Whitebox Geospatial

Innovative geospatial software

The Whitebox Platform

Whitebox consists of the WhiteboxTools Open Core, the extension product built upon this open-source core, and Whitebox Workflows
WhiteboxTools Open Core (WbTOC)	WbTOC is the foundation of the Whitebox Platform, containing over 460 open-source tools for processing and analyzing geospatial data of all kinds. It is freely available and the source code is hosted on Github. It's a true powerhouse of geospatial analysis.
Whitebox Toolset Extension (WTE)	The WTE is our premiere paid extension product for WbTOC. It contains more than 60 tools for DEM processing, LiDAR analysis, spatial hydrology, remote sensing, and much more. For example, the Whitebox machine learning tools are found in this extension product. The WTE unlocks the full potential of the Whitebox Platform.
Whitebox Workflows for Python (WbW)	WbW is a Python native extension module that enables advanced geoprocessing functionality in Python scripting. It provides a much deeper level of interaction with geospatial data than possible with WbTOC, allowing you to manipulate raster, vector, and LiDAR data objects directly from Python. Including more than 400 functions for GIS and remote sensing, WbW gives geospatial professionals next-level geoprocessing. And all this is only $10 per seat!
Whitebox Workflows for Python - Pro (WbW-Pro)	WbW-Pro comes with all the features and functions as the standard WbW product but with the additional 65+ plugin tools from our premium extension product, the Whitebox Toolset Extension. Unlock this powerful geoprocessing environment by switching to WbW-Pro. A single-user license starts at $350USD and each additional user in only $60 more.

What is Whitebox?

Whitebox is an advanced open-source geospatial data analysis platform developed at the University of Guelph‘s Geomorphometry and Hydrogeomatics Research Group (GHRG). The project began in January 2017 and quickly evolved in terms of its analytical capabilities. It now contains over 500 tools, between the WhiteboxTools Open Core and extension, for processing various types of geospatial data. It has many attractive features for a GIS software such as parallel computing, no external dependencies, embedded functionality into heterogeneous scripting environments, and serves as an analytical back-end for other GIS and remote sensing software. The Whitebox Toolset Extension provide WhiteboxTools even more power.

What can Whitebox do?

WhiteboxTools can be used to perform common geographical information systems (GIS) analysis operations, remote sensing, and image processing tasks. WhiteboxTools also contains advanced tooling for spatial hydrological analysis and LiDAR data processing. WhiteboxTools is not a cartographic or spatial data visualization package; instead it is meant to serve as an analytical back-end for other data visualization software, like QGIS and ArcGIS. For a complete listing of the available tools, see the WhiteboxTools User Manual. Also, be sure to check out the Whitebox Toolset Extension.

How is Whitebox different than QGIS/ArcGIS/Pro?

WhiteboxTools doesn’t compete with QGIS and ArcGIS/Pro but rather it extends them. This is because WhiteboxTools is a geospatial analysis platform and not a cartographic visualization package. You can plug WhiteboxTools into QGIS and ArcGIS and it will give you access to many hundreds of additional tools for analyzing all kinds of geospatial data, including DEM data, satellite imagery, LiDAR point clouds, and vector data, embedded inside your GIS environment.

There are many tools in the Whitebox platform that you simply won’t find elsewhere. For example, while ArcHydro allows you to fill topographic depressions using a single algorithm, WhiteboxTools offers you multiple depression filling algorithms, and even better, depression breaching solutions too! You can think of WhiteboxTools as a portable, cross-platform GIS analysis powerhouse, allowing you to extend the capabilities of your favourite GIS environment or to embed Whitebox capabilities into your automated scripted workflows. Oh, and it’s fast, really fast! Equivalent Whitebox tools are often far faster than those found in either QGIS or ArcGIS/Pro.

Whitebox Toolset Extension

Our extension product contains plugin tools that extend the functionality of the WhiteboxTools Open Core. The extension easily integrate into your current WhiteboxTools environment. To utilize any of our WhiteboxTools Extensions, purchase a software license, then download and install the extension. The extension has transparent pricing, with academic and multi-seat discounts. By purchasing a license, you are not only unlocking the full power of the Whitebox platform, you are also helping to support the continued development of the WhiteboxTools Open Core, and bettering open-source geospatial analysis for all.