Mountains is an image analysis and surface metrology

software Software is a set of computer programs and associated software documentation, documentation and data (computing), data. This is in contrast to Computer hardware, hardware, from which the system is built and which actually performs the work. ...

platform published by the company

Digital Surf Digital Surf is a French software company formed in 1989 mainly known for its Mountains software, that is offered as embedded or optional OEM surface analysis software by the majority of profilometer and microscope manufacturers. History * D ...

. Its core is micro-topography, the science of studying surface texture and form in 3D at the microscopic scale. The software is dedicated to profilometers, 3D light

microscope A microscope () is a laboratory instrument used to examine objects that are too small to be seen by the naked eye. Microscopy is the science of investigating small objects and structures using a microscope. Microscopic means being invisi ...

s ("MountainsMap"), scanning electron microscopes ("MountainsSEM") and scanning probe microscopes ("MountainsSPIP").

Integration by instrument manufacturers

The main editor's distribution channel is OEM, through the integration of MountainsMap by most profiler and

manufacturers, usually under their respective brands; it is sold for instance as: * ''Hitachi map 3D'' on Hitachi's scanning electron microscopes, * ''TopoMAPS'' on

Thermo Fisher Scientific Thermo Fisher Scientific Inc. is an American supplier of scientific instrumentation, reagents and consumables, and software services. Based in Waltham, Massachusetts, Thermo Fisher was formed through the merger of Thermo Electron and Fisher Sc ...

( FEI division) scanning electron microscopes, * ''TalyMap'', ''TalyProfile'', or ''TalyMap Contour'' on

Taylor-Hobson Taylor Hobson is an English company founded in 1886 and located in Leicester, England. Originally a manufacturer of still camera and cine lenses, the company now manufactures precision metrology instruments—in particular, profilometers for the ...

's profilometers, * ''PicoImage'' on

Keysight Keysight Technologies, or Keysight, is an American company that manufactures electronics test and measurement equipment and software. The name is a blend of ''key'' and ''insight''. The company was formed as a spin-off of Agilent Technologies, wh ...

's AFM's, * ''HommelMap'' on

Jenoptik Jenoptik AG is a Jena, Germany-based integrated photonics group. The company is listed on the Frankfurt Stock Exchange and is included in the TecDAX stock index. History The group can trace its heritage back to the original Carl Zeiss AG co ...

's profilometers (Hommel-Etamic line of products), * ''MountainsMap - X'' on

Nikon (, ; ), also known just as Nikon, is a Japanese multinational corporation headquartered in Tokyo, Japan, specializing in optics and imaging products. The companies held by Nikon form the Nikon Group. Nikon's products include cameras, camera ...

s, * ''Apex 2D'' or ''Apex 3D'' on

KLA-Tencor KLA Corporation is an American capital equipment company based in Milpitas, California. It supplies process control and yield management systems for the semiconductor industry and other related nanoelectronics industries. The company's produ ...

's profilometers, * ''Leica Map'' on Leica's

s, * ''ConfoMap'' on

Carl Zeiss Carl Zeiss (; 11 September 1816 – 3 December 1888) was a German scientific instrument maker, optician and businessman. In 1846 he founded his workshop, which is still in business as Carl Zeiss AG. Zeiss gathered a group of gifted practica ...

s, * ''MCubeMap'' on

Mitutoyo is a Japanese multinational corporation specializing in measuring instruments and metrological technology, headquartered at Takatsu-ku, Kawasaki, Kanagawa.profilometers.Mitutoyo Corporation signs OEM contract with Digital Surf
/ref> * ''Vision 64 Map'' on

Bruker Bruker Corporation is an American manufacturer of scientific instruments for molecular and materials research, as well as for industrial and applied analysis. It is headquartered in Billerica, Massachusetts, and is the publicly traded parent compa ...

optical profilometers''Bruker Nano Surfaces offers Vision64 Map with 3D optical microscope systems'' in ''News medical''
/ref> * ''AttoMap'' on

cathodoluminescence Cathodoluminescence is an optical and electromagnetic phenomenon in which electrons impacting on a luminescent material such as a phosphor, cause the emission of photons which may have wavelengths in the visible spectrum. A familiar example is ...

-analysis-dedicated scanning electron microscopes from AttoLight * ''SmileView Map'' on

JEOL is a major developer and manufacturer of electron microscopes and other scientific instruments, industrial equipment and medical equipment. Its headquarters are in Tokyo, Japan, with 25 domestic and foreign subsidiaries and associated companies ...

's scanning electron microscopes, * ''SensoMap'' on Sensofar's optical profilometers,

Compatibility

* Mountains native file format is the SURF format (.SUR extension). * Mountains is compatible with most instruments of the market capable of supplying images or topography. * Mountains complies to the

ISO 25178 ISO 25178: Geometrical Product Specifications (GPS) – Surface texture: areal is an International Organization for Standardization collection of international standards relating to the analysis of 3D areal surface texture. Structure of the stan ...

standard on 3D surface texture evaluation and offers the profile and areal filters defined in

ISO 16610 ISO 16610: Geometrical product specifications (GPS) – Filtration is a standard series on filters for surface texture, and provides guidance on the use of these filters in various applications. Filters are used in surface texture in order reduce th ...

. * The metrology reports are generated in proprietary format but can also be exported to PDF and RTF formats. * Mountains is available in

English English usually refers to: * English language * English people English may also refer to: Peoples, culture, and language * ''English'', an adjective for something of, from, or related to England ** English national ide ...

Brazilian Portuguese Brazilian Portuguese (' ), also Portuguese of Brazil (', ) or South American Portuguese (') is the set of varieties of the Portuguese language native to Brazil and the most influential form of Portuguese worldwide. It is spoken by almost all of ...

simplified Chinese Simplification, Simplify, or Simplified may refer to: Mathematics Simplification is the process of replacing a mathematical expression by an equivalent one, that is simpler (usually shorter), for example * Simplification of algebraic expressions, ...

, French,

German German(s) may refer to: * Germany (of or related to) ** Germania (historical use) * Germans, citizens of Germany, people of German ancestry, or native speakers of the German language ** For citizens of Germany, see also German nationality law **Ge ...

Italian Italian(s) may refer to: * Anything of, from, or related to the people of Italy over the centuries ** Italians, an ethnic group or simply a citizen of the Italian Republic or Italian Kingdom ** Italian language, a Romance language *** Regional Ita ...

Japanese Japanese may refer to: * Something from or related to Japan, an island country in East Asia * Japanese language, spoken mainly in Japan * Japanese people, the ethnic group that identifies with Japan through ancestry or culture ** Japanese diaspor ...

Korean Korean may refer to: People and culture * Koreans, ethnic group originating in the Korean Peninsula * Korean cuisine * Korean culture * Korean language **Korean alphabet, known as Hangul or Chosŏn'gŭl **Korean dialects and the Jeju language ** ...

Polish Polish may refer to: * Anything from or related to Poland, a country in Europe * Polish language * Poles Poles,, ; singular masculine: ''Polak'', singular feminine: ''Polka'' or Polish people, are a West Slavic nation and ethnic group, w ...

Russian Russian(s) refers to anything related to Russia, including: *Russians (, ''russkiye''), an ethnic group of the East Slavic peoples, primarily living in Russia and neighboring countries *Rossiyane (), Russian language term for all citizens and peo ...

and

Spanish Spanish might refer to: * Items from or related to Spain: **Spaniards are a nation and ethnic group indigenous to Spain **Spanish language, spoken in Spain and many Latin American countries **Spanish cuisine Other places * Spanish, Ontario, Can ...

Data types ("studiables") accepted

Vocabulary: *

x,y,z

refer to space coordinates,

t

to the time, and

i

to an intensity.

A=f(B)

means

A

is function of

B

B

referring usually to space coordinates and

A

to a scalar. *In Mountains's vocabulary, these data types are referred to as "studiables". Most studiables have a dynamic (time-series) equivalent, e.g., the surface studiable

z=f(x,y)

used to study topography has an associate studiable Series of Surfaces

z=f(x,y,t)

used to study the evolution of topography (e.g., heat distortion of a surface). Mountains analyses the following basic data types:

History of versions

launched their first (2D) surface analysis software package in 1990 for

MS-DOS MS-DOS ( ; acronym for Microsoft Disk Operating System, also known as Microsoft DOS) is an operating system for x86-based personal computers mostly developed by Microsoft. Collectively, MS-DOS, its rebranding as IBM PC DOS, and a few ope ...

("DigiProfil 1.0"), then their first 3D surface analysis package in 1991 for

Macintosh II The Macintosh II is a personal computer designed, manufactured, and sold by Apple Computer from March 1987 to January 1990. Based on the Motorola 68020 32-bit CPU, it is the first Macintosh supporting color graphics. When introduced, a basic sy ...

("DigiSurface 1.0"). * Version 1.0 of MountainsMap was launched in September 1996, introducing a change in the name after a move of the editor to Windows from MsDos and Macintosh platforms. * Version 5.0 introduced the management of multi-layers images. It was a move to

Confocal microscopy Confocal microscopy, most frequently confocal laser scanning microscopy (CLSM) or laser confocal scanning microscopy (LCSM), is an optical imaging technique for increasing optical resolution and contrast of a micrograph by means of using a s ...

(analysis of topography+color as a single object as opposed to separate objects in former versions), and to SPM image analysis (analysis of topography+current, topography+phase, topography+force as a single image). * Version 6.0 completed the specialization of the platform per instrument type. For Version 6.0 the company teamed with a group of alpinists to launch the new version at the summit of the

Makalu Makalu ( ne, मकालु हिमाल, Makālu himāl; zh, t=馬卡魯峰, p=Mǎkǎlǔ fēng) is the fifth highest mountain in the world at . It is located in the Mahalangur Himalayas southeast of Mount Everest, in Nepal. One of th ...

mountain. A special logo was created for this marketing event. The expedition was successful and

Alexia Zuberer Alexia may refer to: * Alexia (given name) ** Alexia (Italian singer) (born 1967) *** ''Alexia'' (album), a 2002 album by the Italian singer ** Alexia Putellas (born 1994), Spanish footballer sometimes known mononymously *** '' Alexia: Labor Omnia ...

, a French and Swiss mountaineer was then the first Swiss woman to reach the summit of the

, Sandrine de Choudens, a French PhD in chemistry being the first French woman to succeed * Version 7.0 was unveiled in September 2012 at the European Microscopy Congress in Manchester, UK. It expanded the list of instruments supported, in particular with new Scanning electron microscope 3D reconstruction software and hyperspectral data analysis (such as Raman and FT-IR hyperspectral cube analysis). * Version 7.2 (February 2015) introduces near real-time 3D topography reconstruction for scanning electron microscopes * Version 7.3 (January 2016) adds fast colorization of scanning electron microscope images based on object-oriented image segmentation. * Version 7.4 (January 2017) offers 3D reconstruction from a single SEM image, and enhanced 3D printing * Version 8.0 (June 2019) is the successor of both Mountains 7.4 and SPIP 6.7 software packages ("SPIP" standing for "Scanning Probe Image Processor") after the acquisition by Digital Surf of the Danish company Image Metrology A/S, the editor of SPIP.''The story behind MountainsSPIP'', interview of Digital Surf's CEO in ''Surface Newsletter'', Fall 2019, Pages 4-6
/ref> Version 8.0 also introduces the analysis of free form surfaces, called "Shells" in the software. * Version 9.0 (June 2021)completes the "shells" (free form surfaces) with surface texture analysis adapted from the

parameters already calculated on the standard surfaces. It also comes with a new product line, "MountainsSpectral", dedicated to the chemical mapping of elements in both 2D (images of chemical composition) and 3D (multi-channel tomography of chemical composition), with applications such as FIB-SEM EDX (X-Ray analysis coupled with focused ion beam tomography) or confocal Raman (Raman analysis in confocal microscopy)''The Mountains 9 release, what's coming'', in the editor's magazine ''SURFACE Newsletter''
/ref>

Instruments supported

References

External links

''New 3D parameters and filtration techniques for surface metrology'', François Blateyron, Quality Magazine White Paper

Manufacturer's official Web site

Makalu 2010 expedition sum up published by one of the Mountaineers, Philippe Bourgine

{{DEFAULTSORT:Mountains 1996 software Data analysis software Science software Science software for Windows Windows graphics-related software Image processing software