Geographic Information Systems
Alternative GIS Software

Mark Foley
mark.foley@dit.ie

Open source GIS Architecture

# Notable commercial or proprietary Desktop GIS

* Note: Almost all of the below companies offer Desktop GIS and WebMap Server products. Some offer Spatial DBMS products as well.

* Companies with high market share * Autodesk – Products that interface with its flagship AutoCAD software package include Map 3D, Topobase, and MapGuide. * Bentley Systems – Products that interface with its flagship MicroStation software package include Bentley Map and Bentley Map View. * ERDAS IMAGINE by ERDAS Inc – Products include Leica Photogrammetry Suite, ERDAS ER Mapper, ERDAS ECW/JP2 SDK (ECW (file format)) are used throughout the entire mapping community (GIS, Remote Sensing, Photogrammetry, and image compression) and ERDAS APOLLO. * Esri – Products include ArcView 3.x, ArcGIS, ArcSDE, ArcIMS, ArcWeb services and ArcGIS Server. * Intergraph – Products include G/Technology, GeoMedia, GeoMedia Professional, GeoMedia WebMap, and add-on products for industry sectors, as well as photogrammetry. * MapInfo by Pitney Bowes Software – Powerful desktop GIS MapInfo Professional is enhanced with many plug-ins including MapInfo Drivetime for route analysis, MapInfo Engage 3D for 3D and statistical analysis, MapInfo MapMarker for Geocoding. * RemoteView by Overwatch – RemoteView is one of the most widely used imagery analysis tools within the US government to collect geospatial intelligence. * Smallworld – developed in Cambridge, England (Smallworld, Inc.) and purchased by General Electric. Used primarily by public utilities. * SuperMap Inc. – Chinese company of GIS software. It produces Desktop, Component and Service GIS for Asia and global markets.

# Notable commercial or proprietary Desktop GIS

* Companies with minor but notable market share * Avenza – Products include MAPublisher, Geographic Imager and PDF Maps for Android and iOS. * Cadcorp – Products include Cadcorp SIS, GeognoSIS, mSIS and developer kits. * Caliper – Products include Maptitude, TransModeler and TransCAD. * Dragon/ips – Remote sensing software with GIS capabilities. * ENVI – Utilized for image analysis, exploitation, and hyperspectral analysis. * Geosoft – GIS and data processing software used in natural resource exploration. * GeoTime – software for 3D visual analysis and reporting of location data over time; an ArcGIS extension is also available. * IDRISI – GIS and Image Processing product developed by Clark Labs at Clark University. Affordable and robust, it is used for both operations and education. * MapDotNet – Framework written in C#/.NET for building WPF, Silverlight, and HTML5 applications. * Manifold System – GIS software package. * Netcad – Desktop and web based GIS products developed by Ulusal CAD ve GIS Çözümleri A.Ş.. * RegioGraph by GfK GeoMarketing – GIS software for business planning and analyses; company also provides compatible maps and market data. * TatukGIS – GIS development components (for .NET WinForms/WPF, ActiveX, VCL) and gis desktop software.

# GIS as a Service

* Many suppliers are now starting to offer Internet based services as well as or instead of downloadable software and/or data. These can be free, funded by advertising or paid for on subscription; they split into three areas:

* SaaS – Software as a Service: Software available on as a service on the Internet * PaaS – Platform as a Service: geocoding or analysis/processing services * DaaS – Data as a Service: data or content services

# Open source Software * The development of open source GIS software has—in terms of software history—a long tradition with the appearance of a first system in 1978. Numerous systems are available which cover all sectors of geospatial data handling.

* GRASS GIS – Originally developed by the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers: a complete GIS. * gvSIG – Written in Java. Runs on Linux, Unix, Mac OS X and Windows. * ILWIS (Integrated Land and Water Information System) – Integrates image, vector and thematic data. * JUMP GIS / OpenJUMP ((Open) Java Unified Mapping Platform) – The desktop GISs OpenJUMP, SkyJUMP, deeJUMP and Kosmo all emerged from JUMP.[3] * MapWindow GIS – Free desktop application and programming component. * QGIS (previously known as Quantum GIS) – Runs on Linux, Unix, Mac OS X and Windows. * SAGA GIS (System for Automated Geoscientific Analysis) –- A hybrid GIS software. Has a unique Application Programming Interface (API) and a fast growing set of geoscientific methods, bundled in exchangeable Module Libraries. * uDig – API and source code (Java) available.

Besides these, there are other open source GIS tools:
- Capaware – A C++ 3D GIS Framework with a multiple plugin architecture for geographic graphical analysis and visualization.
- FalconView – A mapping system created by the Georgia Tech Research Institute for the Windows family of operating systems. A free, open source version is available.
- Kalypso – Uses Java and GML3. Focuses mainly on numerical simulations in water management.
- TerraView – Handles vector and raster data stored in a relational or geo-relational database, i.e. a frontend for TerraLib.
- Whitebox GAT – Transparent GIS software.

Other geospatial tools

Apart from Desktop GIS exists a variety of other GIS software types. For its categorization see GIS software. A general overview of GIS software projects for each category was done in 2012.[4] Below is a similar listing of open source GIS projects.
- Web map servers
- GeoServer – Written in Java and relies on GeoTools. Allows users to share and edit geospatial data.
- MapGuide Open Source – Runs on Linux or Windows, supports Apache and IIS web servers, and has APIs (PHP, .NET, Java, and JavaScript) for application development.
- Mapnik – C++/Python library for rendering - used by OpenStreetMap.
- MapServer – Written in C. Developed by the University of Minnesota.

Spatial database management systems

PostGIS – Spatial extensions for the open source PostgreSQL database, allowing geospatial queries.
SpatiaLite – Spatial extensions for the open source SQLite database, allowing geospatial queries.
TerraLib – Provides advanced functions for GIS analysis.

Software development frameworks and libraries (for web applications)

GeoBase (Telogis GIS software) – Geospatial mapping software available as a Software development kit, which performs various functions including address lookup, mapping, routing, reverse geocoding, and navigation. Suited for high transaction enterprise environments.
Geomajas – Open source development software for web-based and cloud based GIS applications.
MapFish – Aggregates the power of OpenLayers, ExtJS and GeoExt.
OpenLayers – Open source AJAX library for accessing geographic data layers of all kinds, originally developed and sponsored by MetaCarta.
Software development frameworks and libraries (non-web)
GeoTools – Open source GIS toolkit written in Java, using Open Geospatial Consortium specifications.
GDAL / OGR
Orfeo toolbox

Other tools

Chameleon – Environments for building applications with MapServer.
MapPoint – A technology ("MapPoint Web Service", previously known as MapPoint .NET) and a specific computer program created by Microsoft that allows users to view, edit and integrate maps.

PROJ.4 - Cartographic Projections Library
GPSBabel - converts waypoints, tracks, and routes between popular GPS receivers and mapping programs. It also has powerful manipulation tools for such data.

Highlights - Typical “stack”

Front-end
- OpenLayers
Middleware
- Geoserver
Back-end
- PostgreSQL/PostGIS

Highlights - Other notable tools

QGIS
- Useful “workbench” for publishing and analysing data
GDAL/OGR
- GDAL is a translator library for raster geospatial data formats that is released under an X/MIT style Open Source license by the Open Source Geospatial Foundation. As a library, it presents a single abstract data model to the calling application for all supported formats. It also comes with a variety of useful commandline utilities for data translation and processing. The NEWS page describes the August 2013 GDAL/OGR 1.10.1 release.
- The related OGR library (which lives within the GDAL source tree) provides a similar capability for simple features vector data.

Utility programs distributed with GDAL/OGR.

The following utilities are distributed as part of the OGR Simple Features toolkit:
- ogrinfo - Lists information about an OGR supported data source
- ogr2ogr - Converts simple features data between file formats
- ogrtindex - Creates a tileindex
- gdalinfo - report information about a file.
- gdal_translate - Copy a raster file, with control of output format.
- gdaladdo - Add overviews to a file.
- gdalwarp - Warp an image into a new coordinate system.
- gdaltindex - Build a MapServer raster tileindex.
- gdalbuildvrt - Build a VRT from a list of datasets.
- nearblack - Convert nearly black/white borders to exact value.
- gdal_retile.py - Retiles a set of tiles and/or build tiled pyramid levels.
- gdal_grid - Create raster from the scattered data.
- gdal_proximity.py - Compute a raster proximity map.
- gdal_polygonize.py - Generate polygons from raster.
- gdal_sieve.py - Raster Sieve filter.
- gdal_fillnodata.py - Interpolate in nodata regions.
- gdallocationinfo - Query raster at a location.
- gdalsrsinfo - Report a given SRS in different formats. (GDAL >= 1.9.0)
- gdalmove.py - Transform the coordinate system of a file (GDAL >= 1.10)

SpatiaLite

SpatiaLite is an SQLite database engine with Spatial functions added. You can think of it as a spatial extender for SQLite database engine which is similar in concept to what PostGIS does for the PostgreSQL Object-Relational Database.
It is a single file relational database system that runs equally well on Windows, Linux, Unix, Mac and is easily embeddable in larger apps. Is Free and Open Soure -- Public domain so no restrictions for commercial and embedding in other applications and I think is superb as a mini-replicator.
What is special about it is as follows:
- all the tables fit into a single file so easy for transport
- It has a dblink-like feature that allows you to mount external files as virtual tables and join with your SQLite data.
- PHP has built-in drivers for SQLite it, .NET has drivers for it you can dump in your bin folder and get going, SharpMap (has a driver for the SpatiaLite version in the works) similar to what it has for PostGIS. (note the drivers unlike other databases contain the engine as well). This is very important to understand since you want your driver to have the SpatiaLite enhancements.
- The SQLite core engine is a relatively tiny application that provides you more or less standard ANSI-SQL 92 syntax so with a basic abstraction layer, you can treat this as you would any other relational database.
- Supports SQL views, triggers
- Has basic ACID/Transactions -- BEGIN/COMMIT;

Getting started with FOSS4G

What you need
- Place to put a server (real or virtual)
- Consider Virtualbox or Amazon AWS – EC2 instance
- LAPP stack (get this from http://www.turnkeylinux.org)
- A script to add PostGIS & Geoserver (get this from me)
- QGIS