ground classify dialog.
- Tremendously sped up automatic classification of ground points. The operation can be 20 times faster or even more on machines with a large number of cores.
- Added option to ground classify dialog to filter the Lidar points that are considered as possible ground. You can manually filter the points by elevation, color, scan angle, etc.
- Allow performing a ground-point automatic classification just on selected Lidar points.
[LIDAR MODULE ONLY] Added option to Lidar LAS/LAZ export to filter the export so that only points that are within a given elevation range, near any one of a list of colors, within a list of allowed classes, within a scan angle range, and/or within a list of point source IDs are exported.
[LIDAR MODULE ONLY] Added option when gridding Lidar point clouds to filter what points are considered in the grid. You can use that to grid only points that are within a given elevation range, near any one of a list of colors, within a list of allowed classes, within a scan angle range, and/or within a list of point source IDs are exported. For example you might use this to quickly create a ground grid from a Lidar point cloud.
[LIDAR MODULE ONLY] Added option to grid Lidar intensity values rather than elevations when doing a bin-based grid of Lidar point clouds. The intensity grid will default to a grayscale rendering, like an aerial image, but can be customized to use any shader. The option is a new Grid Type selection on the grid options dialog. You can also do this from a script by adding GRID_TYPE=INTENSITY to the GENERATE_ELEV_GRID command.
[LIDAR MODULE ONLY] Added option to grid Lidar height above ground values rather than elevations when doing a bin-based grid of Lidar point clouds. The option is a new Grid Type selection on the grid options dialog. You can also do this from a script by adding GRID_TYPE=HEIGHT_ABOVE_GROUND to the GENERATE_ELEV_GRID command.
[LIDAR MODULE ONLY] Enhanced option to filter the selected Lidar points in the Digitizer Tool to also allow filtering the selection by classification, point source ID, and scan angle range.
[LIDAR MODULE ONLY] Greatly improved filling of gaps when doing binned gridding of Lidar point clouds. The filled gaps should now be much smoother and also calculate more quickly.
[LIDAR MODULE ONLY] Sped up display of height-above-ground color for Lidar point clouds on multi-core machines.
Dramatically sped up searches on point clouds.
[LIDAR MODULE ONLY] Added support for coloring Lidar point clouds by the difference in height between the first and last return of a multiple return pulse. This is useful for visualizing things like potential tree heights or non-penetrable objects like buildings.
Sped up the display of point clouds with a very large number of points (i.e. 10’s of millions) of points, particularly when zoomed in on a small section of the point cloud.
[LIDAR MODULE ONLY] Made path profiles through Lidar points in a map catalog show those Lidar points
Added new built-in point type for Railroad ASPRS class 10 (Lidar, Railroad).
Added support for coloring points by the point index in the point cloud. This allows visualizing the spatial arrangement of the points in the source file.
Updated display of min/max Scan Angle on the Statistics dialog for Lidar point clouds to show the min/max values in degrees rather than the raw scaled values.
[LIDAR MODULE ONLY] Made Feature Info dialog and status bar display modifications to elevations from Alter Elevation Values tab of Options dialog for point cloud layer.
[LIDAR MODULE ONLY] Made the elevation legend display with height colors for a ‘height above ground’ rendering of a point cloud.
Updated creation of point clouds from elevation grid cell centers to create the points in the full native units of the layer and not a more precise unit like centimeters.
[LIDAR MODULE ONLY] Fixed coloring of Lidar path profile as height-above-ground if the main map view is not also using the same draw mode.
Fixed bug in v15.1.6-15.2.1 with Lidar classification filter on the Lidar load dialog not being remembered.
Fixed bug in v15.2.0-v15.2.1 with binned gridding of Lidar data sometimes not creating a layer.

3D Viewer Changes

Added option to plan and record a 3D fly-through as a video file. New toolbar buttons on the 3D dialog allow setting up and recording a high-definition 3D fly-through. To create a 3D fly-through, you first define a fly-through path from a line feature. You can define the camera location and direction for every point along the path, preview the fly-through frame-by-frame or as a single stream, and save the results to an AVI video file with different resolution and frame rates.
[LIDAR MODULE ONLY] Fixed coloring of Lidar path profile as height-above-ground if the main map view is not also using the same draw mode.
Fixed bug in v15.1.6-15.2.1 with Lidar classification filter on the Lidar load dialog not being remembered.
Fixed bug in v15.2.0-v15.2.1 with binned gridding of Lidar data sometimes not creating a layer.
Support rendering textures on 3D polygons in the 3D view. This allows for the creation of photo-realistic 3D model views when loading 3D data that has texture images included. There is a drop-down on the 3D toolbar to select the Skybox background for the 3D display.
Added real-time display of main map display cursor location in the 3D view. You can enable display of a vertical line in the 3D view that shows where your cursor is positioned in the main map view as you move it around.
Added support for drawing the current GPS location and recorded track in the 3D viewer. There on options on the 3D View Options dialog to control the display of the GPS icon.
Made 3D points with rotated symbols draw at the appropriate location in space and with the specified rotation relative to the plane of the surface. This allows for things like floating arrows pointing in different directions.
Added option on toolbar to control whether or not the 2D and 3D map views are linked. By default they are linked so updated in either one also updates the other. If you disable the linking then you can separately pan and zoom the 2D and 3D view windows.
Added option to display skybox. Add a realistic background to your 3D views.
Added display of onscreen notifications as 3D viewer settings change. This will show text about changes to the water height, walk mode height, vertical exaggeration, etc. as text in a corner of the 3D window for some period of time (default is 10 seconds). You can configure the display of these notifications on the 3D view options dialog.
Added support for specifying an Altitude mode of Depth Below Sea Level for vector features (either for an entire layer or for individual features). If this is set the elevation for the feature will be treated as a negative value for display in the 3D view.
Fixed 3D zoom with mouse option which was broken in v15.2.0-v15.2.1.

Path Profile/Line of Sight Function Changes

Made crossing 3D lines shown in the path profile view display at the interpolated elevation at the cross point and not the elevation at the start of the intersecting line segment.
[LIDAR MODULE ONLY] Added right-click option on main map when the Path Profile Tool is active but nothing is drawn to set the corridor width for a Lidar path profile .
Fixed bug in v15.2.0 with path profile dynamically drawn line not being correct for long lines.
Fixed problem with areas that the path profile crosses not being displayed if there are no line features loaded.

Analysis Function Changes

Added support for conditional expressions in the Raster Calculator. This allows things like performing different operations on band/elevation values depending on how they relate to other values. For example, you could have a formula like ‘IF ( B1 > B2, B1 - B2, 0 )’. This would cause the resulting value to be B1 - B2 if B1 > B2, and 0 otherwise.
Improved creation of watershed, water rise, and view shed coverage areas to more rarely create self-intersecting (invalid) areas.
Updated creation of view shed coverage areas with a transmission angle to create a 3D area with the height of each vertex being the height of the transmission at the vertex distance. This allows for a nice 3D display of the transmission beam.
Made volume calculations accurate regardless of what projection you are currently using for display. Previously the volume could be inaccurate if using a distorted projection for the location, like Geographic far from the equator.
Improved pile volume calculation by sampling the terrain at more locations around the pile area boundary to form the “base” surface rather than only sampling at the vertex locations. This helps a lot for pile boundaries with only a few vertices and also lowers the effect a single poorly-placed vertex can have.
Improved pile volume calculation when the pile boundary has some vertices outside of the terrain surface. Before that could cause large spikes in volume as those vertices were treated as 0. Now they are just ignored. It is still best to have all vertices on the terrain surface though.
Updated contour generation to create lines mark as absolute height and contour areas with extrusion disabled to improve the default 3D view.
Added better progress reporting to watershed operation and allow cancel when finding flow to/from points, lines, and areas.
When creating Voronoi diagram, extend lines to clip boundary.
Fixed long-standing error gridding 3D vector layers with lines used as constraints for some data sets.
Fixed problem with points with elevations of -9999 or below not gridding.
Fixed error about not enough 3D points being available to grid when trying to grid 1 or 2 3D triangle (TIN) features.
Fixed problem with styling for drainage areas created from watershed calculation. They were displaying with a single color rather than random colors in v15.2.

Digitizer Tool Changes

Added option to range ring creation to create radial areas (as opposed to radial lines) so that you can easily create pie wedges at a fixed radius.
Added an option to create a point feature at the centroid/average of a group of selected point features. This is under the Advanced Feature Creation right-click menu when you have more than one point feature selected.
Updated option to count features in selected area to be able to count lines that are partially inside the area rather than just those that are completely inside the area.
Updated add of coordinate attributes for line and area features to add a BOUNDS attribute with the bounding box.
Updated creation of line features from selected islands/holes in areas to assign the parent area attributes to the new lines and also add an ISLAND=Y attribute.
Updated creation of regular grid of features to all creating point features at the grid cell centers.
Added support for resampling selected line features at a fixed percentage of the length rather than a fixed distance along the line.
When create points from the vertices of selected features, add the feature name as an AREA_NAME or LINE_NAME attribute to the created points.
Added right-click menu for layer selection box on feature edit dialog to allow controlling whether the group name for a layer is pre-pended or appended to the layer name.
Made enclosed area and length/perimeter for rectangular or circular areas and lines be displayed in the status bar as the features are drawn with the Digitizer Tool.
Added Insert Vertex option to top-level right-click menu of Digitizer Tool when vertex display is enabled.
Fixed issue in v15.2.0-v15.2.6 with new area features added to a layer loaded from a file being lost if you save to a workspace and then load that workspace back in.
Fixed error in v15.2.0-v15.2.5 creating buffers on one side of the boundary of a closed line feature.
Fixed bug in v15.2.0 with rectangular buffers/range rings around point features being huge.
Fixed bug in v15.2.0-v15.2.1 with multiple combined range rings not drawing properly.
Fixed bug where the elevation values will change units when combining 3D lines.
Fixed crash in v15.2.0-v15.2.8 when doing many Digitizer Tool operation (like creating a line) when grid lines are displayed.

Scripting Changes

Added ability to calculate pile volumes using the new CALC_VOLUMES command.
Added support for setting the area, line, and point display for a layer from a .gm_layer_style file with the AREA_STYLE_NAME, LINE_STYLE_NAME, and POINT_STYLE_NAME parameters for the IMPORT/SET_LAYER_OPTIONS command.
Added support for providing a MAP_ORDER of MOVE_FRONT, MOVE_FRONT_GROUP, MOVE_END, or MOVE_END_GROUP to the SORT_LAYERS script command. You can also filter what layer group to sort by adding a LAYER_GROUP parameter. This allows re-ordering individual layers however you need.
[LIDAR MODULE ONLY] Support automatically classifying building and high vegetation (tree) points using the LIDAR_CLASSIFY script command.
[LIDAR MODULE ONLY] Support automatically extracting building outlines and tree points/outlines from classified Lidar point clouds using the LIDAR_EXTRACT script command.
[LIDAR MODULE ONLY] Support filtering exports to Lidar LAS/LAZ files by point attributes like elevation, scan angle, classification, color, etc. with the EXPORT_VECTOR and GENERATE_ELEV_GRID commands using new parameters LIDAR_FILTER, LIDAR_COLOR_FILTER, LIDAR_COLOR_DIST, LIDAR_SCAN_ANGLE_RANGE, LIDAR_ELEV_RANGE, and LIDAR_SOURCE_ID_LIST.
Updated the COMPARE_STR parameter for the EDIT_VECTOR command to support more comparison operators than = and !=, including <, <=, >, and >=.
Support including the group name in the FILENAME parameter for commands like SET_LAYER_OPTIONS. You can add <sub> in the filename filter to specify a group separator.
Added support for finding and fixing invalid polygons/area geometries by adding FIX_INVALID=YES to the EDIT_VECTOR command.
Added support for creating point features spaced along line/area features using the EDIT_VECTOR script command. The CREATE_POINTS_ALONG_FEATURES attributes allows you to specify the spacing of the points in meters.
Added built-in %TIMESTAMP%, %DATE%, and %TIME% variables so you can easily add the current date and time to things like log messages with the LOG_MESSAGE command.
Added option to specify what elevation value is the no-data (void) elevation by adding VOID_ELEV to the IMPORT_ASCII script command.
Made GEN_PRJ_FILE and GEN_AUX_XML_FILE parameter work for EXPORT_ELEVATION script command.
Display filename being imported or exported in progress for script/workspace.
Show progress for IMPORT_DIR_TREE command and allow cancel of process.
Added support for defining a map layout from a .gm_layout file with the MAP_LAYOUT command.
Added support for defining a layer style from a .gm_layer_style file with the DEFINE_LAYER_STYLE command.
Added option to require one or more attributes to have equal values when copying attributes between features with the COPY_ATTRS command. Add EQUAL_ATTR parameters for each attribute that must be equal.
Support disabling showing warnings when no layers are unloaded with the UNLOAD_LAYER script command by adding SHOW_WARNINGS=NO to the command.
Fixed bug with failure to write workspace when calling SAVE_WORKSPACE to the same .gmw file multiple times within a script.
Made UNLOAD_LAYER work with hidden layers. Broken since v15.2.0.
Allow providing a default value for DEFINE_VAR when getting the variable value from a feature attribute.

Online Source Changes

Added built-in streaming online ASTER GDEM v2 worldwide terrain data set at higher resolution (just over 30 meters) and from a much faster/more reliable server than the previous streaming ASTER GDEM v1 data set.
Added built-in link for NSF OpenTopography online source which catalogs freely available Lidar data worldwide.
Updated NAIP source to new server URL and made workspaces that reference the old NAIP URL automatically update to point to the new server.
Fixed crash in v15.2.0-v15.2.2 when trying to remove a user WMS source.

Projection/Datum Changes

Added support for providing a default projection to use when starting the application or unloading everything. If you define a projection in a startup.prj file in either the install folder or the User Settings file list on Help->About, that projection will be automatically selected at application start or when you unload everything.
Sped up change of projection for layers covering a large part of the earth on multi-core systems.
Added built-in AMG (Australian Map Grid) projection so the correct projection name could be used for AGD66/AGD84-based projections (rather than MGA).
Improved display of Transverse Mercator-based projections far from the central meridian.
Added built-in Mars MOLA Sphere datum so that newer Mars data can automatically load with the correct ellipsoid model.
Added built-in Batavia (Indonesia) and NAD83 (NSRS2007), NAD83 (NSRS2011), NAD83 (PA11), and NAD83 (MA11) datums and EPSG codes. Note the special NAD83 datums are currently treated as coincident with base NAD83. The new codes are to allow maintaining the correct metadata.
Added built-in Clarke 1866 Ellipsoid and Clarke 1880 Ellipsoid datums to make it easier to position older small scale maps that only specify an ellipsoid but no datum.
When using GeoCalc integration mode, added button to the Projection tab of the Configuration dialog to allow reloading the GeoCalc XML DataSource without needing to restart.
Fixed fetch of projection information from ESRI .aux.xml files in some cases.
Improved storage and retrieval of Minnesota County Datum projections with custom county datums from GeoTIFF headers.
Made State Plane projections with NAD83 HARN datums store the EPSG code correctly to GeoTIFF and Lidar LAS/LAZ files.
Improved compatibility of GeoTIFF files using the Web Mercator projection in Esri products.
Fixed shift in RSO Malaysia projections in v15.2.1-v15.2.5.

Format Specific Changes

Made layer selection for PDF import be a tree control to match how Acrobat displays the layers and make it easier to enable/disable entire groups of layers.
Added option to Shapefile export to include the sides and bottom of extruded 3D areas as additional 3D area features in the export.
Improved loading of multi-part 3D areas with Z values. There were problems with things like the sides of buildings being treated as islands/holes in the top.
Added recognition of additional types from OSM XML files as the proper Global Mapper type.
Improved import of building areas from OSM XML files. They should all come in as areas now and also will be marked to extrude and treat heights as relative to ground.
Additional improvements to Wasp .map export to prevent cross-point errors in Wasp.
Added support for specifying what Z value is treated as the no-data (void) value when loading ASCII files with the 3rd coordinate value treated as the Z (elevation) value. This allows no-data values other than the default of -999999.0.
Added option to control whether -useserver or -netecm is used in the command line when exporting MrSID files and using a cartridge license server on the network.
Update MrSID exports to embed the WKT projection string in the SID file header if the projection/datum could not be fully stored in the GeoTIFF tags in the header. This allows for projections to be stored that aren’t fully describable in GeoTIFF tags.
Updated GML import to remove the prefixes from attribute names, like ‘slip:’. All prefixes are removed except for osgb: and gml: if they won’t result in duplicate attribute names.
Fixed problem with toc.xml files for ECRG format files being overwritten by a Global Mapper map catalog when closing the layer.
Added option in Advanced section of General tab of Configuration dialog to control whether or not to use geometry columns when importing from MS SQL Server databases.
Made date fields in DBF/Shapefiles be formatted using the current system local date settings rather than always MM/DD/YYYY.
Added support for using PRJ files for DWGs.
Improved export of imagery from a map catalog (GMC) draped on top of terrain for 3D PDF export. It will now maintain the full resolution of the data in the map catalog.
Made 3D PDFs export XY units as meters to match the vertical units so the elevations aren’t exaggerated due to unit inconsistencies.
Updated KML/KMZ export so that if a KML folder attribute (default of KML_FOLDER) exists but is empty, the feature will be exported at the top level rather than inside a default folder.
Sped up load of large GeoTIFF DEM files that have an .aux.xml file with the valid min/max elevation range.
Fixed handling of attributes for generic ASCII text files when breaking new features on the change in the value in a particular column. Before the first line of attributes from the next feature could be added to a feature. In addition attributes with different values were added as separate attributes rather than combined in one.
Support file versions up to 1155 for CADRG exports when exporting through the user interface. Previously anything over 33 was not allowed.
Loading a workspace with data loaded from a spatial database now automatically selects the database table rather than prompting user.
Automatically decode Equirectangular projections and more Mars datums from PDS format files.
Fixed bug in v15.2.0-v15.2.3 with manual rectification of TIFF files with the File->Rectify Imagery menu command not doing anything.
Fixed problems in BSB export with position fields in v15.2.0-v15.2.2.
Fixed problems loading some BAG files, such as those from the Canadian Hydrographic Service.
Fixed grayscale BMP export to create an 8-bit BMP file rather than 24-bit with gray colors.
Fixed issue with images from ECRG files loaded from a .zip file not displaying.
Fixed crash in RasterOverlay.cpp when enabling contrast adjustment for ECRG files.
Fixed bug in v15.2.0-v15.2.1 with layer attribute not saving to MapInfo and Shapefile exports when the option is selected.
Fixed bug in v15.2.0-v15.2.1 with invalid symbol/icon size error with some KML/KMZ files.
Fixed bug in v15.2.0-v15.2.2 with incorrect rotation of point symbols from KML/KMZ files.
Fixed placement of line feature labels when exporting to KML/KMZ and the current projection is not already Geographic/WGS84.
Fixed bug in v15.2.0-v15.2.1 with alignment of multi-line text labels in PDF export.
Fixed problem with toc.xml files for ECRG format files being overwritten by a Global Mapper map catalog when closing the layer. This was supposed to be fixed in v15.2.0 but wasn’t really fixed until v15.2.4.
Fixed text size issue with opaque backgrounds for PDF export.
Fixed rendering issues with some PDF files, particular that use transparency.
Fixed issue with some layers not being listed for PDF import so you couldn’t turn them off.
Fixed export of vector layers set to use the UTF-8 text encoding to PDF.
Only show a single error message for all invalid areas encountered during 3D PDF export rather than an error message for each invalid area.
Fixed issues loading some XTF files with bad pings.
Make TIFF orientation other than top-left work for elevation GeoTIFF files.
Fixed crash with some high bit-depth Erdas Imagine files with void values.
Fixed issue with the units coming in as US Feet rather than International Feet for ECW files that use a .aux.xml file for specifying the projection when that .aux.xml specifies international feet.
Support automatic decoding of RGF93 datum from ECW files.
Fixed problem with LDEM (Lunar DEM) PDS files coming in as Sinusoidal projection instead of Equirectangular.

Rendering/Style Changes

Sped up the display of data layers with a very large number of features, particularly when zoomed in on the data.
Added option to draw labels with an opaque (filled) background of a custom color rather than always using the current view background color. The new option is on the font selection dialog.
Added option to add just minimum, maximum, and average attributes when using the ‘Init from Values’ button for attribute-based styling for a layer. This allows easily setting up a color range without initializing to all values for a range of numerical attributes.
Further speed-up when rendering raster layers cropped to polygons, particular when cropped to polygons with large numbers of vertices.
Added loaded view shed layers to the map legend when displayed with the color for each listed along with the view shed layer name.
Fixed crash zooming to view in Google Earth in v15.2.0-v15.2.1.
Fixed problem with dialogs not remembering what they were resized to in v15.2.0-v15.2.2.
Fixed problem with option to hide area labels that are not completely contained within the areas in v15.2.4.
Fixed bug with attributes not showing in Quiver Plot dialog opened from Point Styles tab of Options dialog for layer in v15.2.0-v15.2.4.
Fixed issue with elevation legend showing coloring for wrong range when the topmost layer uses a custom layer shader that is also the same as the shared shader.
Fixed issue with custom vector symbols scaled to a fixed height in meters not always drawing.

Misc. Changes

Made the Configuration, Options, and Metadata dialogs be resizable.
Allow canceling a long search on the search dialog.
Support saving a workspace when no data is loaded, allowing the save of just the projection and map layout settings in a workspace.
Added support for forcing a filename passed on the command line (including .gmw) to be run in an existing instance of GM if possible rather than starting a new instance. Just add -existing to the command line. If you load a workspace in an existing instance, you can also add -no_prompt to the command line to indicate that the “unload all” prompt at the beginning is skipped and the workspace should just be loaded on top of the already loaded data.
When calculating attributes using a numeric operation, like addition, subtraction, or division, treat monetary values with a $ at the front of the attribute as numbers.
Added new Tree point type.
Support using a feature display label or layer name for an elevation attribute.
When splitting a layer by attributes and the description of the layer has been customized, make the new layer names use the customized layer name and not the original one.
Fixed modification of elevation units on vector options dialog. This was broken in v15.2.0-v15.2.1.
Fixed odd selection behavior in the Control Center when clicking on the + or - next to a group of layers. Previously any existing selection would be maintained and the new group also selected, rather than the previous selection being reset.
Fixed installation problems on XP 64-bit in v15.2.0-v15.2.1.
Fixed crash stopping GPS tracking when playing back a NMEA log file in real time.
Fixed rare issue with custom settings, like custom shaders or datums, not reading on application start if you start multiple instances at nearly the same time.
Fix error about parsing GMSettings.xml on systems with no internet connection.
Fixed placement of main Global Mapper window when the placement of multiple monitors is changed. In some cases before it could start up off screen.
Fixed issue with right-click option to move selected layers after another layer in the Control Center not working if the layer to move after was before the layer to move in the list.
Fixed issue with *.TMP files sticking around in temp folder after crashes.
Fixed issue with lockup closing all layers with a grid layer displayed.