A concise introduction to the uDig GIS

It mainly derives from the uDig site.

The goal of uDig is to provide a complete Java solution for desktop GIS data access, editing, and viewing. 

uDig aims to be:

• User friendly, providing a familiar graphical environment for GIS users;
• Desktop located, running as a thick client, natively on Windows, Mac OS/X and Linux;
• Internet oriented, consuming standard (WMS, WFS, WPS) and de facto (GeoRSS, KML, tiles) geospatial web services; and,
• GIS ready, providing the framework on which complex analytical capabilities can be built, and gradually subsuming those capabilities into the main application

The above explain the name. However it also:

• Works with .shp and companion files for what regards vectorial data (simple features, according to OGC)
• Easy connects with Databases either commercial, or free like Postgresql/Postgis and MySQL
• Interoperates with GRASS commands through the Spatial Toolbox
• Treats  GRASS raster data well as geotiff, jpg,  and the most common raster formats 
• Includes a very powerful map calculator based on jiffle

For what I more or less directly contributed, it embeds in the Spatial Toolbox:

• A very complete suite of tools for doing terrain analysis (pit removal, basin delineation, network extraction, contributing areas calculation etc for more that 50 complex operations) 
• Some hydrological models (like a GIUH model called Peakflow which includes some peculiar features, a distributed model system based on OMS3 components called JGrass-NewAGE, which in turn uses a Kriging component for interpolating rainfall or other quantities (and other interpolators),  a component for the estimation of solar radiation that accounts for shadows and clouds, a rainfall-runoff module, a propagation module, and others components
• Some shallow landslide modelling with SHALSTAB and others simple tools for estimating the extension of debris flow run-out

For what is probably a unique feature, it also gives a GIS interface to (unfortunately, the documentation is still in Italian):

•  EPANET for the verification of water supply systems
• Trento_p, a model based on the GIUH for the design of sewer systems and culverts

Certainly I am forgetting something. Among the prototypes produced, there were:

• An interface to the NASA World Wind Globe
• A treatment of netcdf

These last experiments are not anymore operational but they show the potential of the project which will be exploited when the adequate funding will be raised.

Recently uDig became parts of the Eclipse Foundation Project through the Location Tech initiative. 

Documentation in English can be found here. In Italian instead here.