Open-source GIS desktop application
MapWindow GIS is a lightweight open-source GIS (mapping) desktop application and set of programmable mapping components.
History.
MapWindow GIS and its associated MapWinGIS ActiveX Control were originally developed by Daniel P. Ames and a team of professors and students at Utah State University in 2002-2003 as part of a research project with the Idaho National Laboratory in Idaho Falls, Idaho as a GIS mapping framework for watershed modelling tools in conjunction with source water assessments conducted by the laboratory.
In 2004 it the first open source version of the software was released as MapWindow GIS 3.0, after which it was adopted by the United States Environmental Protection Agency as the primary GIS platform for its BASINS (Better Assessment Science Integrating Point and Nonpoint Sources) watershed analysis and modeling software.
As the project has grown, much of the day-to-day management of the code and associated website has been handled by Paul Meems and a group of volunteer user-developers from around the world.
Technical details.
MapWindow GIS is distributed as an open source application under the Mozilla Public License distribution license, MapWindow GIS can be reprogrammed to perform different or more specialized tasks. There are also plug-ins available to expand compatibility and functionality.
The core component of MapWindow GIS is the MapWinGIS ActiveX Control. This component (MapWinGIS.ocx) is written in the C++ programming language and includes all of the core mapping, data management, and data analysis functions required by the MapWindow GIS desktop application. A user manual for MapWinGIS ActiveX Control written by Daniel P. Ames and Dinesh Grover was released through in 2007.
The MapWindow GIS desktop application is built upon Microsoft .NET technology. Originally written using Visual Basic .NET, the application was re-written using C# .NET.
Project source code was originally hosted and maintained on a local SVN server on www.mapwindow.org. Later it was ported to the Microsoft open source code repository, codeplex.com. Presently all project code is hosted at GitHub.org.
Updates for MapWindow GIS are regularly released by a group of student and volunteer developers.
MapWindow GIS in scientific literature.
MapWindow GIS has found much adoption in the water resources and modelling community. Some example research projects using the software include:
References.
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