Free GIS Software for Analysis and Visualization of Surfaces

Combined TIN and color shading of a DEM with a shaded relief map generated by LandSerf software

Combined TIN and color shading of a DEM with a shaded relief map generated by LandSerf software SlashGeo pointed me to LandSerf, an interesting bit of free GIS software (not open source) for viewing and analysis of DEMs, TINs, and other files in 3D. It uses OpenGL for the 3D graphics, and has a variety of features for lighting/shading, blending of multiple images, and supports a bunch of import and export file formats. It runs on PCs, Macs, and Linux/Unix as long as you have the Java Runtime Environment. I didn’t explore too far, but it appears that it also has some scripting/API support. (Image by LandSerf)