Software

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Trial Downloads Available for MapPoint, Streets and Trips
The Virtual Earth evangelist blog reports that trial versions of Microsoft’s MapPoint 2009 and Streets and Trips 2009 are now available as free downloads: MapPoint 2009 North America, Streets and Trips 2009. Previously: MapPoint and Streets and Trips 2009…. »
Posted on Tuesday, August 26, 2008 at 4:43 PM
Categories: Software
MapPoint and Streets and Trips 2009
The Virtual Earth evangelist blog announces the imminent release of the 2009 editions of Microsoft’s MapPoint and Streets and Trips, with the former available in September and the latter in October…. »
Posted on Tuesday, July 15, 2008 at 7:05 AM
Categories: Software
ScapeToad: Cartogram Software
ScapeToad is software for making cartograms. André Ourednik, its development supervisor, writes: “ScapeToad is a cross-platform, open-source application written in Java, designed and using the ESRI Shapefile format for input and output. It also exports maps in SVG format and… »
Posted on Monday, May 19, 2008 at 8:58 PM
Categories: Cartography, Software
WorldWide Telescope Reviews
Ogle Earth’s Stefan Geens, normally a (fellow) Mac user, borrows a Windows machine for his in-depth review of WorldWide Telescope: “My initial impression stands: WWT is a wonderful piece of software that excels at rendering Earth’s view of the universe… »
Posted on Wednesday, May 14, 2008 at 9:36 PM
Categories: Astronomy, Software
WorldWide Telescope Now Available
Apparently, “by the end of the month” means something a little sooner — i.e., right now: WorldWide Telescope is now available for download. See coverage from Astronomy, Sky and Telescope and Virtual Earth, an Evangelist’s Blog. It’s a beta (probably… »
Posted on Tuesday, May 13, 2008 at 7:56 AM
Categories: Astronomy, Software
WorldWide Telescope This Month?
Digital Earth Blog notes reports that Microsoft’s WorldWide Telescope may be released by the end of this month — or at least Bill Gates has been quoted saying that it will. I’ll be very interested to know the system requirements…. »
Posted on Monday, May 12, 2008 at 7:32 AM
Categories: Astronomy, Software
Microsoft Pro Photo Tools and Geotagging
Microsoft Pro Photo Tools support geotagging, which is interesting, but it’s a bit hubristic to say that geotagging is going mainstream as a result of that, as the title of the article describing Pro Photo Tools’ geotagging features does. Which… »
Posted on Sunday, May 4, 2008 at 6:51 PM
Categories: Geotagging, Software
EarthBrowser
EarthBrowser is a virtual globe application I hadn’t encountered before. It’s $24 shareware and runs on Mac and Windows, but the current buzz is about the next version, version 3, which uses the Adobe Air cross-platform framework. The beta… »
Posted on Sunday, April 6, 2008 at 7:07 AM
Categories: Software
Shaded Relief World Map and Flex Projector
Tom Patterson of Shaded Relief wrote in to announce his new project, a physical map of the world. As was the case with his relief map of the United States, it’s free and freely available in several formats, including… »
Posted on Monday, March 17, 2008 at 8:21 AM
Categories: Map Projections, Miscellany, Software
Reactions to WorldWide Telescope
To begin with, here is the video of the TED talk introducing WorldWide Telescope: Reactions, many of which make explicit comparisons to Google Sky: Bad Astronomy: “This does look very cool. It’s much like Google Sky, but from Microsoft’s direction…. »
Posted on Monday, March 3, 2008 at 1:39 PM
Categories: Astronomy, Software
WorldWide Telescope Announced
Microsoft gave a demonstration today of its forthcoming WorldWide Telescope application, the site for which is now online, but we still don’t have very much hard information about it. A lot of reactions. Robert Scoble, who when he saw a… »
Posted on Wednesday, February 27, 2008 at 8:54 PM
Categories: Astronomy, Software
Microsoft’s WorldWide Telescope
Microsoft will be launching a competitor to Google Earth’s Sky feature, called “WorldWide Telescope,” on February 27, TechCrunch reports. The downloadable desktop software is claimed to be “significantly better” than either Google Earth or Stellarium in terms of data and… »
Posted on Tuesday, February 19, 2008 at 3:40 PM
Categories: Astronomy, Software
Another Geotagging Roundup
Free Geography Tools had a seven-part geotagging series last month beginning with this post; it covered a number of Windows applications that I wouldn’t otherwise have been aware of. Richard Akerman has a couple of relevant posts on his Science… »
Posted on Sunday, August 12, 2007 at 10:06 PM
Categories: Geotagging, Macintosh, Software
On FreeHand’s Demise and Cartography
I knew that Adobe was ending development on FreeHand; after its purchase of Macromedia, keeping both the competing FreeHand and Illustrator going made little sense. I should have realized that, like Illustrator, FreeHand has been used to draw maps… »
Posted on Monday, May 21, 2007 at 1:59 PM
Categories: Software
More Firefox Mapping Extensions
Mapz: A GIS Librarian takes another look at Firefox mapping extensions — all 16 of them, ranging from geotagged photos to online map viewing. Previously: Firefox Mapping Extensions…. »
Posted on Saturday, April 21, 2007 at 10:40 AM
Categories: Software
UTM Flyer: UTM in Google Earth
UTM Flyer is a small, free program that lets you zoom to a location in Google Earth by entering UTM coordinates; it also converts between UTM and lat/long. Windows-only, so I haven’t tested it. Via Free GeoTools. Previously: New Google… »
Posted on Wednesday, March 28, 2007 at 12:08 PM
Categories: Google Earth, Software
Global Map Projector
NASA’s Global Map Projector — G.Projector for short — is a lovely little program that transforms any equirectangular map image (one is included) into another projection. It’s a tremendous amount of fun, and a very useful way of visualizing… »
Posted on Tuesday, March 20, 2007 at 11:56 AM
Categories: Map Projections, Software
Garmin and Vista
Garmin has released a list of issues with its software running on Windows Vista: Garmin Blog, GPS Review…. »
Posted on Wednesday, February 14, 2007 at 11:49 PM
Categories: GPS, Software
Microsoft Streets & Trips Reviewed
Chad has a brief review of Microsoft Streets & Trips 2007 and its accompanying GPS unit: “I think it is very well worth it. … All and all I am impressed with the software and the GPS unit. They… »
Posted on Sunday, January 21, 2007 at 11:12 AM
Categories: GPS, Software
Roadnav
Roadnav is open-source navigation software meant to be run on an in-car computer connected to a GPS; it runs on Windows, Mac OS X and Linux. “Roadnav can obtain a car’s present location from a GPS unit, plot street… »
Posted on Wednesday, January 3, 2007 at 5:18 PM
Categories: Driving Directions, Software
ArcGIS Explorer Reviewed
I’ve been following the news about ArcGIS Explorer, ESRI’s putative response to virtual globe software like Google Earth, since it was first announced (James Fee, for example, has blogged about it a lot), but I haven’t blogged about it… »
Posted on Wednesday, January 3, 2007 at 2:06 PM
Categories: GIS, Software
Antique Map Price Record
The Antique Map Price Record is a CD-ROM-based reference tool that bills itself as more than just a listing of map prices (at auction, for example); it also contains reference images and bibilographical material, according to the publisher, who also… »
Posted on Sunday, November 5, 2006 at 4:31 PM
Categories: Collecting, Software
Firefox Mapping Extensions
Mapz: A GIS Librarian takes a look at some mapping-related Firefox extensions: All Your Maps Are Belong to Us, which converts URLs for other mapping sites to Google Maps; GMiF, which embeds a Google Map on a Flickr photo page… »
Posted on Thursday, November 2, 2006 at 8:34 AM
Categories: Geotagging, Hacks & Mashups, Software
Firefox 2.0 and Online Maps
Now that Firefox 2.0 is out, we can look at how it handles the complex code behind online map services. Fantom Planet finds that it handles Google and Yahoo! Maps well, but runs into a few quirks with Live Local…. »
Posted on Wednesday, October 25, 2006 at 8:13 AM
Categories: Online Maps, Software
Microsoft Streets & Trips 2007, GPS Included
Microsoft Streets & Trips 2007 was announced today. The highlight is that it comes with an improved USB GPS “locator” that turns your computer into a GPS receiver. This isn’t new: the 2006 version also came with such a… »
Posted on Wednesday, October 11, 2006 at 10:47 AM
Categories: GPS, Software
Question: Editing Scanned Maps with Software?
Recently I’ve received a couple of very similar questions: both are from people asking how to edit and manipulate scans of paper maps. Chris Ellison writes, I am a history teacher who regularly uses maps for teaching purposes. The thing… »
Posted on Sunday, October 8, 2006 at 2:37 PM
Categories: Questions, Software
Geotagging Review
Zack reviews three geotagging software options: TopoFusion, WWMX and GPS Visualizer, and RoboGeo. Via GPS Tracklog…. »
Posted on Friday, October 6, 2006 at 9:55 AM
Categories: Geotagging, Software
Windows Live Toolbar Mapping Features
Microsoft’s new Windows Live toolbar (IE 6 on Windows only, naturally) has a couple of mapping features of note, the Windows Live Local/Virtual Earth blog reports, namely, the ability to compile a list of addresses from a web page and… »
Posted on Tuesday, July 25, 2006 at 9:55 AM
Categories: Online Maps, Software
MAPublisher 7.0
Version 7.0 of MAPublisher, a set of plugins for creating publication-quality maps in Adobe Illustrator, was announced yesterday. Via Cartography. See previous entry: MAPublisher 6.0…. »
Posted on Wednesday, July 19, 2006 at 6:14 PM
Categories: Software
EarthDesk 3.5
I last mentioned EarthDesk, a program that puts a real-time image of the Earth (showing, for example, day/night and cloud cover) on your desktop background, in March 2004; since then, it’s graduated to version 3.5 and is now compatible with… »
Posted on Thursday, July 13, 2006 at 8:30 AM
Categories: Software
GPSBabel
GPSBabel is a free (donationware) utility that converts GPS data from one format to another. (It doesn’t convert map data, but such things as waypoints and routes.) Useful, I would imagine, if you’re trying to get ostensibly incompatible hardware and… »
Posted on Tuesday, July 11, 2006 at 2:51 PM
Categories: GPS, Software
Another Review of MapPoint 2006
Another review of MapPoint 2006, this time from Directions: “What were they thinking? Was this product an afterthought? Did Microsoft all of a sudden realize it had not planned for the next version of MapPoint and had to get a… »
Posted on Monday, June 12, 2006 at 8:53 AM
Categories: Software
MapPoint 2006 Review
Matt Rosenberg, the geography editor of About.com, has a review of Microsoft MapPoint 2006: “Microsoft’s MapPoint 2006 is GIS for personal or business use. It’s GIS for those that don’t need layer upon layer of GIS data. It’s GIS for… »
Posted on Tuesday, May 30, 2006 at 7:28 AM
Categories: Software
MapPoint 2006
MapPoint 2006 is coming soon: Microsoft’s desktop mapping software for businesses is coming to North America this month and Europe in the summer. Via Anything Geospatial. See previous entries: Programming MapPoint in .NET; A Microsoft Roundup. Update: All Points Blog… »
Posted on Monday, May 1, 2006 at 7:19 AM
Categories: Software
Question: Software for Cartograms?
S. P. Low from the University of Singapore, looking for software to make cartograms, writes: We are working on a project that attempts to track the global construction market using cartograms, such as those rectangular cartograms used by the World… »
Posted on Thursday, April 27, 2006 at 6:59 AM
Categories: Cartography, Questions, Software
Book Review: GPS Mapping by Rich Owings
GPS Mapping: Make Your Own Maps by Rich Owings Ten Mile Press, 2005. Softcover, 382 pp. ISBN 0-9760926-3-8 This is a book for people who want to get their hands dirty with mapping software and GPS units and generate maps… »
Posted on Friday, February 10, 2006 at 11:09 AM
Categories: Book Reviews, GPS, Software, Topo Maps & Trails
Link Roundup for February 6
Now that it’s available for the Mac, Macworld reviews Google Earth. Robert Gelb reviews Chandu Thota’s Programming MapPoint in .NET: “The bottom line is that if you are developing anything mapping related with Microsoft components, you gotta buy this book…. »
Posted on Monday, February 6, 2006 at 7:15 AM
Categories: Books, Collecting, Satellite & Aerial, Software, Triangulations (Links)
Link Roundup for January 29
I’ve been off my feed a bit this past week, so I’ve got some catching up to do. I’ll start with a few random links from here and there about this and that. From the Google Blog: “Not only have… »
Posted on Sunday, January 29, 2006 at 6:05 PM
Categories: Current Events, GPS, Online Maps, Satellite & Aerial, Software
Link Roundup for January 21
A clickable map of Tlingit tribes, clans and clan houses in the Pacific Northwest. Via Plep. MapPoint B2B on the future of MSN Maps and Directions, viz., none: “The time has come to say good-bye to MSN Maps and Directions… »
Posted on Saturday, January 21, 2006 at 7:50 AM
Categories: Books, Historical Maps, Online Maps, Satellite & Aerial, Software
Link Roundup for January 14
Ben Keene, the editor of Oxford University Press’s atlas program (see previous entry), looks at the changes in geography he had to deal with in 2005 (via World Hum). MapQuest has inadvertently left Edmonton off a map of Canadian cities… »
Posted on Saturday, January 14, 2006 at 8:32 AM
Categories: Blogs, Books, Cartography, Education, Mapping Errors, Satellite & Aerial, Software
Link Roundup for January 13
If I make these posts a regular occurrence, I’ll have to come up with a catchier title. Anyway, onward, with a few things about online maps and a couple of conferences to tell you about: Ads appearing on Google Maps?… »
Posted on Friday, January 13, 2006 at 8:30 AM
Categories: Conferences, Online Maps, Satellite & Aerial, Software
Tracking Hurricane Wilma
Here we go again. Google Earth Blog has a collection of downloadable automated storm tracking tools (KMZ file). Google Maps Mania points to a couple of Google Maps based storm trackers. Spatially Adjusted links to ESRI’s existing hurricane viewer and… »
Posted on Wednesday, October 19, 2005 at 9:17 AM
Categories: Hacks & Mashups, Hurricanes 2005, Satellite & Aerial, Software, Weather & Climate
Question: Software for Publishing a Map?
If J. Little were just putting something on the web, I’d advise him/her to use Google Maps, but s/he’s looking for something s/he can publish: “If I wanted to make a map of the area surrounding Lake Michigan and add… »
Posted on Tuesday, October 11, 2005 at 9:21 AM
Categories: Questions, Software
A Small Hurricane Update
Kathryn Cramer reports that new Rita overlays for Google Earth based on updated NOAA imagery are now available. Meanwhile, Wired carries an AP story about mapping the storm surge from Katrina: surveyors are trying to create an atlas of the… »
Posted on Monday, October 10, 2005 at 8:00 AM
Categories: Hurricanes 2005, Satellite & Aerial, Software, Weather & Climate
A Microsoft Roundup
In the past week or so, I’ve learned the following mapping news from Microsoft through map developer Chandu Thota’s blog: Overshadowed by the PDC stuff on Virtual Earth at the time, I guess, but version 4.0 of the MapPoint web… »
Posted on Monday, October 10, 2005 at 7:45 AM
Categories: Hacks & Mashups, Online Maps, Software
First Post-Hurricane Rita Images
Kathryn Cramer reports that the first post-Hurricane Rita images from the areas hardest hit by the storm have been posted by NOAA. As was the case with Katrina, the interface — starting with a base map index page — is… »
Posted on Monday, September 26, 2005 at 10:03 PM
Categories: Hurricanes 2005, Satellite & Aerial, Software, Weather & Climate
Open Source GIS Guide
GIS Unshackled: A Guide to Open-Source Tools: a look at some of the open-source software packages, from databases to scalable vector graphics, that can be used in lieu of established commercial software. Via Very Spatial…. »
Posted on Wednesday, September 21, 2005 at 5:33 PM
Categories: GIS, Software
Katrina Maps and Photos: Behind the Scenes
Tyler Mitchell talks about the behind-the-scenes work to process approximately 1,500 NOAA images from the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina and upload them to the Katrina Image Warehouse, using open-source software; the basics were up and running within 48 hours. Via… »
Posted on Wednesday, September 21, 2005 at 2:11 PM
Categories: GIS, Hurricanes 2005, Software
Google Imagery Updates
While I wait for the long-promised Mac version of Google Earth (hint), I note with interest that both Google Earth and Google Maps got their satellite imagery updated (Google Earth Blog, Google Maps Mania). But a separate enhancement is even… »
Posted on Sunday, September 18, 2005 at 9:23 PM
Categories: Satellite & Aerial, Software
Google Earth Privacy and Security Roundup
When the satellite-photo version of Google Maps came out earlier this year, there was some apprehension about the impact of these high-resolution photos on individual privacy. For example, some nervousness about being able to see the car in your driveway…. »
Posted on Monday, September 12, 2005 at 10:34 AM
Categories: Censorship & Security, Satellite & Aerial, Software
Ten More Mapping Blogs
I posted links to a lot of new blogs next month, but Cartography’s roundup of cartography and related blogs last week brought a grand total of seven more blogs to my attention. Plus, I was already aware of Ed Parsons’s… »
Posted on Tuesday, September 6, 2005 at 8:03 AM
Categories: Blogs, GIS, Podcasts & Audio, Software
Motor Boating on Navigation Software
Another review of navigation software from the September 2005 issue of Motor Boating magazine (see previous entry)…. »
Posted on Thursday, September 1, 2005 at 8:38 PM
Categories: Nautical, Software
Hurricane Katrina: The Aftermath
(Many updates) Watch Hurricane Katrina’s path via satellite imagery or radar; both are NOAA pages and both require Java. Via Paulo. Kathryn Cramer has been collecting aerial images of New Orleans in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina, along with some… »
Posted on Tuesday, August 30, 2005 at 10:18 PM
Categories: Hurricanes 2005, New Orleans, Satellite & Aerial, Software, Weather & Climate
Google Maps on Mobile Devices
Getting Google Maps onto mobile devices is a natural step: when we’re going somewhere, we tend not to leave our maps behind, after all. One project was a hack to get Google Maps running on Series 60 Nokia phones, combining… »
Posted on Friday, July 29, 2005 at 9:23 AM
Categories: Hacks & Mashups, Mobile Devices, Online Maps, Software
Traffic for Treo
Palm has released an application called Traffic for the Treo 600/650 that provides, for a monthly fee, live traffic data and maps for 10 U.S. cities (via Palm Infocenter)…. »
Posted on Thursday, July 28, 2005 at 8:11 AM
Categories: Mobile Devices, Software, Traffic Conditions
Question: Best GIS PHP Module?
Marco Fioretti is looking for GIS PHP modules. He writes, “I have an urgent project to work on which includes processing GIS data with PHP, and I’d really like to start with something which is already tested.” My original post… »
Posted on Thursday, July 21, 2005 at 6:50 PM
Categories: GIS, Questions, Software
Using MapServer with Chameleon
Speaking of Tyler Mitchell, he’s got an article on Directions explaining Chameleon, a collection of PHP scripts that, he says, allows non-programmers to build web mapping applications using MapServer through its MapScript API…. »
Posted on Friday, July 15, 2005 at 8:18 AM
Categories: GIS, Online Maps, Software
Open Source Geospatial Tools; Web Mapping Illustrated
I’m overdue in posting this one, which comes to us thanks to James. Tyler Mitchell, whose Web Mapping Illustrated, a guide to free mapping software, is now shipping, had an article up on O’Reilly last month that I think serves… »
Posted on Tuesday, July 5, 2005 at 7:48 AM
Categories: Books, GIS, Software
Mapufacture and worldKit
The O’Reilly Network has an article by Mikel Maron, the creator of Mapufacture and worldKit, that introduces us to what those two tools can do. Mapufacture is a new service to browse, build, and share interactive web maps, on a… »
Posted on Thursday, June 30, 2005 at 5:56 PM
Categories: Online Maps, Software
Electronic Charts for Boaters
Motor Boating’s Electronics department periodically reviews charting and navigation software (see previous entry); this review of three brands is from their June 2005 issue…. »
Posted on Thursday, June 30, 2005 at 9:19 AM
Categories: Nautical, Software
Houston Traffic Widget
The Houston Traffic Map widget makes the information found on the Houston real-time traffic map available as a Dashboard widget (for Mac OS X 10.4 “Tiger”)…. »
Posted on Monday, May 16, 2005 at 10:17 AM
Categories: Houston, Software, Traffic Conditions
GeoPDF
GeoPDF looks like the company blog of Layton Graphics, which puts out (pricey) software that adds georeferencing to PDF files. The blog, which started this month, naturally covers their stuff, but also has a few more general map entries. Atom… »
Posted on Friday, March 25, 2005 at 12:18 PM
Categories: Blogs, Software
A PDA Software Roundup
Rough Guides has released a series of interactive city maps for several mobile platforms, and they’re having a sale (US$20) in March. Via Gadling. Earthcomber allows Palm OS PDA users to annotate maps and share that information with other users…. »
Posted on Wednesday, March 23, 2005 at 11:54 PM
Categories: Mobile Devices, Software
The Road Trip Effect
The Road Trip Effect generates animations for your home movies to indicate your trip. It does so in the classic manner (think Indiana Jones): a plane, ship or car moving across a map and leaving a trail. The site is… »
Posted on Wednesday, March 23, 2005 at 11:31 PM
Categories: Software
Route USA 2004
Macworld has a (mixed) review of Route 66’s Route USA 2004, which, despite this review in a Mac magazine, is cross-platform. The reviewer found it sluggish, among other quirks (the usual trip-generation snafus), but liked the GPS integration. See previous… »
Posted on Monday, February 28, 2005 at 7:54 PM
Categories: Software
MICRODEM
Waban_star writes in with a link to MICRODEM, “a microcomputer mapping program written by Professor Peter Guth of the Oceanography Department, U.S. Naval Academy.” It’s available for free, apparently, from the site. Waban says, “This is a good program, if… »
Posted on Sunday, February 13, 2005 at 11:01 PM
Categories: Software
Shaded Relief
I’ve been meaning to post Tom Patterson’s Shaded Relief site for a while: this is a massive site that deals with the technical issues of creating relief maps. Way too technical for me, but the detail is absolutely fascinating. From… »
Posted on Thursday, January 13, 2005 at 9:25 PM
Categories: Cartography, Software
Boating Software
I don’t think there’s a single area of mapping where software isn’t displacing traditional maps. That goes for navigational charts, too. Motor Boating has a review of recent navigation software for recreational boaters. Some of it’s quite pricey, but let’s… »
Posted on Sunday, September 26, 2004 at 9:41 PM
Categories: Nautical, Software
Route 66
Jonathan Jackel has a review on TidBITS of Route 66, which is, he says, the only route mapping software available for Mac OS X. (It’s also available in Windows, Pocket PC and mobile phone/Bluetooth versions.) It’s also GPS-compatible, though he… »
Posted on Tuesday, August 10, 2004 at 9:57 AM
Categories: Software
Mapping Toolbox 2
Mapping Toolbox 2, which, according to its publisher, “provides a comprehensive set of functions and graphical user interfaces for building map displays and performing geospatial data analysis in MATLAB,” was released this week (via MacNN). (I keep track of software… »
Posted on Friday, April 30, 2004 at 8:36 AM
Categories: Software
MAPublisher 6.0
MAPublisher 6.0 was announced today. It’s a collection of Adobe Illustrator plug-ins that allow you to import GIS data into that software. Manipulating proper data with a proper graphics program, apparently. (via MacCentral)… »
Posted on Tuesday, April 6, 2004 at 11:38 AM
Categories: GIS, Software
Generating GIS with PHP
Image_GIS is a PHP package that allows you to generate on-the-fly maps in PNG or JPEG image formats from geographical datasets. Don’t worry if you don’t know what this means: essentially it means you can transform raw GIS data into… »
Posted on Tuesday, March 9, 2004 at 9:53 AM
Categories: GIS, Online Maps, Software

Note: Entries from 2003 were not categorized and will not appear in the category archives. Please consult the monthly archives.