Surfer is a full-function 3D visualization, contouring and surface modeling package that runs under Microsoft Windows. Surfer is used extensively for terrain modeling, bathymetric modeling, landscape visualization, surface analysis, contour mapping, watershed and 3D surface mapping, gridding, volumetrics, and much more.
Contour Maps
Surfer contour maps give you full control over all map parameters. You can accept the Surfer intelligent defaults to automatically create a contour map, or double-click a map to easily customize map features.
3D Surface Maps
The 3D surface map uses shading and color to emphasize your data features. Change the lighting, display angle and tilt with a click of the mouse. Overlay several surface maps to generate informative block diagrams.
Image Maps
Surfer image maps use different colors to represent elevations of a grid file. Surfer automatically blends colors between percentage values so you end up with a smooth color gradation over the entire map. You can add color anchors at any percentage point between 0 and 100. Each anchor point can be assigned a unique color, and the colors are automatically blended between adjacent anchor points.
Shaded Relief Maps
Shaded relief maps are raster images based on grid files. Colors are assigned based on slope orientation relative to a light source. Surfer determines the orientation of each grid cell and calculates reflectance of a point light source on the grid surface.
Base Maps
Surfer can import maps in many different formats to display geographic information. Base maps are created from any number of file formats, such as SHP, DXF, GeoTIFF, and PDF.
Post Maps
Post maps show points at XY locations, such as sample locations, well locations, or original data point locations. Use the points to show the distribution of data points on the map, and to demonstrate the accuracy of the gridding methods you use.
Watershed Maps
Watershed maps automatically calculate and display drainage basins and streams from your grid file.
3D Wireframe Maps
Surfer wireframe maps provide an impressive three dimensional display of your data. Wireframes are created by connecting Z values along lines of constant X and Y.
Vector Maps
Instantly create vector maps in Surfer to show direction and magnitude of data at points on a map. You can create vector maps from information in one grid or two separate grids. The two components of the vector map, direction and magnitude, are automatically generated from a single grid by computing the gradient of the represented surface.
Map Layers
Adding multiple map layers to your map gives you a way to combine different types of data in one map. For example, you can drape a georeferenced image over a 3D surface map, overlay multiple base maps with a contour map, or plot a post map with contours over a wireframe map.
Stacking Maps
You can align individual maps horizontally on the page by stacking them. Map stacking was designed to align maps using commensurate coordinate systems. This command is useful for keeping two or more maps separated vertically on the page while keeping relative horizontal positions.
Map Projections
Choose from an endless list of coordinate systems for your map to display. Specify the source coordinate system for each of the layers in your map, and choose to display the map in any other coordinate system! For example, load data and grid files in UTM or State Plane coordinates, and display the map in Latitude/Longitude coordinates! It is simply that easy!
Profiles
Surfer's automatic profile tool makes it easy to visualize the change in Z value from one point to another.
Customize Your Map
Make your map look its best by customizing it to fit your needs! Surfer offers numerous map features to enhance the look of your map. Use Surfer’s defaults, or customize your map by including scale bars, editing colors, lines and fill styles, showing only portions of a map, adjusting the scale and setting axis properties!
Superior Gridding
The gridding methods in Surfer allow you to produce accurate contour, surface, wireframe, vector, image, and shaded relief maps from your XYZ data. The data can be randomly dispersed over the map area, and Surfer's gridding will interpolate your data onto a grid. Use Surfer’s default settings or choose from twelve different gridding methods.
Grid Node Editor
Clean up your grid with the grid node editor!
Variograms
Use the variogram modeling subsystem to quantitatively assess the spatial continuity of data. Variograms may be used to select an appropriate variogram model when gridding with the Kriging algorithm. Surfer uses a variogram grid as a fundamental internal data representation and once this grid is built, any experimental variogram can be computed instantaneously.
Faults and Breaklines
Define faults and breaklines when gridding your data. Faults act as barriers to the information flow, and data on one side of the fault will not be directly used to calculate grid node values on the other side of the fault. Breaklines include Z values.
Grid Functions
In addition to creating maps, you can perform a variety of functions using grid files. Just a few of the possibilities include:
Using USGS and SRTM Data
Use USGS Digital Elevation Model (DEM), National Elevation Dataset (NED) and NASA Shuttle Radar Topographic Mission (SRTM) data with any Surfer command that uses grid files.
Worksheet
Surfer lets you massage your data in many ways to achieve the exact output you want. Surfer includes a full-featured worksheet for creating, opening, editing, and saving data files. Data files can be up to one billion rows and columns, subject to available memory. You can cut, copy, and paste data within the Surfer worksheet or between applications.
Object and Property Manager
The object manager and property manager makes the editing of any object simple. The object manager displays all the objects in the plot document in an easy-to-use hierarchical tree arrangement.
Automation
Create your own scripts to automate repetitive tasks! Don’t spend time doing the same process over and over again – write a simple script to simplify your life! Operations performed interactively can be controlled using an automation-compatible programming language such as Visual Basic, C++, or Perl.
Additional Features
Your Surfer package comes with many additional features to help you work smarter, not harder!
Supported File Formats
Surfer supports many data, grid, and import/export formats.
What's New in Surfer
We have compiled a list of some of the top new features in Surfer. This list is only a small sampling of the new features added to Surfer.
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Reverse X or Y Axis Direction
Reverse the direction of the X or Y axis with a simple click of a button! It is easy to show descending data, such as depth data, in the correct orientation without modifying your data.
"This is a nice feature, especially for geo-scientists compiling contoured cross-sections of data. Nice work. It’s blindingly fast and works for very large files with very complicated maps." – Shane Wilkes, Hydrogeologist
Use Data in Date/Time Format
Visualize your data with respect to time! Surfer 12 supports dates and times as valid data. This means you can use dates and times as a data variable for gridding, for creating post maps, and you can format data in the worksheet or text labels in multiple date and time formats.
Grid and Display Maps with Logarithmic Z Scale
Effectively display Z data that range over several orders of magnitude! You can grid data taking the log of the Z value prior to gridding, choose to have logarithmically scaled contour levels, or have logarithmic scaling applied to the color scale. This is extremely useful when your data file has extreme data ranges, such as concentration data where the Z values can span multiple orders of magnitude (i.e. >1 to <20000).
“I have been using the new logarithmic scaling feature for several days now. I have really found it useful in working with soil gas and production maps. It does show better definition in data sets that have wide ranging z values.” – David Holley, Geologist
"This feature alone makes upgrading to version 12 a necessity.” - Steven Schamel, GeoX Consulting Inc., Salt Lake City, Utah
Download Free Online Maps
More information is now at your fingertips. Download image layers from hundreds of free online Web Map Services (WMS) through Surfer's new, integrated WMS browser. Connect to online data sources, pick the layers of interest you want to download, and Surfer seamlessly downloads and imports the images into your projects.
Save SRF files in Surfer 11 Format
Be compatible with your colleagues! If you have Surfer 12 and they have not upgraded yet, you can still share your project with them by saving it in Surfer 11 format so they can open it.
Export Map and Drawn Objects in One Step
Save time! Exporting map and non-map objects just got a lot easier. No more complicated two-step export process. Now, simply specify the map as the scaling source when exporting your entire project to a vector or georeferenced image file– it’s that easy!
Take Advantage of the Post Map and Classed Post Map Enhancements
Create your post maps the way you want them! Many new enhancements have been made to post and classed post maps so that you can create the map you envision. Add multiple labels to points, connect the points with a line, and use the symbol color as the label font color, just to name a few.
Post maps also offer the ability to color the symbols using a column in the data file of either numeric values (and you can choose a color gradient to apply to the data range) or discrete color names. Classed post maps offer the option to apply a color gradient to the symbols, apply a gradational size to the symbols, and set the symbol properties for all symbols at once.
Creating just the right map of your point locations is better than ever!
"Loving the multiple post labels function - big thanks for that one!" – Shane Wilkes, Hydrogeologist
Change Units of Measure
Get the data you need in the units you want. When measuring lengths and areas on a projected map, you can easily change the units of measure! For example, if your map is in UTM meters, you can measure an area and report the perimeter length in feet and the area in square miles!
Use one of the New Line Styles
Customize your map! Surfer 12 includes over 160 new line styles to help you customize your map to its fullest potential.
Change Watershed Basin Line Properties
See your basin boundaries better. Change the line properties and make the lines thicker, a different color, or a different style.
Format Contour Labels
Quickly and easily change contour label properties so your map looks its best! Set the contour map label font and format properties in the Property Manager when using the Simple level method.
Edit Your Boundaries
Surfer’s giving you more flexibility than ever to edit your boundaries to look their best. New geoprocessing tools allow you to simplify polylines and polygons to remove extraneous bends or vertices while preserving essential shape, or smooth them to improve aesthetic or cartographic quality.
Blank the Grid around a Buffered Convex Hull
Include all your data points in the grid. Blank the grid outside the convex hull of the data, but add a buffer inside or outside the convex hull to be sure all data points and areas around them are within the gridded boundary.
Save Z Values of Contour Lines When Export
Export all your data! Export a contour map to MIF, SHP, GSB, GSI, BLN or BNA file formats and the Z values are stored as metadata. In addition, when exporting a contour map to KML file, the Z values of the contours are saved as the Object ID for the polyline objects.
Visualize Increased Resolution for Image Maps
See all the details of your image map. The number of colors used to display images maps has been significantly increased from 256 colors to up to 16 million colors, allowing smaller color variations to be discernible.
Use Larger Grids
Create and load grids with up to 2 billion grid nodes! Your computer will run out of memory before you can find a grid that is too large to load in Surfer.
"I routinely generate grids bigger than 32767 rows or cols and am not able to check them in Surfer 11 but Surfer 12 reads them in and displays them no problem. I loaded an 8 GB (26758 x 38890) grid yesterday with 8 GB of RAM and was so impressed I went out and bought another 4GB SIMM to celebrate and make it load faster. Well done!" – Kim Frankcombe, ExploreGeo, Australia
Choose from More Paper Sizes
Work more efficiently! Larger paper sizes were added to the list of predefined sizes under Page Setup. You no longer have to manually customize larger sizes like A0, A1 or A2.
Utilize Increased File Compatibility
Take advantage of the newly available or enhanced import and export formats!
"I really like support for pdf files in Surfer 12. Now I can do amazing things with the pdf files I get sent from my clients. You have just made things easier for me. Thanks." – Shane Wilkes, Hydrogeologist
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Select a Newly Added Coordinate System, Datum or Ellipsoid
Coordinate Systems
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Datums
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Ellipsoid
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- Windows XP SP2 or higher, Vista, 7, 8 (excluding RT) or higher
- 32-bit and 64-bit operating systems supported
- 1024 x 768 or higher monitor resolution with 16-bit (or higher) color depth
- At least 500 MB free hard disk space
- At least 512 MB RAM minimum
32-bit and 64-bit versions of Surfer are available.