Mountains® 8, the next generation of surface and image analysis software will be on demonstration at the Control 2019 show to take place in Stuttgart, Germany May 7-10.
Bringing tailored solutions for engineers, metrologists and scientists working with profilometers, scanning electron microscopes (SEM), scanning probe microscopes (SPM) and other instruments, this major new release promises to live up to and even surpass its predecessor Mountains® 7, the gold standard in industry and research for metrology and analysis.
Let’s have a look at some of the changes and improvements made to the software and how to get the most out of them. Don’t forget to update!
1- Introducing shells
Support for shells (or freeform surfaces as they are also known) has been added, making it possible to analyze data produced by profilers with multiple scanning axes. Useful for applications where you need to see data from all angles (objects produced by additive manufacturing and scanned using X-ray tomography etc.)
Data courtesy of Digisens, France
2- Control operators directly
Users can now apply “Quick pre-processing operators” directly in the document without opening a dialog. Similarly “Quick extraction operators” (extract profile, area etc.) can also be implemented directly. Extracted profiles and areas can be visualized directly on data (for example in 3D view – see below).
3- Improved interactivity between frames
Analysis frames can be grouped, making it easy to apply attributes and even operators to several frames at the same time. Zoom and cursors can also be synchronized.
4- Tabbed document interface
In Mountains®, the “document” refers to the pages on which you can generate and edit studies. A document can have several pages and now you can display several documents simultaneously, in tabs. This is useful for comparing documents as well as working with statistics and Minidocs.
5- Enhanced File Explorer
The Mountains® File Explorer just got a serious upgrade! Quicker than before, it becomes a dockable floating window that can be expanded to full screen. In the case of multi-layer files, you can see layers and choose which to open.
6- Welcome Home
Get started faster and return to the Home Screen to quickly access files, tutorials and templates based on your instrument technology.
7- Usability Improvements
A collection of little things to make your life easier:
- Undo/redo on all actions that modify the document and on actions in the workflow
- Better compatibility between versions (Mountains® 8 documents can be opened in Mountains® 7 and vice-versa)
- You can save and apply custom settings for any operator or study
- and more.
8- Particle analysis reloaded
Mountains® 8 takes particle analysis to a whole new level. Combining all the best Mountains® and SPIPTM features, the new tool lets users easily detect features of any shape and size on virtually any surface.
Choose which layer of data to use for feature detection then select from four detection methods. Access over 70 parameters (area, perimeter, diameter etc.) for quantification. Analyze all particles or click on any individual particle to see parameters instantly displayed!
Above. New and largely improved tools for Particle Analysis.
9- Higly specialized tools for SPM data analysis
With the merging of the Mountains® and SPIP™ platforms (see Surface Newsletter, Fall 2018 edition), many new exclusive tools have become available. In particular “Correlation averaging” (for revealing details of the unit cell in patterns of self-assembled molecules), “Lateral calibration” and force spectroscopy tools will be of great benefit to those working with data from scanning probe microscopy (SPM).
10- New action buttons
Add hyperlinks and buttons in your document to perform actions: open URLs, jump to next page etc. You can even add a button to show/hide any comments/explanations you need to share with others. That way, they can hide comments in just a click and re-use the same document as a model!
11- Smart parameters tables
Choosing the right filtering options and parameters to apply to your data just got simpler! All parameters tables can now be set to display form removal and filtration settings already applied. Warnings (with explanations) are also shown when an error is detected (i.e. filters applied twice) or when parameters are not suitable for the data to which they are calculated.
Keeping your Mountains® software up-to-date will ensure you have all the latest features and bug fixes as well as improving the overall security of your computer.
If you are using Mountains® 7 or an earlier version or SPIP™, please contact sales@digitalsurf.com to talk about an update.
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