IDRISI is integrated GIS and RS software developed by Clark Labs (Worcester, MA) at Clark University. IDRISI is a Microsoft Windows-based system that offers tools for researchers and scientists engaged in analyzing earth system dynamics for effective and responsible decision making for environmental management, sustainable resource development, and equitable resource allocation. Environmental managers and researchers benefit from the unsurpassed range of geospatial tools – nearly 300 modules for the analysis and display of digital spatial information.
IDRISI provides a range of powerful tools for the GIS professionals for basic and advanced analysis. It also includes a comprehensive suite of image processing tools, making it an excellent choice for land cover mapping applications with remotely-sensed data. A distinctive component of IDRISI is its wide range of surface analysis tools. These tools support the manipulation of imagery over continuous space to identify patterns, trends, and topological features. IDRISI’s modeling tools allow users to easily develop their own models through existing functionality or to create their own tools and procedures.
Overall, IDRISI provides very effective tools for GIS analysis and land cover mapping applications with remotely-sensed data. However, it can only be deployed on Windows operation systems. In addition, it is a more complex system requiring intermediate GIS and RS skills to realize its full potential. For users who have trained in another GIS and RS platform it is quite an effort to re-learn this software.
IDRSI is an integrated GIS and remote sensing (RS) software. It has a complete GIS analysis package for basic and advanced spatial analysis, a complete image processing system for various remote sensing applications, and an integrated modeling environment to analyze time series of environmental trends and land cover change and prediction. Of major significance are the tools that IDRISI provides for the RS image processing.
The IDRISI platform provides nearly 300 modules for analysis and display of digital spatial information. There is no need to buy costly add-ons to extend the analysis capabilities. However, IDRISI offers an application programming interface (API) to help users develop their own applications. IDRISI has been designed as an OLE Automation Server using COM Object technology. As a consequence, it is possible to user high-level development languages such as VB.
Geographic information science, widely used in numerous domains. Since 1987, IDRISI has been used by professionals in a wide range of industries in more than 180 countries worldwide. Links to information about IDRISI’s products use in many domains is available from IDRISI’s “applications” page.
http://clarklabs.org/applications/index.cfm
Commercial software, permanent licensing (excluding upgrade). Academic and student use licensing is available. All products are not available as free applications and no applications are available as open source applications. A listing of available products is provided at:
http://clarklabs.org/products/index.cfm