FreeView has been a favorite freebie of mine for sometime now. The product is free and simple to use. Best of all, it supports pretty much any spatial data format that a typical user will encounter. I often have users - particularly novice ones - asking  for advice on how to view a data product. This is common with so much free data available for download via the Internet. FreeView is almost always the simplest solution to their viewing needs.

Version: 9.1

Install: 25 MB download for Windows XP

Observations: The menubar is clean and simple with the familiar options available: File, View, Layer, Tools, Help

First, I needed some data to mess with, so, I rush to the GISuser data catalog and search for some free data. I elect to proceed to the US Forest Service repository http://fsgeodata.fs.fed.us/  where I decide to grab some data for Olympic National Park in Washington State. Snider Peak 1:24000 scale point and linear features (E00 format)

I then grab some DEM data from the WA DNR for Whatcom County
http://www3.wadnr.gov/dnrapp6/dataweb/dmmatrix.html as well as some Township lines from http://www3.wadnr.gov/dnrapp5/website/cadastre/default.htm

I also grab a Washington State 10M DEM data developed by Harvey Greenberg in the UW Geology Department - These data are in .bil format.

All data products were easily displayed in FreeView. The only obsacle I ran into was the lack of support for TIGER data, however, given that PCI Geomatics' products are typically geared towards the Natural resource sector, this is no shock to me. I did have a bit of trouble overlaying all my data products, however, since the data were all in various projections, scales, and coordinate systems this also was no surprise. I must admit I was a bit rushed and didn't take the proper care in sifting through meta data and projection parameters, however, all this information was readily available and would have been useful to me to view and line-up my data sets.

A sample E00 coverage

A standard USGS DRG (TIF) is easily displayed

Some Key features:

Directly read from Oracle 10g Spatial and GeoRaster databases - open, view, select, and enhance any number of layers from an Oracle 10g database

Generic Database (GDB) technology - directly read data from an extensive list of supported file formats.

Modern interface - including a fully georeferenced file based viewer.

Multiple image display - view any number of images, any depth ( 8 -, 16 -, and 32 - bit), any size, and any resolution.

Data inspection tools - fast roam and zoom and new overview window.

Image enhancement tools - improve the way your data is displayed.

Image analysis tools - RGB mapping, numeric values display, and histograms.

Attribute table display - view and query the attributes associated with your data.

HTML online help - modern online help that's easy-to-use.

Supported Patforms: Windows NT/2000/XP

Some "other" cool features:
- Add data via the wizard. A simple GUI that walks you through data import procedures.
- cursor control reveals the geographic coordinates of your cursor
- contrast settings enable you to adjust image display parameters
- toggle from map view to area view is useful
- display of filenames intreelist is handy
- display of map projects enables you to add a number of files for convenient display of your project area
- under help there's a quicklink to more free stuff on the PCI website, unforunately the link was broken.. OOPS!

Supported data types:
I only sampled a few data types, however, here's just a sampling of data formats you should be able to easily view:
SPANS
Arc Info .bil
E00
SHP
TIF
.dxf
ERDAS
Laser-Scan
MapInfo
NTF
USGS DEM
USGS DLG
and about 100 more formats!

For more info about FreeView
See http://www.pcigeomatics.com/products/freeview.html
Download from http://www.pcigeomatics.com/download_freeview.php (Registration required) - 25 MB ZIP compressed

Corporate Contact information

PCI Geomatics
50 West Wilmot Street, Richmond Hill
Ontario, Canada
L4B 1M5

Phone: (905) 764-0614
Fax: (905) 764-9604
www.pcigeomatics.com