Employees of the Novosibirsk technical school of geodesy and cartography (NTGiK) prepared the article "Use of Professional GIS "Panorama" software for training of specialists in the field of geospatial technologies". The authors of the article were V.I. Obidenko (vice-rector for secondary vocational education - director of the technical school) and M.A. Tatarenkova (teacher at an educational institution).

The published material examines the positive experience of the technical school of geodesy and cartography in training of mid-level specialists for the country's geospatial industry. It is shown that it is advisable for students to study geoinformation technologies on the basis of a single professional software that has the necessary tools and, preferably, of domestic origin. In NTGiK the GIS "Panorama" was chosen as such professional software. Software developer the KB "Panorama" takes a socially responsible position in the training of young specialists and provides its GIS for secondary vocational education institutions at a reduced price or free of charge. So, for the 75th anniversary of the technical school of geodesy and cartography, KB "Panorama" gave the technical school the licenses for 20 training places of the GIS "Panorama". This approach ensured in the period 2019-2023 a high-quality training at the technical school for about two hundred specialist cartographers who are professionally proficient in the GIS Panorama. At the same time, about a thousand graduates who studied in other specialties (aerial photogeodesy, applied geodesy, land management, information systems) have gained good experience of working with this software and are ready to use its capabilities in their professional activities.

GIS "Panorama" - universal domestic geoinformation system. The program is designed for accumulation, storage, the automated processing and display of data, calculation results and forecasts with geospatial reference. GIS "Panorama" contains tools of displaying and processing vector, raster and matrix maps. The application provides users with tools for solving specialized tasks of modeling the movement of special objects against the background of 3D model, forecasting of consequences of emergencies at hazardous objects, monitoring of aircraft movement, conducting of geodetic and topographic work, processing the data from GPS/GLONASS navigation devices, printing the displayed spatial data to various output devices and many others. The GIS is included into the Unified register of Russian programs for electronic computers and databases (registry entry No.4227 dated March 29, 2018).

You can get acquainted with materials on the use of GIS "Panorama" in the educational process of training specialists in the field of geospatial technologies in the Articles section.

In KB "Panorama" the GIS Constructor for Qt Designer SE version 15.0.0 has been developed. In the new version the tools of processing and displaying data have been improved, mechanisms for opening and exchanging spatial data with the GIS Server have been refined. Support for drawing objects from a text file has been implemented, and the list of available MAPAPI interface methods has been expanded. The task of connecting geoportals has been improved, the list of supported geoportals has been expanded.

The program has improved algorithms for processing and displaying data. The number of supported sheets for multi-sheet maps has been increased by 4 times. The accuracy of transparency calculations for vector objects and a polygon object - colored glass - has been increased. The algorithms for interaction with the GIS Server have been improved, for example, the interaction mechanism when editing maps containing a small number of objects.

The task of connecting geoportals has been improved. The new version has increased the speed of loading and displaying tiles. The GIS core automatically evaluates the computer parameters: the number of cores, the size of the RAM, the bandwidth of the data transmission channel. Taking into account the performance of the system, a pool of independent threads is formed to load, process and display the received data. Multi-threaded data loading reduces delays when moving the screen, scaling the map, and performing spatial queries to the geoportal. For example, for a network with a bandwidth of 100 Mbps on a 4-core processor with a clock frequency of 3.5 GHz, the speed of displaying tiles from the KB Panorama geoportal increased 6 times, and the time to receive them decreased from 500ms to 70ms.

Access to geoportal archive data has been added. Examples of such geoportals are the Sentinel Hub geoportal or the VEGA service. The task allows you to connect to images or data on the geoportal by specifying the date, the request period, or the percentage of maximum cloudiness of satellite images. To quickly change the image from the geoportal, a new dialog has been added that allows you to set the parameters for accessing archived data (date, period, cloudiness); to set an offset or reference to a point if the geoportal has a lower accuracy than the map or data with which the geoportal is combined; to set transparency color - to view several layers at the same time; to set the color of the filter to change the color scheme of the geoportal.

Data from geoportals can be saved into a pyramid of MBTILES tiles or into a raster for a territory selected by the user. In order to increase the speed of data access for the WMS protocol, caching of data in the form of tiles has been added. The data is saved in the form of a pyramid of tiles 1024х1024 in a folder of location of the geoportal cache. This change will allow the user to accumulate data locally and, in the absence of the Internet, use the already accumulated data cache. In order to update previously saved data, it is possible to set the lifetime of the geoportal cache in seconds.

When connecting geoportals that are not included in the general list (wmslist_ru.xml file), connection data is saved in the general list in the "User connections" section. This will allow you to quickly connect the previously used geoportal. The list of "User connections" allows you to add data to it, and remove data from it. The mechanism for replacing the user settings file wmslist_ru.xml with a new one from the installation has been improved. A copying of previously connected user portals has been added when replacing the settings file. In the new version the possibility of connection of dynamically expanded list of available geoportals has been added. When such a geoportal is selected, a GetCapabilities request is sent to the service, and based on it, the list is automatically expanded with relevant data in the form of a tree of available layers. Support for a proxy server with domain authorization has been added.

The list of available MAPAPI methods has been expanded. There are implemented the methods for constructing the intersection of multipolygons in the form of a multipolygon and creating a map's objects using coordinates from a text file.

GIS Constructor is a set of geoinformation components for use in the visual programming environment of Qt Designer, which allows you to develop your own GIS applications. The visualization of the contents of digital maps is made in conventional symbols adopted for topographic, geographical and various special maps. Geoinformation system has ample opportunities for performing calculations, for providing display of spatial data on various graphic devices in standard and user systems of conventional symbols. The main functions can be executed in multithreaded mode. It supports automatic optimization of used memory for processing large amounts of data (tens of gigabytes) on limited resources (hundreds of megabytes).

The toolkit is adapted for work on a wide range of operating systems (Astra Linux SE, ALT Linux, Elbrus, Ubuntu, CentOS, QNX) and architectures (Intel, Elbrus, PowerPC, SPARC, ARM). The toolkit includes components of visual designing the GIS applications and library of a multiplatform multithreaded GIS core. GIS Constructor provides a cross-platform MAPAPI interface that allows a programmer to implement development in an operating system convenient for it. The developer can release GIS applications for a set of operating systems by simple assembly with minimal changes to the program source code.

The new version of the program is available for download in the Download section.

Specialists of KB "Panorama" have prepared and placed the map of the Republic of Buryatia on the geoportal "Bank of spatial data". The map was formed using OpenStreetMap data. To work with the map, you can use the GIS Panorama Mini program or other software products of KB "Panorama".

The map was led to the modernised classifier of large-scale plans of scale 1: 5 000 (map5000m) and was saved into a packed project (MPTZ). The MPTZ format project includes a digital map of the region's territory (country, subject of the federation, administrative region) and a digital classifier. Publishing of updates in bank of spatial data is made by using the program of Databank of digital maps and remote sensing data. Publishing contents of bank of spatial data on the geoportal and data access for downloading are implemented by means of GIS WebServer SE.

Free maps on the basis of OpenStreetMap data are available for download on the page "Digital maps".

In KB "Panorama" the Complex of preparing documents of aeronautical information version 8.2.3 under the control of the GIS "Panorama" has been developed. In the program the mode of export/import from a database of the complex of the information about the elements of the airspace structure into a file in the AIXM 5.1 format has been updated. Export is performed in accordance with the model of providing aeronautical information AIXM (Aeronautical Information eXtended Metadata). When forming an XML file, the upper and lower limits of the vertical extent of airspace, units of measurement and reference levels are indicated. Values of the XML-elements indicating the vertical coordinate system are formed from the list: "SFC" (distance measured from a surface of the ground), "MSL" (distance measured from the mean sea level), "W84" (distance from spheroid WGS84) or "STD" (distance measured using an altimeter set to standard atmosphere).

In the "Output of prohibited, danger and restriction zones" and "Output of ATS regions" dialogs, the signature formation modes for the upper and lower limits of the heights of airspace elements have been expanded, taking into account repeating values and the range from ground to "unlimited" (GND/UNL). The option "Call signs in english" has been added, which allows you to fill in the "Call sign" semantics in Russian or English when creating an object.

Aeronautical classifiers (dfc.rscz, dfc_en.rscz) have been improved in accordance with the requirements of the International Civil Aviation Organization, as set out in ICAO Doc 8697 ("Manual on Aeronautical Charts").

The description of the vector sign has been expanded and the "Classifier editor" task in the GIS "Panorama" has been updated. There is added the ability to assign to several signatures the attribute of specifying of the sign size of vector objects of the layer "Type space ATS and a restricted zones" according to the length of the signature, as well as assigning the attribute of prohibition/permission of stretching to elements. This mode allows to expand some of the elements of a vector sign (for example, automatically stretch the sign frame around long signatures), and shift the remaining elements (design elements: circles, squares, rhombuses). The shifted elements can be located both inside and outside the sign frame.

The complex of preparing documents of aeronautical information is a set of tools for maintaining an aeronautical data base, a modeling and analyzing the aeronautical situation, generating aeronautical maps and exchanging data with other information systems through export and import in the ARINC 424-19 exchange format and export in the AIXM 5.1 format. The task "Flight procedures design" is used to design the routes of departure, approach and landing and to analyze the safety of flights on them. The task "Assessment of compliance for aerodromes with the requirements FAR" is intended for the analysis of the aerodrome and the aerodrome environs for the suitability for operation and aircraft flights in accordance with the Federal Aviation Regulations.

The new version of the program, examples of aeronautical information documents, operational documentation, video lessons and presentations are available for download on the Download page.

In KB "Panorama" the GIS "Operator" version 15.0.1 has been developed. The new version updated the basic tasks of creating and updating digital terrain maps and special maps, connecting external geoservices, and managing a common list of data sets. The tasks of importing remote sensing data of various formats and terrain models have been improved, the tools of data analysis and reports designing have been expanded, expansion of tools at the expense of the user scripts on Python has been supported.

The "Map Editor" task has been improved, the "Create objects" mode has been updated. Functionality for working with the object table filter has been extended. The filtration of classifier objects is carried out by such parameters as an external code, key, object name, class/layer name.

For the best readership of the information on object the table kind is changed. In the first column display of a kind of object is added. At prompting on it of the mouse cursor there is an additional window with the increased image. In modes of creation of new objects possibility of a binding to the geometrical centre of the object chosen on a map is added. The new mode is realised in the form of the button on the auxiliary panel and point of the menu appearing by pressing of the right button of the mouse. For better readability of information about the object, the table view has been changed. Display of the object view has been added into the first column. When you hover over it with the mouse cursor, an additional window with an enlarged image appears. In modes of creating new objects, the possibility of a binding to the geometrical center of the object selected on the map has been added. The new mode is implemented in the form of the button on the auxiliary panel and a menu item appearing by pressing the right mouse button.

The "Constructing a polygon at a given azimuth and distance" mode has been added into the "Graphic objects" group. The mode allows you quickly to put onto a map a polygon - a zone of the estimated search in the direction and distance indicated by the cursor from the control point with the possibility of changing the width and length of the search sector.

The mode "Create a copy of object" has been improved: when the property Snapping an object to a node of another object ("K" mode) is enabled, a snapping a created copy of object or group of selected objects on each mouse click is provided. The new implementation of the mode allows you to put a copy of an object or group of selected objects to each mouse click. This method allows you to increase the speed of putting one-type objects.

In the "Object samples" mode, the item "Clear object view" has been added into the menu by the right mouse button. There are increased the maximum number of objects samples (buttons) in the layout ruler up to 32 and the maximum number of rulers up to 12. Samples of created objects is a panel with buttons containing images of objects of the selected type or a group of objects with prepared semantics or graphic symbols outside the classifier. The use of pre-prepared samples speeds up the process of creating and updating vector terrain maps for various purposes.

In the "Map Computer" task, the "Radial scale" mode has been added into the "Length and distance" mode group. On the background of the map, a scale of three rings is displayed, indicating the distance from the center of the screen on the ground. The distance between the rings is selected depending on the map display scale. The central ring is divided into 10-degree sectors, the cardinal direction are signed on it and the direction to the north is indicated.

The task of connecting geoportals has been improved. Into the task the ability to work offline with a prepared copy of data from geoportals has been added. This mode allows you to work with the pyramid of tiles that the user has, without passing requests to the selected geoportals. Enabling this mode is possible in the settings menu for certain geoportals or for all geoportals. You can form a local pyramid of tiles in advance when the geoportal is connected, by clicking the menu item the File - Export to a tile pyramid. At the same time, in addition to the formed Mbtiles pyramid, the corresponding tiles will also be stored in the cache. Offline mode allows you to increase the speed and security of opening and displaying geoportals in the absence of a connection. In case of an error in establishing a connection with a geoportal over HTTPS protocol, an automatic re-request over HTTP protocol (and vice versa HTTPS after HTTP) has been added in case the geoportal is accessible over another protocol.

The new version has increased the speed of loading and displaying tiles. The GIS core automatically evaluates the computer parameters: the number of cores, the size of the RAM, the bandwidth of the data transmission channel. Taking into account the performance of the system, a pool of independent threads is formed to load, process and display the received data. Multi-threaded data loading reduces delays when moving the screen, scaling the map, and performing spatial queries to the geoportal. For example, for a network with a bandwidth of 100 Mbps on a 4-core processor with a clock frequency of 3.5 GHz, the speed of displaying tiles from the KB Panorama geoportal increased 6 times, and the time to receive them decreased from 500ms to 70ms.

Access to geoportal archive data has been added. Examples of such geoportals are the Sentinel Hub geoportal or the VEGA service. The task allows you to connect to images or data on the geoportal by specifying the date, the request period, or the percentage of maximum cloudiness of satellite images. To quickly change the image from the geoportal, a new dialog has been added that allows you to set the parameters for accessing archived data (date, period, cloudiness); to set an offset or reference to a point if the geoportal has a lower accuracy than the map or data with which the geoportal is combined; to set transparency color - to view several layers at the same time; to set the color of the filter to change the color scheme of the geoportal.

Data from geoportals can be saved into a pyramid of MBTILES tiles or into a raster for a territory selected by the user. In order to increase the speed of data access for the WMS protocol, caching of data in the form of tiles has been added. The data is saved in the form of a pyramid of tiles 1024х1024 in a folder of location of the geoportal cache. This change will allow the user to accumulate data locally and, in the absence of the Internet, use the already accumulated data cache. In order to update previously saved data, it is possible to set the lifetime of the geoportal cache in seconds.

When connecting geoportals that are not included in the general list (wmslist_ru.xml file), connection data is saved in the general list in the "User connections" section. This will allow you to quickly connect the previously used geoportal. The list of "User connections" allows you to add data to it, and remove data from it. The mechanism for replacing the user settings file wmslist_ru.xml with a new one from the installation has been improved. A copying of previously connected user portals has been added when replacing the settings file. In the new version the possibility of connection of dynamically expanded list of available geoportals has been added. When such a geoportal is selected, a GetCapabilities request is sent to the service, and based on it, the list is automatically expanded with relevant data in the form of a tree of available layers. Support for a proxy server with domain authorization has been added.

The task "Map Legend" has been improved. The new tab "General list of data" has been added. This tab is designed to display a list of data in the sequence required by the user. The general list includes all types of data: maps, rasters, matrixes, models and geoportals which are included into the open document. To classify the type of data in the general list, the indication of elements in the form of pictograms is provided. Enabling and disabling the visibility of data is carried out by pressing the left mouse button (Left) in the display area of the "checkmark/cross" icon or the "spacebar" key. Names of data elements can be presented in the form of a full path or an abbreviated name. With the help of the modes "Above", "Below", moving of the selected data element onto one position is carried out. To change the order of displaying several elements of the list, the mode of transferring elements with the mouse (Drag&Drop) is available. Selection of list items is carried out using the key combinations Ctrl + Left, Shift + Left. To restore the standard display order by data type, you must use the "Set default order" mode. For processing all types of data, the following modes are provided: "Display", "Above map", "Visibility limits", "Go to ...", "Brightness/Contrast", "Add", "Add from directory", "Close". These modes are available in the context menu on the "General list of data" tab.

On the "General data list" tab, the "Save as" item has been added into the context menu. This mode is intended for saving vector and raster data into a file with a different name. On the "Maps" tab, the items "All map in window" and "Set document options from map" have been added into the context menu. The "All map in window" mode allows you to scale the main document so that the selected map is completely displayed in the window. The "Set document options from map" mode is intended for setting the parameters of the projection of the selected map into the main document. On the "Maps", "Rasters", "Matrixes" and "Geoportals" tabs, the "Group data" item has been added into the context menu. This mode allows you to transfer selected data into a separate group. To quickly add data into the list, the "Insert" hotkey has been added, an analogue of the "Add map", "Add matrix", "Add raster", "Add geoportal" modes. Support has been implemented for dragging a file from the Explorer window into the "Map Legend" panel area (Drag&Drop) to add data of supported formats into the open document. When you drag data sets into the map window, they open in a separate window.

A new mode "Find nearest neighbors for list objects" has been added into the "Lists of objects" task. For each object from one list, a search of the nearest object from another list is performed. A line is drawn between the nearest points of the found objects and the distance between the objects is indicated. Search results are recorded into a separate map, which is displayed on top of the main map.

In the "Toolbars customizer" dialog, the ability to include python scripts into custom panels has been added. In the Tasks and scripts list, a Python scripts line has been added to select a script from the list, which must first be customized and checked in the Run applications dialog, "Scripts" tab. "Toolbars customizer" dialog allows you to create custom panels (toolbars) and fill them with frequently used modes from various application tasks and Python scripts. In the Run applications dialog, on the Scripts tab, a field has been added for entering a description of the script that will be displayed when the user clicks on the button in the "What's This?" mode. When writing scripts, several thousand functions of the GIS core (MAPAPI) are available. The function prototypes are declared as imported python scripts from the Users\Public\Documents\Panorama\py_mapapi14 folder. The order of application of MAPAPI functions, described in the document "Applied tasks". The procedure for applying MAPAPI functions described in the document "Applied tasks. Development of new modules", will also be valid for Python scripts.

The task "Classifier editor" has been improved. Possibility of editing properties several objects at once has been added. Now you can select the necessary objects and transfer them to another layer or class, write down a common name for them, edit the visibility scales, add, delete, change the status of semantics, edit properties such as the digitization direction, the limits of sign resizing, and others. The following modes have been added into the "Clusters" tab: creating a new cluster's sign by copying the selected one, copying a cluster sign from another classifier via the clipboard. The cluster sign is used to display densely spaced point symbols of the same view of objects with a common sign. The tab selects the views of objects related to each type of cluster, the cell sizes vertically and horizontally, the semantics code for specifying the current number of objects in the cluster, the view of cluster symbol, the limiting percentage of increasing the size of the cluster symbol and the limiting number of objects corresponding to the maximum size of the symbol cluster. When copying a cluster's sign from one classifier to another, it is necessary to re-assign the views of objects related to this cluster.

The description of the vector sign has been expanded. There is added the ability to assign to several signatures the attribute of specifying the size of the sign according to the length of the signature, as well as assigning the attribute of prohibiting/allowing stretching to elements. This allows you to expand some of the elements of a vector sign (for example, automatically stretch the sign frame around long signatures), and shift the remaining elements (design elements: circles, squares, rhombuses). The shifted elements can be located both inside and outside the sign frame. To assign a no-stretching attribute to an element, select an areal or linear element of the sign and click the "Do not stretch the element when specifying the size of the sign" button. Examples of new vector signs have been added into the shape.sitx map. To open the map, select from the main menu: File - Example data - Open file "..\Panorama15\data\shape\shape.sitx".

The list of programmable signs on the demonstration map \data\shape\shape.sitx has been extended. There is added an example of a symbol - Coordinates of a point on a callout. In the conventional sign parameters, you can select a semantics code to display in the numerator of the callout line, up to 6 semantics codes to display values in the denominator in several lines, and a semantics code to display to the right of the callout line. If you enter the number "-1" as the semantics code, then the X coordinate of the first point of the callout line will be displayed with an accuracy of cm, if the number "-2" is the Y coordinate of the first point, if the number "-3" is the H coordinate of the first point. Font options can be specified for the numerator and denominator strings (equally) and for the string that appears to the right of the horizontal portion of the callout line (for example, point number or other semantics).

The task "Data list" has been improved. On the "Rasters" tab, a call to the "Exporting rasters to format TIFF, JPEG, BMP, PCX" dialog is added, which is intended for exporting a rasters group of document to files of graphic formats. Due to the use of multi-threaded processing on a multi-core processor, the time for exporting a group of rasters was reduced by 5-7 times. The new dialog is called by the "Save as ..." item of the context menu for the "Rasters" branch.

The "Import of raster data" task has been improved. The interface of the dialog for converting a group of rasters in multi-threaded mode has been changed. Image binding, projection parameters and coordinate systems are determined by the program using data from GeoTIFF, IMG files, from WORLD FILE, TAB (MapInfo), MAP (OziExplorer) binding files, and from PRJ projection parameter files. The "Import of raster data" dialog contains the ability to select the method and degree of compression of the output rasters". To speed up the display of rasters at various scales, a pyramid of overview images formed during conversion is used.

The task "Loading coordinates from a text file" has been improved. The ability to select a semantic code for writing a point number into an object has been added into the dialog if the PT field is present in the string format. To save the height value, you can select the "Save H value" option in the "Absolute height" semantics. If the downloaded file contains semantic characteristics, text processing is carried out automatically in the encoding of the source file (UTF8 or ANSI 1251).

The dialog "Current projection parameters" has been improved, which is designed to change the projection of displaying the maps opened in the window. The ability has been added to set projection parameters for any of the document maps and from map files. The projection parameters are set from the list of maps in the document, or by clicking the "From map" button. The latter method allows you to select projection parameters from a vector, raster, matrix map file or files of triangulation models or point clouds. The dialog is called through the main menu: Options - Current projection.

The new version of the program is available for download on the Download page.