GE1LC7 - Getting to Know Bentley Descartes for Advanced Image Viewing, Editing and Processing Inga Morozoff
Introduction: Raster data is everywhere - whether you do CAD design, mapping or GIS analysis, adding raster data to your projects is fast, inexpensive and easy. In fact, it s never been easier to obtain accurate imagery for your projects. Dealing with extremely large images and image catalogs is becoming accessible to any organization. With advances in today s hardware and raster software, even moderate machines can access and display large images painlessly. Why use Descartes? Well, if your work requires you to do any of the following tasks, then Bentley Descartes is your professional image editing and processing solution: Edit your full colour raster base maps or scanned binary plans. View Oracle Spatial GeoRasters. View Raster DEM and creating a thematic map using this data. Remove imperfections or update aerial imagery without having to buy a new set of images. Geo-reference scanned plans or your older maps. Convert raster into vector or, alternately, to convert vector into raster. Edit 3D oriented images such as building textures. Create raster scenes using any data including vector and raster. Create seamless images mosaics. Manage large raster datasets with Bentley Geospatial Server. Create images larger than 4 GB in size. 2
With Bentley Descartes, you can view, edit, process, transform and geo-reference all of your raster data in a single robust product. Whether your need is high quality cartography, production mapping, image maps, or vivid 3D visualization, Bentley Descartes provides the answer. Bentley Descartes V8i can be installed on MicroStation, Bentley PowerMap, Bentley PowerCivil, and Bentley PowerDraft and is a fantastic compliment to Bentley Map users. When it s installed on PowerDraft, it s the exact same version that s installed for MicroStation users. In other words, no features have been removed...it s not a light version. And, since Descartes is seamlessly integrated with MicroStation, it can open, read, edit and save image files to and from ProjectWise folders. Bentley Descartes has been designed to seamlessly integrate into the Raster Manager and all tool boxes, menus, dialog boxes, and other interface operations are consistent with MicroStation conventions. 3
For this reason, Descartes can be described as an editing extension to the Raster Manager. This graphic shows the available menus in Raster Manager, those items in grey belong to Raster Manager, while those in black are added when Descartes V8i SS1 is loaded. 4
The following table describes the differences between Raster Manager and Bentley Descartes: 5
But Descartes, isn t only integrated with Raster Manager, it s also integrated with core MicroStation and uses the same selection tool and shares the same interface in the Element Information dialog. When Bentley Descartes is loaded, rasters behave like design elements. This means you can select rasters using the MicroStation Element Selection tool, put them on a level, add images to a selection set, and apply MicroStation tools such as Move and Scale on images. There is no limit to the number of images, nor the type of images that are displayed. Each can be manipulated and edited by simply ensuring the appropriate image is selected graphically or via the Raster Manager. 6
Bentley Descartes also supports the viewing raster surfaces and provides the user a mechanism to apply multiple filters for Elevation, Slope and Aspect. Elevation maps color to elevations ranges. Slope maps colour to the slope ranges between the elevation values which allows you to see where the terrain is steep or flat. Aspect maps colour to indicate the direction of the slope. Binary Raster Editing: Bentley Descartes provides a rich set of tools to edit binary images. Some key features are noted below. Use Touch-up tools to remove unwanted pixels in an image, to improve the quality of raster linework, or to paint images. It also includes a flood tool which is used to fill-in closed areas of a selected image with the background colour. Located in the Descartes Raster Edit tool box, the Cut/Copy/Paste tool box is used to cut, copy and paste regions of images via the system clipboard. Since these tools use the Windows clipboard, it s possible to copy and paste rasters to and from third party applications such as Microsoft Word. The tools in this tool box are supported by MicroStation s Undo and Redo commands The Dynamic Binary Raster Snap is designed to assist with the placement of data points on displayed binary raster images. The binary raster snap shares many of the components also found in MicroStation s AccuSnap. 7
Bentley Descartes also has local transform tools that are designed to perform local transformations inside a raster. All the data used with these tools come from and/or go to the same raster. And the Resize Canvas tool is used to dynamically add additional pixels around the original image without rescaling the data and operates on all raster formats including binary and full colour. Does Bentley Descartes work only with raster data? Of course not! Descartes is often a bridge between the vectors elements and raster images. Vectorizing tools are used to create vector data from scanned drawings or images. Combined with the display speed of Raster Manager, these tools provide an efficient environment for data conversion projects. Once such tool is Convert Area which quickly converts selected areas of a raster to vector linework. 8
The Rasterize tools are used to stamp design vector elements into raster images in the specified view, copy and merge one or more images contained within a defined area, and match line mapping settings with those displayed at the desired zoom magnification. And, since these tools are tightly integrated with MicroStation s element creation tools, there s no need for a separate set of tools in order to draw on images. Bentley Descartes also provides a set of tools that you can use to extract text or symbols from scanned drawings or images and to place them into a design vector file. New features allow you to perform automatic multiple raster text selection and conversion. Combined with the vectorize tool capabilities, these tools provide an efficient environment for all your data conversion projects. 9
And Combine Images is used to perform a logical operation on a selected area of two specified rasters and place the resulting data on a destination raster. The logical operations are: And The destination file contains only the overlapping regions of the two source images. Or The destination file will contain all of the raster data from both source files. Xor The destination file contains only those regions that do not overlap one another. Compare The destination file contains only those regions of the first source file that are not overlapped by the second source file. Colour Raster Editing: Bentley Descartes is a full 24-bit imaging application and handles all industry-standard file formats natively, including the most popular aerial and satellite file formats. It s easier than ever to edit, analyze and process colour images with a robust tool set including many of those used for editing binary images. For example, the touch up tools can be used on binary as well as colour images and support 2D as well as 3D oriented rasters. Local Transform tools can be used to copy, move, scale, rotate, mirror and warp portions of the selected raster. And the Cover Up Area and Clone Area provide a one step copy/paste solution for editing with image areas. The Corridor tool merges rasters from a source polygon to create a new raster file that s transformed to fit a destination polygon. 10
3D Editing: Bentley Descartes allows for the editing of 3D oriented rasters. When dealing with images that have a 3D orientation, several tools provide the Work in Image Plane option which projects all data points perpendicular to the image coordinate system. Image Processing: Bentley Descartes provides a multitude of tools to create raster scenes for professional presentation maps. Raster Manager can transform any georeferenced image on the fly to another coordinate system and projection. But, when Bentley Descartes is loaded, you can permanently save any raster that was re-projected by Raster Manager. This eliminates the need to maintain multiple datasets to satisfy different coordinate systems on the same project. In addition to handling coordinate systems, Bentley Descartes provides the Merge tool which is used to copy and merge one or more images contained within a defined area, and to optionally rasterize the vectors elements into the raster output file. This robust tool is perfect for publishing your work as rasters since it provides the ability to merge multiple rasters together, rasterize vector elements, create a geo-referenced and geo-coded output file, have full control over output file resolution, create multiple output files based on a predefined grid, and to copy the data to the clipboard for the inclusion in third party applications. 11
. In addition, the tools in the Mosaic too box tools will help you balance the tone between all images of a mosaic and to automatically, or semi-automatically, create a mosaic by cutting the overlapping sections and applying the feathering tool to hide the seam of the cut. 12
Standard convolution filters are available to enhance both binary and colour images. This includes blur, sharpen, smooth, detail, edge enhance and find edges. Additional filters utilize the images histogram and include Contrast Stretch and Density Slicing. Convolution filters are also found in popular photo editing software, however these desktop applications are not able to handle images that push size limits such as 4gb colour mosaics. 13
Conclusion: Bentley Descartes was designed to serve the mapping and visualization needs of professionals in many industries. It s used worldwide across disciplines, including mapping, land management, surveying, energy exploration, civil and environmental engineering, plant design, and architectural design. At the DGN level, Descartes and I/RAS B share the same element therefore, there is no file transformation when switching to Descartes. During the transition period, the same design file can be opened with either I/RAS B or Descartes. Bentley Descartes user interface is completely integrated with Raster Manager and it supports any pixel type. Rasters can be displayed with rotation, affinity or in a rotated view, and there s also support for rasters with rectangular pixels. You can also attach rasters to the design plane which allows rasters to be interleaved with design elements. Descartes fully supports 3D attachments and rasters attached to a reference model are supported. You can import.cor Files and it allows importing I/RAS B resampling files. In addition, Descartes is completely ProjectWise and Bentley Geospatial Server compliant. Since raster attachments are treated as MicroStation elements, you can: Select rasters using the MicroStation selection tool. Use standard MicroStation tools to edit both raster and vector data. Use the Element Info dialog to display information for selected rasters. Use MicroStation s undo operation to undo and redo raster edits. And detach images using the MicroStation delete tool or the keyboard delete key. Problems solved by Descartes include the ability to: Edit both coloured maps and scanned plans. View Oracle GeoRaster and Raster DEM. Remove imperfections or update aerial imagery without having to buy a new set of images. Geo-reference your scanned plans or your older maps. Convert raster into vector and to convert vector into rasters. Edit 3D oriented images such as building textures. And, create images mosaics. Whether your need is high quality cartography, production mapping, image maps, or vivid 3D visualization, Bentley Descartes provides the answer. Thank you. 14