Integrated Land and Water Information System (ILWIS) is a

geographic information system A geographic information system (GIS) is a type of database containing geographic data (that is, descriptions of phenomena for which location is relevant), combined with software tools for managing, analyzing, and visualizing those data. In a ...

(GIS) and

remote sensing Remote sensing is the acquisition of information about an object or phenomenon without making physical contact with the object, in contrast to in situ or on-site observation. The term is applied especially to acquiring information about Ear ...

software for both vector and raster processing. Its features include

digitizing DigitizationTech Target. (2011, April). Definition: digitization. ''WhatIs.com''. Retrieved December 15, 2021, from https://whatis.techtarget.com/definition/digitization is the process of converting information into a digital (i.e. computer- ...

, editing, analysis and display of data, and production of quality

map A map is a symbolic depiction emphasizing relationships between elements of some space, such as objects, regions, or themes. Many maps are static, fixed to paper or some other durable medium, while others are dynamic or interactive. Although ...

s. ILWIS was initially developed and distributed by

ITC Enschede The International Institute for Geo-Information Science and Earth Observation (ITC) was an institute of higher (tertiary) education located in Enschede, Netherlands. As of 1 January 2010 it has been incorporated into the University of Twente a ...

(International Institute for Geo-Information Science and Earth Observation) in the

Netherlands ) , anthem = ( en, "William of Nassau") , image_map = , map_caption = , subdivision_type = Sovereign state , subdivision_name = Kingdom of the Netherlands , established_title = Before independence , established_date = Spanish Netherl ...

for use by its researchers and students. Since 1 July 2007, it has been released as

free software Free software or libre software is computer software distributed under terms that allow users to run the software for any purpose as well as to study, change, and distribute it and any adapted versions. Free software is a matter of liberty, n ...

under the terms of the GPL-2.0-only license. Having been used by many students, teachers and researchers for more than two decades, ILWIS is one of the most user-friendly integrated vector and raster software programmes currently available. ILWIS has some very powerful raster analysis modules, a high-precision and flexible vector and point digitizing module, a variety of very practical tools, as well as a great variety of user guides and training modules all available for downloading. The current version is ILWIS 3.8.6. Similar to the

GRASS GIS ''Geographic Resources Analysis Support System'' (commonly termed ''GRASS GIS'') is a geographic information system (GIS) software suite used for geospatial data management and analysis, image processing, producing graphics and maps, spatial and ...

in many respects, ILWIS is currently available natively only on

Microsoft Windows Windows is a group of several proprietary graphical operating system families developed and marketed by Microsoft. Each family caters to a certain sector of the computing industry. For example, Windows NT for consumers, Windows Server for ...

. However, a

Linux Linux ( or ) is a family of open-source Unix-like operating systems based on the Linux kernel, an operating system kernel first released on September 17, 1991, by Linus Torvalds. Linux is typically packaged as a Linux distribution, whi ...

Wine Wine is an alcoholic drink typically made from Fermentation in winemaking, fermented grapes. Yeast in winemaking, Yeast consumes the sugar in the grapes and converts it to ethanol and carbon dioxide, releasing heat in the process. Different ...

manual has been released.

History

In late 1984, ITC was awarded a grant from the

Dutch Ministry of Foreign Affairs The Ministry of Foreign Affairs ( nl, link=no, Ministerie van Buitenlandse Zaken; BZ) is the Ministries of the Netherlands, Netherlands' ministry responsible for foreign relations of the Netherlands, foreign relations, foreign policy, internation ...

, which led to developing a geographic information system (GIS) which could be used as a tool for

land use Land use involves the management and modification of natural environment or wilderness into built environment such as settlements and semi-natural habitats such as arable fields, pastures, and managed woods. Land use by humans has a long ...

planning and

watershed management Watershed management is the study of the relevant characteristics of a watershed aimed at the sustainable distribution of its resources and the process of creating and implementing plans, programs and projects to sustain and enhance watershed funct ...

studies. By the end of 1988, a

DOS DOS is shorthand for the MS-DOS and IBM PC DOS family of operating systems. DOS may also refer to: Computing * Data over signalling (DoS), multiplexing data onto a signalling channel * Denial-of-service attack (DoS), an attack on a communicat ...

version 1.0 of the Integrated Land and Water Information System (ILWIS) was released. Two years later, ILWIS was made commercial with ITC establishing a worldwide distributors network. ILWIS 2.0 for Windows was released at the end of 1996, and ILWIS 3.0 by mid-2001. On 1 January 2004, ILWIS 3.2 was released as a shareware (one-month trial offer). Since July 1, 2007, ILWIS has been distributed as an open source software under the GPL-2.0-only license.

Release history

This table is based o

Ilwis38a

Features

ILWIS uses GIS techniques that integrate image processing capabilities, a tabular database and conventional GIS characteristics. The major features include: *Integrated raster and Vector graphics, vector design *On-screen digitizing *Comprehensive set of

image processing An image is a visual representation of something. It can be two-dimensional, three-dimensional, or somehow otherwise feed into the visual system to convey information. An image can be an artifact, such as a photograph or other two-dimensio ...

and remote sensing tools like extensive set of filters, resampling, aggregation, classifications. etc... *

Orthophoto An orthophoto, orthophotograph, orthoimage or orthoimagery is an aerial photograph or satellite imagery geometrically corrected ("orthorectified") such that the scale is uniform: the photo or image follows a given map projection. Unlike a ...

, image georeferencing, transformation and mosaicing *Advanced modeling and spatial data analysis * 3D visualization with interactive zooming, rotation and panning. "Height" information can be added from multiple types of sources and isn't limited to DEM information. * Animations of spatial temporal data stacks with the possibility of synchronization between different animations. *Rich

map projection In cartography, map projection is the term used to describe a broad set of transformations employed to represent the two-dimensional curved surface of a globe on a plane. In a map projection, coordinates, often expressed as latitude and l ...

and

geographic coordinate system The geographic coordinate system (GCS) is a spherical or ellipsoidal coordinate system for measuring and communicating positions directly on the Earth as latitude and longitude. It is the simplest, oldest and most widely used of the various ...

library. Optionally custom coordinate systems and on the fly modifications can be added. *

Geostatistical Geostatistics is a branch of statistics focusing on spatial or spatiotemporal datasets. Developed originally to predict probability distributions of ore grades for mining operations, it is currently applied in diverse disciplines including petr ...

analyses, with

Kriging In statistics, originally in geostatistics, kriging or Kriging, also known as Gaussian process regression, is a method of interpolation based on Gaussian process governed by prior covariances. Under suitable assumptions of the prior, kriging giv ...

for improved interpolation *Import and export using the

GDAL/OGR The Geospatial Data Abstraction Library (GDAL) is a computer software library for reading and writing raster and vector geospatial data formats (e.g. shapefile), and is released under the permissive X/MIT style free software license by the ...

library *Advanced data management *

Stereoscopy Stereoscopy (also called stereoscopics, or stereo imaging) is a technique for creating or enhancing the illusion of depth in an image by means of stereopsis for binocular vision. The word ''stereoscopy'' derives . Any stereoscopic image i ...

tools - To create a stereo pair from two aerial photographs *Transparencies at many levels (whole maps, selections, individual elements or properties) to combine different data sources in a comprehensive way. *Various interactive diagramming options: Profile, Cross section visualization, Hovmoller diagrams *Interactive value dependent presentation of maps ( stretching, representation) *

Hydrologic Hydrology () is the scientific study of the movement, distribution, and management of water on Earth and other planets, including the water cycle, water resources, and environmental watershed sustainability. A practitioner of hydrology is calle ...

Flow Operations * Surface energy balance operations through the SEBS module *GARtrip import - Map Import allows the import of GARtrip Text files with GPS data *Spatial Multiple Criteria Evaluation (SMCE) * Space time Cube. Interactive visualization of multiple attribute spatial temporal data. * DEM operations including iso line generation *Variable Threshold Computation, to help preparing a threshold map for

drainage Drainage is the natural or artificial removal of a surface's water and sub-surface water from an area with excess of water. The internal drainage of most agricultural soils is good enough to prevent severe waterlogging (anaerobic condition ...

network extraction *Horton Statistics, to calculate the number of streams, the average stream length, the average area of catchments for

Strahler stream order In mathematics, the Strahler number or Horton–Strahler number of a mathematical tree is a numerical measure of its branching complexity. These numbers were first developed in hydrology by and ; in this application, they are referred to as t ...

s *

Georeference Georeferencing means that the internal coordinate system of a map or aerial photo image can be related to a geographic coordinate system. The relevant coordinate transforms are typically stored within the image file (GeoPDF and GeoTIFF are example ...

editors

Roadmap

The next major version of Ilwis will be based on the Ilwis NG framework (in development). This framework aims at being a connection hub between various heterogeneous data and processing sources (local-remote). Integrating them in a consistent way and presenting them in a unified to the end users (at both programming and user interface level). The framework will be cross platform (ILWIS is now limited to Windows only) and will be deployable on mobile devices.

References

External links