The Generic Mapping Tools (GMT) are an free and open source cross-platform (Microsoft Windows, Mac OSX, and Unix) software package designed for the analysis and display of geoscience data, helping scientist to analyze, interpolate, filter, manipulate, project, and plot time series and gridded datasets. GMT is developed and maintained by Paul Wessel, Walter H.F. Smith, Remko Scharroo, Joaquim Luis, and Florain Wobbe, with help from a global set of volunteers, and is supported by the National Science Foundation (NSF).
GMT has arisen as an unofficial standard for producing maps of marine bathymetry, sidescan sonar imagery, gravity, and magnetics. It is a collection of approximately 80 command-line tools. The command line enables scripting and the automation of routine tasks. Some more comprehensive graphic user interfaces are available from third parties. It is also extensible that users can develop their own plug-in applications through the application programming interface (API). The GMT web applications also bring the functionality online.
Considering its flexibility with no cost, users worldwide are using GMT in their work and at home. Most users of GMT are Earth or ocean scientists, but there are apparently no limits to the kind of applications that may benefit from GMT. However, the command line interface gives users a huge learning curve.
The Generic Mapping Tools (GMT) provides tools for processing and displaying geospatial datasets. It focuses on geospatial data manipulation and generation of high-quality maps and scientific illustrations. It also provides many tools for image processing operations and various types of map projections. It comes with a comprehensive collection of GIS data and can store 2D grids as COARDS-compliant netCDF files. It can produce PostScript illustrations ranging from simple x-y plots via contour maps to artificially illuminated surfaces and 3D perspective views.
Generic Mapping Tools (GMT) is extensible. Through GMT Application Programming Interface (API), users can write applications or design their own plug-in module (stored in one or more extensions) that can be loaded by the main GMT executable in exactly the same manner as the official supplemental modules. Developers have built a prototype MATLAB/Octave API which allows access to GMT modules from within those environments. In addition, the GMT API also contains three low-level functions to support FORTRAN.
Geographic information science, widely used in creating high quality postscript maps and graphs in various projections.
The GMT software package has an estimated user base that far exceeds 10,000 users worldwide, and among them 6,000 are scientists and engineers. GMT has been supported by the United States National Science Foundation (NSF) since 1993. Additional input and contributions from users and developers around the world have also been instrumental.
The Generic Mapping Tools (GMT) software package is a free and open source cross-platform geographic information system. The source code is available the terms of the GNU Lesser General Public License (GPL) version 3 or any later versions. Visit the Generic Mapping Tools download page http://gmt.soest.hawaii.edu/projects/gmt/wiki/Download
to find a legitimate download package for the operating system of your choice.