Autodesk marked the one-year anniversary of the release of its MapGuide Open Source product and its feature data objects (FDO) source code.
Over the past year, this web-mapping platform has gained traction among the geospatial developer community, which is now incorporating it into new and innovative spatial applications. The MapGuide Open Source community currently numbers over 600 members, and the source code has been downloaded more than 23,000 times. Additionally, the FDO source code has been downloaded 3000 times.
As part of its mission to deliver advanced technologies that help customers realize ideas, Autodesk released MapGuide Open Source and its FDO data access technology to the open source development community in November 2005.
As more organizations adopt mapping applications, users want software that makes it easier to gather and publish geospatial information for purpose-specific business solutions, including engineering, construction, utilities and government.
"Open source is fueling unbelievable technology advances in the geospatial community, and we’re proud to do our part to help that growth," said Gary Lang, vice president of Autodesk Infrastructure Solutions. "With MapGuide Open Source as part of the open source community, our customers benefit from more frequent product updates, including community-sponsored innovations, as well as a dramatically lower total cost of ownership."
Autodesk’s MapGuide Open Source software supports the most popular geospatial file formats, databases and standards, simplifying map development and deployment. This critical interoperability, along with the open source code, facilitates easy and flexible analysis and distribution of geospatial information to key stakeholders. The FDO functionality within MapGuide Open Source provides access to multiple spatial data types.
OSGeo: Fostering geospatial collaboration
MapGuide Open Source is now an active project hosted by the Open Source Geospatial Foundation (OSGeo). OSGeo, an independent not-for-profit entity, was established to support the needs of the open source geospatial community and provides a common forum and shared infrastructure for cross-project collaboration. Under the umbrella of OSGeo, users, developers and community participants coordinate development efforts that are crucial to the success of open source web mapping.
"It’s amazing to see the groundswell of interest and activity that has occurred during the past year," said Tyler Mitchell, executive director of OSGeo. "Autodesk’s commitment to open source development methodologies has encouraged others in the open source geospatial community to start contributing. We are already starting to see new code contributions and application extensions that build upon the platform provided by Autodesk."
Yesterday at Autodesk University, more than 80 Autodesk MapGuide users and partners met in an open forum to share best practices and discuss the product roadmap. Members of OSGeo also showcased MapGuide Open Source applications under development.
"The open source development process allows me to influence the software’s evolution by actively participating in the community," said Jason Birch, senior applications analyst for the city of Nanaimo, British Columbia and MapGuide Open Source user. "Additionally, the city’s IT department gets earlier insight into product direction which helps us to plan strategically."
About Autodesk MapGuide and MapGuide Open Source
Applications built using the MapGuide Open Source platform give users a faster and more flexible way to query, analyze and view critical spatial information. In June, Autodesk launched Autodesk MapGuide Enterprise, a commercial version of MapGuide Open Source, which includes additional support from Autodesk. Autodesk MapGuide Enterprise is certified by the Open Geospatial Consortium (OGC) as compliant with its WMS 1.1.1 specification.