Free and open source software for geospatial applications (FOSS4G) to support Future Earth

Figures & data

Table 1. Future Earth major functions/needs with the corresponding software category and examples of FOSS4G projects that can be used to address them.

Area related to FE function/need	Software function	FOSS4G category	FOSS4G examples
Organizing geographic information	Desktop visualization and basic analysis	Desktop GIS	QGIS, gvSIG, uDig, OpenJUMP, SAGA
	Geodata storage	Spatial DBMS	PostgreSQL/PostGIS, SQLite/SpatiaLite, MySQL Spatial, MongoDB, CouchDB, Rasdaman
	Geodata analysis and processing	Desktop geoprocessing and analysis tools	GRASS GIS, R, CyberGIS Toolkit
	Serving geodata over the Web	Web-based GIS (e.g. OGC Web Services OWS)	GeoServer, MapServer, QGIS Server, deegree
	Cataloguing geodata	Web-based catalogue services (e.g. OGC Catalog Services for the Web CSW)	GeoNetwork, pyCSW
Geography as a way to organize information	2D Web visualization	2D Web clients	OpenLayers, Leaflet
	3D Web visualization	Virtual Globes	NASA World Wind, Cesium, WebGL Earth, OpenWebGlobe
	Web-based geoprocessing	Web-based geoprocessing (e.g. OGC Web Processing Services WPS)	pyWPS, ZOO, 52°North WPS, GeoServer, deegree
Geosensing the world	Geo-referenced data collection from specialized sensors	Integration, processing and distribution of sensor data (e.g. OGC Sensor Observation Services SOS)	istSOS, 52°North SOS
	Geo-referenced data collection from mobile devices and sensors (including citizen sensors)	Mobile and geocrowdsourcing tools	Geopaparazzi, Open Data Kit (ODK)

Figure 1. Architecture of a spatial information system to illustrate how FOSS4G can contribute to the achievement of the seven FE key focal outputs.