January 31, 2011 -- Alterra, an institute that is part of the Wageningen University & Research Centre, has used the TatukGIS Developer Kernel (VCL edition) to develop information systems for the evaluation and management of biodiversity among plant species, vegetation types and landscapes. The software is used by students, policy makers, ecologists, and nature conservationists. These systems - called 'SynBioSys' – are up to now developed for the Netherlands, Europe, and South Africa (Kruger park en FynBos).

The most valuable part of the SynBioSys systems – all written in Delphi - is the GIS. “While former versions of SynBioSys made use of Map Objects, the ‘discovery’ of TatukGIS has resulted in the GIS part of the systems becoming a lot more sophisticated (for a very modest price)”, explains Alterra developer Stephan Hennekens. “Many of the strengths of TatukGIS are already mentioned many times (fast rendering, no additional DLL’s, numerous supported formats, on-the-fly reprojection, transparency, anti-aliasing, spatial analysis, etc.), but we greatly appreciate two features in particular:

1. Support for WMS layers, which enables the easy incorporation of map data from diverse sources on the web into the map project.

2. Map storage as SQL database layers in the SQLite database, which enables the protection of distributed map data from unauthorized use in other systems or applications. The performance of huge map layers in a SQLite database is also very fast.”

Some other universities - in addition to Wageningen University - have adopted the SynBioSys to offer their students an easy-to-use GIS. 

• For more about the Alterra Institute, refer to: http://www.alterra.wur.nl/UK/about/
• For more about the Wageningen University & Research Center, refer to:  http://www.wur.nl/NL/
• For more about TatukGIS products, refer to:  http://www.tatukgis.com