This guide provides a direct, project oriented approach to learning the capabilities of the Blue Marble Desktop. It is intended to guide the user step-by-step through some of the basic operations of the Blue Marble Desktop. It also provides "hands on" experience with real data. This lab manual is ideal for new users who would like to gain some experience with the application and for experienced users who would like to sharpen their skills.
The Blue Marble Desktop is the platform on which our applications that have historically been stand-alone installations will now be run. Both the Geographic Calculator and the Geographic Transformer can now be accessed through the same interface. They retain their historical look and feel, but in a new interface with a number of new tools and capabilities. Following are the main components of each application that can be found in the Blue Marble Desktop, each component requires a license, either an evaluation or full license to complete:
Blue Marble Desktop Shared Components (available with any license):
Administrative tools to allow streamlining and guidance for users, as well as restrictions on coordinate system editing and usage.
File Corral to help organize your project data within the desktop
Project manager to allow grouping of common tasks, set up of batch jobs, or to organize different projects within the Desktop
A Vector and Raster Viewer to visualize data before and after conversion
Importers to bring in geodetic parameters from other databases and file formats
The ability to use any datum as an intermediary for datum transformations
Geographic Calculator (requires a Geographic Calculator license)
Interactive Calculations- Single point conversions and Forward and Inverse Calculations
Point Database Calculations- Point Conversions and Forward and Inverse Calculations, on tabular data formats
Vector File Conversions- Convert entire vector layers from popular GIS and CAD formats
Geographic Transformer (requires a Geographic Transformer license)
Georeferencing- Assigning coordinates to a raster image
Transformation- Reprojecting raster images, both single and batch mode
Mosaic- Creating a single output image from multiple input images
Tiling- Creating a tile set from a single large image