1About the Project 2================= 3 4Introduction 5------------ 6 7osgEarth_ is a geospatial SDK and terrain engine for OpenSceneGraph_ applications. 8 9The goals of osgEarth_ are to: 10 11- Enable the development of 3D geospatial appliations on top of OpenSceneGraph_. 12- Make it as easy as possible to visualize terrian models and imagery directly from source data. 13- Interoperate with open mapping standards, technologies, and data. 14 15 16**So is it for me?** 17 18So: does osgEarth replace the need for offline terrain database creation tools? In many cases it does. 19 20Consider using osgEarth_ if you need to: 21 22 - Get a terrain base map up and running quickly and easily 23 - Access open-standards map data services like WMS or TMS 24 - Integrate locally-stored data with web-service-based imagery 25 - Incorporate new geospatial data layers at run-time 26 - Deal with data that may change over time 27 - Integrate with a commercial data provider 28 29 30Community Resources 31------------------- 32 33Since osgEarth_ is a free open source SDK, the source code is available to 34anyone and we welcome and encourage community participation when it comes 35to testing, adding features, and fixing bugs. 36 37**Public Forum** 38 39 The first way to interact with the osgEarth team and the user community is 40 through the `support forum`_. **Please read** and follow these guidelines for 41 using the forum. FOLLOWING THESE GUIDELINES will make it MUCH MORE LIKELY 42 that someone will respond and try to help: 43 44 * Sign up for an account and use your real name. You can participate 45 anonymously, but using your real name helps build a stronger community. 46 Sign your posts too! 47 48 * Limit yourself to *one topic* per post. Asking multiple questions in one 49 post makes it too hard to keep track of responses. 50 51 * Always include as much supporting information as possible. Post an 52 *earth file* or *short code snippet*. Post the output to ``osgearth_version --caps``. 53 Post the output to ``gdalinfo`` if you are having trouble with a GeoTIFF 54 or other data file. List everything you have tried so far. 55 56 * Be patient! 57 58**Priority Support** 59 60 If you have several questions, or need more in-depth help involving code 61 review, design, etc., consider purchasing `Priority Support`_ directly 62 from Pelican Mapping (the maintainers of osgEarth). Priority Support 63 gives you tracked, timely, personal email-based assistance! 64 65**OSG Forum** 66 67 Since osgEarth_ is built on top of OpenSceneGraph_, many questions we get 68 on the message boards are really OSG questions. We will still try our 69 best to help. But it's worth your while to join the `OSG Mailing List`_ or 70 read the `OSG Forum`_ regularly as well. 71 72**Social Media** 73 74 * Follow `@pelicanmapping`_ on twitter for updates. 75 * Add our `Google+ Page`_ to your circles for gallery shots. 76 77**Professional Services** 78 79 The osgEarth team supports its efforts through professional services. At 80 `Pelican Mapping`_ we do custom software development and integration work 81 involving osgEarth_ (and geospatial technologies in general). 82 We are based in the US but we work with clients all over the world. 83 `Contact us`_ if you need help! 84 85 86License 87------- 88 89osgEarth_ is licensed under the LGPL_ free open source license. 90 91This means that: 92 93 1. You can link to the osgEarth_ SDK in any commercial or non-commercial 94 application free of charge. 95 96 2. If you make any changes to osgEarth_ *itself*, you must make those changes 97 available as free open source software under the LGPL license. (Typically 98 this means contributing your changes back to the project, but it is 99 sufficient to host them in a public GitHub clone.) 100 101 3. If you redistribute the osgEarth_ *source code* in any form, you must 102 include the associated copyright notices and license information 103 unaltered and intact. 104 105 4. *iOS / static linking exception*: The LGPL requires that anything statically 106 linked to an LGPL library (like osgEarth) also be released under the LGPL. 107 We grant an exception to the LGPL in this case. If you statically link 108 osgEarth with your proprietary code, you are *NOT* required to release your 109 own code under the LGPL. 110 111That's it. 112 113 114Maintainers 115----------- 116 117`Pelican Mapping`_ maintains osgEarth_. 118 119 120.. _osgEarth: http://osgEarth.org 121.. _OpenSceneGraph: http://openscenegraph.org 122.. _Pelican Mapping: http://pelicanmapping.com 123.. _Priority Support: http://web.pelicanmapping.com/priority-support 124.. _LGPL: http://www.gnu.org/copyleft/lesser.html 125.. _Glenn: http://twitter.com/#!/glennwaldron 126.. _Jason: http://twitter.com/#!/jasonbeverage 127.. _Jeff: http://twitter.com/#!/_jeffsmith 128.. _Paul: http://twitter.com/#!/p_levy 129.. _@pelicanmapping: https://twitter.com/pelicanmapping 130.. _Google+ Page: https://plus.google.com/b/104014917856468748129/104014917856468748129/posts 131 132.. _support forum: http://forum.osgearth.osg 133.. _OSG Mailing List: http://lists.openscenegraph.org/listinfo.cgi/osg-users-openscenegraph.org 134.. _OSG Forum: http://forum.openscenegraph.org 135.. _Contact us: http://pelicanmapping.com/?page_id=2 136 137