LANDISVIEW 2.

10 User Guide

Texas A&M University – Kingsville

Version 2.10

2019
Table of Contents

1 Introduction .................................................................................................................. 1

2 Installation.................................................................................................................... 2

3 Using LANDISVIEW 2.0 ............................................................................................ 2

3.1 Viewing and exporting files .............................................................................. 3

3.1.1 Loading and Managing Files .................................................................. 3

3.1.2 Zooming the files .................................................................................... 4

3.1.3 Mouse Control ........................................................................................ 4

3.1.4 Playing the files....................................................................................... 5

3.1.5 Changing Display Mode ......................................................................... 6

3.1.6 Changing Display of No Data Value ...................................................... 7

3.1.7 Export Image/Animation/Video............................................................ 10

3.2 Tools .................................................................................................................. 8

3.2.1 Output To Fragstats................................................................................. 8

3.2.2 Output To Esri ASCII Raster Format ....Error! Bookmark not defined.

Appendix ........................................................................................................................... 11

Appendix A. Customed Color Palette Definition..................................................... 11

Appendix B. License terms of GDAL library .......................................................... 12

1 Introduction

This document describes the LANDISVIEW 2.10 program developed at Texas A&M
University - Kingsville. LANDISVIEW 2.10 is a tool to visualize, animate and analyze
LANDIS output maps (ERDAS Ver. 7.X GIS File Format - .gis, ERDAS IMAGINE File
Format - .img). It can also convert LANDIS output maps into ASCII and batch files.
LANDISVIEW 2.0 provides two major functions:

1. File Viewer: Files can be viewed by adding them sequentially and an output
can be generated as an image, an animation or a video.
2. File converter: It will convert the loaded .gis or .img files for compatibility
with widely used Spatial Pattern Analysis Program software FRAGSTATS .

LANDISVIEW 1.0 was first released in 2006. LANDISVIEW 2.0 is an upgraded

version of previous LANDSVIEW with many new features. Some notable new features of
LANDISVIEW 2.0 include:

1. Display cell coordinates and values

2. Display properties and value count
3. Apply user-defined color palette to visualize files
4. Save maps as image (*.png) / animated image (/ *.gif) or video file (*.avi)
5. Convert into ASCII grids for compatibility with Fragstats, a widely used
spatial pattern analysis tool
6. Convert LANDIS output maps into ESRI ASCII raster format for
compatibility with ArcGIS

LANDIS simulates forest succession, disturbance (including fire, wind, harvesting,

insects), climate change, and seed dispersal across large (typically 10,000 - 20,000,000 ha)
landscapes. LANDIS tracks the spatial distribution of discrete tree and shrub species and

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has flexible spatial and temporal resolutions. For information about history of LANDIS
models, various extensions, including their applications and references, see following
LANDIS related websites:
https://www.nrs.fs.fed.us/tools/landis/
http://landis.missouri.edu/index.php
http://www.landis-ii.org

Please cite the following paper when use LANDISVIEW: Andrew Birt, Weimin Xi,
Robert N. Coulson. 2009. LANDISVIEW: A visualization tool for landscape modeling.
Environmental Modelling & Software 24(11): 1339-1341.

2 Installation

Installing LANDISVIEW 2.x is quick and easy. After receiving an LANDISVIEW

2.x installer file (LandisViewSetup.msi), simply double click on the file and follow the
LANDISVIEW 2.x Setup Wizard to choose an installation folder and whether you install
LANDISVIEW 2.x for yourself or for everyone who uses this computer. The default path
is ‘C:\Program Files\LandisView 2019\’. You may need Administrator Privileges to install
the software. An executable version (LandisViewSetup.exe) is available for installing
without Administrator Privileges.

3 Using LANDISVIEW 2.0

Once installed, LANDISVIEW 2.0 is run by clicking LANDISVIEW 2.0 logo, created
on your desktop:

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A snapshot of LANDISVIEW 2.0 (with files added) is shown below:

3.1 Viewing files

3.1.1 Loading and Managing Files

Add Data Series | Remove Data Series | Add Data Files | Remove Data Files | Move Up | Move Down

1. Open up a dialog to select files to create a new list

2. Remove all files in current list
3. Opens up a dialog box to select files to be added to current list
4. Remove the selected file from current list
5. Move the selected file up in current list to change the order of display
6. Move the selected file down in current list to change the order of display

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3.1.2 Zooming the files

The function of zooming can be realized in three areas:

1. Menu
Menu: View > Zoom | Actual Size | Full Extent

2. Toolbar

Zoom In | Zoom Out | Actual Size | Full Extent

3. Statusbar

Zoom Out | Zoom | Zoom In

3.1.3 Mouse Control

The file display can be controlled by mouse in the following methods:

1. Mouse Left / Right Click

Mouse Left Click can be used to click a cell to show data on it. Mouse Right Click
can be used to cancel the selection of a cell:

2. Mouse Middle Drag

Mouse Middle Drag can be used to move the image of file to a certain position.

3. Mouse Wheel

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Mouse Wheel can be used to zoom in / zoom out the image of file based on mouse
cursor as a center.

3.1.4 Changing View Mode

There are three View Modes available: Single View Mode, Multiple View Mode,
Comparison View Mode. Users are allowed to open multiple files and display views in one
window (maximum number of files is 4). These files can be scaled and moved
synchronously, highlight the same cell as well.

View Mode in Toolbar | View Mode in Statusbar | View Mode in Menu

3.1.5 Playing the files

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The play button will show each files one by one, in the order it is sorted, until it is
stopped. The transition time between each file can be specified by track bar.

3.1.6 Changing Display Mode

Menu: View > Display

There are three options under this:

1. Stretched Symbology - default option

Colors for stretched ramp can be obtained by using the ‘Stretched’ Tab. The files
would be displayed like this:

2. Classified – use grouped values

Colors for classified groups can be obtained by using the ‘Classified’ Tab. The files
would be displayed like this:

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3. Unique Values Symbology – use unique values
Colors for unique values can be obtained by using the ‘Unique Values’ Tab. The files
would be displayed like this:

3.1.7 Changing Display of No Data Value

Menu: View > Display

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The No Data Value can also be set in value and color. This can be set on the left-
bottom of Sumbology dialogue:

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The files would be displayed like this:

Before Setting | After Setting

3.2 Tools

3.2.1 Output To Fragstats / Esri ASCII Raster Format

Menu: Tools > Output

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The checkbox ‘Select All’ determines whether the analysis should be performed on
currently selected files or on all files. For Example a snapshot of the analysis toolbox is
shown below:

The ‘Output’ button is clicked to run the analyses. After running, the process carried
out will be as shown below.

.fbt format | .asc format for Fragstats

.asc format for Esri

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3.2.2 Export Image / Animation/Video

Menu: File > Export

1. Image
Save as a Portable Network Graphics format file (.png).

2. Animation
Save as a Graphics Interchange Format file (.gif).

3. Video
Save as an Audio Video Interleave file (.avi).

Acknowledgements

LANDISVIEW was originally developed Drs. Weimin Xi and Andrew Birt at

Robert Coulson’s Knowledge Engineering Laboratory, Texas A&M University with
support through USDA Forest Service, Southern Research Station. Both LANDISVIEW
1.0 and current 2.0 uses a 3rd party library (GDAL) for opening LANDIS files. We thank

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the GDAL team, especially Frank Warmerdam, for developing this open source library.
Terms of the GDAL license agreement are provided in the appendix.

Appendix

Appendix A. Customed Color Palette Definition

LANDISVIEW supports to define custom color palette by editing .xml file. The color
palette definition file (“ColorPalettes.xml”) is on the installation folder (default is
“C:\Program Files\LandisView 2019”). Here is the sample content of the definition file:

The format of xml file is shown as following:

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8"?>

<Palettes>
<StretchedPalette>color1,color2,color3,color4</StretchedPalette>
<StretchedPalette>color5,color6,color7,color8</StretchedPalette>
<ClassifiedPalette>color9,color10,color11,color12</ClassifiedPalette>
<ClassifiedPalette>color13,color14,color15,color16</ClassifiedPalette>
<UniquePalette>color17,color18,color19,color20</UniquePalette>
<UniquePalette>color21,color22,color23,color24</UniquePalette>
</Palettes>

In the xml file, [StretchedPalette] items are for Stretched Palette; [ClassifiedPalette]
items are for Classified palette; [UniquePalette] items are for Unique Value palette. The

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colors (color1, color2,…) are the definition for each palette item in HEX format (#000000,
#ffffff,…). After editing and saving the xml file, the new palette will be effective after
restarting the application.

Appendix B. License terms of GDAL library

Copyright (c) 2000, Frank Warmerdam

Permission is hereby granted, free of charge, to any person obtaining a copy of this
software and associated documentation files (the "Software"), to deal in the Software
without restriction, including without limitation the rights to use, copy, modify, merge,
publish, distribute, sublicense, and/or sell copies of the Software, and to permit persons to
whom the Software is furnished to do so, subject to the following conditions:

The above copyright notice and this permission notice shall be included in all copies
or substantial portions of the Software.

THE SOFTWARE IS PROVIDED "AS IS", WITHOUT WARRANTY OF ANY

KIND, EXPRESS OR IMPLIED, INCLUDING BUT NOT LIMITED TO THE
WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTABILITY, FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR
PURPOSE AND NONINFRINGEMENT. IN NO EVENT SHALL THE AUTHORS OR
COPYRIGHT HOLDERS BE LIABLE FOR ANY CLAIM, DAMAGES OR OTHER
LIABILITY, WHETHER IN AN ACTION OF CONTRACT, TORT OR OTHERWISE,
ARISING FROM, OUT OF OR IN CONNECTION WITH THE SOFTWARE OR THE
USE OR OTHER DEALINGS IN THE SOFTWARE.

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