FOSS4G Software List

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This is an overview of major free GIS software projects. It is a personal selection aiming at listing only those projects that seem to have a stable user community or have potential to establish a wider user base. The content of this page is part of a manuscript that we submit end of January 2012: S. Steiniger and A.J.S. Hunter: "The 2012 Free and Open Source GIS Software Map – A Guide to facilitate Research, Development and Adoption".

The categories of software used are based on that presented in Steiniger and Weibel (2010): "GIS software" [1].

To test some of the software below we recommend the OSGeo Live DVD (http://live.osgeo.org).

last update to this page was made on 13. Jan. 2012

A selection of FOS GIS Software Projects 2011

Desktop GIS

major:

• GRASS - http://grass.osgeo.org
• OpenJUMP - http://www.openjump.org
• Quantum GIS - http://www.qgis.org
• ILWIS Open - http://www.ilwis.org (see also the page by 52 North for latest releases)
• uDig - http://udig.refractions.net
• SAGA - http://www.saga-gis.org
• vgSIG - http://www.gvsig.org , and for the community edition http://www.gvsigce.org
• MapWindow - http://www.mapwindow.org

others:

• KOSMO - http://www.opengis.es
• Puzzle GIS - http://puzzle-gis.codehaus.org
• iGeoDesktop - http://www.deegree.org
• Orbis GIS - http://www.orbisgis.org
• Whitebox - http://www.uoguelph.ca/~hydrogeo/Whitebox
• Kalypso - http://kalypso.bjoernsen.de
• GearScape - http://gearscape.fergonco.es/
• Spring GIS - (not yet open source) http://www.dpi.inpe.br/spring/

Spatial Data Base Managment Systems

major:

• PostGIS for PostgreSQL - http://postgis.refractions.net
• MySQL - http://forge.mysql.com/wiki/GIS_Functions
• SpatiaLite for SQLite - http://gaia-gis.it/spatialite/

others:

• JASPA for PostgreSQL and(!) H2 - http://jaspa.upv.es/blog/)
• Hatbox for H2 - http://hatbox.sourceforge.net
• Hibernate Spatial for Hibernate - http://hibernatespatial.org
• INGRES - http://community.ingres.com/wiki/IngresGeospatial

NoSQL (see http://nosql-database.org/):

• GeoCouch for CouchDB - http://github.com/couchbase/geocouch
• MongoDB - http://www.mongodb.or

Server GIS (OGC WPS)

• 52 North WPS - http://52north.org/communities/geoprocessing/
• deegree WPS - http://wiki.deegree.org/deegreeWiki/deegree3/ProcessingService
• PyWPS - http://pywps.wald.intevation.org
• Zoo - http://www.zoo-project.org
• GeoServer - http://www.geoserver.or
• WebGEN - http://aci.ign.fr/web_service.php

Mobile GIS

• gvSIG Mobile - http://gvsig.org/web/projects/gvsig-mobile
• Geopaparazzi - see Android Market and http://code.google.com/p/geopaparazzi/

viewers for smart phones:

• gvSIG Mini - http://market.android.com/details?id=es.prodevelop.gvsig.mini&hl=en
• tangoGPS - http://www.tangogps.org
• FoxtrotGPS - http://www.foxtrotgps.org

Exploratory Spatial Data Analysis Software

• OpenGeoDa - http://geodacenter.asu.edu
• STARS - http://geodacenter.asu.edu
• PySAL - http://geodacenter.asu.edu
• R - http://www.r-project.org
• GeoVista Studio - http://geovistastudio.psu.edu

Remote Sensing Software

• OSSIM - http://www.ossim.org
• InterImage - http://www.lvc.ele.puc-rio.br/projects/interimage/
• Opticks - http://www.opticks.org
• GDL for IDL - http://gnudatalanguage.sourceforge.net/
• ILWIS - http://52north.org/communities/ilwis/

Software Libraries and Extensions

Data input/output and conversion libraries

• GDAL & OGR - http://www.gdal.org
• FDO - http://fdo.osgeo.org
• GDMS - http://trac.orbisgis.org/t/wiki/devs/GDMS
• GeoTools - http://www.geotools.org
• SharpMap - http://codeplex.com/SharpMap/
• LibLAS (for Lidar data) - http://www.liblas.org
• GeoKettle (ETL tool) - http://www.geokettle.org

Other useful libraries

• JAVA Matrix Package (JAVA) - http://math.nist.gov/javanumerics/jama/
• JMathTools (Java) - http://jmathtools.berlios.de
• JGraphT (Java) - http://jgrapht.sourceforge.net
• JFreeChart (Java) - http://www.jfree.org
• GNU Scientific Library (C/C++) - http://www.gnu.org/software/gsl/
• Boost (C/C++) - http://www.boost.org

General Frameworks for own GIS Development

• GeoTools for Java - http://www.geotools.org
• OpenMap for Java - http://openmap.bbn.com
• OpenJUMP GIS for Java & Jython (Python) - http://www.openjump.org
• SharpMap for .NET - http://codeplex.com/SharpMap
• DotSpatial for C++/.NET - by the MapWindow GIS developers, http://dotspatial.codeplex.com
• QGIS for C++ & Python - http://www.gqis.org

Web Map Application Development Frameworks

Map Viewer

major:

others:

• ModestMaps
• OpenZoom (image viewer for very large images)

Tiling

• TileMill - XXX