[Therion] XTherion - Mapaih - Therion Studio

[bruce at tomo.co.nz]

Mōrena (Good Morning)

 

Yes, two new children on the street!

Mapiah and Therion Studio are looking like viable alternatives to XTherion.

My journey…

*	Nineteen years learning to love XTherion
*	Six months occasionally playing with Mapiah
*	Three weeks dabbling with Therion Studio

I haven’t seriously tried to learn the latter two, just kept banging my head
against them to see what it feels like.  Both could do with searchable help
files.

 

Where I’ve ended up.

*	Using my favourite text editor to have all the Therion files I might
need ready to edit or launch in an app (a 17 year habit)
*	Mapiah is my compiler every time – faster and cleaner than XTherion
*	XTherion is my drawing editor – familiar, object parameters are
efficiently typed in
*	Mapiah is my drawing editor if I want to move, stretch rotate a
bunch of objects or background image, then I save and head back to XTherion
*	Studio is what I look at in awe – but apart from the obvious, have
not figured it out yet

 

Below is a gut feel comparison, based on dabbling only, and without
bothering to read all the instructions and learn the capabilities.  Using
Windows 11…

 


Characteristic

XTherion

Mapiah

Therion Studio


Development repo

therion/therion: therion – cave surveying software
<https://github.com/therion/therion> 

https://github.com/rsevero/mapiah

https://github.com/ladislavb/therion-studio


Speed

Slow to load and redraw th2 files

Long delay before compile on some devices

Very fast th2 rendering and fast compilation.

Mapiah’s strength

Slow to load the App, fast th2 rendering and compilation


Version control friendly (does not rewrite th or th2 file structure if was
edited by another App)

Mostly compliant if edited with other apps

Yes, minor exceptions

Yes, as far as I’ve tested


Drawing interface

Not consistent with modern capabilities and norms (cannot move or transform
whole objects, must be moved point by point).

Modern capabilities (move and transform whole objects and collections of
objects).

Mapiah’s strength

but 

Bewildering array of line object editing capabilities 

An improvement on traditional XTherion capabilities.

Yet to explore the capabilities in this respect

It might well be Studio’s strength


Freehand line drawing

No

No

Yes


Facilitates everything Therion can do, and supports legacy workflows such as
interactive manual survey data entry.

Yes

No, or at least not yet

Unsure, although it expands on XTherion’s functionality in many areas


Can use multiple instances to work on same or multiple projects and multiple
applications (eg text editors) simultaneously.

Yes

Yes

Initial experiments suggest multiple instances OK, but only one project at a
time


Can be used as a compendium single instance editor (th, th2, compiler).

 

Yes

Yes, except for general text (th) files

Yes, and seems not to like NOT being used this way.

Includes error detection & correction, live access to object parameter help.


Studio’s strength


Most objects can be created efficiently with minimum clicks and maximum
typing.

Yes, XTherion’s strength

No, very very clicky

Haven’t used enough to know.

Not yet figured out how to draw within the bounds of a scrap object, for
example


Object visualisation

only as points, lines and (if you hold your tongue right) areas

Better symbolisation

Astounding th2 visualisation.

All Therion conceptual objects can be viewed (and edited) as symbolic
blocks.

Studio’s strength


Live update if another App changes open file on disk

No

No

Yes


Development pace

Steady consistent improvement over 30 years

Recent rapid development until 2 months ago

Recent rapid development 

 

So there it is.  Tell me what I’ve missed and where I’m wrong.

I’m pretty excited about both Mapiah and Studio.

Thanks Rodrigo and Ladislav, your efforts are much appreciated.

 

Bruce Mutton

 

From: Therion <therion-bounces at speleo.sk> On Behalf Of ladislav at lblazek.cz
Sent: Wednesday, 1 July 2026 21:34
To: Therion List <therion at speleo.sk>
Subject: [Therion] Therion Studio 2026.6.9

 

Hi all,

 

New version of Therion Studio (https://github.com/ladislavb/therion-studio)
is out, with lot of quality-of-life improvements, bugfixes and performance
improvements. See
https://github.com/ladislavb/therion-studio/releases/tag/v2026.6.9

 

I would like to thank all the testers who tested the app, reported issues
and suggested improvements. Especially Martin Sluka, Bruce Mutton, Axel Hack
and Alex (apgeo) and Therion devs (Stacho, Martin).

 

I recently noticed that the Mapiah project
(https://github.com/rsevero/mapiah) is attempting to address the same issue:
creating a modern replacement for Xtherion. Unfortunately, I encountered
difficulties in running the project on my Mac or even building it from an
Xcode project. Despite these challenges, But I’ve heard good things about
Mapiah and it seems to be quite mature. Therefore, my objective is to
maintain maximum interoperability between Xtherion, Mapiah, and Therion
Studio, enabling seamless transitions between these tools. I’m genuinely
curious to know the differences between Mapiah and Therion Studio. Has
anyone use both?

 

L.

 

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