OSIsoft developed the PI System, a data integration and analytics platform designed to support plant and utilities with operational intelligence and analytics. OSIsoft was acquired by AVEVA in March 2021, and is now an AVEVA brand and solution.
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Surfer
Score 9.0 out of 10
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Surfer is a data visualization suite from Golden Software in Colorado for oil and gas companies, or other entities in other industries requiring geological or environmental data.
If you have many different DCSs or PLCs in your manufacturing plant, OSIsoft PI System does the job quite well to integrate all different types of sources and data. We have Yokogawa, Mitsubishi, Hitachi, and Azbil DCS and PLC. Connecting them is not a problem.
Surfer has been excellent for us, a small company, to process the electrical resistivity, refraction microtremor, and MASW data collected in the field. There are an increasing number of programs capable of assisting in this geophysical analysis but Surfer is the most advanced. The ability to create both 2D and 3D figures in the program while managing data is a huge help. It also greatly improved report quality and helped clients better understand what the results were for a study.
The user interface can be tricky at first. It's a little rough around the edges and takes a little time to get the hang of.
Not an ideal application for older employees. There are too many things with the interface that make it not worthwhile to train employees with less computer experience.
Manipulating data within Surfer is difficult because you have to do things in a certain order. Not terrible if you get the hang of it but certainly frustrating at first.
Good local support. The only issue is that there are not many system integrators that are well versed with OSIsoft. The implementation is also very costly.
Surfer is very unique with respect to its capabilities. I am not aware of any other mapping software that is at the same time flexible, has a friendly interface, and creates such nice-looking maps.
The worst thing about Surfer is the cost. My company can only afford one license at the moment which means only one employee gets to use it regularly. Not so great when someone is sick or you have a huge wave of projects.
The user interface is a little rough but younger employees have been great at catching on quickly and producing great images.
There's nothing else quite like Surfer. It's versatile and not to difficult to use so, though the licenses are expensive, it is an excellent program that has done wonders for our company!
