The goal of uDig is to provide a complete Java solution for desktop GIS data access, editing, and viewing. uDig aims to be:
User friendly, providing a familiar graphical environment for GIS users;
Desktop located, running as a thick client, natively on Windows, Mac OS/X and Linux;
Internet oriented, consuming standard (WMS, WFS, WCS) and de facto (GeoRSS, KML, tiles) geospatial web services; and,
GIS ready, providing the framework on which complex analytical capabilities can be built, and gradually subsuming those capabilities into the main application.