ESRI Software

ESRI markets several programs that can be used to view cave data and merge cave data with geographic information such as maps and aerial photographs. Some of the software is available free. Some is available as free trial versions and finally, others must be purchased. Here is an overview of ESRI software:

ArcExplorer. ArcExplorer is a free viewer that is available from ESRI. It allows you to view Shapefiles and many other data types including maps, images and aerial photograph. It also allows you to connect to various map servers on the Internet and display many kinds of data. Since it is primarily a viewer and you must generate the shape file with other tools such as Export3D. It also does not have the ability to manipulate cave data in 3D although it will display a plan view of 3D data. To download a copy of ArcExplorer

http://www.esri.com/software/arcexplorer/index.html

ArcView. ArcView is one of the main ESRI products. It is capable of creating and manipulating GIS data in a variety of ways. Using ArcView you can integrate your cave data into all kinds of maps. A 60-day trial version of the software is available at:

http://www.esri.com/software/arcgis/arcview/eval/evaluate.html