Global Mapper

Global Mapper by Blue Marble Geographics is a full-featured GIS application that blends power with approachability, offering an intuitive interface with a logical layout that helps both newcomers and seasoned professionals get productive quickly. The workspace centers on a clean map view with dockable tools, including a new file browser that consolidates data access, while streamlined menus surface core tasks like digitizing, analysis, and export without burying complexity. Navigation between 2D and 3D is fluid, with customizable shaders and an animation toolkit that enables timeseries visualizations and HD fly-throughs—useful for communicating terrain, point clouds, and draped imagery. On functionality, Global Mapper is notable for broad format compatibility—supporting over 300 raster, vector, elevation, and point cloud types—plus direct connections to online sources such as elevation, satellite imagery, and topographic maps. Robust spatial operations (union, intersection, difference), vector creation tools, and raster workflows (mosaicing, tiling, histogram matching, feathering, and pan sharpening) sit alongside terrain analysis that generates contours, cut-and-fill, relative elevation models, watershed delineation, path profiles, line-of-sight, and full viewshed calculations.