Environmental Systems Research Institute (ESRI) is the company that produces the popular ArcGIS software, used heavily in industry, government, and academia. At the Florida Institute of Technology, the Evans Library's Digital Scholarship Lab holds 5 licenses for ESRI software, which is also installed in some other labs on campus. Although often seen as the industry standard, there are emerging software programs like QGIS that are seeing increasing use.
Software
FREE
Quantum GIS (QGIS) is a user friendly Open Source Geographic Information System (GIS) licensed under the GNU General Public License. QGIS is an official project of the Open Source Geospatial Foundation (OSGeo). It runs on Linux, Unix, Mac OSX, Windows and Android and supports numerous vector, raster, and database formats and functionalities.
FREE
DIVA-GIS is a free computer program for mapping and geographic data analysis (a geographic information system (GIS) for areas as large as the entire world or as limited as a very small area, using, for example, state boundaries, rivers, a satellite image, and the locations of sites where an animal species was observed. DIVA-GIS also provides free spatial data for the whole world for use in DIVA-GIS or other programs.
FREE
GRASS (Geographic Resources Analysis Support System) is a free Geographic Information System (GIS) software used for geospatial data management and analysis, image processing, graphics/maps production, spatial modeling, and visualization. GRASS GIS is currently used in a mixture of academic and commercial settings, governmental agencies and environmental consulting companies. GRASS GIS is an official project of the Open Source Geospatial Foundation (OSGeo).
FREE
Scribble Maps and Scribble Maps Pro are both free products that enable users to create customized maps online. Users can mark up maps, measure distances, import KMLs, Shapefiles, tabular files, add placemarks, text, images, and shapes. Finished maps may be embedded into webpages or exported in various formats.
FREE
Mapme is similar to Scribble Maps in that users can customized maps by adding points, labels, lines, images, then share their product with others via URLs or widgets.
Free Online Utilities
Upon downloading the Google Earth application to their computers, users can scan and view 3D images of the surfaces of the earth, moon and Mars, as well as urban landscapes, from a variety of perspectives. Google Earth also allows the user to view images of galaxies and constellations.
Geocode addresses. Make a Google map with the addresses, or export latitude/longitude coordinates for export to a GIS.Zonums KML to ship.