Maptitude Team Provides Free Geospatial Technology to Students or Educators

“The software's user-friendly interface is perfect for students, who often have limited time to learn their GIS software before they need to begin mapping and analyzing data. Caliper has been very supportive of my and the Miller Center’s GeoSpatial initiative by providing, at no cost, current versions of Maptitude for students [to] use during the semester or year that the student is working with me. A clear benefit to those students is that when they enter the job market, they come equipped with the technology and knowledge that 21st Century employers look for that differentiate employee prospects.”

“I teach ArcGIS and QGIS along with Maptitude and TransCAD. QGIS is quite good but has almost no network GIS capabilities. ArcGIS is the worst boondoggle of all! The network analyst is loosely coupled so that if you want to change a network you have to do it in ArcCatalog from scratch. GIS is about distance, topology, spatial grouping and display. On all four (makers of Maptitude, TransCAD, Transmodeler) Caliper excels.”

“The first thing that attracted us to Maptitude was its ease of use. We were looking for a GIS package to use with students; the goal was to offer substantive courses where GIS was a tool rather than the centerpiece of the class. Initially, the idea was that students would learn GIS concepts with this simpler software, then graduate to a more powerful GIS when the time came. But we found that Maptitude more than powerful enough to meet all of our research needs as well.”

“I teach GIS for use in public health. I can get students working on real problems in a couple hours with Maptitude. Other software usually requires several days to get up to speed to actually work a problem.”

“The two-way direct link with Google Earth makes my projects look really interesting. I have adopted Maptitude in my GIS classes and it has been a great success with the students. They get excited in learning the geoprocessing techniques with such a technology that Maptitude provides.”

“I am a student researcher, and in looking for software that would best help me organize and interpret my data, this did the job best. I contacted their customer service inquiring about a student discount, and they quickly responded saying that they would donate a copy to support academics.”

“Overall, Maptitude's simplicity allows for non-GIS students to use a GIS to perform complex analyses with only a brief (1-2 hour) training period. They will then produce maps of similar or better quality to those produced by students with weeks of training. It is for that reason that I strongly recommend Maptitude for both Geography and Non-Geography university students alike.”