OpenEV 0.9.0 Release

[Frank Warmerdam]

Folks,

I am pleased to announce the 0.9.0 release of OpenEV. Binaries are available
for Windows 98/NT/2000, Linux, Solaris and Irix. Source, further details, 
mailing lists and so forth are available at:

http://openev.sourceforge.net/

OpenEV is an application for viewing and analysing raster and vector geospatial data. 

Objectives - OpenEV will: 
Run on popular platforms (Linux, Windows, Solaris, IRIX). 
Handle raster and vector data. 
Support 2d and 3d display. 
Gracefully handle very large (gigabyte) raster datasets. 
Support multi-channel, and complex raster datasets. 
Understand and interpret georeferencing information, and provide on-the-fly 
reprojection of datasets. 
Provide view manipulation functions (pan, zoom, rotate) at interactive frame rates. 
Provide a powerful image analysis tool. 
Serve as a component in a variety of image analysis applications. 

OpenEV utilizes OpenGL, Python, Gtk+, GDAL, and PROJ.4 technologies.

I believe OpenEV's current strengths are:
o High performance display of even very large images. 
o Support for 16bit, floating point and complex raster display with
sensible scaling, and display access to the underlying raster values. 
o Highly customizable, and extendible since the GUI is written in Python. 
o 3D support.

I think that OpenEV can grow into:
o similar uses as IDL due to integration of GDAL, OpenEV and Numerical Python.
o Sophisicated GIS vector display as improvements are made to rendering, and
integration with OGR (my vector library) tightens up. 
o As a display front end for GRASS, as GDAL is upgraded to use libgrass, and 
some level of integration with GRASS commands is achieved. 
o As a data translator, and transformer as GDAL export capabilities are 
more fully utilized. 
o A very projection savvy environment, once a user projection definition
dialog is implemented, and vector on-the-fly reprojection is implemented. 

Areas I think OpenEV is currently weaker than it could be:
o It's dependence on OpenGL can cause a substantial performance hit on 
unaccelerated platforms, especially doing 3D viewing, and vector editing
operations. Many of the difficult to fix, and reproduce bugs also seem
to be OpenGL related.
o It depends on quite a few packages, which can make it a bit of a job
to build completely from source. 
o Programmer documentation is not up to the desired level. 
o Very limited image analysis tools available. 
o Vector integration isn't up to what you would expect of a vector 
focused package (which OpenEV is not). 

I believe OpenEV can be a very useful package as it stands today, and I 
encourage folks looking for a comfortable, customizable, extendable 
raster, and vector viewing environment to considering downloading and trying
it out. 

I, and the OpenEV team are also keen on finding other developers interested
in improving and extending OpenEV. 

Note, I have sent this to a number of lists, and newsgroups. I appologise
to those getting this message multiple times.

Best regards,

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I set the clouds in motion - turn up | Frank Warmerdam, warmerda at h...
light and sound - activate the windows | http://members.home.com/warmerda
and watch the world go round - Rush | Geospatial Programmer for Rent