EMAGIS Version History 

Version 1.5

EMAGIS Version 1.5 setup/upgrade program is now available for download (12.2 MB), updated 1/12/01

EMAGIS 1.5 is compatible with 32-bit Microsoft operating systems, including Windows 95, Windows 98, Windows Millennium, Windows NT 4.0, and Windows 2000.  The recommended platform for use with EMAGIS is Windows 2000, and the majority of the testing has been performed in this environment.  EMAGIS 1.5 requires MapInfo Professional 4.0.2 or higher, and version 6.0 is recommended.   EMAGIS 1.5 is compatible with the following versions of its component software packages:

• Microsoft Excel - all 32-bit versions, 5.0 to 9.0 (2000)
• Surfer for Windows - 6.0 and 7.0*
• Vertical Mapper - 2.1.1 and 2.5**
• AVS/Express - versions 3.1 and higher
• CTech’s EVS, EVS Pro, MVS - any version’s Read Field module
• GMS - 3D grid file specification in version 2

*Surfer for Windows Version 7.0 requires the version 6.0 macro-launching program, GSMAC32.EXE and its dependencies (GSMAC32.DLL, GSMAC.INI, GSMAC.HLP), for use with the ‘Contours with Surfer’ module.  When the GSMAC32.EXE program runs, it will launch the latest version of Surfer that installed on your system.  

**EMAGIS is not compatible with Vertical Mapper 2.6 and higher.

New Features Include:

Speech Module

• If running Microsoft Internet Explorer, if you don't have the core components or speech engine installed, you'll be asked to automatically download and install them when visiting this page. You can optionally download the required components as described below:

• Windows 95 or NT 4.0 users will need to download the Microsoft Agent core components (395 KB exe) before running the new speech module installed by the EMAGIS upgrade program.   Windows 2000 and Windows 98/Me ship with the agent pre-installed and do not need to install these 'core components'.
  
• All users should install the Lernout & Hauspie® TruVoice text-to-speech engine (998 KB exe) also before running the speech module.
  
• Additional add-ons such as the speech control panel utility, and speech recognition (not used in EMAGIS) can be downloaded from the Microsoft Agent area of Microsoft's website at   

EMAGIS 3-D Express

• Added Geologic Volume utility to create 3-D geologic volumes by passing a series of 2-D surfaces through a 3-D model grid domain
• Export points as 3-D “glyphs” for use in AVS/Express or CTech software

  NOTE:  The first numeric field that EMAGIS encounters in the exported table is used for the Z value of the points.   Use Table Maintenance to change the order of the fieldname sequence, so your points are exported properly.

Time Series Plots                  

The x-axis can now be set to a character field; previous versions required the field to be a numeric or date field

Templates for all time-series plots and chemical fingerprints updated

Geostatistics Module

Option for Log 10 and Natural Log transforms is available

Adaptive Gridding, cokriging  and other beta features found to be unreliable were removed

Minor UI bug fixes and charting format updates

General                 

EMAGIS reads the user’s TEMP environment variable (or the system TEMP variable if the user’s doesn’t’ exit) for storing all of its temporary files.  Previous versions required a C:\TEMP directory to be created.

If you TEMP variable uses an  environment variable, such as %SystemDir%\TEMP, EMAGIS will change it to the appropriate hard-coded drive letter since MapBasic cannot directly use environment variables.  If your TEMP variable contains other variables such as %WINDIR%\TEMP, EMAGIS will fail unless you manually change it to a real drive letter and path.

The EMAGIS.INI file is no longer used to store user preferences.  These are now stored in the registry.

Several default settings were changed based on user input, e.g. Contours with Surfer and Geostatistics modules‘ dialogs

The window focus now correctly switches back to MapInfo when the Visual Basic-based modules of EMAGIS are finished running.  

Version 1.4x

• Unsupported BETA upgrade release.  11/12/00

  The speech module's engine from First Byte can be uninstalled while running the upgrade program, and replaced with a Microsoft Agent character.  

Transform your view containing a Vertical Mapper grid into an interactive 3-D scene with the Texture Mesh Wizard.  Requires EMAGIS 3-D Express and Vertical Mapper programs.   This module also works with AVS/Express Developer or Visualization Editions, as well as C-Tech's EVS. 

• EMAGIS' texture mesh wizard currently works with Vertical Mapper 2.1.1 and 2.5.   We will add support for version 2.6 in the next release.

Increased support for various database schemas for use of the crosstab module 

Enhanced user preferences, options, and about box

Project Setup has a checkbox for 'do not open any workspace' so you can use EMAGIS' modules with your currently open tables

Cross-Section Wizard

• angled wells and borings drawn correctly when drawing your profile line either from left to right or from right to left.

Geostatistics module

• option to have the resulting kriged data set distribution transformed to match that of the input data set
• increased performance in kriging routine utilizing GSLIB 2.0
• kriging engine's DOS-like console window replaced with a Windows progress-bar dialog

Version 1.4 was an internal release only

Version 1.3

• General

  Visual Basic 5 modules updated using Visual Basic 6; therefore install/upgrade may require a reboot if the system has not installed the VB6 runtime files previously.

  WinHelp version of User's Manual replaced with the new HTML compiled help file

  "Stations" added as a generic field name in several modules so that data associated with locations other than wells or borings could be analyzed without changing database structure

  The upgrade patch includes and option to install the latest EMAGIS site tutorial data

• Cross-Section Wizard

  Support for angled wells and borings is provided.

  Added progress bars
  

• Geostatistics Module
  
  
  Octant searching is now disabled by default and can be altered; kriging algorithms further optimized for speed
  
  
• Descriptive Statistics, Frequency Analysis, Outlier Analysis and Geochemical Checks
  
  
  Faster performance
  
  
• Crosstab Table

  Added a progress bar

  Added support for a generic "stations" table to be used to geocode the output of the crosstab table

  Allow for the grouping parameter to be a DATE field so the user could plot two scatterplots of various compounds at different dates

• Pie Charts and Scatterplots

Changed the EMAGIS pie chart colors to be more visually appealing and easier to differentiate

Version 1.2

General

Several minor bug fixes and minor additions created with the idea of preserving the various dialog settings so that when you want to run another analysis, you don't have to click around as much, and will increase efficiency.

• Cross-Section Wizard
  
  A new cross-section wizard has been developed that allows making cross-sections even easier than before. Settings can be saved and when new data is obtained, the section can easily be updated with any new wells, different groundwater elevations, or chemical pie charts.
  
• Geostatistics Module
  
  Geostatistics module has been finalized, documented, and now writes 3-D GMS grids in addition to its other formats available in version 1.1.
  
• Outlier Analysis and Geochemical Checks
  
  Two new module was developed to flag suspicious data. The first is a statistical outlier analysis module that uses EPA-approved methods for groundwater.
  The geochemical checks module flags groundwater and soil data that violate laws of chemistry or geochemical relationships.
  
• PhotoView Module
  
  The PhotoView module allows the user to select multiple objects to bring up multiple photos with one click of the camera icon. Previously, the photos had to be viewed one at a time.
  Can now link to AVI files in the PhotoView table. Windows Media Player runs the videos.
  
• Time Series Plots
  
  Ability to automatically create separate Excel files based on an item in the database. For example, if site IDs are associated with wells, the charts would be grouped automatically. This will be most useful for sites with hundreds of wells.

• General
  
  Software security with the use of Rainbow Technologies' Sentinel hardware keys. Contact EMAGIS support if you are a registered user and have not received a hardware key.

  A new project setup dialog that is more intuitive for workspace selection than the previous series of dialog boxes.

  EMAGIS will map fields in all modules automatically if field names are named logically for use with a particular module. For example, in the soil concentration profiles module, if the fields named, "boring", "parameter" for chemical parameter, "value" for concentration, and "depth" for depth, the fields are mapped automatically.
  
  Tutorial updated for changes made in modules
  
  EMAGIS now only runs on 32-bit versions of Windows. The 16-bit version of EMAGIS will only have functionality up to version 1.0m.
  
  Several minor bug fixes
  
• Geostatistics Module
  
  Geostatistics module (BETA 3) contains tools for variogram modeling, kriging, and cokriging in 2-D and 3-D. Output formats available are MapInfo polygons, Surfer grid files, AVS/EVS field files, GMS grids (planned for version 1.2), Vertical Mapper import format. This module will be documented by September 1998.
  
• Descriptive Statistics
  
  A descriptive statistics module has been added to supplement the basic statistical functions included with MapInfo. For example, some of the parameters available are the min, max, mean, 95th percentile upper-confidence limit on the mean.
  
• Contaminant Correlations
  
  The contaminant correlations pie charts now use 20 custom colors for easy differentiation of one color from the rest, and also for professional-looking output.
  The crosstab module can now be used with non-wells or borings data, or non-geocoded tabular data; parameter grouping field can now be a date; appropriate well or boring symbols are created instead of using the most recently picked symbol style.
  
• PhotoView Module
  
  The PhotoView module allows the user to select multiple objects to bring up multiple photos with one click of the camera icon. Previously, the photos had to be viewed one at a time.
  
• Contours with Surfer
  
  The contouring module now has an option to allow contouring of an existing Surfer grid file instead of gridding data from a table.
  
  Option to take the natural log of data before gridding has been replaced with Log base 10 option.
  
  Kriging options dialog is removed since Geostatistics module has graphical tools for variogram modeling. Default linear variograms are assumed for kriging with Surfer, which is valid for most applications.
  
• Statistical Trend Analysis module
  
  The 'evaluate trends from a single parameter' was confusing to users, so it has been removed. Select 'none' from the parameter field if there is no grouping parameter.

• Time series plots
  
  using 'General' type x-axis, e.g. Quarters instead of Dates, was passing invalid numbers to Excel
• Chemical Fingerprints/Stiff Diagrams
  
  templates are now in Excel 97 format if using Excel 97
• Tutorial Editorial Changes
  
  Some screen shots/dialogs do not match exactly what you'll get since I've altered some of the modules and concentrations/parameters in the databases
  There were two Figure 14's
  Number 8, you will not see the SQL statement
  Numbers 16-19 were out of order
  Figure 17-PCE was not in the database, so you will only get 4 parameters
  Number 39 should read Search_Results_Benzene_Q12
• Geostatistics
  
  gslib.dll needed to be in system directory not EMAGIS/bin directory

• Time series plots
  
  Dates in MapInfo Professional 4.5 are handled differently when sent to Excel which resulted in an improper x-scale on charts. This has now been fixed.
• Geostatistics module
  
  BETA version 2 has tools for variogram modeling, kriging, and cokriging in 2-D and 3-D
  Creates MapInfo tables of grids and contours
  Creates a file that can be used with 3-D visualization packages, AVS/Express and EVS, Environmental Visualization System
• Known Issues:
  
  error coding has not been finished
  minimal testing has been performed on different data sets
  GMS output file format output not available in this version
  the User's Manual and help file are incomplete

• Geostatistics module
  
  BETA version 1 has tools for variogram modeling, kriging, and cokriging in 2-D and 3-D
  Creates a file that can be used with 3-D visualization packages, AVS/Express and EVS, Environmental Visualization System
• Known Issues:
  
  error coding has not been finished
  minimal testing has been performed on different data sets
  the post-processing is not complete, i.e. the final version will import contours and polygons of the kriged data. The output currently consists of a text file with X,Y,Z,estimate, and variance.
  the User's Manual and help file does not describe this module yet

• Time series plots
  
  support for Excel 97 (version 8.0)
• Thematic maps module
  
  bivariate thematic map module added
• Contouring module
  
  bug fixed when default paper size is not set to 8 1/2 x 11"
• Cross-section module
  
  bug fixed when station name is not a character and vertical elevations are small
• Statistical Trend Analysis module
  
  Sen's slope now returned in exponential form and set equal to zero when sample size<4
• Frequency Analysis module
  
  multiple CDFs can be created

• Contouring module
  
  multiple contours can be made based on one field in the table, i.e. multiple contours for individual sampling dates
  windows video file (avi) creation for multiple contours to show contours evolving with time
  temporary files are stored in c:\temp\ directory because of problems with GSScripter and long file names
• Risk Assessment module
  
  Groundwater dermal pathway bug fixed when user selects inappropriate pathways for a particular receptor
• Statistical Trend Analysis module
  
  Windows 95/NT platforms can run statistics on databases up to 1,000,000 records at a time and individual time series of up to 250 points.
  Windows 3.1x platforms can run statistics on databases up to 15,000 records at a time and individual time series of up to 80 points.
  Sen's slope estimate is now returned as a float variable instead of a decimal.
• Pie Charts/Thematic maps module
  
  The layer selected is now displayed with no symbol instead of turning the visibility off. This allows for labeling of the thematic maps.
• Database Query module
  
  'Edit SQL statement' option is added to allow users to modify the SQL statement. Previously this was 'on' as a default, now it is off.

• PhotoView module
  
  the table name that contains the path to the registered photo table can be named anything you like, i.e. it doesn't have to be named 'PHOTO' anymore
• Contouring module
  
  the large dialog box is replaced by a series of two dialog boxes to accommodate 640x480 resolution
  the color-filled contours are now colored by a ramp of hues
• Stiff-diagrams module
  
  the output table is now saved as a MapInfo table and an Excel table

• Risk Assessment module.
  
  display of soil properties dialog was revised to accommodate Windows 3.1 users

• The Select a Table function that is found in most modules has been revised, so that the user can click the Cancel button or the Close button without getting an warning message from the corresponding module.
  
  
• Risk Assessment module
  
  bug fixed for selecting 'Cancel' from the open toxicity table dialog.
  bug fixed when user selects the inappropriate pathways for groundwater risks construction work receptor
• Trend Analysis module
  
  the output table can now be geocoded based on the wells or borings table

• The toolbar now starts fixed instead of floating.
  
  
• Risk Assessment module
  
  bug fixed for graphing output-if no chemicals are in the risk table, the graph for the hazard index will now be displayed.
  Defaults from Tier 1 RBCA for soil and groundwater are now set first when the user selects the toxicity table so that if the user wants to run different scenarios, the default properties stay the same until the 'Select toxicity table' is chosen again.
• Soil Concentration Profiles module
  
  module code fixed so that chemical name field need not necessarily be named 'Parameter' for module to work
• Cross-Section module
  
  module code fixed so that stratigraphy from wells AND borings are now displayed (previous versions only created stratigraphy for wells).
• Contouring module
  
  When choosing the 'use natural logs' option, EMAGIS now converts the values back to the original values before contouring.

• Users were losing the EMAGIS menu bar item, so now EMAGIS adds the menu item every time the window focus changes. Also make sure to download the MapInfo 4.0.2 patch from MapInfo if you are using version 4.0.
  
  
• Risk Assessment module
  
  output table names are now checked for illegal characters (punctuation, starting with a number) and replaced with underscores

Version 1.0b

• EMAGIS now runs on Windows NT 4.0
  
  
• User's manual and help file updated for Windows NT 4.0
  
  
• Contaminant Correlations Module-Crosstab for Wells
  
  if the source table is not geocoded, program used to cancel the operation, now the crosstab table is created and not geocoded
  
  
• Risk Assessment module
  
  added a 'suppress warning messages' checkbox so that the parameters not in the toxicity database and parameter properties that are 0 do not show warning boxes each time they are encountered

Version 1.0a

• Risk Assessment module

  Particulate emission factor added for non-volatiles
  concentration units allowed to be mg/kg or ug/kg for soil and mg/L or ug/L for water
  RME value now replaces maximum concentration value
  two sets of exposure parameters (RME and Average) added
  default exposure factors updated
  bioavailability is made chemical-specific and added to toxicity table
  Dwater added as a chemical property and added to calc of Deff for soil
  inhalation of volatiles during showering now uses McKone's model
  no inhalation or dermal contact with water for industrial worker
  no water pathway for construction worker
  detailed output to ASCII files added
  help file and Chapter 11,14 and references of user's manual updated
  

• Particulate emission factor added for non-volatiles
• concentration units allowed to be mg/kg or ug/kg for soil and mg/L or ug/L for water
• RME value now replaces maximum concentration value
• two sets of exposure parameters (RME and Average) added
• default exposure factors updated
• bioavailability is made chemical-specific and added to toxicity table
• Dwater added as a chemical property and added to calc of Deff for soil
• inhalation of volatiles during showering now uses McKone's model
• no inhalation or dermal contact with water for industrial worker
• no water pathway for construction worker
• detailed output to ASCII files added
• help file and Chapter 11,14 and references of user's manual updated
  

• Statistical Trend Analysis module
  
  added detailed summary output
  
• Frequency analysis module added to create CDFs