Hi,

Just to inform  GIS users that the inovaGIS project has released
the version 1.1. of its freeware DLL.
The files and some demos are available for download in the project url:
http://gasa.dcea.fct.unl.pt/inovaGIS/index.html

For those who don't know the inovaGIS project is a freeware component
based program that enables the developement of your own GIS within
Windows 95 applications.
It is being developed by the Environmental Systems Analysis Group (GASA)

of the Universidade Nova de Lisboa (Portugal) and pretends to be a
toolkit of small components that allows the interoperability of
raster geographic information, geographic functions and spatial models
between
applications.

It works as an ActiveX server and can be used in any OLE compliant
programms like Excel or Word, and development tools like Visual Basic or

Delphi.
It allows you to have access to IDRISI GIS files inside Delphi, VISUAL
BASIC macros
in VB or Excel, or even Word.
It works something like this, you have only to declare an variable as
iImg (in VB5),

    Dim Image As New inovaGIS.iImg

and then you have access to properties and methods directly for example
to state the name of the file you will work

    Image.Document.Name = "f_alt"
    Image.Document.Directory = "d:\projectos\inovagis\data\"
    Image.Open

after open the file you can exchange data from and to Excel worksheets
directly to your file or to query your file. Like,

    Dim matrix As Variant
    Matrix = Image.GetData(1, Image.Rows, 1, Image.Cols)

or
    Dim a as Single
    a = Image.PointXY(10,10)

All idrisi file properties are available and some more related to
drawing the image and legend.

The current version is 1.1(b) and is designed for WinNT4 or Windows95
(i.e. 32 bit systems).
For the moment, it only works with IDRISI raster files.
At this moment there aren't any help files available via Internet, we
hope to make it available within this week.
The demos include a small map algebra application with a Excel97
spreadsheet and some Visual Basic 5 demos, all with source code and
royalty free for academic research.

Thanks for your attention and if you have any questions feel free to
email me.