C

tool: PostgreSQL

Purpose: 

PostgreSQL is a powerful, open source object-relational database system.

Features: 

• fully ACID compliant
• full support for foreign keys, joins, views, triggers, and stored procedures (in multiple languages)
• includes most SQL 2008 data types, including INTEGER, NUMERIC, BOOLEAN, CHAR, VARCHAR, DATE, INTERVAL, and TIMESTAMP
• supports storage of binary large objects, including pictures, sounds, or video
• multi-Version Concurrency Control (MVCC)
• Highly customisable

A&H use case 1 description: 
The “Great Britain Historical Geographical Information System (GBHGIS)” has used PostgreSQL to store the geographically-located historical statistics for Great Britain.
Creator: 
Michael Stonebraker
Publisher: 
PostgreSQL Global Development Group
Data capture: 
Manual input and transcription
Specifications: 
PHP
eXtensible Markup Language (XML)
Perl
Python
Java
C
Ruby
Tcl
.Net
ODBC
Suite: 
PostgreSQL
Software/programming languages used: 
PostgreSQL
Tags: 
database
query language
Alternate tool(s): 

FileMaker, MySQL, SQLite, Firebird

Licence: 
PostgreSQL License
lifecycleStage: 
structuring
Platform: 
All major operating systems
By Valentina Asciutti at Thu, 17/06/2010 - 10:44

tool: Oracle Database

Purpose: 

Oracle Database is a relational database management system (RDBMS).

Features: 

• Supports symmetric multiprocessing (SMP)
• Stores data logically in the form of tablespaces and physically in the form of datafiles
• Transportable tablespaces
• Advanced Queuing (AQ)
• 64-bit database
• Data Mining Option

A&H use case 1 description: 
The “Great Britain Historical Geographical Information System (GBHGIS)” project has used Oracle Database to store all the geographically-located historical statistics for Great Britain.
Creator: 
Software Development Laboratories (SDL)
Publisher: 
Oracle Corporation
Data analysis: 
Data mining
Specifications: 
eXtensible Markup Language (XML)
Bitmap (BMP)
Java
C
SQL
COBOL
Software/programming languages used: 
Oracle Database
Suite: 
Oracle
Data capture: 
Manual input and transcription
Alternate tool(s): 

Firebird, Ingres

Tags: 
database
query language
Licence: 
Proprietary
lifecycleStage: 
structuring
Platform: 
Microsoft Windows
Linux
Solaris
Mac OS X
By Valentina Asciutti at Thu, 17/06/2010 - 10:25

tool: Lucene

Purpose: 

Apache Lucene is a high-performance, full-featured text search engine library written entirely in Java. It is a technology suitable for nearly any application that requires full-text search, especially cross-platform.

Features: 

• Scalable, high-performance indexing
• Powerful, accurate and efficient search algorithms
• Cross-platform solution

A&H use case 1 description: 
The “Freeze Frame – Historic Polar Images 1845-1960” project has used Lucene for advanced search of photographs from both Arctic and Antarctic expeditions.
Creator: 
Doug Cutting
Publisher: 
Apache Software Foundation
Data analysis: 
Collating
Collocating
Indexing
Content analysis
Data mining
Parsing
Topic Detection and Tracking
Text mining
Specifications: 
PHP
Perl
Python
Java
C
Ruby
HTML
DOC
PDF
Delphi
C#
ODF
Software/programming languages used: 
Lucene
Apache Lucene
Suite: 
Apache
Data structuring and enhancement: 
Cataloguing and indexing
Alternate tool(s): 

InQuira, Verity, dtSearch, ISYS

Tags: 
Indexing
JAVA
full-text search
cross-platform
Licence: 
Apache
lifecycleStage: 
analysis
Platform: 
Java
ANT
JUnit
By Valentina Asciutti at Mon, 19/04/2010 - 10:27

tool: ERDAS Imagine

Purpose: 

ERDAS Imagine is a suite of geospatial authoring software. The suite contains a raster graphics editor and remote sensing application that performs advanced remote sensing analysis and spatial modelling to create new information. ERDAS IMAGINE can also visualize results in 2D, 3D, movies, and on cartographic quality map compositions.

Features: 

• Image Analysis, Remote Sensing & GIS
• Parallel Batch Processing
• Spatial Modeling
• High Performance Mosaicking Engine in IMAGINE Advantage
• Expanded Change Detection Tools (with Zonal Change Detection)
• ERDAS ER Mapper Algorithms
• Converts over 190 Image Formats to all Major File Formats, including GeoTIFF, NITF, CADRG, JPEG, JPEG2000, ECW and MrSID
• Implements Comprehensive OGC Web Processing Service (WPS), Web Coverage Service (WCS), Web Mapping Service (WMS) and Catalog Services for the Web (CS-W)

A&H use case 1 description: 
The North Sea Palaeolandscapes project used ERDAS Imagine to analyse 3D seismic datasets acquired on the United Kingdom continental shelf and explore Late Quaternary and Holocene geology over the area of the Southern North Sea.
Publisher: 
Earth Resource Data Analysis System (ERDAS)
Creator: 
Earth Resource Data Analysis System (ERDAS)
Software/programming languages used: 
ERDAS Imagine
Data capture: 
Remote sensing
GPS and total station surveys
Specifications: 
Javascript
HyperText Markup Language (HTML)
JPEG
Tagged Image File Format (TIFF)
Java
C
Ajax frameworks
J2EE
Erdas Macro Language (EML)
Communication and collaboration: 
Resource sharing
Video-based interaction (asynchronous)
Suite: 
ERDAS Imagine
Discipline: 
Archaeology
Classics and Ancient History
History
Data analysis: 
Content analysis
Overlaying
Visualisation
Statistical analysis
Data publishing and dissemination: 
Desktop publishing and pre-press
Tags: 
GIS
Remote sensing
Geospatial technology
Raster image
multispectral images
Strategy and project management: 
Documentation
Human factors analysis
Practice-led research: 
2d illustration
3d modelling - vector
Alternate tool(s): 

SPRING, Virtual Terrain Project (VTP),

Data structuring and enhancement: 
2d modelling - raster
2d modelling - vector
Animation
3d modelling - interactive
3d modelling - vector
Geo-referencing and projection
Licence: 
commercial
Platform: 
All major operating systems
lifecycleStage: 
creation
structuring
analysis
publishing
By natalie.hutchinson at Mon, 29/03/2010 - 10:22

tool: Python

Purpose: 

A general-purpose high-level programming language that places an emphasis upon code readability. Python supports a number of development models, including object oriented, imperative, and functional design. It provides automatic memory management and a fully dynamic type system.

Features: 

• very clear, readable syntax
• strong introspection capabilities
• intuitive object orientation
• natural expression of procedural code
• full modularity, supporting hierarchical packages
• exception-based error handling
• very high level dynamic data types
• extensive standard libraries and third party modules for virtually every task
• extensions and modules easily written in C, C++ (or Java for Jython, or .NET languages for IronPython)
• embeddable within applications as a scripting interface

A&H use case 1 description: 
The “Inscriptions of Roman Cyrenaica (IRCyr)” has used Python to pre-process the files containing the Latin and Greek inscriptions of Roman Cyrenaica.
Publisher: 
Python Software Foundation
Creator: 
Guido Van Rossum
Data publishing and dissemination: 
Disk publishing
Desktop publishing and pre-press
Server scripting
Web browser scripting
General website development
Specifications: 
eXtensible Markup Language (XML)
Java
C
C++
Microsoft's .NET Framework
COM
CORBA
XML RCP
lifecycleStage: 
creation
Tags: 
JAVA
Programming language
Alternate tool(s): 

Perl, Ruby, Java, Scheme, Tcl

Platform: 
Java
All major operating systems
.net
Licence: 
Python Software Foundation
Software/programming languages used: 
Python
By Valentina Asciutti at Thu, 04/03/2010 - 12:29

tool: Perl

Purpose: 

Perl is a high-level, general-purpose, interpreted, dynamic programming language. Originally developed for text manipulation, it is now used for a wide range of tasks including graphics programming, system administration, network programming, applications that require database access and CGI programming on the Web.

Features: 

• C, shell scripting (sh), AWK, and sed
• powerful text processing facilities
• flexibility and adaptability
• support for multiple programming paradigms
• reference counting memory management

A&H use case 1 description: 
The “Developing Archival Context Standards for Functions in the Higher Education Sector” project has used Perl to develop the web interface. Perl was used to design simple navigation between the various data components, free-text and index controlled searching based on the underlying structure of the XML formatted data and an easy means of updating existing data.
Creator: 
Larry Wall
Publisher: 
Perl.org
Strategy and project management: 
System quality assurance and code testing
Data publishing and dissemination: 
Disk publishing
Desktop publishing and pre-press
Server scripting
Web browser scripting
General website development
lifecycleStage: 
creation
Specifications: 
PHP
Java
C
C++
Ruby
Microsoft's .NET Framework
Apache HTTP server
Tags: 
JAVA
PHP
Programming language
Alternate tool(s): 

Ruby, Java, Python

Platform: 
All major operating systems
Licence: 
GNU General Public License
Artistic License
Software/programming languages used: 
Perl
By Valentina Asciutti at Thu, 04/03/2010 - 12:21

tool: ImageMagik

Purpose: 

A software suite for displaying, converting and editing still images stored in a raster image format. Image manipulation may be performed via the command line, API libraries, or through a simply graphical user interface.

Features: 

• Software control through API and command line
• Format conversion
• image transformation
• transparency support
• Format identification
• Text to image conversion

A&H use case 1 description: 
The Thomas Gray Archive has used Image Magik to edit pictures and maps.
Creator: 
ImageMagick Studio LLC
Publisher: 
ImageMagick Studio LLC
Practice-led research: 
Image manipulation
Data structuring and enhancement: 
Image enhancement
Image restoration
lifecycleStage: 
creation
publishing
Specifications: 
Perl
Python
Pretty Good Privacy (PGP)
Tcl/TK
Ada
C
Clipper Header (CH)
COM+
C++
Lisp
Tags: 
Image enhancement
Image manipulation
Image restoration and rectification
manipulation
batch
editing
moving image
Raster image
script
Alternate tool(s): 

GIMP, Adobe Photoshop

Platform: 
Microsoft Windows
Linux
Solaris
Mac OS X
FreeBSD
Amiga OS 4.0
MorphOS
Licence: 
ImageMagick
Software/programming languages used: 
ImageMagick
By garethknight at Thu, 21/01/2010 - 12:55

tool: BBEdit

Purpose: 

A text editor designed for use by software developers and web designers. BBEdit provides native support for several programming and scripting languages. Third party custom modules are available, created by users, to handle languages that are not supported in the native application.

Features: 
  • Multi-file text searching
  • Scripting
  • Syntax highlighting for ANSI C, C++, CSS, Fortran (through Fortran 95), HTML, Java, JavaScript, JSP, Object Pascal, Objective-C, Objective-C++, Perl, PHP, Python, Rez, Ruby, Setext, SQL, Tcl, Tex, UNIX shell scripts, XML and YAML
A&H use case 1 description: 
The Newton Manuscript Project used BBEdit to prepare 20 volumes of Newton's non-scientific papers for online delivery.
A&H use case 2 description: 
The Exhibitions of the Royal Photographic Society project used BBEdit when creating a research database of 45,000 records from the annual exhibition catalogues of the Photographic Society, London, published between 1870 and 1915.
Publisher: 
Bare Bones Software
Creator: 
Bare Bones Software
Licence: 
commercial
Tags: 
Text edit
syntax
syntax highlighting
markup
Specifications: 
PHP
Javascript
Open Scripting Architecture (OSA)
AppleScript
eXtensible Markup Language (XML)
HyperText Markup Language (HTML)
Perl
Python
Java
C
Cascading Style Sheets (CSS)
ANSI C
Fortran
Object Pascal
Objective-C
Rez
Ruby
Setext
SQL
Tcl
Tex
UNIX shell scripts
YAML
Platform: 
Mac OS X
Software/programming languages used: 
BBEdit
lifecycleStage: 
creation
analysis
By garethknight at Tue, 19/01/2010 - 14:49