NIMAMUSE 2.1 Documentation
Introduction
Welcome to the National Imagery and Mapping Agency's NIMAMUSE: NIMA
MC&G Utility Software Environment, Version
2.1. NIMAMUSE is a self-contained set of computer programs and computer
utilities designed to work with NIMA MC&G data and information. NIMAMUSE
is designed to be loaded on to and run from several popular computers:
IBM PCs running Windows, Sun, Hewlett-Packard and Silicon Graphics.
NIMAMUSE installed on your computer and NIMA Digital Products is all you
need to do digital cartography.
The documentation for NIMAMUSE is organized in three different levels:
The top level, 3 Cartographic Activities, is for new and experienced
users of NIMAMUSE and NIMA digital data. The documents at this level present
a high level look at how all of the NIMAMUSE Applications work together.
The next level, Introduction to NIMAMUSE Applications, is also for new
and experienced users of NIMAMUSE, and contains individual presentations
for each of the major NIMAMUSE Applications.
The documents in the Applications Users Guides level contain both detailed
references for experienced users of NIMAMUSE and detailed hands-on tutorials
for new users.
3 Cartographic Activities
NIMAMUSE provides new and experienced users with three distinct activities
that can be performed with NIMA data. These 3 Cartographic Activities of
NIMAMUSE are:
This NIMAMUSE documentation has full presentations for each of these
3 Cartographic Activities. Refer to any one of the corresponding documents
listed above and you will be presented with the what, why and how of each
activity.
Introduction to NIMAMUSE Applications
The above Cartographic Activities are supported by nine major application
programs, listed here with their corresponding introductory documents:
The NIMAMUSE documentation has full presentations for each of these
9 major applications. Refer to any one of the corresponding documents listed
above and you will be presented with the what, why and how of each application.
Applications Users Guides
In addition to the documents listed above, each NIMAMUSE application
has its own Application Users Guide. These Users Guides are generally very
detailed. Listed below are the corresponding users guide documents:
In most of the ten documents listed above, there are step-by-step tutorials
included. You can refer to these tutorials on-line or print them out.
There is a group of other stand-alone applications included on the NIMAMUSE
distribution that are considered to be "miscellaneous". You won't
find them included in the many NIMAMUSE "data flow" diagrams,
but they can perform a valuable support function to the major NIMAMUSE
Cartographic Activities. Refer to Miscellaneous
NIMAMUSE Applications, MNA.DOC, for descriptions and documentation
of these programs.
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NIMA Digital Data
The National Imagery and Mapping Agency produces and distributes Mapping, Charting
and Geodesy (MC&G) products to the Armed Forces, and to all other national
security operations. Among these products are paper maps and charts of
many scales, printed aeronautical and nautical information, and geodetic
and gravity data. Also included in the list of NIMA products are "digital
data", which is MC&G information that is able to be read into
and displayed on a computer. This digital data is information that has
been previously portrayed on paper maps and printed lists , and that is
now stored on computer readable media such as magnetic tape and CD-ROM.
Two of the most common types of digital MC&G data are raster
and vector. These two types are methods of representation, just
like colored-ink-on-paper and printed-words-and-numbers-on-a-page are methods
of representation.
Raster digital data is a rectangular picture of something made
up of many tiny colored dots which, when viewed together, looks like a
smooth, cohesive picture to the human eye. A television screen and a computer
screen are good examples of a raster of colored dots which define a picture
for the human eye. NIMA has converted many of its paper maps and charts
into raster data so that they can be viewed on a computer screen. Also
considered to be raster data is a regular, rectangular array of elevation
data. Although individual elements of elevation data are not considered
to be dots in a visual picture, this kind of data can be visualized in
various ways so as to depict surfaces on the earth such as terrain and
the ocean floor.
Vector digital data is a positional list of all of the cultural
and physical features and objects of interest in a given area. When portrayed
on a computer screen, all of the features and objects appear in the proper
physical relationship to each other, but the actual appearance scheme --
color, shading, line weight, etc. -- can be altered and changed at any
time. (For example, a road going through a particular area is represented
by a series of coordinate points. To display it, your computer can visually
connect the points with a solid black line. The next day, your computer
could connect the points with an orange dotted line, or whatever display
scheme you choose.) Vector data can also be organized to attach descriptive
data to the coordinates (like road width and surface material).
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You encouraged to explore the entire contents of the NIMAMUSE CD-ROM.
In addition to the documents listed above, there is sample data, source
code, and other miscellaneous information that may help you better understand
and use NIMA digital data.
NIMAMUSE can be downloaded via Website "www.nima.mil/geospatial/SW_TOOLS/NIMAMUSE"
. Send email to muse@nima.mil for login and password to the Website.