Remcom announces a new version of Wireless InSite®, its electromagnetic propagation software for the analysis of wireless communication systems. This version, Release 2.7.1, offers integration with the Geospatial Data Abstraction Library (GDAL), improving import processing and significantly expanding supported file formats.

Ryan Ohs, product manager for Wireless InSite, said, “The GDAL integration gives users more options for importing terrain data from raster sources and improves the handling of the data as it is converted to facets for use in propagation modeling.  In addition to the GDAL formats verified and supported by Remcom’s development team, users have access to over 100 additional GDAL file formats as well.”

Supported terrain file formats include:

  • Digital Terrain Elevation Model (DTED)
  • Digital Elevation Model (DEM)
  • Japanese DEM files
  • Spatial Data Transfer Standard (SDTS) DEM files
  • ASCII Grid in UTM coordinates
  • TIFF/BigTiff/GeoTiff

In addition to the GDAL integration, the release provides other speed and usability improvements for terrain import and enhancements to building geometry import from shape files (*.shp).  Highlights include:

Faster Importing of Large Terrains
The speed of importing large terrain data sets has been dramatically improved.  As an example, import times for DTED Level 1 terrain over areas of approximately 9,000 km2 have been reduced from hours to under two minutes.  Newly added status bars track and provide feedback to the user on the import progress.

Improved Rendering of High Resolution Terrains
A sparse rendering option for high resolution terrains is now available in the user interface.  This new capability improves the response of the Project View window’s rotation, zoom, and pan features, but does not change the resolution of the terrain used in propagation calculations.

New Terrain Facetization More Accurately Models Local Curvature of Terrain
New terrain facetization takes into account local curvature of terrain to properly capture its features and better approximate the contours that are present.

Improved Handling of Invalid Data in Terrain Files
The terrain import dialog prompts the user to modify elevation values if invalid samples are encountered while reading a terrain data file.  If the invalid value is not modified, the importer will not create facets connected to those sample points.

Support for Shape Files Using UTM Coordinates
The shape file importer now handles building data in UTM coordinates in addition to the standard Cartesian format.

Support for Geo-referenced Shape Files
The shape file importer now reads the projection files (.proj) which often accompany shape files and provides geo-reference information for the building geometry.  Building data from shape files with a projection file will automatically be located at their geo-referenced location after import.