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uDIG (user-friendly Desktop Internet GIS) is a spatial data viewer/editor It has a special emphasis on the OGC standards used for Internet GIS, the Web Map Server and Web Feature Server standards. uDIG is based upon the Java platform and is used for building spatial applications with open source components. uDIG is considered to be a core element in an Internet aware Geographic Information System. uDIG can be ran on either the Windows, Linux, or Mac operating systems.

Author: Walt Eis

Title: Everyday Maps/Desktop Mapping Software – uDIG

Website and Date of Article: Lord King Squirrel (5/7/06)

Date Site Accessed: August 2, 2006

http://lordkingsquirrel.com/2006/05/07/everyday-mapsdesktop-mapping-software-udig/

This article is a review of uDIG being run on the Mac OS X operating system. In this article the author gives a brief review of uDig and the group behind its development. The real meat of the article discusses the different things that uDIG can do as a GIS application. The author discussed how uDIG is supposed to be able to work with ESRI shape files. The author also notes that uDIG can use the Internet and open layers from WMS and WFS servers, as well as from DB2 and PostGIS databases. Areas of weakness the author found in uDIG were in its ability to change symbologies, adding certain cartographic elements and formatting uDIG for printing maps. The author ended the article stating that “uDIG has a lot of potential”, but would like to see the application be able to make printable maps and increasing its analysis tool capabilities. The author also stated that uDIG is a GIS application that users need to keep an eye on, as it gets updated quite frequently and this might lead to better results in the near future.

Author: Derek (last name not given)

Title: Mac GIS Software Review, Part 1

Website and Date of Article: Cartographica.com (February 28, 2006)

Date Site Accessed: August 4, 2006

http://www.cartographica.com/article.php?story=20060228220202157&mode=print

This article was written as a review of several open source GIS programs. Two of them are discussed as part of this website: uDIG and Quantum GIS. The authors experience with uDIG will be discussed here. uDIG’s features were discussed by the author, as well as its weaknesses. The features of uDIG are given in the summary above.

In the authors review of uDIG he noted the program was not as full featured as Quantum GIS, but it was able to work with and add several types of data. The real downfall of uDIG, according to the author, was it lacked analysis tools. He found uDIG to not live up to its acronym as a user friendly GIS program. The author did note that the program is only a year old and is still in its infancy as a GIS program.

Overall, the author felt uDIG would best be used as a viewer of different formats than as an analysis tool. He noted that with time, the potential is there for uDIG to become a good analysis tool.

If you would like to find out more about uDIG GIS, feel free to click on the following link: http://udig.refractions.net/confluence/display/UDIG/Home. The link is to the uDIG website, where you can find tons of documentation and help concerning uDIG.

You can also click on the following link to see screenshots of uDIG in action.

http://udig.refractions.net/confluence/display/UDIG/Screenshots

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