Introduction to Surfer

Welcome to Surfer, a powerful gridding, mapping and 3D modeling package for scientists, engineers, educators, or anyone who needs to generate maps quickly and easily. Producing publication quality maps and models has never been quicker or easier. Adding multiple map layers and objects, customizing the map display, and annotating with text creates attractive and informative maps. Virtually all aspects of your maps can be customized to produce the exact presentation you want.

Surfer's grid-based mapping features interpolate irregularly spaced XYZ or XYZC data into a regularly spaced grid. Grids may also be imported from other sources, such as the United States Geological Survey (USGS). The grid is used to produce different types of maps including contour, color relief, and 3D surface maps among others. 3D grids enable even more in depth investigations of your site through 2D slice maps and 3D volume renders, isosurfaces, image slices, block renders, and more.

An extensive suite of gridding methods is available in Surfer. The variety of available methods provides different interpretations of your data, and allows you to choose the most appropriate method for your needs. In addition, data metrics allow you to map statistical information about your gridded data. Surface area, projected planar area, and volumetric calculations can be performed quickly in Surfer. Cross-sectional profiles can also be computed and exported.

The grid files can be edited, combined, filtered, sliced, queried, and mathematically transformed. For example, grids can be sliced to create cross-sectional profiles, or the Grids | Calculate | Isopach command can be used to create an isopach map from two grid files. Grids can be edited with an intuitive user interface in the grid editor.

Scripter

The Scripter TM program, included with Surfer, is useful for creating, editing, and running script files. A script is a text file containing a series of instructions for execution when the script is run that automates Surfer procedures. By writing and running script files, simple mundane tasks or complex system integration tasks can be performed precisely and repetitively without direct interaction. Surfer also supports ActiveX Automation using any compatible client, such as Visual BASIC. These two automation capabilities allow Surfer to be used as a data visualization and map generation post-processor for any scientific modeling system.

New Features

The new features in Surfer are summarized:

Online in the New Features in Surfer Knowledge Base article
Online in the New Features in Surfer Beta Knowledge Base article

Who Uses Surfer?

People from a variety of disciplines use Surfer. Since 1984, over 100,000 scientists and engineers worldwide have discovered Surfer's power and simplicity. Surfer's outstanding gridding and contouring capabilities have made Surfer the software of choice for working with XYZ data. Over the years, Surfer users have included hydrologists, engineers, geologists, archeologists, oceanographers, biologists, foresters, geophysicists, medical researchers, climatologists, educators, students, and more! Anyone wanting to visualize their XYZ data with striking clarity and accuracy will benefit from Surfer's powerful features!

System Requirements

The system requirements for Surfer are:

Windows 10, 11 or higher
64-bit operation system support
1024x768 or higher monitor resolution with a minimum 16-bit color depth
At least 1GB free hard disk space. 500GB or larger hard drive with 25% disk space available recommended.
At least 512MB RAM for simple data sets, 16GB RAM recommended
.NET Framework 4.8. (Note: .NET Framework 4.8 is preinstalled on Windows 10 and later versions)

3D View requirements:

Graphics card with OpenGL v3.2 or later, including the following support:
- Vertex shaders
- Fragment shaders
- Geometry shaders
- GLSL (GL Shading Language) 150
Dedicated graphics card (e.g. NVIDIA, AMD) highly recommended.
Graphics emulators, such as VMs and Parallels for Mac, may not support all the required features for viewing data in the 3D view.

Fine Tuning Surfer Performance

Issues with 3D View features may be corrected by upgrading to the latest graphics drivers.
Many heavily computational operations, including gridding and contouring, are multi-threaded and processor reliant. A faster processor will improve Surfer's performance.
For processing very large data files, such as LiDAR or some vector data files, fast and large RAM storage capacity is recommended.
Click the File | Options command and on the General page, set the Max number of processors to use all processor cores.
To improve performance, click the File | Options command, and, on the General page, uncheck the check box for Save auto recovery information.

Installation Directions

Golden Software recommends installing only the latest version of Surfer.

Installing Surfer requires Administrator rights. Either an administrator account can be used to install Surfer or the administrator's credentials can be entered before installation while logged in to a standard user account. Golden Software does not recommend installing the current version of Surfer in the same location as any previous versions of Surfer.

To install Surfer from a download:

Log into Windows under the account for the individual who is licensed to use Surfer.
Download Surfer according to the emailed directions you received.
Double-click on the downloaded file to begin the installation process.
Once the installation is complete, run Surfer.
License Surfer by activating a single-user license product key or connecting to a license server.

Updating Surfer

To update your version of Surfer, open the Surfer program and choose the File | Online | Check for Update command. This will launch the Internet Update program which will check Golden Software's servers for any updates. If there is an update for your version of Surfer, you will be prompted to download and install the update.

You can also email your registered Surfer product key to surfersupport@goldensoftware.com and request to download the full product update. See the Check for Update topic in the help for additional information.

Uninstalling Surfer

To uninstall Surfer, select Settings in the Start menu. In Settings, select System | Apps & features. Select Surfer and then click Uninstall. To uninstall Surfer from the Windows Control Panel, click Programs | Programs and Features. Select Surfer and click Uninstall.

Surfer Trial Functionality

The Surfer trial is a fully functioning time-limited trial. This means that commands work exactly as in the full program for the duration of the trial. The trial has no further restrictions on use. The trial can be installed on any computer that meets the system requirements. The trial version can be licensed by activating a product key or connecting to a license server.