Digital Surf today releases the Mountains® 8 software platform. This release builds extensively on the Mountains® 7 platform introduced in 2013 and now supplied by most major manufacturers with their instruments.
It also sees the coming together of Mountains® (internationally renowned for profilometer and scanning electron microscope data analysis) and SPIP™ (widely recognized for scanning probe microscopy)1, thus setting a new standard for surface metrology and image analysis.
With Mountains® 8 come a huge increase of calculation speeds, new types of surface data, greater interactivity and over a hundred new features.
Particle analysis performed with Mountains® 8 software
From Instrument-Dedicated Software to Data Confluence for Research Laboratories
The new Mountains® 8 range offers 3 families of instrument-specific products:
- MountainsMap® for profilometers including 2D and 3D contact and non-contact profilers.
- MountainsSEM®, dedicated to scanning electron microscopes.
- MountainsSPIP®, dedicated to SPM instruments (atomic force microscopes, scanning tunneling microscopes).
Research laboratories using multiple types of instruments are also served thanks to new MountainsLab® software, a superset product designed to ensure multiple-source data confluence.
Significantly Increased Calculation Speeds
With image resolution continually increasing, modern metrology and microscopy equipment demands boosted processing power. Mountains® 8 lets users access most single operations in real time and batch analysis operations in a matter of seconds. Among the features made considerably faster in version 8: Filter (form, waviness and roughness separation), Remove Outliers, Retouch, Fill in non-measured points and Stereo Reconstruction of SEM images.
A Greatly Extended Toolset
Mountains® 8 features a highly advanced range of tools for processing measured data and images.
- Particle & pore analysis, used in the quality control of structured materials (metal alloys etc.) or the characterization of nano-structure assemblies, has been largely remodeled and improved.
- Freeform surface data (shells) can be loaded, visualized and 3D-printed. This brings high-level insight of data produced by profilers with multiple scanning axes, X-ray tomography (such as for additive manufacturing).
- Smart surface texture parameters tables now automatically guide the user through complex filtering options, avoiding common errors.
Additionally, Mountains® 8 improved usability means it’s easier to learn how to use the software. Users can access sample data, tutorials and templates based on their own instrument technology. Documents themselves can be used as teaching tools, with new features for demonstrating methods to fellow colleagues or students.
Mountains® 7 saw Digital Surf’s entry into the electron microscopy market with the promise of taking SEM images from the flat black-and-white world to 3D color. In the next step of the continued evolution of our platform, Mountains® 8 has much to bring, in particular to SPM users who, in their study of the infinitely small, hold the key to the scientific challenges of tomorrow such as clean energy storage or the eradication of cancer and genetic diseases.
Christophe Mignot, CEO, Digital Surf
- Digital Surf acquired the Danish company Image Metrology, specialized in scanning probe microscopy image analysis, in 2014.