MapWindow GIS  version 4.7 was released on November, 13 2009.  MapWindow GIS desktop application is a free, open source, standards-based standalone software package that you can use to view and edit GIS data in many file formats.

 

What’s new & improvement in Mapwindow 4.7 :

• Stability improvements, particularly when dealing with large numbers of shapes in shapefiles
• TauDEM/Automatic Watershed Delineation Help Files
• Progress indicator improvements in many plug-ins
• Unit conversions available for more standard units and more accurate
• New image properties in MapWindow (Use Histogram, Allow Hillshade, Buffersize, Image Color Scheme, Set to Grey
• Zooming with mouse wheel
• Updated GDAL projection library
• Added GEOS shape functions (Contains, Crosses, Touches, Intersects, Overlaps, etc.)
• New printing plug-in
• New image properties (Use Histogram, Allow Hillshade, Buffersize, Image Color Scheme, Set to Grey)
• Bug fixes and speed improvements
• Improved documentation

Download MapWindow GIS if you need a simple map viewer, or if you want to write your own custom plug-ins to distribute to other users.

Also available Shape2Earth for MapWindow 4.7. Shape2Earth is the quickest, easiest, and cheapest way to convert shapefiles into Keyhole Markup Language (KML) for viewing in Google Earth.