Integrated Land and Water Information System (ILWIS) is a

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) and

remote sensing Remote sensing is the acquisition of information about an physical object, 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 inform ...

software for both

vector Vector most often refers to: * Euclidean vector, a quantity with a magnitude and a direction * Disease vector, an agent that carries and transmits an infectious pathogen into another living organism Vector may also refer to: Mathematics a ...

and

raster file:Rgb-raster-image.svg, upright=1, The Smiley, smiley face in the top left corner is a raster image. When enlarged, individual pixels appear as squares. Enlarging further, each pixel can be analyzed, with their colors constructed through comb ...

processing. Its features include

digitizing Digitization is the process of converting information into a digital (i.e. computer-readable) format.Collins Dictionary. (n.d.). Definition of 'digitize'. Retrieved December 15, 2021, from https://www.collinsdictionary.com/dictionary/english ...

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

map A map is a symbolic depiction of interrelationships, commonly spatial, between things within a space. A map may be annotated with text and graphics. Like any graphic, a map may be fixed to paper or other durable media, or may be displayed on ...

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 Universiteit Twente, Univ ...

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

Netherlands , Terminology of the Low Countries, informally Holland, is a country in Northwestern Europe, with Caribbean Netherlands, overseas territories in the Caribbean. It is the largest of the four constituent countries of the Kingdom of the Nether ...

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

free software Free software, libre software, libreware sometimes known as freedom-respecting software is computer software distributed open-source license, under terms that allow users to run the software for any purpose as well as to study, change, distribut ...

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 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 ...

. However, a

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 ...

Wine Wine is an alcoholic drink made from Fermentation in winemaking, fermented fruit. Yeast in winemaking, Yeast consumes the sugar in the fruit and converts it to ethanol and carbon dioxide, releasing heat in the process. Wine is most often made f ...

manual had been released in 2009 by the World Institute for Conservation and Environment (WICE).

History

In late 1984, ITC was awarded a grant from the

Dutch Ministry of Foreign Affairs The Ministry of Foreign Affairs (; BZ) is the Netherlands' ministry responsible for foreign relations, foreign policy, international development, international trade, diaspora and matters dealing with the European Union, NATO and the Benelux Un ...

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

land use Land use is an umbrella term to describe what happens on a parcel of land. It concerns the benefits derived from using the land, and also the land management actions that humans carry out there. The following categories are used for land use: fo ...

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 f ...

studies. By the end of 1988, a

DOS DOS (, ) is a family of disk-based operating systems for IBM PC compatible computers. The DOS family primarily consists of IBM PC DOS and a rebranded version, Microsoft's MS-DOS, both of which were introduced in 1981. Later compatible syste ...

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 Shareware is a type of proprietary software that is initially shared by the owner for trial use at little or no cost. Often the software has limited functionality or incomplete documentation until the user sends payment to the software developer. ...

(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 or picture is a visual representation. An image can be two-dimensional, such as a drawing, painting, or photograph, or three-dimensional, such as a carving or sculpture. Images may be displayed through other media, including a pr ...

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

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

, 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, a map projection is any of a broad set of Transformation (function) , transformations employed to represent the curved two-dimensional Surface (mathematics), surface of a globe on a Plane (mathematics), plane. In a map projection, ...

and

geographic coordinate system A geographic coordinate system (GCS) is a spherical coordinate system, spherical or geodetic coordinates, geodetic coordinate system for measuring and communicating position (geometry), positions directly on Earth as latitude and longitude. ...

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 petro ...

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 g ...

for improved interpolation *Import and export using the GDAL/OGR library *Advanced data management *

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

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 drainage basin sustainability. A practitioner of hydrology is called a hydro ...

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 water. The internal drainage of most agricultural soils can prevent severe waterlogging (anaerobic conditions that harm root gro ...

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, as a way of measuring the complexity of rivers and streams ...

s *

Georeference Georeferencing or georegistration is a type of coordinate transformation that binds a digital raster image or vector database that represents a geographic space (usually a scanned map or aerial photograph) to a spatial reference system, thus loca ...

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