UBIKWITUS: April 2006

Sunday, April 30, 2006

Location Based Services: "Location-based services (LBS) are applications that leverage the user's physical location to provide an enhanced service or experience. Location awareness can be used, for example, for navigation and mapping, workforce tracking, finding points of interest, and getting weather information. It presents a compelling new business opportunity for application developers, operators, and content producers. Location awareness differentiates mobile applications from traditional PC and wired Internet services.
The S60 platform offers developers easy-to-use APIs and ready-made user interface components to make mobile applications location-aware. Additionally, starting with S60 3rd Edition, the Location Acquisition API is also supported via JSR-179, the Location API for the Java� 2 Platform, Micro Edition (J2ME&trade).
To learn more how you can capitalize on location-aware applications, please take a look at our LBS White Paper.
The following table provides you an overview of the availability of LBS features in different platforms and devices.
Platform LBS Features Featured Devices
S60 2nd Edition,
Feature Pack 1Support for MT-LR Privacy
Nokia 7610
Nokia 6670
Nokia 3230
Nokia 6260
S60 2nd Edition,
Feature Pack 2Support for MT-LR Privacy,
Location Acquisition API Nokia 6630
Nokia 6680
Nokia 6681
Nokia 6682
S60 2nd Edition,
Feature Pack 3Same as in FP2 Nokia N70
Nokia N90
S60 3rd EditionSame as in S60 2nd Edition, FP2 and
Location Acquisition API (updated),
Landmarks API,
Landmarks Search API,
Landmark Database Management API ,
Landmarks UI Add/Edit API,
Landmarks UI Selector API,
Satellite Info API ,
JSR-179 Nokia 3250
Nokia E60
Nokia E61
Nokia E7"

Location Based Services

location based services

Location-based services (LBS) are applications that leverage the user's physical location to provide an enhanced service or experience. Location awareness can be used, for example, for navigation and mapping, workforce tracking, finding points of interest, and getting weather information. It presents a compelling new business opportunity for application developers, operators, and content producers. Location awareness differentiates mobile applications from traditional PC and wired Internet services.
The S60 platform offers developers easy-to-use APIs and ready-made user interface components to make mobile applications location-aware. Additionally, starting with S60 3rd Edition, the Location Acquisition API is also supported via JSR-179, the Location API for the Java™ 2 Platform, Micro Edition (J2ME&trade).
To learn more how you can capitalize on location-aware applications, please take a look at our LBS White Paper.
The following table provides you an overview of the availability of LBS features in different platforms and devices.
Platform
LBS Features
Featured Devices
S60 2nd Edition, Feature Pack 1
Support for MT-LR Privacy
Nokia 7610
Nokia 6670
Nokia 3230
Nokia 6260
S60 2nd Edition, Feature Pack 2
Support for MT-LR Privacy, Location Acquisition API
Nokia 6630
Nokia 6680
Nokia 6681
Nokia 6682
S60 2nd Edition, Feature Pack 3
Same as in FP2
Nokia N70
Nokia N90
S60 3rd Edition
Same as in S60 2nd Edition, FP2 and
Location Acquisition API (updated), Landmarks API, Landmarks Search API, Landmark Database Management API , Landmarks UI Add/Edit API, Landmarks UI Selector API, Satellite Info API ,
JSR-179
Nokia 3250
Nokia E60
Nokia E61
Nokia E70
Nokia N71
Nokia N80
Nokia N91
Nokia N92
Java™ 2 Platform, Micro Edition (J2ME™) .

Java Location API (JSR-179)
Nokia 6265
Nokia 6265i
Nokia 6165
Nokia 3250
Nokia E60
Nokia E61
Nokia E70
Nokia N71
Nokia N80
Nokia N91
Nokia N92
Series 80 2nd Edition
Location Acquisition API
Nokia 9300
Nokia 9300i
Nokia 9500
Other
Support for MT-LR Privacy
Location Acquisition API, Landmarks API, Landmarks Search API
Nokia 7710
Supported location technologies
Technology
Devices
Bluetooth GPS (external)
Nokia 6265
Nokia 6265i

Nokia 7610
Nokia 6670
Nokia 3230
Nokia 6260
Nokia 6630
Nokia 6680
Nokia 6681
Nokia 6682
Nokia N70
Nokia N90
Nokia N92
Nokia 3250
Nokia E60
Nokia E61
Nokia E70
Nokia N71
Nokia N80
Nokia N91
Nokia 9300
Nokia 9500
Nokia 7710
Network-based positioning
Nokia 3250
Nokia E60
Nokia E61
Nokia E70
Nokia 7710
What's New in S60 3rd Edition - the Landmark APIs
A landmark is a representation of a geographical location and thus landmarks, or Points-Of-Interests (POIs) as they are also known, are an integral part of almost any location-aware application. The new landmark functionality in S60 3rd Edition enables applications that allow end users to create landmarks for their favorite places, send landmarks to their friends, navigate to a landmark, and of course to manage their collection of landmarks.
S60 3rd Edition includes a dedicated application for the centralized management of user landmarks. Thus it is not necessary for the application developers to put their effort in constructing such a system. Instead, developers are free to concentrate on how they would like to use landmarks in their own applications.
As you can observe from the preliminary screenshots, the user can access landmarks either directly or hierarchicly via categories.
To learn how to take advantage of landmarks in your application, please have a look at the Landmarks API, the Landmarks Search API, the Landmarks Database Management API, and the related example application source code. JSR-179 can be used to access landmarks from Java MIDlets.
See also the Landmarks Exchange Format Specification for details about how the landmarks can be represented in XML format and as such exchanged between mobile devices (through local connectivity) or between content providers and their mobile users (for example, through Web sites).
What's New in S60 3rd Edition - the Landmarks UI Add/Edit Component API
If your application creates new landmarks, it is likely that your application will need to prompt the end user for some additional information about the landmark, for example, how he or she would like to name or categorize the landmark. This usage scenario is likely to be so common that we included a ready-made UI component in S60 3rd Edition to do just that. The component also does the coordinate acquisition via the Location API.
You can also use the component in view only mode if you wish to show the details of a certain landmark to the end user and want to avoid the possibility of the end user modifying the landmark in any way. To learn more about this ready-made UI component, please have a look at the Landmarks UI Add/Edit API and the source code of the related example application in the S60 3rd Edition SDK.
What's New in S60 3rd Edition - the Landmarks UI Selector Component API
Many times your application will need the end user to indicate one or more landmarks for you, for example, for your application to show the indicated landmark(s) on a map or provide navigation guidance to them. To help you with that, S60 3rd Edition includes a ready-made UI component that you can use to prompt the end user for one or more landmarks or for one or more landmark categories.
Simply launch the UI component and you will get the landmarks or categories selected by the end user as return values. The UI component takes care of all the required end-user interaction. For more details, please see the Landmarks UI Selector API and the source code of the related example application.
What's New in S60 3rd Edition - the GPS Satellite View
Every decent location-aware application has a GPS satellite view, right? Now wouldn't it be a drag if every developer would need to make their own satellite view? And wouldn't it be a pain for end users to try to cope with different-looking views that are supposed to depict the same thing, the availability of the GPS satellites?
To answer these questions, S60 3rd Edition offers developers a ready-made UI component that applications can use to display GPS satellite availability in a clear and coherent way. To learn how easy it is to embed the satellite view into your application, please have a look at the Satellite Info API and the source code of the related example application.
Make Your Application Location-Aware - Now and with Ease
The Location Acquisition API 2nd 3rd enables native Symbian OS applications to determine the current location of the handset. This API provides easy access for determining a user's current location, independent of the positioning technology being used. This means that applications can utilize all available positioning technologies, such as Bluetooth Global Positioning System (GPS) accessories and network-based positioning, via a single API.
To make your mobile application location-aware, more information is available in the Location Acquisition API and the source code of the related example applications.
Testing Made Easy
Developing location-aware software can be tedious if you need to transfer your application to a mobile device and start walking or driving around to test the effects of your latest changes. To overcome this problem, the S60 platform allows you to create a text file from which the positioning system will fetch coordinates, thus simulating the device moving along the given path.
First prepare a simulation data file. For details, please take a look at the Simulation PSY User Guide.
Then tell the positioning system the location of your simulation data file. In S60 releases prior to 3rd Edition, this happens with a separate SimPsyConfigurator application that is available in the application grid.
Starting from S60 3rd Edition, you can set the simulation data file from the settings of the Simulation positioning method.
Also make sure that the Simulation positioning method is the selected positioning method when testing. You can check and alter this setting using the Location Settings application.
For more information, please have a look at the Simulation PSY Configurator User Guide and the Simulation PSY User Guide.
Handset Support for Network-Resident LBS
Starting from S60 2nd Edition, Feature Pack 1, MT-LR Privacy messages from network-resident LBS applications are supported. MT-LR is an acronym for Mobile Terminated Location Request and is also known as LCS Location Notification. These messages let the device owner decide if a network-resident LBS application, such as a weather service, may use the device’s location to provide the service requested by the device owner. For more information on the role of LCS Location Notification in Location Services, please refer to 3GPP TS 23.271 (or 03.71). For signalling protocol level information of LCS-LocationNotification, please refer to 3GPP TS 24.030 (or 04.30)."
Tools
Series 60 Platform SDK's for Symbian OS, for C++Series 60 Platform SDK for Symbian OS, for C++ allows C++ developers to quickly and efficiently run and test applications for devices that are compatible with the Series 60 Platform.
Series 80 Platform SDK's for Symbian OS, for JavaThe Personal Profile SDK is the kit for developers creating Java™ Personal Profile applications for Nokia platform devices. The product consists of a phone emulator, application programming interfaces (APIs), documentation, and examples.Series 80 Platform 2.0 SDK for Symbian OS, for MIDP enables Java™ 2 Platform, Micro Edition (J2ME™) application development for devices based on Series 80 Platform 2.0, and is compatible with the Nokia 9300 smartphone and Nokia 9500 Communicator.
Nokia Prototype SDK 2.0 for Java™ 2 Platform, Micro EditionNokia Prototype SDK 2.0 for J2ME™ enables developers to quickly and efficiently run and test applications for devices compatible with the Series 40 Platform, the Series 60 Platform, and the Series 80 Platform, as well as for the Nokia 7710 widescreen smartphone, before the final SDKs become available.
Nokia Mobile Server Services SDK 1.5This SDK provides an end-to-end application development and testing environment for developers creating and designing Java™ applications that use SMS and MMS messaging, location, and Presence services.
Documents
Capitalizing On The Location-Based Services OpportunityThis white paper presents an overview of how Nokia platforms and tools are opening the LBS opportunity for developers.
JSR-179 Location API for J2ME™ Specification This is the Final Release version of the Location API for J2ME™ specification (JSR-179) developed under the Java Community Process.

N100
location based services

Saturday, April 29, 2006

Communities Dominate Brands: What happens when majority access web via mobile phone

location based services

Spotted a telling statistic by Ipsos Research, who reported that at the end of 2005 a total of 28% of all mobile phone users access the internet with their phones. Across the 2.1 billion mobile phone users, that works out to 588 million users. And obviously across the 1 billion internet users at the end of 2005, that means that almost 59% of internet users access the web via cellphone.

First very significant point to keep in mind, is that a large portion of those users have also a PC (desktop or laptop) and access the web also with their PC. Earlier numbers had revealed that of paid subscribers to the internet, 25% was by mobile phone or in other words, 250 million people use the mobile phone as their primary (or only) method to access the web.

So to explain - 250 million access only by mobile phone. 412 million access only by PC (desktop or laptop). And thus 338 million use both PC and mobile phone for web access.

So far so good. Now lets observe the trends. PC based internet access is a little over 12 years old as a mass market proposition and in 2005 PC based internet access growth was dramatically slowing down. Mobile phone based internet access is only six years old and showing remarkable growth. With new smartphones, colour screens, faster access speeds of 2.5G and 3G, and web services customized for the fourth screen, mobile phone based internet is becoming a very compelling offering.

Growth of the PC based internet is slowing down. Growth of the mobile phone based internet is accelerating. Only 41% of all internet access is by people who only access by PC. Already 25% of all internet access is only by mobile phone. Soon more people will access by mobile than PC. How soon? By 2008.

What will this mean to the internet industry? The mobile phone can replicate all services that the traditional PC based internet can do. Yes, the screen is smaller, but that is no absolute obstacle. But everything else we had on the web, including its interactivity, is also available on the mobile phone.

But an internet on the mobile phone delivers four elements that don't exist on the fixed internet. First of all, a mobile phone based internet is totally personalized. Our PC is often shared - such as a university campus computer, or a family computer, or the PC owned by the employer with its limitations and at times access by the IT department etc. But our mobile phone is totally personal.

Secondly the mobile phone is always on. It means that any alerts, urgent news etc can be delivered. With laptops we need to find our access, connect to a WiFi etc network, but mobile phones are always connected and can for example be reached via SMS text messaging for alerts at any time.

Thirdly the mobile phone is always within hand's reach of its users. No other technology is so close to us physically at all times. We don't take our computers to bed with us (well, most don't do that), but over 60% of all mobile phone users take their cellphone physically to bed with them at night. We notice we've lost our wallet in 26 hours. But we notice we're missing our mobile phone in 68 minutes.

Finally - and most importantly - the mobile phone offers a built-in payment mechanism. The PC based internet does not have that. On the traditional internet we need to set up a payment system like Paypal, or we need to submit credit card info etc. But on the mobile phone we can (if our carrier/operator has enabled it) handle any payments at the click of a button.

And for anyone who thinks the lower cost new PCs might reverse the trend. No that won't happen. PCs are paid full price. But in most markets mobile phones are subsidised. While PCs are replaced every 3.5 years, mobile phones are replaced every 21 months. In markets where people have two phones - 20% of Europeans have two phones already - that results in an effective replacement rate of 11.5 months for mobile phones. A new phone every year but a new PC once every four years. The mobile phone is subsidised and nearly "free" while the new laptop still costs something near 1000 dollars. How many times will we bother to replace the laptop, especially when our mobile phone suddenly can do all the internet stuff that we previously needed a PC for?

So returning to my question. What happens when the majority of internet access is done with a mobile phone? It will not take long for the Amazons, Ebays, Googles, AOLs and Yahoos to discover that their users are more accessing via mobile phone than via PC. They will adjust their content to work on the phone and optimize for the small screen rather than for the PC screen.

Sound implausible? Think again. Only 14 years ago the majority of internet access devices were mainframe computers. At that time the web content standard was something called "Gopher". Today nobody formats for Gopher because the internet PC browsers (first was Mosaic, then Netscape, now Microsoft's Internet Explorer) became the predominant access devices.

That is bound to change. The trends are irreversible. The sooner you understand this coming change, the more you can capitalize on this transition both personally, and professionally. Spot the trends now, and be one of the early visionaries to this inevitable future.

Oh, and if you work for a content provider, consider these facts: There are three times as many mobile phones as PCs. Twice as many people use SMS text messaging as use e-mail. Users on the traditional PC based internet expect content to be free, but mobile phone users expect mobile content to be paid-for. Collecting money on the traditional fixed wireline internet is very cumbersome. Collecting money on the mobile internet is built-in. The world's biggest internet company by revenues is not one of the internet darlings - Google, Yahoo, eBay, Amazon or AOL. It is Japanese mobile operator NTT DoCoMo's domestic mobile internet arm, i-Mode. And i-Mode alone makes bigger profits than the five internet darlings combined. Where will you put your best content? On the mobile internet of course.

Then consider the premise of my posting. If the majority of the users are on the mobile internet. And the best content is on the mobile internet. Shouldn't YOU be on the mobile internet?

Posted by Tomi T Ahonen at 0

Feet up! : mobile/Too-Many-Models.html

location based services

I'm writing this on the eve of what looks to be the announcement of three more Nokia Nseries phones, the smart money is on the N73, N93 and possibly the N72, but I wouldn't bet my house on any of these.

By my reckoning this makes Nokia's range of smart phones look pretty extensive, a veritable glut compared to Motorola's apparent reliance on one comfy old slipper of a feature phone.

Counting through the current range I see ten in the shops today, namely the 3230, 3250, 6630, 6670, 6680, 6681, 6682, 7610, N70, and N90. Coming soon (some sooner than others), we have four Eseries phones in the E60, E61, E62 and E70, and also four Nseries phones in the N71, N80, N91, and N92. Add in the 7710 and the S80 communicators 9300, 9300i, and 9500 you have twenty-two different smartphones, is this too big a range?

Sure, you can almost half the above list by removing the phones that are being sold alongside their effective successor (6630 -> 6680 -> N70, or 3230 -> 3250), but still it's a big range. I've wondered before whether people don't buy Nokia models, because they don't do a kitchen-sink style one-phone-that-does-everything and perhaps their model diversification is even bigger now than it was in the past.

Following this thinking, what would be an ideal range? Perhaps a barebones line up of a candybar, a slider, a flip, a blackberry/palm style qwerty pad (is there a generic name for this form factor?), and a communicator; all well-equipped, i.e. wifi, 3g, megapixel camera, fm radio etc etc. Sounds simple and straight-forward no? A simple clean range of perhaps five phones.

But, hang on a minute, what about the corporate customer who won't tolerate a camera? What about the need for cheaper models without wcdma and wifi for the third world? What about a music phone with lots of expensive memory and/or a hard disk? What about a DVB-H capable phone? What about a specialist camera phone for video recording and quality photos? Oops, there's at least another five phones, perhaps more if you apply these feature demands across the range.

It's starting to look like the number of models in a range is a game that Nokia can't win. If they provide a simple range of phones they get criticised, if they provide an extensive range they also get slated. However, to me it looks like Nokia are listening to the market - three years ago a Nokia flip was a rare beast - and judging by Nokia's market share it's a successful strategy, slightly wiser I suspect than putting all your eggs in one thin basket...

The Frustrations of Java at MobHappy

location based services

As Jonathan Schwartz, the famous blogging COO of Sun Microsystems, steps up to take over the big job from Scott McNealy, it’s a good time to ponder where “Java Platform, Micro Edition” as we must now call it, or J2ME as it used to be known, is actually going.

The concept of a platform like J2ME (sorry, the new name is just SO cumbersome) is that a developer can produce one application and then port it across many different handsets with ease. But anyone who has ever done any J2ME development knows that, in practice, this is simply not the case and the vision falls far short of reality by a very long way indeed.

In non-technical terms, developing in J2ME is like trying to change a bicycle tyre for the first time. Firstly, it’s difficult enough in its own right. But when you do manage to get the inner tube inside the tyre, you have to work it in all the way round. And when you get back to the beginning, it’s popped out somewhere else, so you have to start all over again.

20% of the time and effort in developing a J2ME app goes into the first iteration of the code. And 80% of the work goes into porting it across all the handsets that you want it to run on. This can be a cripplingly expensive, not to say, time-consuming process.

I was chatting to Mark Curtis of Flirtomatic (great service, if you haven’t checked it out) and he launched the product in J2ME only to abandon it within a few weeks. In Mark’s case, it was partly as the WAP version proved to be better than expected and proved to be very popular with users. But partly as Java isn’t suitable for rapid application development.

If you launch a mobile application or service, you need the ability to make changes all the time as you work out how customers are using it and as you learn more about the product. Changing a WAP site is pretty simple. Changing a J2ME application is easy too, but then you have to roll those changes across all the different handsets and test them. This means the pace of change and innovation crawls to a snail like pace. Or maybe that’s unfair to snails.

Whichever way you look at things, when a high profile product like Flirtomatic, led by a tech veteran and thought leader like Mark abandons a development platform altogether, it’s not good news.

So who is to blame? If only it was that simple. I spoke to Tom Hume of Future Platforms and J2ME and all-things-mobile guru and while Sun could definitely do a better job, the main issue is the widely differing specs among handsets. As Tom says:

But I don’t see how we can persuade a disparate group of handset vendors to make their phones the same - these guys have to differentiate themselves from each other.

So where does this leave J2ME and Jonathan Schwartz, as he ponders Sun’s future? Well, apart from coming up with a better name, the future doesn’t look encouraging. J2ME can do lots of things that the mobile web can’t do - yet. But, I bet in many cases, those extra features are nice-to-have and not truly essential.

I think we’ll see more and more products and applications which should, by rights, go the J2ME route but seek work-arounds if they possibly can, by going for a WAP solution. Ironically, this is the very outcome predicted by none other than Sun’s Scott McNealy himself with his “the network is the computer”. Java is old-school rich client, WAP is the network.

However, McNealy, visionary though he undoubtedly is, didn’t go quite far enough. Actually, the network is the mobile, which doesn’t leave Sun in a great place if their main mobile product simply doesn’t deliver.

We’ve seen time and again in technology that “good enough” often beats “perfect” and I’m afraid that we might be about to see this happen all over again.

Technorati Tags: java, j2me, schwartz, mcnealy, sun microsystems, curtis, future platforms, flirtomatic

14 Respons

Friday, April 28, 2006

InformationWeek | search engine optimization | Debate Breaks Out Over 'Tag Spam' | April 28, 2006

location based services

Friends and foes of search engine optimizers locked horns at this week's Search Engine Meeting in Boston.

By W. David Gardner
TechWeb.com

Apr 28, 2006 12:17 PM

The price paid for a high ranking Google's search list, can be counterproductive, because the often-deceptive methods to generate hits don't reflect real Web site content, according to a speaker at this week's Search Engine Meeting in Boston.

"You can try to trick Web sites by embedding tag spam," said Steve Arnold, a speaker at the meeting. "It can work when the robot comes to the page, but it's misleading. Why not just put the content up and let the content speak for itself?"

Tag spam is unrelated tags appearing alongside relevant tags.

Arnold, managing director of Arnold Information Technology and the author of a book on Google, generated considerable debate at the meeting. Many use a variety of tactics that they believe are legitimate to generate traffic to their Web sites. Arnold estimates the search engine optimization (SEO) business is a $200 million a year industry. He counts consulting only in that figure, and does not include software. Arnold said SEO is largely a waste of money.

Taking issue with Arnold was Mike Moran, an IBM executive, who said he believed Arnold went too far in condemning some legitimate hit-generating tactics. "Steve does seem to pine for the days when all documents were manually classified by trained librarians and researchers," Moran said on his blog. "… Steve goes too far when he describes every technique that makes content attractive to a search engine as 'spam.'

Moran, who said that IBM had jumped its Product Lifecycle Management page from number 175 in Google to number 1 by adding keywords to the page, said adding the keywords didn't constitute "spamming." Arnold didn't disagree, but he stuck to his guns that heavy manipulation of Web sites is counterproductive in the long run.

"One problem is that people don't want to expose content to Google," said Arnold, referring to the entire problem of home page traffic. "The payoff is so high from cheating. If your search is on Google's first page, you'll get a lot of clicks. If you're on the second page, you don't exist."

Arnold noted that Google and the other major search engines providers Yahoo, Microsoft and Ask.com don't like the manipulation and tricks employed to generate hits. They all employ algorithms to find and counter manipulation they disapprove of.

One long-term solution, according to Arnold, would be for standards organizations to develop and implement search standards. He noted that the federal government is sponsoring some standards efforts that could be effective in keeping abusive search engine optimizers under control.

"I believe that when your kid types in 'white house,' the President's home should appear, and not a porn site," he said referring to the infamous site--with no connection to the White House in Washington -- that has risqu� content.

Debate Breaks Out Over 'Tag Spam' | April 28, 2006

location based services

Friends and foes of search engine optimizers locked horns at this week's Search Engine Meeting in Boston.

By W. David Gardner
TechWeb.com

Apr 28, 2006 12:17 PM

Tag spam is unrelated tags appearing alongside relevant tags.

Google Condemned For Click-Fraud Settlement | April 28, 2006

location based services

The settlement won't adequately compensate harmed advertisers or penalize Google, says an attorney who has a related case pending against the company.

By Thomas Claburn
InformationWeek

Apr 28, 2006 04:20 PM

An attorney representing plaintiffs in a federal click-fraud class action suit pending against Google in California claims the $90 million settlement Google reached last month in a related case filed in Arkansas fails to penalize Google or fairly compensate advertisers victimized by click fraud.

The most that aggrieved advertisers can expect from settling with Google is about a half a cent for every dollar lost to click fraud, according to Brian S. Kabateck, a partner in Los Angeles law firm Kabateck Brown Kellner LLP.

Kabateck is representing disaffected Google Adwords customers in the California click-fraud case, Advanced Internet Technologies (AIT) v. Google.

In March, Google said that it had reached a settlement in Lane's Gifts and Collectibles LLC v. Yahoo! Inc., which was filed in Arkansas in February 2005. The plaintiffs, small companies that paid for search engine ads, accused a number of search engines including Google of breach of contract, unjust enrichment, and civil conspiracy arising from click fraud. The case is still pending against the other defendants including Yahoo.

"We stand firmly by our proprietary click protection systems and look forward to vigorously defending our position on this matter," Yahoo said in a statement.

A hearing to determine whether Kabateck's California case would have qualified for nationwide class action had been scheduled for May in the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California, but in early April Google won a stay in the AIT lawsuit. The stay delays Kabateck’s case until the Arkansas case is resolved and possibly renders it moot.

"Google apparently doesn't see cheating its customers out of billions of dollars as doing evil," Kabateck said in a statement issued Wednesday. Google's detractors frequently accuse the company of being evil to highlight alleged failures to live up to its informal corporate motto, "Don't be evil."

Google did not respond to a request for comment. Google has until May 20th to notify advertisers in the Arkansas case of the settlement. Once notified, advertisers have 30 days to opt-out. The settlement is slated for final judicial approval in July.

At the time the settlement was announced, John Battelle, author of The Search and noted Google observer, said in his blog, "This settlement is a major victory for Google. Was it good for advertisers? Not sure. But I think the folks at Google are pleased as punch with the deal."

At a panel discussion on click fraud at the Ad:Tech Conference in San Francisco on Thursday, Jessie Stricchiola, president of search engine marketing firm Alchemist Media, declined to comment on the fairness of the settlement Google reached in the Arkansas litigation, citing her involvement in the case.

But she did have a lot to say about click fraud in general.

Stricchiola began the discussion by pointing out the mixed signals the industry has been sending about click fraud. She cited conflicting statements by Google executives to prove her point. Google CFO George Reyes has called click fraud "the biggest threat" to the Internet economy. Google CEO Eric Schmidt has called click fraud "immaterial." The truth, she and others on the panel suggested, lies somewhere in between.

Click fraud occurs when someone, directly or using click-automation software, clicks on an online ad for a purpose other than receiving information about advertised product or service. That's an inherently difficult thing to define given that human intentions are not machine readable.

Google refers to click fraud using the decidedly less pejorative term "invalid clicks." "Invalid clicks are clicks generated by prohibited methods," the company explains on its Web site. "Examples of invalid clicks may include repeated manual clicking or the use of robots, automated clicking tools, or other deceptive software. Invalid clicks are sometimes intended to artificially and/or maliciously drive up an advertiser's clicks and or a publisher's earnings."

In March, Nicole Wong, associate general counsel for Google, addressed the issue of click fraud when disclosing the proposed settlement in the Google blog. "We have said for some time that we believe we manage the problem of invalid clicks very well," she wrote. "We have a large team of expert engineers and analysts devoted to it. By far, most invalid clicks are caught by our automatic filters and discarded *before* they reach an advertiser’s bill. And for the clicks that are not caught in advance, advertisers can notify Google and ask for reimbursement."

Open Source GIS

location based services

This effort represents an attempt to build a complete index of Open Source / Free GIS related software projects. The effort has some way to go, especially for projects in languages other than English. The definition of GIS has been kept loose to encompass a broad range of projects which deal with spatial data.

If you know of other sites that should be listed please tell me about them. More importantly if I have made any errors in characterizing a project, let me know: bglewisgmail.com.

This effort stands on the sturdy shoulders of other projects, most notably OSRS , FreeGIS.org, Metalab Linux Archive, and Fresh Meat.net.

I work for ATS, Inc, an independent GIS firm based in Lancaster, Pennsylvania with a strong reputation in the GIS industry. Our specialties include requirement studies, system design, and application development using open and closed tools for desktop and web-based GIS systems.

Descriptive text gathered from the project site is in quotes. Almost all of these projects fit the definition of Open Source Software as defined by the Open Source Initiative, and most of them fit the stricter definition of Free Software as defined by the Free Software Foundation.

Just starting a list of web GIS application which use Open Source GIS software, check these out here.

And for a list of interesting GIS related sites, check these del.icio.us bookmarks. Not familiar with del.icio.us?

3map "The planet-earth project is powered by 3map, a Free Software project being built with the support of the Telstra Broadband Fund that provides the client and server capabilities to deliver the Web Augmented Virtual Earth." [ License: ? ]

Amein! Main site in German. English version on Directions site. "After the huge success of AveiN! we now also released an interface between ArcMap© and the UMN Mapserver. AmeiN! is integrated as extension into the GUI of ArcMap©. It writes UMN Mapserver project files and also convert many of the symbols edited in ArcGIS." [ License: GNU General Public License (GPL) ]

ArcView APR Parser "Work with ArcView leads to large directories with numerous files consisting of many projects and tables and views, etc. Due to the complexity of the directories, it is impossible to see all the links between these tables, themes. A database containing all of the relevant information would help in locating data and reduce the searching time." [ License: GNU Lesser General Public License (LGPL) ]

AutoREALM "AutoREALM is a Free GNU mapping software (a "cartographer") that can design maps of castles, cities, dungeons and more. AutoREALM is generally used by Role-playing Game practicants who enjoy doing their own maps. But it could fits the needs of other people." [ License: GNU General Public License (GPL) ]

AVCE00 "AVCE00 is an Open Source (i.e. Free!) ANSI-C library that makes Arc/Info (binary) Vector Coverages appear as E00! It allows you to read and write binary coverages just as if they were E00 files." [ License: ? ]

AVPython "AVPython embeds the Python programming language within ArcView GIS... By embedding Python within ArcView GIs, we can break through most of the barriers to interoperability, scalability, and extensibility that the Avenue developer faces when trying to build a modern application." [ License: AVPython ]

Batik "Batik is a Java(tm) technology based toolkit for applications or applets that want to use images in the Scalable Vector Graphics (SVG) format for various purposes, such as viewing, generation or manipulation." [License: Apache Batik ]

BBBike "BBBike is an information system for cyclists in Berlin and Brandenburg (Germany). The application has the following features: 1) Display a map with streets, railways, rivers, parks, altitude and other features. 2) Find and show routes between two points. The route-finder can be customized to match the cyclists preferences (fastest or nicest route, keep wind direction and hills into account etc.). 3) A bike power calculator. 4) Automatically fetch current Berlin weather data." [ License: GNU General Public License (GPL) ]

BLM GIs Utilities "Bureau of Land Management's FTP site of GIs utilities" [ License: Public Domain ]

BRL CADl " The BRL-CAD Package is a powerful Constructive Solid Geometry (CSG) solid modeling system." [ License: ? ]

BuddySpace "BuddySpace is an instant messenger with four novel twists: (1) it allows optional maps for geographical & office-plan visualizations in addition to standard 'buddy lists'; (2) it is built on open source Jabber, which makes it interoperable with ICQ, MSN, Yahoo and others; (3) it is implemented in Java, so it is cross-platform; (4) it is built by a UK research lab, so it is 100% free with full sources readiily available. [ License: Academic Free License (AFL), Jabber License ]

CAVOR (not responding 9/20/05) "CAVOR is an engine for building applications that involve modeling and retrieving graphical and textual data. Examples of such applications include GIs (Geographic Information Systems), mapping programs, CAD (Computer Aided Design/drafting), as well as less-obvious applications as project management (consider PERT charts, etc), CASE (Computer Aided Software Engineering) tools (DFDs, ERDs, etc.), and probably others that haven't even occurred to me." [ License: GNU General Public License (GPL) ]

CGAL "Computational Geometry Algorithms Library (CGAL) is a collaborative effort of several sites in Europe. The goal is to make the most important of the solutions and methods developed in computational geometry available to users in industry and academia in a C++ library." [ License: Q Public License (QPL) ]

cgList "This page contains a list of computational geometry programs and packages." [ License: Varies ]

Chameleon "Chameleon technology represents a revolutionary advancement in Web mapping technology. It has been developed by DM Solutions with the goal of producing a highly customizable and adaptable environment for deploying and managing Web mapping applications." [ License: DM Solutions License ]

Cocoon ArcIMS "This page documents implementing a wrapper over ArcIMS using Apache Cocoon." [ License: ? ]

Community Mapbuilder "Our mission is to empower communities to collaboratively build and share geographic data using standards-based, open source tools. We develop mapbuilder-lib, an open source library of browser based mapping widgets." [ License: GNU Lesser General Public License (LGPL) ]

Computer Vision Library "Our goal is to establish an open source vision community and provide a site where the distributed efforts of the community can be consolidated and performance optimized." Also see this Computer Vision List. [ License: Computer Vision License ]

DCMMS "A web-based maintenance management system for water and wastewater networks. Allows to store customer complaints and issue workorder sheets. Rather than using street names, maps and landmarks are used for navigation." Uses PostGIS. [ License: GNU General Public License (GPL) ]

Deegree Deegree is a Java framework for geospatially-enabled solutions. It is based on common GI standards and allows building applications with spatially referenced content. Deegree components can be used to either develop a standalone desktop mapping solution to be locally installed on a user's machine, or to set up a highly distributed and service-based infrastructure. [ License: GNU Lesser General Public License (LGPL) ]

Demeter Terrain Engine "Demeter is a cross-platform C++ library that renders 3D terrains using OpenGL. Demeter is designed for fast performance and good visual quality and makes use of advanced techniques such as dynamic tessellation (adaptive mesh) to render vast landscapes in real-time, without the need for high-end hardware. It is written as a stand-alone component that can be easily integrated into any kind of application." [ License: GNU Lesser General Public License (LGPL) ]

DEM Tools "This package is useful for previewing DEM (Digital Elevation Model) data sets and wandering around in virtual representations of various places on the planet." [ License: GNU General Public License (GPL) ]

DEMViewer "DEMViewer is a digital elevation model viewer written in Java. With DEMViewer you can visualize digital elevation models generated by ArcInfo (as ASCII files) and combine it with data (in the same ArcGrid ASCII export format and/or JPG/PNG/GIF images)." [ License: GNU General Public License (GPL) ]

DGNLib "DGNLib is a Microstation DGN (ISFF) reader." [ License: MIT ]

Discovering Cambodia "This web site illustrates an Open Source GIS solution on web-based mapping services by means of the development of an online interactive mapping prototype to discover Cambodia through maps and facts." [ License: GNU General Public License (GPL) ]

dlgvu "dlgvu is an interactive Digital Line Graph (DLG) viewer for Unix, written in the Icon programming language." [ License: Public Domain ]

drawmap "Drawmap is a cartography package that draws maps using data from the United States Geological Survey(USGS). Most of the USGS data is for the USA, but the GTOPO30 data has worldwide coverage. The output map is an image in SUN rasterfile format." [ License: GNU General Public License (GPL) ]

EDBS "This page is about the german topographic data transfer standard EDBS/ATKIS and a reader for this format. Owing to the specific nature of this data format, the following information is exclusively available in German." [ License: GNU General Public License (GPL) ]

E-FOTO “This work aims to establish a line of research involving the computational development of the digital photogrammetry routines, using a high-level programming language, with the objective of developing an educational digital photogrammetric workstation.” [ License: ?]

ElectricArc "It is intended to be a general-purpose graph editor and as such, it pushes the application of graphs to the limits of generality. With varying degrees of convenience, ElectricArc can beused to design everything from abstract graphs to electronic circuits, database schema, computer networks and metabolic pathways." [ License: ? ]

Engineering Portal Open Source engineering applications. [ License: ? ]

FeatureX "The FeatureX project goal is the construction of an autonomous and interactive feature extraction package that will eventually be integrated into the OSSIM project." [ License: GNU General Public License (GPL) ]

FIST "The Flexible Internet Spatial Template (FIST) is an Open Source, Pre-Hypertext Processor (PHP) object based application that is used to rapidly deploy internet mapping web sites. [ License: GNU General Public License (GPL) ]

FlightGear "The Flight Gear project is working to create a sophisticated flight simulator framework for the development and pursuit of interesting flight simulator ideas. We are developing a solid basic sim that can be expanded and improved upon by anyone interested in contributing." [ License: GNU General Public License (GPL) ]

FreeType "The FreeType project develops free, portable and high-quality software solutions for digital typography. FreeType 1 is a clean-room implementation that is not derived from the original TrueType engine developed by Apple and Microsoft." [ License: FreeType or GNU ]

FMaps "FMaps is a Geographic Information System and Remote Sensing application which stores its data in a PostgreSQL database. It uses a special GTK+ widget which was originally called GtkFMaps." [ License: GNU General Public License (GPL) ]

FREEDraft "FREEdraft is a project to create a simple 2D mechanical CAD system." [ License:GNU General Public License (GPL) ]

Fulcrum "Fulcrum is a free Java library that includes user interface components, data models, and utilities useful to Java developers building distributed mapping applications. While the Fulcrum libraries may be useful for other purposes, it is currently targeted at creating applications that need to consume map data over a network. The source of the data can come from stand-alone open source or commercial map servers or from something more complex such as the OpenGIS Consortium (OGC) web services." [ License: GNU Lesser General Public License (LGPL) ]

FWTools "FWTools is a set of Open Source GIS binaries for Windows (win32) and Linux (x86) systems produced by me, Frank Warmerdam (ie. FW). It was previously known as OpenEV_FW. The kits are intended to be easy for end users to install and get going with. No fudzing with building from source, or having to collect lots of interrelated packages. FWTools includes OpenEV, GDAL, MapServer, PROJ.4 and OGDI as well as some supporting components. [ License: Various Open Source ]

GARNIX "GARNIX is a communication program that provides a data interface between an MS-DOS computer and a GARMIN GPS device." [ License: GNU General Public License (GPL) ]

GD "A graphics library for fast image creation." [ License: GD License ]

GDV Mapserver Client Mapserver web client written in Javascript. [ License: GNU Lesser General Public License (LGPL) ]

GDAL "GDAL is a translator library for raster geospatial data formats that is released under an Open Source license. As a library, it presents a single abstract data model to the calling application for all supported formats." [ License: GNU General Public License (GPL) ]

gecko.NET Library and Web Service "gecko.NET is a, free, Open-Source, native Microsoft .NET GIS / mapping web service, visual control and library intended for use in software development environments that support .NET custom controls and libraries. You can use gecko.NET in applications that you write in Microsoft Visual Basic.NET, Visual C#.NET and other languages that support the .NET platform." [ License: ? ]

gen2shape "Gen2shp is a simple C-Progam which can read the format required by the ArcInfo generate command. The data in this file will be converted to the shapefile format which actually means to three files: .shp, .shx and .dbf."

General Cartographic Transformation Package - Fortran "The General Cartographic Transformation Package (GCTP) is a system of software routines designed to permit the transformation of coordinate pairs from one map projection to another." [ License: ? ]

General Cartographic Transformation Package - JavaScript "The General Cartographic Transformation Package - JavaScript Edition (GCTP-JS) is an Open Source set of JavaScript code files that is used to provide dynamic, client side coordinate transformations for internet applications. It provides transformation capabilities for a number of projection types including Lambert, Albers, UTM and others." [ License: GNU General Public License (GPL) ]

GEO "GEO is a scriptable coordinate conversion tool." [ License: GNU General Public License (GPL) ]

Geocoder "This is the submission that won the 2002 Google Programming Contest. It includes a geocoder (which uses TIGER/Line data to turn street addresses into latitude/longitude coordinates), a simple indexer that looks for addresses and keywords in documents, and a query engine to search for documents matching certain keywords that also contain addresses within a certain distance of a target location." [ License: GPL and Google ]

geocoder.us "Geocoder.us is a public service providing free geocoding of addresses and intersections in the United States. The geocoding service relies on Geo::Coder::US, a Perl module available for download from the CPAN. [ License: GNU General Public License (GPL) ]

GeoCommunity - Translators Page GeoComm's collection of translator utilities. [ License: Varies ]

GEODAS "GEODAS (GEOphysical DAata System) is an interactive database management system developed by the National Geophysical Data Center (NGDC) for use in the assimilation, storage and retrieval of geophysical data." [ License: free for noncommercial use ]

GeoIP API "GeoIP is a collection of APIs for looking up the location of an IP address. It includes support for lookup of country, region, city, latitude, and longitude." [ License: GNU General Public License (GPL) ]

GeoJasPer "GeoJasPer is a free and open source Geo supporting command line transcoder between JPEG2000 and other formats. i.e. Converts image data from one format to another correctly transferring Geo information between GeoTiff and GeoJp2™ (GeoJpeg2000). [ License: ? ]

GeoNetwork OpenSource "A Spatial data metadata portal website that implements the International Standard for Geographic Metadata (ISO19115) and (very soon!) the OpenGIS Web Catalog Service standard for distributed database search. Using the application, you can quickly set up a metadata portal that allows online maintenance of metadata and data for internal use on an intranet and/ or publication on the internet." [ License: GNU Lesser General Public License (LGPL) ]

GeoRuby "GeoRuby provides geometric data types from the OGC "Simple Features for SQL" specification. A plugin for Rails which manages PostGIS geometric columns in a transparent way is also provided. [ License: MIT ]

GeoServer The GeoServer project is a Java J2EE mplementation of the OpenGeospatial Consortium's Web Feature Server specification, and is maintained by The Open Planning Project (TOPP) http://www.openplans.org/. [ License: GNU General Public License (GPL) ]

GeoToad "GeoToad is free software to help speed up the boring part of geocaching: choosing the cache and collecting the data. It is the perfect tool for geocacher's on the go!" [ License: ? ]

GeoTools "Geo Tools is a free Java based mapping toolkit that allows maps to be viewed interactively on web browsers without the need for dedicated server side support." [ License: GNU General Public License (GPL) ]

Geotools.Net "Geotools.Net is a set of .net class useful when handling geographic information. The project started as port from Java to C# of JTS 1.2. It implements the following OpenGIS specifications: Simple Features specification, Coordinate Transformation Services. Other features include: ability to read and write well-known-binary, ability to export features to SVG, ESRI shapefile import and export." [ License: GNU Lesser General Public License (LGPL) ]

GeoVRML "GeoVRML is an effort to provide support for representing and visualizing geographic data using standard VRML97 (Virtual Reality Modeling Language)." [License: ? ]

GFC "GFC, or Geographic Foundation Class library, is a set of C++ classes defining basic geographic data types, including points, lines, rectangles, circles, polylines, rings, complex polygons, rasters, and other atomic data types such as integer, real, varchar. GFC also features abstractions of timestamps and time series which are useful in capturing the dynamics of spatiotemporal data." [ License: ? ]

Ghostscript "An interpreter for the PostScript language and for PDF, and related software and documentation." [ License: GNU General Public License (GPL) ]

GISAR "GISAR project is 2D,3D dynamic model of real objects (for example streets, roads, houses, telephones, clients, etc) , that may be used for development any functional and visual models of real system. It is example of GIS (geo-informational system) and provide actual state of data for any connected clients for any changes of model objects and for any time. At present it used for automate working of telecommunication station." [License: ? ]

GIServer “The GIServer is an initiative from the inovaGIS project that gives free access to GIS functions through the Internet. It is only necessary to have an Internet browser (like Netscape) with forms…” [ License: ? ]

GIS Knoppix "GIS-Knoppix is a bootable Linux CD with pre-installed GIS software.
It is based on Knoppix." [ License: varies]

GISToolKit "The GISToolkit software is an open source java toolkit for building spatially enabled applications. It has some ability to read data from a variety of data sources, and to display that data." [ License: GNU Lesser General Public License (LGPL) ]

gispython "This is the home for several web mapping and GIS projects based on PROJ.4, GEOS, GDAL/OGR, MapServer, and the etree XML interface. Our goal is a new coherent and modular core for geospatial programming with Python." [ License: varies]

GIMP "The GIMP is the GNU Image Manipulation Program. It is a freely distributed piece of software suitable for such tasks as photo retouching, image composition and image authoring." [ License: GNU General Public License (GPL) ]

GMT "GMT is a free, open source collection of ~60 UNIX tools that allow users to manipulate (x,y) and (x,y,z) data sets (including filtering, trend fitting, gridding, projecting, etc.) and produce Encapsulated PostScript File (EPS) illustrations ranging from simple x-y plots through contour maps to artificially illuminated surfaces and 3-D perspective views in black and white, gray tone, hachure patterns, and 24-bit color. GMT supports 25 common map projections plus linear, log, and power scaling, and comes with support data such as coastlines, rivers, and political boundaries." [ License: GNU General Public License (GPL) ]

GML4J "GML4J is a Java API for facilitating work with the Geography Markup Language (http://www.gmlcentral.com). GML is an XML-based framework for encoding geography information adopted as a recommendation paper by OGC (http://www.opengis.org)." [ License: Apache Software License ]

Gnuplot "gnuplot is a command-driven interactive function plotting program. It can be used to plot functions and data points in both two- and three-dimensional plots in many different formats, and will accommodate many of the needs of today's scientists for graphic data representation. gnuplot is copyrighted, but freely distributable; you don't have to pay for it." [ License: GNU General Public License (GPL) ]

gpc " A flexible and highly robust polygon set operations library for use with C applications, as referenced in the comp.graphics.algorithms FAQ and the UIUC Computational Geometry Pages. The gpc library is estimated to have thousands of users worldwide, and is subject to several hundred downloads each month." [ License: GNU General Public License (GPL) ]

GPSBabel "GPSBabel converts waypoints, tracks, and routes from one format to another, whether that format is a common mapping format like Delorme, Streets and Trips, or even a serial upload or download to a GPS unit such as those from Garmin and Magellan." [ License: GNU General Public License (GPL) ]

GpsDrive "GpsDrive is a car (bike, ship, plane) navigation system. GpsDrive displays your position provided from your NMEA capable GPS receiver on a zoomable map, the map file is autoselected depending of the position and prefered scale." [ License: GNU General Public License (GPL) ]

GPSMan "GPs Manager (GPSMan) is a graphical manager of GPs data that makes possible the preparation, inspection and edition of GPs data in a friendly environment. GPSMan supports communication and real-time logging with both Garmin and Lowrance receivers and accepts real-time logging information in NMEA 0183 from any GPs receiver." [ License: GNU General Public License (GPL) ]

gpspoint "A program to get position, down and up-load Waypoints, Routes and Tracks from your GPs to your Computer." [ License: GNU General Public License (GPL) ]

GPStrans GPStrans communicates with a Garmin Global Positioning System receiver and allows a user with a Garmin GPS receiver to upload and download waypoints, routes, almanac (satellite orbit elements), and track routes. [ License: GNU General Public License (GPL) ]

gpsutils "The aim of this project is to develop open source GPs software libraries and applications. In particular, I am interested in developing software that will allow post processing of raw pseudorange/carrier phase data from low cost OEM units such as the Garmin GPS35 TracPak." [ License: GNU General Public License (GPL) ]

GPS3d "GPS3D is a collection of utilities to manipulate a handled GPs device from your PC, and visualize the result in 3D. Even without a GPs device, you can still use GPS3d to play interactively with a 3D texture mapped model of earth." [ License: Public Domain ]

Grace "Grace is a WYSIWYG 2D plotting tool for the X Window System and M*tif." [ License: GNU General Public License (GPL) ]

GrADS "The Grid Analysis and Display System (Grads) is an interactive desktop tool that is used for easy access, manipulation, and visualization of earth science data. Grads has been implemented worldwide on a variety of commonly used operating systems and is freely distributed over the Internet." [ License: Grads License ]

GRASS Official Page "GRASS GIs (Geographic Resources Analysis Support System) is an Open Source Geographical Information System (GIs) with raster, topological vector, image processing, and graphics production functionality that operates on various platforms through a graphical user interface and shell in X-Windows." [ License: GNU General Public License (GPL) ]

GRASSLinks "GRASSLinks offers public access to environmental data. A user need only have a Web browser and access to the Internet to use the large spatial database and powerful GIs software available at REGIS. The aim of GRASSLinks is to provide a prototype for cooperation and data sharing between environmental planning agencies, public action groups, citizens, and private entities." [ License: GRASSLinks License ]

GSLIB "GSLIB is an acronym for Geostatistical Software LIBrary. This name was originally used for a collection of geostatistical programs developed at Stanford University over the last 15 years." [ License: ? ]

Gstat "Gstat is a computer program for geostatistical modeling, prediction and simulation." [ License: GNU General Public License (GPL) ]

GTS Library "GTS stands for the GNU Triangulated Surface Library. It is an Open Source Free Software Library intended to provide a set of useful functions to deal with 3D surfaces meshed with interconnected triangles." [ License: GNU Lesser General Public License (LGPL) ]

gvSIG "gvSIG is a tool for handling geographical information. It has a friendly interface, and can access several (raster and vector) formats. It will integrate in a single view both local and remote data through WMS or WFS (WMS now working). It is meant for end-users of geographical information, and currently has Spanish, Valencian, English, French, and Italian interfaces." [ License: GNU General Public License (GPL) ]

Hierarchical Triangular Mesh "The Hierarchical Triangular Mesh (HTM) is a partitioning scheme to divide the surface of the unit sphere into spherical triangles. It is a hierarchical scheme and the subdivisions have not exactly, but roughly equal areas." [License: ? ]

HUGO "Hugo is moving map software for UNIX platforms. Hugo can view maps in simple raster (XPM), vector, and TIFF formats. ESRI shape file support is in progress but not yet useful. [ License: Q Public License ]

HidroSIG "HidroSIG is a Geographical Information System (GIS) written in Java with special tools that will allow you to make estimations and analysis of hydrological, climatic and geomorphological variables." [ License: GNU Lesser General Public License (LGPL) ]

iGeoPortal "This is the first release of the deegree iGeoPortal. The new client/portal component of deegree is a modular client which configuration is based on OGC Web Map Context specification/document. Different modules can offer web map client functionality as well as functions for gazetteer clients, catalog clients or WFS clients." [ License: GNU Lesser General Public License (LGPL) ]

iGMT "This program is intended to make working with the Generic Mapping Tools (GMT) easier. iGMT provides a graphical user interface for GMT and is written in the Tcl/Tk computer language." [ License: GNU General Public License (GPL) ]

ImageJ "ImageJ is a public domain Java image processing program inspired by NIH Image for the Macintosh. It runs, either as an online applet or as a downloadable application, on any computer with a Java 1.1 or later virtual machine. [License: Public Domain ]

ImageMagick "ImageMagick TM is a robust collection of tools and libraries to read, write, and manipulate an image in many image formats (over 68 major formats) including popular formats like TIFF, JPEG, PNG, PDF, PhotoCD, and GIF." [ License: ? ]

Imagine Reader "The reader consists of a C++ API for reading any information from the Erdas Imagine hierarchical file architecture files, and a high level program for translating raster and georeferencing data to GeoTIFF." [License: MIT ]

InetAddressLocator "The fastest, most accurate IP geolocation system in the universe. Built by professionals. Freely distributed." [ License: GNU General Public License (GPL) ]

Intergraph WMS Viewer "The Intergraph WMS Viewer facilitates collaboration of geospatial information stored in WMS sources." [ License: Intergraph Viewer License ]

InterMap "InterMap is an Internet mapping application that allows the user to combine interactive maps from distributed Internet Map Servers in a browser. InterMap supports OpenGIS WMS and ESRI-ArcIMS and can be fully integrated with the GeoNetwork Metadata portal." [ License: GNU Lesser General Public License (LGPL) ]

IPW "IPW is a UNIX-based image processing system. IPW includes several UNIX filter programs which can be pipe-lined together to form complex and powerful image processing algorithms. IPW includes a development environment for creating new IPW shell scripts and programs in C." [License: ? ]

IrcMarkers "IrcMarkers takes a map in .png or .jpg format and a list of coordinates and labels in xplanet format and places markers on the map. It was written to generate user maps of IRC channels. GnuPG/PGP key ids can be associated with each marker, to create "maps of trust". [License: ? ]

IRIT IRIT is a solid modeling environment that allows one to model basic, primitive based, models using Boolean operations as well as freeform surface's based models. [License: ? ]

IVICS “IVICS was developed as a visualization tool to facilitate selection of training samples from satellite images. It has evolved into a general purpose visualization system which supports several common satellite and remote sensing data formats. The Generalized Satellite Format (GSF) was developed to support IVICS.” [ License: GNU General Public License (GPL) ]

ivtools "Ivtools is a suite of free X Windows drawing editors for PostScript, TeX, and web graphics production, as well as an embeddable and extendable vector graphic shell." [ License: ivtools (GPL) ]

JasPer "The JasPer Project is an open-source initiative to provide a free software-based reference implementation of the codec specified in the JPEG-2000 Part-1 standard (i.e., ISO/IEC 15444-1)." [License: ?]

JEEPS A development platform for GPS software. [ License: GNU Lesser General Public License (LGPL) ]

jGridShift jGridShift is a small piece of software for NTv2 transformation. It is written in Java and includes a J2EE Connector Architecture (JCA) adapter. There is a sample GUI tool and a sample web service. [ License: GNU Lesser General Public License (LGPL) ]

JTS “The Java Topology Suite is a Java API of 2D spatial predicates and functions.” [License: ?]

JUMP "The Java Unified Mapping Platform (JUMP) is a GUI-based application for viewing and processing spatial data. It includes many common spatial and GIS functions. It is also designed to be a highly extensible framework for developing and running custom spatial data processing applications." [License: ?]

ka-Map "ka-Map ("ka" as in ka-boom!) is an open source project that is aimed at providing a javascript API for developing highly interactive web-mapping interfaces using features available in modern web browsers." [ License: DM Solutions ]

kdem "kdem is a program for displaying United States Geological Survey (USGS) Digital Elevation Models (DEMs). [ License: kdem ]

KFLog "KFLog is an OpenSource program aimed at glider pilots. It provides a powerfull tool to plan your flight tasks and analyze your flights afterward. KFLog is the only flight analyzer program available for Linux to be recognized by the FAI IGC. [License: ?]

kvwmap "kvwmap is a complex WebGIS client and server solution for eGovernment purposes written in PHP using UMN Mapserver technologie, MySQL and PostgreSQL/PostGIS databases, SVG, etc." [ License: GNU General Public License (GPL) ]

LAS/ADAPS "Welcome to the Land Analysis System (LAS)/AVHRR Data Acquisition and Processing System(ADAPS) distribution page. This page has been set up to electronically distribute information about and components of LAS, ADAPS, and associated packages." [ License: Public Domain ]

Libgeotiff "Libgeotiff is a public domain library normally hosted on top of libtiff for reading, and writing GeoTIFF information tags." [License: Public Domain ]

libGRASS “The libgrass package consists of the majority of the GRASS libgis, and libdatetime library build as a standalone shared library suitable for use by non-GRASS applications wishing to read and write GRASS databases. Some additional functions have been added to simplify library initialization and data access by non-GRASS applications. While libgrass is currently only suitable for accessing GRASS raster cells, and associated support files, it is hoped that future revisions will include support for vector files, and other data elements stored within the GRASS database.” [ License: MIT ]

libXearth "libXearth is the Xearth widget set. It contains the earthWidgetClass inheriting from constraint, and is the reentrant version of the well-known xearth. Each child is displayed against its geographical position and according the view (mercator or orthographic) visible or not." [ License: GNU General Public License (GPL) ]

libtiff "The (libtiff) library, along with associated tool programs, should handle most of your needs for reading and writing TIFF images on 32- and 64-bit machines." [ License: Libtiff License ]

LIMP "LIMP (Large Image Manipulation Program) was started as a platform for testing new techniques for image processing. A lot of complex code can be required to make an efficient library for applying arbitrary computations to large datasets ("large" in this case meaning too big to fit into memory). The goal of LIMP is to move as much complex code as possible into the library, leaving a simple yet powerful way of dealing with images from a user's code." [License: ? ]

Localis "Localis est un outil cartographique en ligne contributif. Il permet de visualiser sur la carte des points de saisie d'autres utilisateurs, et d'y ajouter les siens." [License: ? ]

LPGS Lite "LPGS-LITE is a platform independent (POSIX compliant) Level0R-to-Level1G processor for Landsat-7 ETM+ data developed by University of Maryland." [ License: ? ]

Lx-Viewer "LX-Vieweris a program that will allow you to open, view and print DWG or DXF files, typically used in AutoCAD related technical drafting. You may zoom and pan the drawing as you would in AutoCAD. Files can be saved to DWG or DXF formats from AutoCAD version 2.5 to 2000 plus BMP and PNG formats.” [ License: modified version of the GPL ]

Mapbender "The Mapbender Client Suite software package provides user interfaces for displaying, navigating and querying OGC WMS compliant map services. The Mapbender Client Suite software furthermore contains interfaces for user and group administration and provides management functionality for accessing maps rendered by Web Map Services." [ License: GNU Lesser General Public License (LGPL) ]

MapIt! "MapIt! is a web-application that lets you navigate raster-maps through your web-browser and lets you zoom in and out and select objects and object classes that are identified on the map." [ License: GNU Lesser General Public License (LGPL) ]

MapJunction "MapJunction3D is the first web-based mapping system to combine fast display of maps, aerial photos and GIS information." [License: ? ]

MapLab “MapLab is a suite of effective and intuitive web-based tools to create and manage MapServer web mapping applications and map files. It consists of three components: MapEdit, MapBrowser and GMapFactory.” [ License: DM Solutions ]

mapnik "Mapnik is an OpenSource C++/Python toolkit for developing GIS (Geographic Information Systems) applications. At the core is a C++ shared library providing algorithms/patterns for spatial data access and visualization." [ License: GNU General Public License (GPL) ]

MapServer "MapServer is an OpenSource development environment for building spatially enabled Internet applications. The software builds upon other popular OpenSource or freeware systems like Shapelib, FreeType, Proj.4, libTIFF, Perl and others. MapServer will run where most commercial systems won't or can't, on Linux/Apache platforms. MapServer is known to compile on most UNIXes and will run under Windows NT/98/95." [ License: MapServer License ]

Map Guide Open Source "MapGuide Open Source is a web-based platform that enables users to quickly develop and deploy web mapping applications and geospatial web services." [ License: GNU Lesser General Public License (LGPL) ]

MapServer Workbench "A set of cooperative tools for development of MapServer web mapping applications." [ License: ? ]

MapWindow "The MapWindow GIS open source project includes a Microsoft Windows compatible desktop application capable of viewing shapefile, and raster data in many formats. It can reproject data, clip, merge, and perform other geoprocessing through a "GIS Tools" plug-in. Developer-users can extend the application by writing plug-ins using any .NET Framework compatible language, or developers can write GIS enabled software using the MapWinGIS ActiveX
control." [License: Mozilla Public Licence 1.1]

Mapyrus "Mapyrus is software for creating plots of points, lines, polygons and labels to PostScript, PDF and web image output formats. The software combines the following three components: A Logo or turtle graphics language, reading of GIS datasets and RDBMS tables, running as a stand-alone program or as a web-server." [ License: GNU General Public License (GPL) ]

MB-System (not responding 9/24/03) "MB-System is an open source software package for the processing and display of bathymetry and backscatter imagery data derived from multibeam, interferometry, and sidescan sonars." [ License: ? ]

Mesa "Mesa is a 3-D graphics library with an API which is very similar to that of OpenGL" [ License: ? ]

MetaPost "MetaPost is a powerful graphics language based on Knuth's METAFONT, but with PostScript output and facilities for including typeset text." [ License: Public Domain ]

mezoGIS "mezoGIS is a GIS application, a graphical interface to query and analyse spatial data. mezoGIS does not store or compute data directly, but operates external PostGIS databases. The goal of mezoGIS is to provide a tool for geo-spatial analysis with PostGIS, through on-the-fly SQL queries as well as through larger, external plugin scripts." [ License: GNU General Public License (GPL) ]

MobileMaps "We're calling Mobilemaps a nearby engine but it has also been called a "local web search", a "location search engine", a "geovisual search", and a "map search". It offers the unique ability to find anything, such as Web page information, that is physically near a searcher's specified location, and present it on a map. It also offers new revenue from geo-targeted NearbyAds." [ License: GNU General Public License (GPL) ]

monoGIS "The aim of the present monoGIS project is to implement a complete GIS system on top of the new, industry-proven mono platform." [ License: GNU General Public License (GPL) ]

Mozilla SVG Project (Also see Croczilla.) "The Mozilla SVG implementation is a native SVG implementation. This is as opposed to plug-in SVG viewers such as the Adobe viewer (which is currently the most popular SVG viewer." [License: Mozilla Public License ]

MySQL Spatial "MySQL implements spatial extensions following the specification of the Open GIS Consortium (OGC). " [ License: GNU General Public License (GPL) ]

NCAR Graphics "NCAR Graphics is a Fortran and C based software package for scientific visualization." [ License: GNU General Public License (GPL) ]

NetMaps "NetMaps is a Java applet that allows one to view vectorial maps in any Java enabled browser. NetMaps can load and display ArcInfo shapefiles (SHP/DBF) and MapInfo MIF/MID files. [ License: ? ]

NRDB "The NRDB is a GIS tool for developing and distributing environmental databases. Its aim is to provide people in developing countries with a powerful yet simple tool to assist in the managing of their own resources." [ License: GNU General Public License (GPL) ]

NTXshape "NTXShape converts files from the CARIS NTX format into the widely supported ESRI shapefile format." [ License: ? ]

OGCConnector "The OGCConnector is an open-source ArcIMS Servlet Connector developed by the USGS Mid-Continent Mapping Center - Rolla, MO. The OGCConnector implements support for the OGC Styled Layer Descriptor (SLD) specification, correctly handles reprojection requests, and because it can be connected to the ArcIMS Servlet Connector, maintains the same authentication requirements imposed by the ArcIMS Servlet. [ License: ? ]

OGDI “OGDI is the Open Geographic Datastore Interface. OGDI is an application programming interface (API) that uses a standardized access methods to work in conjunction with GIs software packages (the application) and various geospatial data products. OGDI uses a client/server architecture to facilitate the dissemination of geospatial data products over any TCP/IP network, and a driver-oriented approach to facilitate access to several geospatial data products/formats.” [ License: ? ]

OGR "The OGR Simple Features Library is a C++ open source library (and commandline tools) providing read (and sometimes write) access to a variety of vector file formats including ESRI Shapefiles, and Mapinfo mid/mif and TAB formats." [ License: MIT ]

OneMap "Project OneMap is a long term effort contributing to the fusion of standard web technologies and geographic content, often referred to as the GeoWeb. We are conducting cutting edge research and development and deploying the results as services on the web." [ License: ? ]

Open 3D GIS "Open 3D GIS is an Open Source project with the main goal of making available a simple way to display 3D objects from a Geodatabase on the Web." [ License: ? ]

Open CASCADE "Open CASCADE is a powerful 3D modeling kernel. It consists in reusable C++ object libraries that are available as Open Source. Open CASCADE is used to create all types of domain specific 3D graphic applications, including CAD, CAE, CAM, AEC, GIs, reverse engineering, metrology, optical simulation, topology, etc." [ License: OpenCascade ]

OpenDMTP "The "Open Device Monitoring and Tracking Protocol", otherwise known as OpenDMTP™, is a protocol and framework that allows bi-directional data communications between servers and devices (clients) over the Internet and similar networks. OpenDMTP is particularly geared towards Location-based information (LBS) such as GPS, as well as temperature and other data collected in remote-monitoring devices. OpenDMTP is small, and is especially suited for micro-devices such as PDA's, mobile phones, and custom OEM devices." [License: Apache Software License, version 2 ]

OpenDX "Open Visualization Data Explorer (by IBM) is a visualization framework that gives users the ability to apply advanced visualization and analysis techniques to their data. These techniques can be applied to help users gain new insights into data from applications in a wide variety of fields including science, engineering, medicine and business." [ License: IBM Public License ]

OpenEV "OpenEV is a library, and reference application for viewing and analyzing raster and vector geospatial data." [ License: "It is Atlantis Scientific's intention to release OpenEV under the LGPL sometime this (2001) summer..." ]

OpenLayers "OpenLayers makes it easy to put a dynamic map in any web page. It can display map tiles and markers loaded from any source." [ License: ? ]

OpenMap "BBN Technologies' OpenMap package is a JavaBeans based programmer's toolkit. Using OpenMap, you can quickly build applications and applets that access data from legacy databases and applications. OpenMap provides the means to allow users to see and manipulate geospatial information." [ License: OpenMap License ]

OpenSVGMapserver [Code last updated 2003] "An open source solution for publishing arcview shapefiles with attributes to the web. Based on html, SVG, javascript, php and mysql database. Supports interactivity and filtering." [ License: GNU General Public License (GPL) ]

osgPlanet "osgPlanet is a 3D Geospatial viewer built on top of OpenSceneGraph, libwms and OSSIM . Inspired by BlueMarbleViewer, osgPlanet extends geospatial viewing with access to native geospatial formats, Elevation data sets, and OGC Web Mapping Services (WMS) interfaces over the web. osgPlanet is a C++ library and includes osgplanetviewer as a demonstration." [ License: ? ]

OSSIM "OSRS (Open Source Remote Sensing)'s OSSIM (Open Source Software Image Map) project. Pronounced "awesome", the OSSIM project leverages existing open source algorithms, tools, and packages to construct an integrated library for remote sensing, image-processing, and Geographical Information Sciences (GIs) analysis." [ License: GNU General Public License (GPL) ]

Paradise "The objective of the Paradise project is to design, implement, and evaluate a scalable, parallel geographic information system that is capable of storing and manipulating massive data sets." [ License: ? ]

PerlDL "PDL (``Perl Data Language'') gives standard Perl the ability to compactly store and speedily manipulate the large N-dimensional data arrays which are the bread and butter of scientific computing." [ License: ? ]

PgArc "Develop, test and implement an Open Source solution for ESRI's ArcMap (part of ArcView/ArcInfo version 8.x) that allows it to interact with data from the Open Source PostGIS spatial database (an extension of the PostgreSQL database). [ License: ? ]

Phone Hack "One of the benefits of having the ability to work with the phone is that there is an interface to the cell tower you are connected to. With this information, it's easy to make a "Where I've Been" type of interface." [ License: ? ]

phpGIS (not responding 9/22/03) " php GIS is a parcel information/GIS system to be used by all GIS developers." [ License: ? ]

Piccolo "Welcome to Piccolo! It is a revolutionary way to create robust, full-featured graphical applications in Java, with striking features such as zooming and multiple representation. Piccolo is an extensive toolkit based on the Java2D API." [ Mozilla Public License ]

PloneMap "A mapping application for Plone based on MapServer. It enables you to create interactive maps inside your Plone site. Web visitors can navigate the map and browse or edit geo-positioned data in a collaborative manner. PloneMap adds geographical representation on top of the powerful Plone content management system. [ License: GNU General Public License (GPL) ]

POPulation MAPper "POPulation MAPper (popmap for friends) is a utility that creates population maps. Popmap will read from a configuration file the different sites and the weight of a certain type of population for each site. Then popmap will retrieve the best map for the set of sites from mapblast and draw dots in the given sites coordinates proportional to the weight of the population.

PostGIS "PostGIS adds support for geographic objects to the PostgreSQL object-relational database. In effect, PostGIS "spatially enables" the PostgreSQL server, allowing it to be used as a backend spatial database for geographic information systems (GIs), much like ESRI's SDE or Oracle's Spatial extension." [ License: GNU General Public License (GPL) ]

PostGIS Installer for Windows "To ease the PostGIS installation on Windows, a PostGIS installer has been created." [ License: ? ]

PostGIS Windows Installer Another Windows installer for PostGIS. [ License: ? ]

Practical Map Server (PMS) "PMS delivers geographic content to web browsers and other compatible clients." [ License: GNU General Public License (GPL) ]

Predator "PREDATOR is an object-relational database system. The goal has been to build a research and educational vehicle that can handle real-life database problems. At Cornell, our research focus has been on techniques for the efficient support of complex data types (hence the name PRedator Enhanced DAta Type Object-Relational DBMS)." [ License: ? ]

PrimaGIS "PrimaGIS was originally inspired by the PloneMap product of Makina Corpus and incorporates many of the ideas from it. PrimaGIS builds on top of Mapserver, Python Cartographic Library (PCL) and Cartographic Objects for Zope (ZCO). [ License: ? ]

PROJ.4 The PROJ.4 cartographic projections library is used in several Open Source GIs projects including GRASS, MapServer, and OGDI. [ License: MIT ]

PyDL (not responding 9/22/03) "PyDL is a free clone of IDL (a product of RSI) for Linux. It is developed in Python using Numerical Python, Python Imaging Library and Dislin (plotting) packages. Array arithmetic, plotting, 24 and 8-bit imaging and some numerical routines are implemented." [License: ? ]

Pygps "Features: Records a track, records notes, shows you satellites, shows you your position, shows you on a map, runs on any machine which supports Python, pygtk, and libglade, downloads maps from terraserver on the fly." [ License: GNU General Public License (GPL) ]

PyIMS "Python MapScript application which mimics ArcIMS 4. Inspired by the Perl IMS emulator from refractions.net." [ License: ? ]

PyOGCLib "PyOGCLib aims to develop and distribute a Python based library for the implementation of the OpenGIS® specifications, notably Web Map Server (WMS) and Web Feature Server (WFS)." [ License: ? ]

Python Cartographic Library "The Python Cartography Library, or PCL, is a package of modules for rendering GIS data from a variety of backends into maps. Its mission is to be the best possible Python interface to open source GIS software such as PROJ.4, GEOS, GDAL, OGR, and MapServer, and to be easy to use with Python web application frameworks as well as with other visualization tools like matplotlib." [ License: GNU General Public License v2 (GPL v2) ]

QCad " The easy to use CAD for Linux." [ License: GNU General Public License (GPL) ]

Quantum GIS "Quantum GIS (QGIS) is a Geographic Information System (GIS) that runs on Linux, Unix, Mac OSX, and Windows. QGIS supports vector, raster, and database formats." [ License: GNU General Public License (GPL) ]

QSlim "This package contains two components, the MixKit library and the SlimKit collection of surface modeling tools." [License: ? ]

QuickWMS "JavaScript classes for creating Web Map clients and interfacing WMS servers according to OpenGIS Web Mapping Specification (versions 0.7 to 1.1). The goal of this project is to enable the fast creation of web mapping clients using javascript. The target browsers are Internet Explorer (version 5.5 and up) and Netscape (7.00 and up) both for Windows, Mac and Linux." [ License: GNU Lesser General Public License (LGPL) ]

R "R is 'GNU S', a freely available language and environment for statistical computing and graphics which provides a wide variety of statistical and graphical techniques: linear and nonlinear modelling, statistical tests, time series analysis, classification, clustering, etc." [ License: GNU General Public License (GPL) ]

RGIS "RGIS is used in Hunter College's geographic applications programming
class to demonstrate object-oriented programming and GIScience theory. RGIS will run on all
commonly used workstations with Java installed (Win95/98/NT, UNIX, Apple). RGIS allows GISystem raster data to be imported and exported from Arc/Info and ArcView. [ Public Domain ]

rmap "This package derived out of my personal need for a mapping system that was accurate across the globe in terms of longitude and latitude positioning. I found references to the CIA's Data Bank II which consists of 3 9-Track tapes of COBAL data that ran on old mainframes which had decent vector data of the earth, and that were also in the public domain..." [ License: GNU General Public License (GPL) ]

Roadster "Roadster aims to be easy-to-use and open-source mapping software." [ License: GNU General Public License (GPL) ]

SAGA "You can understand SAGA as a geographic information system, with a special 'Application Programming Interface' (API) for geographic data processing. This API makes it easy to implement new algorithms and exempts the developer from hassle programming overhead like user-interface design or file-io. The SAGA API supports grid data like digital terrain models and satellite images, vector data, and tables." [ License: GNU General Public License (GPL) ]

SAMT "A commercial GIS is very expensive while a free GIS (GRASS) is not easy to use. We need a modeling system with a few GIS-features, like spatial analysis, some spatial techniques and a simple in and export function to a GIS. The main focus is to have an open system to include different models (especially fuzzy-models)." [ License: GNU General Public License (GPL) ]

satpos (not responding 9/24/03) "A program to calculate the azimuth and elevation for geostationary satellites, so you can point your dish using a compass." [ License: GNU General Public License (GPL) ]

sdts2dem A revised version of the sdts2dem utility developed by Sol Katz. [ License: Public Domain ]

Shapelib "Shapelib is a simple C API for reading and writing ArcView Shapefiles. It is available in source form, with no licensing restrictions." [License: MIT ?]

SharpMap " SharpMap is a simple-to-use map renderer that renders GIS data for use in web and desktop applications. The engine is written in C# and based on the .NET 2.0 framework. [ License: GNU Lesser General Public License (LGPL) ]

Shore "The objective of the Shore project is to design, implement, and evaluate a persistent object system that will serve the needs of a wide variety of target applications including hardware and software CAD systems, persistent programming languages, geographic information systems, satellite data repositories, and multimedia applications." [ License: ? ]

SHPTRANS "SHPTRANS is a high-precision, ultra-high-performance NTv2 datum transformation and projection utility which reads and writes shapefiles." [ License: ? ]

Simple Map Server "Simple Map Server produces geographical map images. It should be compliant with the OpenGIS specification 1.0.0 and 1.1.1. [License:?]

Simple Map Client "Simple Map Client is a java application which allows browsing of OpenGIS WMS servers." [License:?]

SPECPR "SPECPR is an Interactive One Dimensional Array Processing System, with the tools needed for reflectance spectroscopy analysis. It also has tools to do a lot of other tasks and analyses of x,y paired data." [License: Public Domain? ]

Spherekit "Spherekit is an integrated toolkit for spatial interpolation and comparison of spatial interpolation algorithms. It is UNIX-based and includes a complete graphical user interface (GUI). It uses Generic Mapping Tools (GMT) for display of interpolated fields." [ License: GNU General Public License (GPL) ]

Splat "SPLAT! is an RF Signal Propagation, Loss, And Terrain analysis tool for the spectrum between 20 MHz and 20 GHz." [ License: GNU General Public License (GPL) ]

Spring (not responding 9/24/03) "SPRING is a state-of-the-art GIS and remote sensing image processing system with an object-oriented data model which provides for the integration of raster and vector data representations in a single environment." [ License: ? ]

SSI "The Satellite Software Initiative (SSI) is a noncommercial project organized with the objective of releasing high quality, free open source software for capturing, decoding, and displaying Weather Satellite images." [ License: GNU General Public License (GPL) ]

STARS "Space-Time Analysis of Regional Systems (STARS) is an open source package designed for the analysis of areal data measured over time. STARS brings together a number of recently developed methods of space-time analysis into a user-friendly graphical environment offering an array of dynamically linked graphical views." [ License: GNU General Public License (GPL) ]

sunclock "Sunclock is an X11 application that displays a map of the Earth and indicates the illuminated portion of the globe by drawing sunlit areas dark on light, night areas as light on dark. In addition to providing local time for the default timezone, it also displays GMT time, legal and solar time of major cities, their latitude and longitude, and the mutual distances of arbitrary locations on Earth." [ License: GNU General Public License (GPL) ]

SVG Viewer "The CSIRO SVG Toolkit is a collection of utilities that do various things with Scalable Vector Graphics (SVG) files." [ License: CSIRO ]

TARDEM "A suite of programs for the Analysis of Digital
Elevation Data" [ License: GNU General Public License (GPL) ]

Terraform "Terraform is an open source interactive height field generation and manipulation program, giving you the ability to generate random terrain and transform it." [ License: GNU General Public License (GPL) ]

TerraLib "TerraLib is a GIS classes and functions library, for GIS application development using object-relational databases. TerraLib aims to provide a large set of data structures and algorithms for GIS developers." [ License: GNU Lesser General Public License (LGPL) ]

Thuban "Thuban is an Interactive Geographic Data Viewer with the following features: 1) Navigation Zoom In/Out, Pan 2) Identify Attributes by object selection, objects by record selection. 3) Layer Management Layer types: Line, Polygon, Point, Georeferenced Image 4) Legend Editor Visual appearance of objects can be controlled. 5) Table Management Query and join tables. 6) Printing Print and export maps for further processing. [ License: GNU General Public License (GPL) ]

tkgeomap (not responding 9/24/03) "Tkgeomap is a set of extensions to Tcl/Tk for displaying and interacting with geographic data." [ License: ? ]

TMRS "Tiger Mapping and Routing Server (TMRS) is being written in order to facilitate the creation of open source GPS navigation software. Its goal is to simplify street level routing and map drawing functions essential for developing user-friendly interfaces. The data used in this software is available freely from U.S. Census and is called 'Tiger'." [ License: ? ]

TOPAZ "TOPAZ (Topographic Parameterization) is an automated digital landscape analysis tool for topographic evaluation, drainage identification,
watershed segmentation and subcatchment parameterization. While TOPAZ is designed primarily to assist with topographic evaluation and watershed parameterization in support of hydrologic modeling and analysis, it also has application to a variety of geomorphological, environmental and remote sensing applications." [ License: ? ]

Triangle "Triangle generates exact Delaunay triangulations, constrained Delaunay triangulations, and quality conforming Delaunay triangulations. The latter can be generated with no small angles, and are thus suitable for finite element analysis." [ License: ? ]

uDig "uDig is an open source spatial data viewer/editor, with special emphasis on the OpenGIS standards for internet GIS, the Web Map Server and Web Feature Server standards. uDig will provide a common Java platform for building spatial applications with open source components." [ License: GNU Lesser General Public License (LGPL) ]

vec2web "vec2web is a small tool to convert vector drawings (currently DXF) to graphics which can be used on the web (currently PNG)." [ License: ? ]

VGMap "VGMap is a new library created by Eyebeam R&D that allows designers, developers, and mapping geeks to overlay data on top of Google Maps in a richer way than is possible using their standard system. It is called VGMap because it adds vector-drawing capability to the already-awesome GMap API." [ License: ? ]

vhclmaps "Vhclmaps (formerly ivmaps and vhclserv) is a package of map viewers and spatial data servers that work with map databases like these from the USGS." [ License: vhclmaps ]

View Dog "ViewDog is a viewer for nurbs functions, polygonal geometry, and to some degree for iso surfaces of functions over a 3D domain (via marching cube)." [ License: ? ]

Vis5d "Vis5d+ is a volumetric visualization program for scientific data in 3+ dimensions, with many advanced features such as OpenGL for smooth interactive rendering, Tcl scripting, map projections for geographic data, and animation." [ License: GNU General Public License (GPL) ]

Virtual Terrain Project (VTP) "The goal of VTP is to foster the creation of tools for easily constructing any part of the real world in interactive, 3D digital form. This goal will require a synergetic convergence of the fields of CAD, GIs, visual simulation, surveying and remote sensing. VTP gathers information and tracks progress in areas such as procedural scene construction, feature extraction, and rendering algorithms." [ License: Public Domain ]

Visual Basic GIS http://www.visualbasicgis.com/

WAILI Wavelets Library "WAILI is a wavelet transform library. It includes some basic image processing operations based on the use of wavelets and forms the backbone of more complex image processing operations." [ License: GNU General Public License (GPL) ]

wayp2shp "Wayp2shp is a simple C-Progam which can read a Waypoint+ file and convert it into a shape file." [ License: GNU General Public License (GPL) ]

WinDisp "Windisp is a public domain, easy to use software package for the display and analysis of satellite images, maps and associated databases, with an emphasis on early warning for food security. WinDisp was originally developed for the FAO Global Information and Early Warning System. [ License: ? ]

worldKit "worldKit is an easy to use and flexible mapping application for the Web. Light weight GIS. It's a SWF based app, configured by XML, data fed by RSS. Stand-alone use or integration in larger projects." [ License: GNU General Public License (GPL) ]

World Wind Built by NASA: "World Wind allows any user to zoom from satellite altitude into any place on Earth, leveraging high resolution LandSat imagery and SRTM elevation data to experience Earth in visually rich 3D, just as if they were really there." [ License:? ]

Xastir "Xastir is program for receiving and plotting APRS(tm) position packets. Development is a collaborative effort of programmers from around the world. Xastir supports many map formats and is highly customizable." [ License: GNU General Public License (GPL) ]

XCSoar "XCSoar is a tactical glide computer for the Pocket PC operating system. It runs on old hardware (PPC platform) through to WM2003SE. WM2005 will be supported when devices become available (work has already been started)." [ License: GNU General Public License (GPL) ]

Xearth "Xearth for Windows is a port of Kirk Johnson's original xearth program to Microsoft Windows. Xearth renders a shaded image of the earth on your desktop, as seen from your favorite vantage point in space." [ License: ? ]

Xplanet "Xplanet was inspired by Xearth, which renders an image of the earth into the X root window. Azimuthal, Mercator, Mollweide, orthographic, or rectangular projections can be shown as well as a window with a globe the user can rotate interactively using OpenGL or Mesa. The other planets and some satellites may also be displayed." [ License: GNU General Public License (GPL) ]

XV "xv is an interactive image manipulation program for the X Window System." [ License: ? ]

Ygl "Ygl emulates SGI's GL routines under X11. It was written for two reasons: 1) On our RS/6000 GT4 hardware, Ygl is up to twenty times faster (circf()) than GL (strange, isn't it?...). 2) 2D graphics runs on non GL hardware and even on remote X-Servers. [ License: GNU General Public License (GPL) ]

Zipdy "Zipdy is a program for calculating the distance between two zip codes and finding all the records in a RDBMS with a zip code with x miles of another zip code." [ License: GNU General Public License (GPL) ]

ZMapServer "ZMapServer is a plug-in for Zope that provides a framework for web mapping applications using MapServer. The essential web mapping components are included: maps, legends, scale bars, labels, data layers and layer styles. These components are managed through Zope, helping to maintain seperation between GIS content and its presentation." [ License: ? ]

Zodius "Zodius is a fast vector graphics library build from ground up. It tries to implement Flash and SVG type drawing of paths offering maximum quality together with state of the art speed." [ License: Zodius License ]