Re: [Geotools-gt2-users] GT or Jump?

[Jody G. <jga...@re...>]

Ednardo Ferreira wrote:

> I'd like to build GIS applications in my job using free technologies.
> I read that 2 great options are Geotools and Jump. I'd like to know 
> the most important differences between one and the other options.

Jump is simply amazing on several levels - it is very easy to use and 
get started developing.  They have a quick guide to making a plugin in 
for example, and it is easy to define your own Style object for 
interesting visualizations.

The geotools is a library (not a full GIS application) and is a bit 
harder to get started with - it tends to depend on OGC/ISO standards.  
It has really good support for data formats, but it would define styling 
using "style layer descriptor" files (based on an XML schema from a 
specification) rather than an Object.

Back in the spring we evaluated several platforms for the development of 
a GIS application:
- http://udig.refractions.net/docs/Platform-Report.pdf
- http://udig.refractions.net/docs/Rendering-Technologies-Report.pdf
(The may or may not make interesting reading for you)

The resulting project (User Friendly Desktop Internet GIS) will be 
complete at the end of the month, you can download latest version here:
- http://docs.codehaus.org/display/UDIG/2005/03/03/0.9.RC4
Its main advantage is the ability to "Search and See", you can locate 
free data published by web feature servers and web map servers and drag 
them onto the screen.

There is also a really nice C++ based project that is gaining momentum 
over the last year, and I have recently learned of several other Eclipse 
Rich Client platform based GIS applications under development (none of 
which are released quite yet).

It is also worth pointing out that all of this work builds on JTS, we 
have a lot to thank Martin for (even projects that don't wear JTS on 
their sleeve often use it behind the scenes to do the heavy lifting).

Jody