Different GIS applications Available

For the ease of simplification I divided in to open source and proprietary
Lets start with open source

Open Source Software
First I will go with GRASS.

GRASS
GRASS is Geographic Resources Analysis Support System. This is a open source GIS System originally developed by US Army.
This is released under GPL,
· Available under multiple platforms.
· Supports 2D/3D vector graphics (engines)
· Capable of visualizing 3D vector graphics data and voxel volumes
· Lates release is 6.3.0 on 23rd Aril 2008 available here


MAPWINDOW GIS
Again a Open source GIS Application It has been adopted by the United States Environmental Protection Agency as the primary GIS platform for its BASINS (Better Assessment Science Integrating Point and Nonpoint Sources) watershed analysis and modeling software.

· MapWindow GIS is distributed as an open source application under the Mozilla Public License
· Build up on Microsoft.Net Technology . so its not multi platform but runs on OS which has a CLR available from MONO Project
· Can be reprogrammabel for doing different ans special tasks
· Latest version is 4.4 relleased on June 6th 2007 can be downloaded from


uDIG

uDig is a GIS software program produced by a community led by Canadian-based consulting company Refractions Research

it is based on Eclipse platform wirtten in Java
· Released under GNU and GPL
· Latest version is 1.06 available at


gvSIG


GvSIG is a open source multi lingual GIS application developed in Java

· Holds both vector and raster data
· Realised under Gnu GPL licence
· Runs on windows, linux, max os
· Vector formats: - shapefile , dxf, dgn, dwg
· Raster formats: - ecw, MrSID, jpeg, jp2,..etc
· Supports Web Map Service (WMS)
· Supports Web Feature Service (WFS)
· Supports Web Coverage Service (WCS)
· Latest Release is 1.1.2 on 4th March 2008
· Download available here

contd..