gvSIG is a geographic information system, that 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. gvSIG is known for:
Integrating in the same view both local and remote data through OGC standards.
Including a plugin system which allows to easily extend the application or to develop tailor-made solutions.
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, Galician.
The first part of the abbreviation stands for Generalitat Valenciana, the Spanish regional authority that the system was originally developed for. The latter part, SIG, is the Spanish equivalent for the English GIS.
Features gvSIG Desktop
Typical tools in a full-fledged desktop GIS client can also be found in gvSIG, among other things:
Selection: by point, by rectangle, by polygon, by layer, by polyline, by circle, by buffer zone, alphanumeric search, invert selection, delete selection.
Raster and remote sensing: statistics, filters, histogram, scale range, enhance, save to raster file, vectorization, Region of Interest 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, 3D layers, 3D symbology, 3D editing, 3D framing, 2D and 3D animation, stereo viewing.
Other: Coordinates Reference Systems manager, import from/export to WMC, scripting, translations manager.
Sextante GIS has been ported to a plugin for gvSIG adding a host of raster and vector analysis functions in addition to gvSIG's impressive 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 software, under the GNU GPL v2, what allows its free use, distribution, study and improvement.
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.
Others: data portability and data integration with gvSIG Desktop.
is 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.
