gvSIG,
geographic information system
A geographic information system (GIS) consists of integrated computer hardware and Geographic information system software, software that store, manage, Spatial analysis, analyze, edit, output, and Cartographic design, visualize Geographic data ...
(GIS), is a desktop application designed for capturing, storing, handling, analyzing and deploying any kind of referenced geographic information in order to solve complex management and planning problems. gvSIG is known for having a user-friendly interface, being able to access the most common formats, both vector and raster ones. It features a wide range of tools for working with geographic-like information (query tools, layout creation, geoprocessing, networks, etc.).
* Integrating in the same view both local (files, databases) and remote data through
OGC standards.
* Including a plugin system which allows to easily extend the application or to develop tailor-made solutions.
* Being
open source
Open source is source code that is made freely available for possible modification and redistribution. Products include permission to use and view the source code, design documents, or content of the product. The open source model is a decentrali ...
software under the
GNU General Public License
The GNU General Public Licenses (GNU GPL or simply GPL) are a series of widely used free software licenses, or ''copyleft'' licenses, that guarantee end users the freedom to run, study, share, or modify the software. The GPL was the first ...
(GPL), which allows its free use, distribution, study and improvement.
* Being available in several languages: Spanish, English UK, English USA, German, French, Italian, Portuguese, Portuguese-Brazilian, Russian, Chinese, Serbian, Swahili, Turkish, Czech, Polish, Romanian, Greek, Basque, Valencian/Catalan, Galician.
* Being developed using
Java
Java is one of the Greater Sunda Islands in Indonesia. It is bordered by the Indian Ocean to the south and the Java Sea (a part of Pacific Ocean) to the north. With a population of 156.9 million people (including Madura) in mid 2024, proje ...
, and being available for
Linux
Linux ( ) is a family of open source Unix-like operating systems based on the Linux kernel, an kernel (operating system), operating system kernel first released on September 17, 1991, by Linus Torvalds. Linux is typically package manager, pac ...
,
Windows
Windows is a Product lining, product line of Proprietary software, proprietary graphical user interface, graphical operating systems developed and marketed by Microsoft. It is grouped into families and subfamilies that cater to particular sec ...
and
Mac OS X
macOS, previously OS X and originally Mac OS X, is a Unix, Unix-based operating system developed and marketed by Apple Inc., Apple since 2001. It is the current operating system for Apple's Mac (computer), Mac computers. With ...
platforms
Nomenclature
gvSIG was initially developed for the
Generalitat Valenciana
The Generalitat Valenciana is the generic name covering the different self-government institutions under which the Spanish autonomous community of Valencia is politically organized.
It consists of seven institutions including the ''Corts Valen ...
(gv), an institution of the self-governed
autonomous community
The autonomous communities () are the first-level administrative divisions of Spain, created in accordance with the Spanish Constitution of 1978, with the aim of guaranteeing limited autonomy to the nationalities and regions that make up Sp ...
of
Valencia
Valencia ( , ), formally València (), is the capital of the Province of Valencia, province and Autonomous communities of Spain, autonomous community of Valencian Community, the same name in Spain. It is located on the banks of the Turia (r ...
. This explains the abbreviation gvSIG for which the last three letters stands for ''Sistema d'informació geogràfica (SIG)'', or GIS in English.
Features gvSIG Desktop
Typical tools in a full-fledged desktop GIS client can also be found in gvSIG, among other things:
* Access to vector formats:
SHP,
DXF,
GML,
DWG,
DGN,
KML.
* Access to raster formats:
BMP,
GIF
The Graphics Interchange Format (GIF; or , ) is a Raster graphics, bitmap Image file formats, image format that was developed by a team at the online services provider CompuServe led by American computer scientist Steve Wilhite and released ...
,
TIFF
Tag Image File Format or Tagged Image File Format, commonly known by the abbreviations TIFF or TIF, is an image file format for storing raster graphics images, popular among graphic artists, the publishing industry, and photographers. TIFF is w ...
,
JPEG
JPEG ( , short for Joint Photographic Experts Group and sometimes retroactively referred to as JPEG 1) is a commonly used method of lossy compression for digital images, particularly for those images produced by digital photography. The degr ...
,
JP2,
PNG, VRT, DAT of
ENVI, ERDAS (LAN, GIS, IMG),
PCI Geomatics (PIX, AUX), ADF of
ESRI
Environmental Systems Research Institute, Inc., doing business as Esri (), is an American Multinational corporation, multinational geographic information system (GIS) software company headquartered in Redlands, California. It is best known for ...
,
ILWIS (MPR, MPL), MAP of PC Raster, ASC,
PGM,
PPM, RST of
IDRISI, RMF, NOS, KAP, HDR,
RAW.
* Access to remote services:
OGC (
WMS,
WFS,
WCS, WFS-T,
WPS),
ArcIMS, Ecwp.
* Access to databases and tables:
PostGIS
PostGIS ( ) is an open source software program that adds support for geographic objects to the PostgreSQL object-relational database. PostGIS follows the Simple Features for SQL specification from the Open Geospatial Consortium (OGC).
PostGIS is ...
,
ArcSDE,
JDBC
Java Database Connectivity (JDBC) is an application programming interface (API) for the Java (programming language), Java programming language which defines how a client may access a database. It is a Java-based data access technology used for Java ...
,
CSV.
* Display:zooms, panning, frames, locator.
* Query: information, area and distance measurement, hyperlink.
* Selection: by point, by rectangle, by polygon, by layer, by polyline, by circle, by buffer zone, alphanumeric search, invert selection, delete selection.
* Searching: by attribute, by coordinates.
* Geoprocessing: buffer, intersection, clip, dissolve, union, convex hull, difference, merge, spatial join, XY shift, reprojection, Sextante geoprocessing.
* Graphical editing: add event layers, snapping, grid, flatness, command stack, undo/redo, copy, move, symmetry, rotate, scale, edit vertex, internal polygon, matrix, explode, split, join, autocomplete polygon, insert point, multipoint, line, arc, polyline, polygon, rectangle, square, circle, ellipse.
* Alphanumeric editing: manage fields, edit registers, field calculator.
* Catalogue and gazetteer services
* Vector representation: unique symbol, quantities (dot density, intervals, graduated symbols, proportional symbols), categories (expressions, unique values), multiple attributes, save/load legend, symbology constructor, symbology levels, symbology libraries.
* Raster representation: brightness, contrast, enhance, transparency by pixel, opacity, colour tables, gradients.
* Labeling: Static labeling, advanced labeling, individual labeling.
* Tables: statistics, filter, ascending/descending order, link, join, move selection, export, import fields, coding, normalization.
* Layout constructor: page layout, cartographic elements (view, legend, north, scale, frames, image, text, graphic), grid, templates.
* Printing: to PDF, to Postscript, export to several image formats.
* Network analysis: network topology, stops manager, minimum path, connectivity, minimum spanning tree, origin - destination matrix, emergency / nearest facilities provider, service areas.
* Raster and remote sensing: statistics, filters, histogram, scale range, enhance, save to raster file, vectorization,
Region of Interest (ROI) definition, general components, georeferencing, geolocation, supervised classification, band algebra, image profiles, decision tree, main components, tasseled cap, image fusion, scatter diagram, mosaics.
* Publishing:
MapServer's
WCS,
WMS and
WFS,
Geoserver's
WFS.
* 3D and animation: 3D Views, XYZ-projected as well as spherical (planetary), 3D layers, 3D symbology, 3D editing, 3D framing, 2D and 3D animation, stereo viewing (horizontal split).
*
Topology
Topology (from the Greek language, Greek words , and ) is the branch of mathematics concerned with the properties of a Mathematical object, geometric object that are preserved under Continuous function, continuous Deformation theory, deformat ...
: topological building, topological editing, generalization, reverse line direction, polygons from/to lines, lines from/to points,
Delaunay triangulation
In computational geometry, a Delaunay triangulation or Delone triangulation of a set of points in the plane subdivides their convex hull into triangles whose circumcircles do not contain any of the points; that is, each circumcircle has its gen ...
,
Thiessen polygons, build, clean, topological error fixing (in Batch mode).
* Other: Coordinates Reference Systems manager, import from/export to WMC, scripting, translations manager.
Sextante GIS has been ported to a plugin for gvSIG adding analysis functions for raster datasets in addition to gvSIG's built-in vector analysis tools. Within Sextante,
GRASS GIS can be used as extension to make its algorithms available to gvSIG users.
gvSIG Mobile
gvSIG Mobile aims at broadening gvSIG execution platforms to a range of mobile devices, in order to give an answer to the needs of a growing number of mobile solutions users, who wish to use a GIS on different types of devices.
So far, gvSIG Mobile is a Geographic Information System, as well as a Spatial Data Infrastructures client for mobile devices. Such a client is also the first one licensed under open source.
gvSIG Mobile is known for:
* integrating in the same view both local and remote data through
OGC standards.
* being
open source
Open source is source code that is made freely available for possible modification and redistribution. Products include permission to use and view the source code, design documents, or content of the product. The open source model is a decentrali ...
software, under the GNU GPL v2, what allows its free use, distribution, study and improvement.
* being available in several languages (Spanish, English, German, French, ...) .
* being developed using Java, and it's available for platforms supporting Java Micro Edition CDC 1.1. So far, it runs on the following platforms: Windows Mobile 5.0, Windows Mobile 6.0 and Nokia Maemo
Features gvSIG Mobile
Typical tools in a mobile GIS client can also be found in gvSIG Mobile:
* Access to vector formats:
SHP,
GML,
KML,
GPX
* Access to raster formats: ECW,
JPEG
JPEG ( , short for Joint Photographic Experts Group and sometimes retroactively referred to as JPEG 1) is a commonly used method of lossy compression for digital images, particularly for those images produced by digital photography. The degr ...
,
PNG,
GIF
The Graphics Interchange Format (GIF; or , ) is a Raster graphics, bitmap Image file formats, image format that was developed by a team at the online services provider CompuServe led by American computer scientist Steve Wilhite and released ...
.
* Access to remote services:
OGC (
WMS).
* Display: zooms, panning, automatic recentre tool.
* Query: information, see coordinates, distance and areas measurement.
* Selection: by point, by rectangle, by attributes, clear selection.
* Search: by attribute.
*
GPS: internal/external GPS connection, reprojection to
UTM, simulated NMEA frames, waypoints, tracklog in
GPX and
CSV formats, center on view, signal parameters, satellites used, calculate the distance between current location and the destination location.
* Graphic editing: create points, lines and polygons both GPS and hand based.
* Alphanumeric editing: customized forms.
* Vector representation: point/line/polygon symbology, thematic mapping, export to
GML,
KML and
SHP.
* Tables: import fields from gvSIG Desktop.
* Project: Project storage, default properties (
SRS, background colour, default project, icon size, ...).
* Others: data portability and data integration with gvSIG Desktop.
References
External links
*{{official website, http://www.gvsig.org/
GvSIG Association
OA Digital fork
OAdigital.netBranch from OA Digital
gvSIG Community Edition
gvSIG CE (fork of gvSIG)gvSIG CEis a community driven GIS project fork of gvSIG that will be bundled with SEXTANTE, GRASS GIS and SAGA. This project is not supported by the gvSIG Association. gvSIG CE is not an official project of gvSIG.
Why was the gvSIG Community Edition Project Started?
Free GIS software
Free software programmed in Java (programming language)
Geographic information systems