Software

daily updated GIS software overview:  https://www.geobranchen.de/mediathek/gis-software-verzeichnis/category/gis-softwarekategorie 

Canadian Spatial Reference System Precise Point Positioning (CSRS-PPP):
www.webapp.geod.nrcan.gc.ca/geod/tools-outils/ppp.php?locale=en 

CSRS-PPP is an online application for the post-processing of GNSS (Global Navigation Satellite Systems) data. It uses precise satellite orbit, time and bias corrections derived from a global network of receivers to determine accurate user positions anywhere in the world, regardless of proximity to reference stations. Submit observation data in Receiver INdependent Exchange (RINEX) format from single or dual frequency receivers operating in static or kinematic mode over the Internet and obtain improved position accuracies in the North American Datum of 1983 Canadian Spatial Reference System (NAD83(CSRS)) or International Terrestrial Reference Frame (ITRF).

GNSS Analysis and Positioning Software:
www.gaps.gge.unb.ca/index.html 

GAPS provides the user with accurate satellite positioning with a single GNSS receiver in both static and kinematic modes. By using precise orbit products and times provided by sources such as the International GNSS Service (IGS) and Natural Resources Canada (NRCan), it is possible to achieve centimeter-level positioning in static mode and decimeter-level positioning in kinematic mode with sufficient convergence time.

Simba Simulation Software:
https://www.ifak.eu/en/products/simba-classroom 

Since its first beginnings in 1994, the SIMBA simulation tool has now been used worldwide for 25 years in research and applications in the field of modeling and simulation of sewage treatment plants, sewer networks, watercourses and agricultural biogas plants. In the early years, SIMBA was a toolbox for the software tool MATLAB/Simulink, which is widely used in science. Since 2013, SIMBA has been a technically independent development and is also ideally suited for engineering applications.

GPS-X-Simulation Software:
www.hydromantis.com 

GPS-XTM was the first commercially available dynamic wastewater treatment plant simulator. It is the most advanced tool on the market for mathematical modelling, control, optimization and management of wastewater treatment plants. GPS-XTM provides a user-friendly, robust, customizable, high-speed platform with calibrated models and the most comprehensive suite of plant processes. It includes the leading tools Influent Advisor, Advanced Controllers, Optimizer, Sensitivity Analysis, Scenario Manager and Statistical Analysis.

Augmented Reality Toolkit:
www.artoolkitx.org 

The ARToolKitX provides the user with a huge range of tools for developing augmented reality environments. The toolkit is completely open source and is therefore freely available to everyone and is constantly being further developed by an active community. It integrates various frameworks such as the Apple ARKit and the Google ARCore so that cross-platform applications can also be realized.

Openrouteservice:
https://openrouteservice.org/

Openroutservice offers a variety of different geo-services with a single API, all of which are free to use and open source. Various planning tools such as the disaster map client are also provided. This was developed for disaster management to support the work of humanitarian actors and disaster relief workers in the most vulnerable and disaster-prone regions of the world. 

Geoinformation systems - tools and software

OpenEO and Geoprocessing engine
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A2og8MFJSj4

The online seminar presents the Eole webGIS and the OpenEO geoprocessing engine as powerful platforms for the visualization, analysis and processing of geodata. Target groups are universities, research and teaching staff as well as companies that want to use geodata in a web-based GIS. The platform enables work results to be shared, supports multiple languages and offers functions such as map visualization, measuring, drawing and exporting in the Web GIS section. The system also provides access to a wide range of geodata, including national and commercial data. The seminar is aimed at users who want to process geodata and present it in a web-based GIS.

Open Source Geospatial Foundation
www.osgeo.org/

The Open Source Geospatial Foundation (OSGeo) is a non-profit organization whose mission is to promote the worldwide adoption of open geospatial technology by providing a software foundation that The online seminar presents the Eole webGIS and the OpenEO geoprocessing engine as powerful platforms for the visualization, analysis and processing of geospatial data. The target groups are universities, research and teaching staff as well as companies that want to use geodata in a web-based GIS. The platform enables work results to be shared, supports multiple languages and offers functions such as map visualization, measuring, drawing and exporting in the Web GIS section. The system also provides access to a wide range of geodata, including national and commercial data. The seminar is aimed at users who want to process geospatial data and present it in a web-based GIS. is committed to an open philosophy and participatory, community-driven development.

Geospatial Data Abstraction Library
www.gdal.org/

GDAL is a translation library for raster and vector geospatial data formats published by the Open Source Geospatial Foundation under an X/MIT-style open source license. As a library, it provides the calling application with a single abstract raster data model and a single abstract vector data model for all supported formats. It also contains a number of useful command line utilities for data translation and processing.

Geotools - Open Source Java GIS Toolkit
www.geotools.org/

GeoTools is an open source (LGPL) Java code library that provides standards-compliant methods for the manipulation of geodata, for example for the implementation of Geographic Information Systems (GIS). The GeoTools library implements the specifications of the Open Geospatial Consortium (OGC) as they are developed.

Google Earth Engine
https://earthengine.google.com/

Google Earth Engine is a platform for analyzing and processing geodata. It combines a multi-petabyte catalog of more than 30 years of satellite imagery and geographic datasets. Scientists, researchers and developers use Earth Engine to detect changes, map trends and quantify differences on the Earth's surface.

OpenJUMP - Open Source Geographic Information System
www.openjump.org/

OpenJUMP is an open source Geographic Information System (GIS) written in the Java programming language. It is developed and maintained by a group of volunteers from around the world. OpenJUMP began as JUMP GIS, which was developed by Vivid Solutions.

GrassGIS
www.grass.osgeo.org/

The Geographic Resources Analysis Support System, commonly referred to as GRASS GIS, is an open source geographic information system that provides powerful raster, vector, and geospatial data processing capabilities. It can be used either as a standalone application or as a backend for other software packages such as QGIS and R or in the cloud. It is freely distributed under the terms of the GNU General Public License (GPL). GRASS GIS is a founding member of the Open Source Geospatial Foundation (OSGeo).

QGIS
www.qgis.org/de/site/

QGIS is a user-friendly open source geographic information system (GIS) distributed under the terms of the GNU General Public License. QGIS is an official member of the Open Source Geospatial Foundation (OSGeo). It runs on Linux, Unix, Mac OSX, Windows and Android and supports a variety of vector, raster and database formats and functions.

Geoserver
www.geoserver.org/

GeoServer is a Java-based server that allows users to view and edit geodata. By using open standards defined by the Open Geospatial Consortium (OGC), GeoServer allows great flexibility in creating maps and sharing data.

Mapserver
www.mapserver.org/

MapServer is an open source rendering engine for geographic data written in C. Beyond browsing GIS data, MapServer enables the creation of “geographic image maps”, i.e. maps that can guide users to content. For example, the Minnesota DNR Recreation Compass provides users with more than 10,000 web pages, reports and maps through a single application. The same application serves as a “map engine” for other parts of the website, providing spatial context when needed.

PostGIS Datenbank
www.postgis.net

PostGIS is a spatial database extender for the PostgreSQL object-relational database. It adds support for geographic objects, allowing location queries to be executed in SQL.
In addition to basic location awareness, PostGIS provides many features that are hard to find in other competing spatial databases such as Oracle Locator/Spatial and SQL Server.

Sahana Foundation:
https://sahanafoundation.org/

Sahana is an open source disaster management solution that gives everyone access to a high quality information management system for emergency preparedness, response, recovery and resilience building. 

Mapbender
www.mapbender.org/

The software for creating web-based map applications provides powerful tools for capturing, displaying, editing and managing geospatial data. Like a content management system (CMS) for geodata and geoservices, Mapbender has a convenient interface for working with maps and geodata according to common workflows.  Convenient searches, configurable routing and extensive print functions are some of the highlights of the range of functions.

OpenLayers
www.openlayers.org/

OpenLayers makes it easy to integrate a dynamic map into any website. It can display map tiles, vector data and markers loaded from any source. OpenLayers was developed to promote the use of geographic information of all kinds. It is completely free, open source JavaScript, released under the 2-clause BSD license (also known as FreeBSD).

Leaflet
https://leafletjs.com/

Leaflet is an open source JavaScript library for mobile-friendly interactive maps. 

Panoply
https://www.giss.nasa.gov/tools/panoply/ 

The Panoply tool can be used to import and visualize netCDF, GRIB and HDF data. The functionality includes plotting in various spatial and/or temporal sections. It is also possible to easily offset two plots. The visualization can be exported as PNG, TIFF, PDF, KMZ, MP4 and other data formats.

r.avaflow
https://www.landslidemodels.org/r.avaflow/

r.avaflow is a GIS-supported open source software that enables the simulation of rapid mass movements such as avalanches. It models the path from one or more defined starting zones through any landscape form to the deposition area. Functions for taking erosion and deposition into account are also integrated.

ZyGrib
https://zygrib.org 

ZyGrib can display all different Grib formats (gzip *.gz and bzip2 *.bz2) and has the integrated functionality to download current weather data in Grib format or IAC directly from NOAA. This data covers the world, is updated every 6 hours and can provide forecasts of up to 10 days in 3h increments.

Earth Observations Risk Toolkit
https://earth-observation-risk-toolkit-undrr.hub.arcgis.com/

Earth Observations (EO) are data and information about the Earth collected by sensors, including ground-based observations. Earth observations include not only numerical measurements of the Earth (e.g. the temperature measured by a thermometer), but also photographs and images taken by ground-based and ocean-based instruments, including radar and sonar, as well as remote sensing satellites. 

Sentinel Application Platform (SNAP)
https://step.esa.int/main/download/snap-download/

The Sentinel Application Platform - or SNAP for short - is a collection of tools and application programming interfaces (APIs) designed to facilitate the use, display and processing of a variety of remote sensing data.

Ushahidi
https://www.ushahidi.com/

The Ushahidi platform helps people develop solutions that empower their communities through a crowdsourcing and mapping tool. It provides support in the areas of governance, disaster relief, human rights protection and climate change by engaging disadvantaged groups and building resilience.

Virtual Reality - Tools und Software

Autodesk:
www.autodesk.com

Autodesk provides users with a very wide range of CAD, simulation and animation software and is considered one of the market leaders in this segment. The programs are used by numerous companies worldwide. With Autodesk, various systems can be tested and optimized under realistic conditions before implementation.

Maxon Simulationssoftware:
www.maxon.net/de/ 

Maxon software is a 3D software suite that focuses on animation and simulation. It is the product of a German company and has been in use since the 1990s.

Blender:
www.blender.org 

Blender is probably the best known free and open source 3D creation suite. It supports the entire 3D pipeline - modeling, rigging, animation, simulation, rendering, compositing and motion tracking, video editing and 2D animation pipelines.

A tutorial on how to create mountains in Blender using elevation profiles can be found here: 
https://johnflower.org/tutorial/make-mountains-blender-heightmaps

Unreal Engine:
www.unrealengine.com/en-US/ 

The Unreal Engine is a game engine from Epic Games that is primarily used in the development of console and computer games. Since its first release in 1998, the game engine has been used in numerous games and ported to various operating systems and game consoles, and can also be used to write games for the browser.

Unity:
www.unity.com 

Unity is a runtime and development environment primarily for games from the San Francisco-based company Unity Technologies. In addition to PCs, target platforms include game consoles, mobile devices and web browsers. The development environment, which enables the development of computer games and other interactive 3D graphics applications, is available for Windows, Linux (beta only) and macOS.

Cry Engine:
www.cryengine.com 

The first game to use this engine was Far Cry, also developed by Crytek, which was released in 2004. The CryEngine had outstanding graphics quality by the standards of the time, based on techniques such as bump mapping, pixel shader 2.0 and vertex shader 2.0. It was particularly notable for its water display and large visual range. The engine was gradually expanded in conjunction with the Far Cry game; patches added features such as high dynamic range rendering, geometry instantiation, support for 64-bit CPUs, offset mapping and support for newer shader versions (shader model 2.0b and 3.0). A depth of field effect has also been added for use in The Project technology demo.