ProRaster Essential

Welcome to the ProRaster Essential product page!

Please download the product guide, the feature sheet, and the user guide to learn about the product.

For the latest updates to ProRaster Essential, please visit the Product Updates page.

You can safely and securely purchase and download ProRaster Essential from the Microsoft Store. Hit the “Get it” button and you will be taken to the Microsoft Store where you can purchase and download the software.

Alternatively, follow this link to the ProRaster Essential store website and from there you can access the Microsoft Store. Or, simply open the Microsoft Store on your PC and search for “ProRaster Essential”.

You can install ProRaster Essential for a free trial period of 7 days! Make the most of this opportunity and make sure the data you want to experiment and test with is to hand before you install the application and start your free trial. After the trial period ends you can return to the Microsoft Store to purchase the product if you wish.

Read about the advantages of purchasing apps on the Microsoft Store.

Features at a glance

LUT Color Layers

Color modulate any gridded raster data and apply intensity shading and specular highlights. Aeromagnetic Data with Street Maps Overlay.

LUT Color Layer Blending

Blend multiple layers of any type together to build rich renderings. LiDAR-derived Terrain and Bathymetry blended with Tree Canopy Height.

RGB Color Layers

Combine color modulated red, green, and blue color components and apply intensity shading and specular highlights. Potassium – Thorium – Uranium tri-color radiometric data, hill-shaded by terrain.

Image Layers

Display imagery of any size, opacity modulated, and apply intensity shading and specular highlights. UK Ordnance Survey Topographic Imagery, hill-shaded by terrain.

Classified Rasters

Render classified (thematic) rasters using any layer type. Land use raster, hill-shaded by terrain. Spreadsheet data tracking mouse cursor.

Contour Layers

World’s best real-time contouring of rasters of any size or scale. Mt Kilimanjaro, GLO-30 terrain. LUT Color and Contour layers.

Rich multi-layered algorithms

Blend and overlay layers to build up information-rich imagery. Colored terrain blended with Google Maps imagery, OpenStreetMaps overlay, and terrain contours, Mt Fuji.

3D maps driven from 2D map zoom and extent

Display multiple 3D surfaces in one or more 3D maps. LiDAR-derived Terrain and Bathymetry and Tree Canopy Height.

Interactive 3D Maps

Fly and navigate about multiple 3D surfaces in one or more 3D maps. Supports high-performance rendering of high depth-complexity transparent surfaces. LiDAR-derived Terrain and Bathymetry and Tree Canopy Height.

WebMap WMS/WMTS

Ships with a collection of ready-to-use WebMaps, or connect to other WMS/WMTS sources. Mt Etna, OpenStreetMaps imagery hill-shaded by terrain, contoured.

WebMap Overlays

Overlay real-time modified street map data on raster imagery to preserve the underlying layer colors and saturation. OpenStreetMaps on Land Use classified data.

Satellite Multispectral Earth Observation Imagery

Sentinel-2C Surface Reflectance (Bottom of Atmosphere) True Color RGB Layer. Push scenes and tiles from the MSS Scene Browser into the rendering interface.

Satellite Multispectral Spectral Index

Render scores of in-built spectral indices. Sentinel-2C Surface Reflectance (BOA) derived Normalised Difference Vegetation Index (NDVI).

Interactive Profile Tool

Draw or import polylines and interactively extract raster profiles at any scale. Save and export. Mt Kilimanjaro GLO-30 terrain profiles.

Image Swapping Layer and Group Comparison Tool

GEBCO 2024 (left) being compared to GLO-30 (right) using the horizontal slider tool.

What is ProRaster Essential?

ProRaster Essential is an advanced platform for exploring, understanding, and making discoveries in modern raster grids, raster imagery, and multispectral raster imagery. 

Build and edit multilayered “rendering algorithms”. The class-leading rendering engine transforms your raster data into rich, beautiful, and informative imagery. The multi-threaded and GPU-accelerated rendering engine generates immersive imagery that will help you build an understanding of, and make discoveries in, your raster data. 

Discover more value in Earth Observation Imagery. Data and sensor agnostic, ProRaster provides pre-processing and visualisation of satellite multispectral Earth Observation Imagery. Access the vast trove of freely available satellite multispectral imagery being continuously acquired by the Landsat and Sentinel2 constellations. Automatically connect to downloaded scenes and tiles and apply pre-processing and corrections. Render using RGB band combinations, pan-sharpening and pixel quality masking. Use virtual raster technology to compute scores of Spectral Indices and display them in your 2D and 3D maps. 

ProRaster Essential is an ideal platform for anyone who wants to explore raster data sets and is a great platform for students of the Earth Sciences and Earth Observation Imagery.

Which ProRaster tier is right for me?

ProRaster Essential is for people who want to explore raster datasets. It does not provide any tools for creating rasters or for exporting imagery. It provides an advanced tool for importing Earth Observation Imagery, with fully automated support for the Landsat and Sentinel2 platforms. It is an ideal learning platform for students of the Earth Sciences.

If you want to export your rendering algorithms to located imagery (like a GeoTIFF), then you ought to consider ProRaster Premium or ProRaster Scientific.

If you want to create rasters, either by  converting existing rasters to a different format, or by joining raster tiles into large efficient rasters, or you want to create MRR format rasters, then you ought to consider ProRaster Premium or ProRaster Scientific.

If you want a toolkit for Earth Observation Imagery processing and analysis, then you ought to consider ProRaster Scientific.

If you want a toolkit for raster processing then you ought to consider ProRaster Scientific.

ProRaster Essential for MapInfo Pro

ProRaster Essential gives the MapInfo Pro user access to advanced raster rendering capabilities. For users of the MapInfo Pro Advanced raster plugin, ProRaster provides a rich new set of raster rendering capabilities. If you do not have the MapInfo Pro Advanced raster plugin, ProRaster will provide a modern, advanced raster rendering capability in MapInfo Pro 2021 (or later).

Freedom from restrictions

When you render raster datasets in MapInfo Pro you have always had to define how those rasters are rendered – in ProRaster this is called a “raster rendering algorithm”. MapInfo Pro ties this information to the raster – meaning an algorithm can only use a single raster and that raster can only be rendered in one way in all maps. ProRaster algorithms provide you with total flexibility and freedom from any restrictions.

Performance

The raster engine in MapInfo Pro is designed to enable rendering of rasters of unlimited size at any scale in constant time, but the imperfect integration of the raster engine into MapInfo Pro prevented this goal from being achieved. ProRaster algorithms solve the performance problems in MapInfo Pro.

Quality

ProRaster makes sure that you are always rendering the best quality data, at the most appropriate resolution. Pixel perfect, always correct, always presented at its best, and under your control.

Ease of use

ProRaster is easy to use – simply drag and drop your raster into ProRaster to get started. Then hit Publish to push the algorithm into a map in MapInfo Pro.

How ProRaster Essential improves MapInfo Pro

Display the same raster in the same session in different maps in different ways.

  • Use any combinations of rasters, fields, and bands in an algorithm.
  • Drape (hill shading) any raster on any other raster.
  • Clip algorithms to a complex polygon set when publishing to MapInfo Pro.
  • Display raster imagery in true color without enhancement and drape on any raster.
  • Render classified rasters the way you want to without restrictions and drape on any raster.
  • Use Driver Preferences to modify how particular rasters are mounted by the raster engine.
  • Eliminate performance bottlenecks with large rasters by reprojecting on-the-fly to the map projection.
  • Render hundreds of related rasters using a single layer.
  • Optimal data acquisition at any scale with on-the-fly reprojection.
  • Create default algorithms for rasters and raster sources.
  • Edit multiple algorithms simultaneously with preview, undo and redo
  • Interrogate raster values interactively in the preview map with a floating tool tip.
  • Override raster coordinate systems if unknown or incorrect and find the right projection quickly using the interactive projection selection dialog.
  • Access a growing library of video resources, documentation and articles to help you get the most from ProRaster.
  • Use a wide variety of data transforms for LUT Color and RGB Color layers.
  • Exercise fine control over histogram equalisation (fast, stable, gradational, with clipping).
  • Sigmoid transforms provide an alternative to linear and histogram equalisation transforms.
  • Fit the data transform to the data range in the map.
  • Create and edit color tables, maps and legends.
  • Use color table maps and legends to provide fixed data – color maps.
  • Clip to limits in multiple combinations.
  • Enjoy fine control over hill shading and balance color and hill shading smoothly.
  • Exercise precise control over data interpolation settings for color and hill shading.
  • Render any algorithm in greyscale.
  • Manage your raster collection in the raster source editor.
  • Access all rasters by wildcard in a folder or multiple folders and render using a single layer.
  • Get access to rasters stored in ZIP archives (not all raster formats support this).
  • Validate, Clean, and Prepare processing operations compute statistics and build overviews.
  • Access detailed raster information and statistics.

Software requirements:

  • Windows 10 or 11
  • MapInfo Pro 2021 (or later)

Hardware requirements:

  • 4GB RAM
  • Multi-core CPU recommended

Advice!

The only mechanism for exporting your map from ProRaster Essential is to publish the map in the latest version of MapInfo Pro.

There are many known inconsistencies between ProRaster and MapInfo Pro, which may cause the appearance of your rendered algorithm to differ in MapInfo Pro from the expected visualisation shown in ProRaster.