Manifold vs Arc - Costs and Paths - 9 seconds vs 12 minutes

An ambitious video comparing four Spatial Analyst geoprocessing tools - Cost Back Link, Cost Distance, Cost Allocation, and Path Distance with Vertical Factor - to equivalent tools in Manifold using a 5300 x 5300 terrain elevation raster. Works in the free Viewer, too! Manifold takes only three or four seconds to produce what requires two minutes in ArcMap with Spatial Analyst to produce using the first three tools. The big surprise is how Manifold takes less than 9 seconds for the Path Distance computation, while Spatial Analyst takes over twelve minutes. Arc users will often use Manifold as a power processor for big data crunching that takes too long in Spatial Analyst: it is far quicker to export data to Manifold, do the job in seconds and then import it back into Arc, than it is to wait for long jobs in Arc. Manifold is only $95, full paid, while Arc plus Spatial Analyst costs thousands. Works in the free Viewer, too. Download Viewer and try out your own data to compare.