Best Mapping Software in 2023 for Your Organizations

What is a Mapping Software?

Mapping or GIS (Geographical Information System) software is a program that helps users in mapping, querying, modeling, and analyzing large amounts of data within a single database according to a set location. Using such software, you can create maps that integrate data from various sources, helping you visualize patterns and formulate effective business solutions.

Using mapping software, you can create maps and other graphic representations of spatial information for better analysis and presentability. GIS helps you visualize geographical data effectively and formulate decision support systems to help your organization make informed choices.

Data can be displayed on maps in many innovative ways. It could be simple color coding, heat maps, or plotting markers that can be used to detect patterns or data clusters. This helps derive rich insights and gain a thorough understanding of how the data is spread across geographies.

The best thing about GIS mapping software is that it is dynamic. This means that you can 'ask' complex questions to the system by applying specific filters. The system instantly provides you with the answers to your queries by modifying colors, shapes, etc., or highlighting particular locations on a map. 

Benefits of Mapping Software

The primary function of mapping software is to answer questions about data related to different locations quickly. Each visualization helps in communicating something that may not be obvious from the raw data itself. 

With the best mapping software at your service, data can be updated and shared in real-time, facilitating better decision-making during crisis times. It also helps in collaboration and proper resource allocation to the appropriate locations. Therefore, it offers several advantages to its users, which are discussed below:

1. Reduced costs and improved efficiency:

With better visualization of how resources are being utilized, organizations can make more calculated decisions, resulting in more savings and enhanced efficiency. A better overview of tasks, timetables, and storage across multiple locations can also help firms streamline maintenance efforts, fleet movements, and task schedules.

2. Real-time Record-keeping:

GIS mapping solutions make it easy and simple for organizations to update their data. The same data can be accessed and edited by employees from multiple locations, resulting in decisions based on the latest records. Most GIS software consists of 'timestamps' for every update made in the system every single time. Hence finding the changes made previously or correcting errors also becomes facile.

3. Layering Complex Data:

Each location can have multiple data points related to it, which may or may not be inter-related. Data pertaining to a set of parameters is usually populated within a map. GIS software can help you handle multiple layers of related data and stack them together, forming 'data layers.’ This allows you to view the exact data you want by adding or removing layers of data as per your convenience.

By stacking different layers of data and allowing you to toggle between them, GIS software helps you find key insights that enable you to make smarter choices. A combined overview also allows you to notice opportunities that you might have otherwise missed, allowing you to make the most of your resources.

4. Improved Communication & Collaboration:

Mapping software improves communication and collaboration between far-away locations by helping them work together in real-time. Additionally, it integrates organizational data, software, and hardware to capture, manage, and analyze multiple forms of geographic information. Besides offering data in a visual format, which leads to easier understanding for everyone, GIS software also leads to better transparency between departments.

5. Revelations & Opportunities:

GIS mapping solutions can help answer many of the tricky questions related to your business' future.  It can help you perform several 'Why' and 'What If' scenarios and digitally depict real-time results. By allowing you to visualize, understand, question, and interpret data in various ways, GIS helps reveal hidden trends, patterns, relationships, and opportunities that give your business an edge over the competition. 

6. Geographic Planning & Management:

GIS software helps you perceive the world in a whole new way by linking the position and magnitude of things. It also brings people, places, profits, and resources under a single radar, allowing you to plan and allocate resources appropriately. This can also help you curb regional imbalances and handle crisis situations more efficiently.

Components of GIS or Mapping Software

To further understand GIS software, we'll need to look at its components and how they work together. So here are the five key elements of a GIS system:

1. Hardware:

This includes the list of equipment needed for geospatial analysis. For desktop-based mapping systems, the most critical equipment is the data workstation where the software is running. Various ancillary equipment is attached to the central workstation for receiving and relaying data. Web servers, too, have become an essential piece of equipment with the advent of web-mapping.

2. Software:

In addition to the main software used for data visualization, multiple software components take care of data editing and analysis. Additionally, several extensions and add-ons enhance the capabilities of the mapping software.

3. Data:

Data is at the center of any GIS system. Mapping software collects data from various sources such as satellites, LiDAR, drones, and GPS. There are mainly two types of data used in mapping software: Raster data and Vector data. 

Raster data contains cell-based data such as digital elevation models and aerial imagery. On the other hand, Vector data consists of spatial data represented by lines, points, and polygons. Together, both these data types create attribute data housed in every geographical feature in a tabular format. 

4. Methods:

For mapping systems to work correctly, working knowledge of GIS technology is necessary. GIS methods are the procedures followed to answer the queries being asked. Thus, knowing the correct ways of accessing, storing, managing, processing, analyzing, and presenting is essential.

5. People:

GIS also needs trained professionals like database administrators, analysts, programmers, and managers to maintain the mapping system and update it. These people form the backbone of a mapping system and help general viewers understand and make sense of the data displayed.

Types of GIS or Mapping Software

To find the best mapping software for your business, you must first understand the type of problems you are looking to solve. There are primarily three different GIS software types that you can choose from, which are as follows:

1. Desktop GIS software:

Desktop mapping software are all-encompassing programs used to edit, visualize, and analyze spatial data. Since this software consists of a lot of functions, they take time to master. A better approach to learning them quickly is to know about the portions that help solve your specific business problems. 

The most common problems that beginners face while using mapping software are:

• Geo-tagging addresses
• Creating visualization and maps
• Merging spreadsheets with map data
• Performing queries and populating results
• Editing feature data or geometry

2. Web-based GIS systems:

The internet has completely revolutionized mapping systems by allowing users to access and update data through the cloud. Most importantly, they enable non-experts to interact easily with map visualization and get answers to their queries anytime without involving experts.

3. Server-based GIS:

As the name suggests, server-based mapping requires collaboration between specialized teams performing niche tasks. These mapping systems are highly advanced and take the most time to master. Numerous people across various locations can access and edit with large datasets using such software.

Apart from the above, you can also go for specialized mapping software that caters to specific business needs. 

Uses of Mapping Software

GIS software has applications in multiple industries due to the advantages they provide. Here are a few practical uses of mapping software

1. Mapping, measurement, and planning:

Different industries use mapping software to plan out resources, measure distances, and identify locations. For example, telecom companies use GIS software to design, plan, maintain and optimize their customers’ networks. For FMCGs, mapping software improves resource allocation to low-fed areas and plans their expansion into newer areas.

2. Urban planning and transport:

GIS can also help firms manage and monitor roads, waterways, and railways. It also helps logistics teams find out shorter routes by using topographic data. They also help real-estate personnel discover lucrative possibilities and suitable sites for development.

3. Agriculture and Surveys:

Land surveys calculate and measure distances and angles between different points in a map. This can help create housing or agricultural opportunities. By finding out data about the soil types and suggesting the best crops to grow in a particular area, they can help producers formulate effective farming strategies for better chances of success.

4. Safety and disaster management:

Mapping software can improve road safety by identifying accident-prone areas and suggesting remedies for the same. They can also locate areas prone to natural disasters and help allocate relief to affected areas quickly.

5. Geology and environment management:

Geologists use mapping software to study many geological features like soil quality, strata, seismic data, and create 3D displays of geographic features. They also help discover opportunities for irrigation and the building of dams. Preserving forests, coasts, and natural habitats with their flora and fauna is also possible with GIS tools.

Apart from the above applications, GIS software is also used to create layouts for towns, tourism, marketing campaigns, territory management, crime mapping, disaster prediction, pest control, and much more.