Global Mapper

Global Mapper is published by Blue Marble Geographics alongside Global Mapper Mobile, the Geographic Calculator and Geographic Calculator Cloud, with software development kits including the Global Mapper SDK, Global Mapper Pro SDK, GeoCalc SDK and GeoCore SDK.

The Geographic Calculator as a separate product is the detail that identifies what this vendor is known for, and coordinate transformation is a problem most people underestimate until it goes wrong.

Spatial data arrives in different coordinate reference systems. A dataset from a national mapping agency, a survey in a local grid, a GPS track in a global system and an engineering drawing in a site coordinate system all describe the same ground and none of them agree numerically. Combining them requires transformation, and transformation is not a single formula: it depends on the datum, the projection and frequently on a region-specific transformation grid.

Getting it approximately right produces errors of metres, which is invisible on a small-scale map and catastrophic for survey, engineering or boundary work. That kind of error is discovered on site, after construction has been set out.

Publishing the transformation engine as its own product and as an SDK reflects that other software needs this capability and that getting it right is specialist work.

The SDK range indicates a business selling to developers embedding geospatial capability in their own applications, which is a different customer from the desktop analyst and explains why the product family is structured this way.

Global Mapper Mobile addresses field data collection, where the requirement is capturing accurate positions on a device that may be offline.

Pricing is not published on the captured page.