The UDIG GISPlatform is built around the concept of plug-ins to the base Eclipse Rich Client Platform. Several other well-known eclipse plug-ins are used, such as the Eclipse Modeling Framework and the Graphic Modeling Framework.

It is useful to consider the UDIG application as a series of Tiers each with different responsibilities and capabilities.

GIS Toolkits

Tier 0: The Toolkits used, such as GeoTools and GeoAPI, provide useful abstractions (such as Features) and data connectivity. These libraries are all gathered into a single plug-in (net.refractions.udig.libs plugin) so they may share a classloader.

GIS Platform

Tier 1: Catalog Services provide a common API for data access and may serve as foundation for different GIS applications

GIS Application

Tier 2: Project services opperates as a UDIG application providing Maps and Printing under user control

Visualization and Interaction

Tier 3: Rendering and Tool services allow control of display and screen interaction.


tierdiagram.gif (image/gif)
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