Whitebox Geospatial Analysis Tools

<h2 id="analysis-tools">Analysis tools</h2>
<p>Whitebox GAT contains more than 385 tools to perform spatial analysis on raster data sets. The following is an incomplete list of some of the more commonly used tools:
</p>
<ul><li><i>GIS tools:</i> Cost-distance analysis, buffer, distance operations, weighted overlays, multi-criteria evaluation, reclass, area analysis, clumping</li>
<li><i>Image processing tools:</i> k-means classification, numerous spatial filters, image mosaicing, NDVI, resampling, contrast enhancement</li>
<li><i>Hydrology tools:</i> DEM preprocessing tools, flow direction and accumulation (D8, Rho8, Dinf, and FD8 algorithms), mass flux analysis, watershed extraction</li>
<li><i>Terrain analysis tools:</i> surface derivatives (slope, aspect, and curvatures), <a href="/facts/Hillshading/C4sD9xkw">hillshading</a>, wetness index, relative stream power index, relative landscape position indices</li>
<li><i>LiDAR tools:</i> IDW interpolation, nearest neighbour interpolation, point density, removal of off-terrain objects (non-ground points)</li></ul>
<h2 id="software-transparency">Software transparency</h2>
<p>The Whitebox GAT project links the software's development and user communities, known as software transparency, or open-access software (considered an extension of open-source software). The philosophy of transparency in software states that the user:
</p>
<ol><li>Has the right to view the underlying workings of a tool or operation, and</li>
<li>Should be able to access this information in a way that reduces, or ideally eliminates, any barriers to viewing and interpreting it.</li></ol>
<p>This concept was developed as a response to the code base of many open-source projects being so massive, and its organization so complex, that individual users often find the task of interpreting the underlying code too daunting when they are interested in a small portion of the overall code base, e.g. if the user would like to know how a particular tool or algorithm operates. Furthermore, when the software's source code is written in an unfamiliar <a href="/facts/Programming_language/cWTYbgWa">programming language</a>, the task of interpreting the code is made even more difficult. For some open-source projects, these characteristics can divide the development and user communities, often restricting future development to a few individuals that have been involved in the project during the earliest periods of development.<a class="footnote-ref" id="fnref:1" href="#fn:1"><sup>1</sup></a> The View Code button that is present on all Whitebox GAT tools is the embodiment of this software-transparency philosophy by pointing the user to the specific region of the source-code that is relevant to a particular tool, also allowing for code conversion to other programming languages. The Whitebox GAT logo is also representative of the open and transparent characteristic of the software, being a transparent glass cube, open on one face.
</p>

<h2 id="external-links">External links</h2>
<ul><li><a href="http://www.uoguelph.ca/~hydrogeo/Whitebox/">Official website</a></li>
<li><a href="http://whiteboxgeospatial.wordpress.com/">Official website</a> blog</li></ul>

<h2 id="references">References</h2>

<ol>
<li id="fn:1"><p>Câmara, G. and Onsrud, H. (2004) "Open Source GIS Software: Myths and Realities" in "Open Access and the Public Domain in Digital Data and Information for Science: Proceedings of an International Symposium" Retrieved on 2010-03-03. <a href="#fnref:1" class="footnote-back-ref">↩</a></p></li>
</ol>

Whitebox Geospatial Analysis Tools open-in-new

Whitebox Geospatial Analysis Tools