Autodesk Contributes CS-Map to Open Source Community

Autodesk (CA, USA) has donated the source code for CS-Map coordinate system technology to the open source community and is seeking to establish it as part of an official OSGeo Foundation project for coordinate reference systems. The contribution represents Autodesk's third contribution to the open source community, following its MapGuide Open Source and Feature Data Object (FDO) Data Access Technology donations.

CS-Map is a coordinate system and map projection library that enables users to more easily support geographic coordinate conversions and allow accurate and precise geospatial analysis. It currently supports a library of more than 3,000 map projections and coordinate systems. Coordinate systems are fundamental pieces of any mapping or geospatial application and are constantly being added and updated. With open source code, the open source community will be able to develop coordinate conversions as needed and give organisations and developers access to this critical piece of technology.

Autodesk acquired CS-Map through its acquisition of Mentor Software in September 2007. CS-Map is currently embedded in most Autodesk geospatial products, including AutoCAD Map 3D and Autodesk MapGuide Enterprise.

OSGeo currently hosts 15 open source geospatial projects, including MapGuide Open Source and FDO Data Access Technology. Since the organisation's founding in 2006, its projects now represent code contributions from more than 200 developers including a base of more than 6 million lines of code.