What's SuperMap GIS?

SuperMap GIS, a large GIS package developed by SuperMap Software Co., Ltd., covers a wide range of products, including Desktop GIS, Component GIS, Service GIS, Mobile GIS, Spatial Database eXtension, Navigation Application Development Platform as well as related spatial data generating, processing and managing tools. Through continuous technological innovation and marketing promotion, SuperMap has been able to provide various GIS platforms that can be applied in many different fields. With SuperMap GIS products, more and more GIS application developers have successfully implemented their solutions.

Design Concept of SuperMap GIS Products

In the course of GIS software development and evolution, the ideology has undergone a transition from cartography only to cartography and information; the methodology from modulized GIS to component based GIS. Now, GIS has been applied to various application systems and become an information tool rather than a cartography tool. The spatial information has become more important in personal life, enterprise management and government management. Thus, SuperMap advocates and adopts some important concepts in the designing process of SuperMap GIS products.

　　◆ Open and co-operation strategy

GIS is supposed to be a distributed system in nature. It is an information infrastructure which needs multilateral collaborations in constructing. SuperMap GIS is oriented to GIS platform software and the GIS development tools under various environments. It is committed to fully supporting GIS application development and exploring the market with the business partners. Therefore, Open and Co-operation strategy sis not only the concept of SuperMap company but also is implemented in our products. SuperMap GIS offers open and scalable software architecture on a basis of service-oriented idea, enabling developers and users not only to set up their own application systems to meet their own needs but also to develop professional software products with independent copyrights based on SuperMap GIS to obtain a wider valued-added space.

Figure 1 Open GIS concept of SuperMap

　　◆ Universal GIS Core

The rapid progress of IT has constantly influenced the development of GIS technology. In order to accommodate the changes of future technology and meet the fast-growing requirements of applications, SuperMap comes up with a new concept - Universal GIS, which is a new idea for GIS fundamental platform development.

The fundamental of Universal GIS is to separate all GIS functionalities and algorithms from the information technology they are based on through designing a sophisticated software architecture to make the two parts independent and disengaged from each other. Therefore, the pith of Universal GIS is to establish a universal GIS core (UGC) that implements the core functionalities of GIS, which is relatively unnecessary to change or not tend to be affected by rapid technical change. On the basis of UGC, it is easy to accommodate this change by just implementing or adjusting peripheral function modules and user interface, which greatly reduces technology evolvement cost. This model can be simplified to refer to as “core/shell” model. The architecture of Universal GIS software is shown below.

Figure 2 Architecture of Universal GIS

Based on UGC, various GIS software products can be encapsulated, including Component GIS, Service GIS, Desktop GIS etc. In particular, the component GIS and Service GIS can either be encapsulated based on .net framework or Java platform.

The theory of Universal GIS has been successfully practiced. SuperMap GIS 2008 product family contains some software based on Universal GIS technology, in which SuperMap iServer Java has already been applied in lots of GIS projects. With the development of Universal GIS, more new GIS products based on it will be launched to provide better services for the users.

SuperMap GIS 2008 Product Family

SuperMap GIS 2008 is not a single product, it contains a series of products, including Desktop GIS, Component GIS Development Platform, Spatial Database eXtension, Service GIS Development Platform, Mobile GIS Development Platform, Navigastion Application Development Platform and Data Processing Platform.

　　◆ Desktop GIS: This includes several Desktop GIS products in different levels, including professional and all-in-one Desktop GIS - SuperMap Deskpro 5.3, professional data authoring Desktop GIS - SuperMap Express 5.3 and free GIS data viewing Desktop GIS - SuperMap Viewer 5.3.

　　◆ Component GIS Development Platform: This includes several Component GIS products based on different component models, including COM based product - SuperMap Objects 5.3, .NET based product - SuperMap Objects .NET 2.0 and Java based product - SuperMap Objects Java 2.0.

　　◆ Spatial Database eXtension: The enterprise Spatial Database Technology called SuperMap SDX+, it is not a product, but a technology that is internally supported in other products. It supports most of the commercial RDBMS, providing efficient and reliable access to spatial data.

　　◆ Service GIS Development Platform: This includes several Service Oriented Architecture (SOA) GIS products, includes SuperMap IS .NET 5.3, SuperMap iServer .NET 2.0 and SuperMap iServer Java 2.0.

　　◆ Mobile GIS Development Platform: This product is called eSuperMap, which is open to customize for all kinds of Mobile GIS applications for mobile devices.

　　◆ Navigation Application Development Platform: This product is called SuperNavigation Engine, which is an open development product for customizing professional navigation applications for different mobile devices.

　　◆ Data Processing Tools: This includes D-Producer for data production, D-Builder for database building, D-Checker for data quality control, D-Manager for spatial database management, FieldMapper for field work data acquisition and SuperMap Floor for estate survey.

Figure 3 SuperMap GIS 2008 Product Family

International GIS Brand

International market is highly valued by SuperMap Software Co., Ltd. In 2000, SuperMap 2000 Japanese version was simultaneously released with its Chinese version. Therefore, SuperMap became the first exported Chinese GIS software platform. By now, SuperMap Japan co, Ltd. has established good partnership with over one thousand Japanese governments, institutes, enterprises etc., such as NTT, Japan Railway, The Tokyo Electric Power, Mitsubishi, Hitachi, NEC, Toshiba, Panasonic, Sumitomo Corporation, University of Tsukuba, University of Tokyo, and Japanese National Institute for Environmental Studies.

Apart from Japanese market, SuperMap GIS actively gets involved in the market of Korea, Singapore, Vietnam, India, Italy, Kazakhstan as well as Sweden, South Africa etc.

In 2006, SuperMap International Limited was founded in Hong Kong acting as a pivot of SuperMap global expanding strategy. SuperMap is committed to our pursuit in order to make SuperMap a leading GIS platform in the world.

Figure 4 SuperMap Deskpro 2003 Japanese Version