The following is a growing list of free or open source mapping tools I’ve come across during my travels.
If you find a broken link or know of additional tools please drop me a note. I hope you find this listing useful.
Best wishes and happy mapping!
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3DEM
- Terrain visualization application
- GIS viewer
- General purpose CAD program
- Tool for processing and analysing point clouds.
- Terrain visualization application
- Allows access, visualization and analysis of the original LiDAR data
- USGS Digital Data Viewer
- Directly transfer data between Garmin GPS handheld receivers and various GIS software packages
- Upload and download waypoints, routes, and tracks between your Windows computer and your Garmin, Magellan, or Lowrance GPS
- Educational digital photogrammetric workstation
- Open Source GIS/RS application on the Linux and Gnome compatible platforms
- General purpose 3D CAD program
- Viewer designed for use with various types of raster and vector based geospatial datasets, including data from photogrammetric, LiDAR, and IFSAR sources
- LiDAR viewing and analysis software suite
GDAL (Geospatial Data Abstraction Library)
- Translator library for raster geospatial data formats that is released under an X/MIT style Open Source license by the Open Source Geospatial Foundation
- Collection of tools for manipulating Geographic and Cartesian data sets
- Enterprise-ready open source GIS framework for the web
- Tool for the generation of Digital Elevation Models (DEMs) from LiDAR point cloud data
- Catalog application to manage spatially referenced resources
- Open source Java library that provides tools for geospatial data
- Programming-free environment that allows users to quickly build applications for geocomputation and geographic visualization
- Not actually mapping software but a general purpose image manipulation program with capabilities similar to Photoshop and Corel PhotoPaint
- Java based mapping toolkit, it has the ability to read geographical data from a variety of data sources and display that information to the user
Global Land Cover Facility (Data)
- Global archive of satellite acquired imagery and data
- Global archive of satellite acquired imagery and data
- Global satellite image and spatial information viewer
- Useful and intuitive tool for creating 3D vector models
- Converts and manipulates waypoints, tracks, and routes between popular GPS receivers and mapping programs
- Graphical manager of GPS data that makes possible the preparation, inspection and edition of GPS data
- Comprehensive GPS interface and mapping utility
- Application that allows you to manage, manipulate and map your GPS information
- Small application that displays a texture-mapped earth and lets you interactively explore it in 3D. It can also connect to a GPS unit and display in 3D all the info produced by the unit
- Displays your position provided from your GPS receiver on a zoomable map
- Interactive desktop tool that is used for easy access, manipulation, and visualization of earth science data
- Comprehensive GIS software used for geospatial data management and analysis, image processing, graphics/maps production, spatial modeling, and visualization
- Desktop GIS application designed for capturing, storing, handling, analyzing and deploying any kind of referenced geographic information
- Not actually mapping software but a comprehensive image processing and analysis tool for research applications
- Software suite to create, edit, compose, or convert bitmap images. It can read and write images in a variety of formats."
- Not actually mapping software but a general purpose vector graphics editor with capabilities similar to Illustrator and CorelDraw
Integrated Land and Water Information System (ILWIS)
- Raster and Vector GIS application
- 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.
- Application for the visualisation and analysis of surfaces
- Application for viewing geospatial imagery, vector overlays, and LiDAR files
- 3D visualization of LiDAR / ALSM point and interpolated data
- Software and client framework for spatial data infrastructures and can be used for a variety of different web mapping applications
Mapbuilder (Project completion)
- Standards compliant geographic mapping client which runs in a web browser (end of project life notice posted)
- Web-based platform that enables users to develop and deploy web mapping applications and geospatial web services
- A map production program with GIS functions such as thematic mapping and data interrogation (vector and raster).
- Toolkit for developing mapping applications
- Platform for publishing spatial data and interactive mapping applications to the web
- Spatial data viewer with GPS track display
- Software for creating plots of points, lines, polygons and labels to PostScript, Portable Document Format (PDF), Scalable Vector Graphics (SVG) format and web image output formats
- "Software suite is a comprehensive, production-grade Windows application designed to visualize, manage, process and analyze LiDAR point cloud data"
- Software package for the processing and display of bathymetry and backscatter imagery data derived from multibeam, interferometry, and sidescan sonars
- " The world's most popular open source database"
- Database and mapping application for developing and distributing environmental databases
Nunaliit Cybercartographic Atlas Framework
- Nunaliit framework aims to make it easy for anyone to build a cybercartographic atlas - telling stories and exploring the relationships between space, time, knowledge, and our senses
Open Visualization Data Explorer
- Visualization framework that gives users the ability to apply advanced visualization and analysis techniques to their data
- Software library and application for viewing and analysing raster and vector geospatial data
- GIS Data Viewer and geometry attribute editing application
- Tool to put a dynamic map in any web page and display map tiles and markers loaded from many sources
- Programmer's toolkit allowing user to build applications and applets that access data from legacy databases and applications
- Expandable remote sensing and imagery analysis software platform
Parallel Database System for GIS Applications
- Paradise project: to design, implement, and evaluate a scalable, parallel geographic information system that is capable of storing and manipulating massive data sets
- Multi-platform data analysis and visualization application
- 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 GIS
- Open Source GIS that runs on Linux, Unix, Mac OSX, and Windows and supports vector, raster, and database formats
- Share and view inspection results and a multitude of 3D scan data and CAD formats
Shapefile Coordinate Transformation Utility
- Datum transformation and projection utility which reads and writes shapefiles
- Mapping library for use in web and desktop applications. It provides access to many types of GIS data and enables spatial querying of that data
- Tool to produce geographical map images
Spatial Analysis and Modelling Tool
- Landscape modeling application
- 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
- Browser-based interactive data visualization and mapping application
- 3D modeling tool for automatic generation of textured 3D models from individual stereo pairs
- Command line GIS applications
- Terrain rendering application
- GIS application built using the TerraLib GIS library. TerraView main goal is to make available to the GIS Community an easy geographic data viewer with resources that include database queries and data analysis
- Interactive geographic data viewer
- Application to generate exact Delaunay triangulations, constrained Delaunay triangulations, conforming Delaunay triangulations, Voronoi diagrams, and high-quality triangular meshes
- Open Source software library intended to provide a set of useful functions to deal with 3D surfaces meshed with interconnected triangles
- Desktop Internet GIS application framework
- Interactive 3D LiDAR viewing tool
- OpenGL based volumetric visualization program for scientific datasets in 3+ dimensions
- Software package for the display and analysis of satellite images, maps and associated databases, with an emphasis on early warning for food security
- Application offering a wide range of modeling tools, a customizable interface, support for lights and materials, and a built-in AutoUV mapping facility
- Mapping application for the Web
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Compiled by Paul Illsley