:Author: Jody Garnett
:Reviewer: Cameron Shorter, LISAsoft
:Version: osgeo-live5.5
:License: Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 Unported (CC BY 3.0)

.. image:: ../../images/project_logos/logo-GeoTools.png
  :alt: project logo
  :align: right
  :target: http://geotools.org/

.. image:: ../../images/logos/OSGeo_project.png
  :scale: 100 %
  :alt: OSGeo Project
  :align: right
  :target: http://www.osgeo.org/incubator/process/principles.html

GeoTools
================================================================================

GeoTools is an open source (LGPL) Java library which provides standards compliant methods for manipulating geospatial data, and uses data structures based on Open Geospatial Consortium (OGC) specifications.

.. image:: ../../images/screenshots/800x600/geotools-overview.png
  :scale: 60 %
  :alt: GeoTools is a modular library supported by plugins for additional formats
  :align: right

GeoTools is used by a number of projects including web services, command line tools and desktop applications. OSGeo-Live applications which include GeoTools include:
:doc:`52nSOS_overview`, :doc:`52nWPS_overview`, :doc:`atlasstyler_overview`, :doc:`geomajas_overview`, :doc:`geopublisher_overview`, :doc:`geoserver_overview`, and :doc:`udig_overview`.

Core Features
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

* Definition of interfaces for key spatial concepts and data structures

  * Integrated Geometry support provided by `JTS Topology Suite (JTS) <http://tsusiatsoftware.net/jts/main.html>`_
  * Attribute and spatial filters using OGC Filter Encoding specification

* A clean data access API supporting feature access, transaction support and locking between threads

  * Access GIS data in many file formats and spatial databases
  * Coordinate reference system and transformation support
  * Work with an extensive range of map projections
  * filter and analyze data in terms of spatial and non-spatial attributes

* A stateless, low memory renderer, particularly useful in server-side environments.

  * compose and display maps with complex styling

* Powerful *schema assisted* parsing technology using XML Schema to bind to GML content

  * The parsing / encoding technology is provided with bindings for many OGC standards including GML, Filter, KML, SLD, and SE.

* GeoTools Plugins: open plug-in system allowing you to teach the library additional formats

  * Plug-ins for the ImageIO-EXT project allowing GeoTools to read additional raster formats from GDAL

* GeoTools Extensions

  * Provide additional capabilities built using the spatial facilites of the core library.

  .. image:: ../../images/screenshots/800x600/geotools-extension.png
     :alt: Extensions built using the GeoTools library

  * Extensions provide graph and networking support (for finding the shortest path), validation, a web map server client, bindings for xml parsing and encoding and color brewer.

* GeoTools Unsupported

  * GeoTools also operates as part of a wider community with a staging area used to foster new talent and promote experimentation.

  * Some highlights are swing support (used in geotools tutorials), swt, local and web process support, additional symbology, additional data formats, generation of grids and a couple of implementations of ISO Geometry.

Supported Formats
-----------------

* raster formats and data access:

  arcsde, arcgrid, geotiff, grassraster, gtopo30, image (JPEG, TIFF, GIF, PNG), imageio-ext-gdal, imagemoasaic, imagepyramid, JP2K, matlab.

* Database "jdbc-ng" support:

  db2, h2, mysql, oracle, postgis, spatialite, sqlserver.

* Vector formats and data access:

  app-schema, arcsde, csv, dxf, edigeo, excel, geojson, org, property, shapefile, wfs.

* XML Bindings:

  Java data structures and bindings provided for the following:
  xsd-core (xml simple types), fes, filter, gml2, gml3, kml, ows, sld, wcs, wfs, wms, wps, vpf.

  Additional Geometry, Filter and Style parser/encoders available for DOM and SAX applications.

Implemented Standards
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Support of numerous Open Geospatial Consortium (OGC) standards:

* OGC Style Layer Descriptor / Symbology Encoding data structures and rendering engine
* OGC General Feature Model including Simple Feature support
* OGC Grid Coverage representation of raster information
* OGC Filter and Common Constraint Language (CQL)
* Clients for Web Feature Service (WFS), Web Map Service (WMS) and experimental support for Web Process Service (WPS)
* ISO 19107 Geometry

Details
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

**Website:** http://geotools.org/

**Licence:** LGPL

**Supported Platforms:** Cross Platform Java 6

**API Interfaces:** Java

**Support:** `Communication and Support <http://docs.geotools.org/latest/userguide/welcome/support.html>`_

Quickstart
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

* `Quickstart documentation <http://docs.geotools.org/latest/userguide/tutorial/quickstart/index.html>`_