13 GIS Programs You May Not Know About
In this space I have talked about many programs, as popularized as those of the brands AutoDesk y ESRI, As well as those of lesser popularity but with good positioning as it is Bentley, Manifold GIS, And a Full list of programs Among those who have recently caught my attention the Open Source.
But beyond that there are other programs, which are not as well known, at least in our Spanish-speaking context. Some of the list are even well positioned in the Far East. Below the list and to show one of them:
- OCAD, intelligent cartography
- Geokno, Geospatial Knowledge
- Geoconcept, Geomarketing and something else
- Supermap, ESRI style full range of products
- SuperGeo, a software very positioned in the east, maybe more than ESRI
- SevenCs, software for navigation and elaboration of nautical cartography
- ScanEx, software for topography, GIS and remote sensors
- RockWoRks, software for geology and research
- Photomod, Specialized for photogrammetry
- EZSurv, Extension on ArcPad to postprocess data with GNSS receivers
- Pythagoras, CAD, GIS and VBA to spread
- Orbitgis, Applications for handling web data
- Guthrie, Programs for data transformation between shp, dxf, pdf, hpgl ...
OCAD
This is one of those examples, little known in the current GIS context, where brands are fashionable than the rhythm of piracy. OCAD It is one of those that were born before the geospatial trends that we now know matured, more in the need to digitize the products made by the Geographical Institutes and hence its slogan “Intelligent Cartography”.
So the most important reason to think about OCAD is to produce maps that will end in printed formats.
OCAD supports the import of data from Shapefiles, DXF vector files, PDF, Adobe Illustrator and GeoTIFF. Then, these are integrated into their own environment that can connect to databases via ODBC.
Perhaps one of the most valuable riches of OCAD is in what they call "smart cartography", where the text, line or hatch styles are a real treat. This is something that current GIS applications cannot always achieve since they are not oriented to producing printed maps but to interaction; also because unlike the maps of the past, which were true works of art, the graphs are only representations of what is inside the database, in many cases somewhat crude.
Once the map is made to taste, it can be sent to formats where it came from (shape, DXF, GeoTIFF), but additionally to printing formats such as EPS, PDF, AI, SVG. It is clear that beyond what can be done with Corel Draw, OCAD is a GIS program, it supports importing GPS data, georeferenced raster and vector layers and transformation of coordinate systems.
Although his cycle focuses on the construction of data, editing and publication, quite a lot on the logic of cartography of the eighties. At the level of data management, maintenance and exchange, it is very limited; It only has a viewer that works with an applet developed in Java where it emulates a tiling of vector data in a non-dynamic way. Despite its limitations, beyond its country of origin (Switzerland), OCAD has managed to reach more than 60 countries.
OCAD will certainly not be the shadow of what can now be done with gvSIG, if we consider OGC standards, IDE client, application for Windows Mobile and Android, etc. But surely it is a software to which you have to have enough respect for its trajectory, and if you want to make maps for printing purposes ... surely you have to think about it seriously.