Geodyssey Limited

Welcome to our ROUND world!

First, be assured that this site is 100% browser neutral, using NO browser scripting or any type of active content. Also, be assured that none of the downloadable Windows demo offerings cause or require formal Windows installation or registration.

Geodyssey is the developer of Hipparchus®, GalileoTM and GeoramaTM.

Bulletin: Exclusive rights to the Hipparchus Libraries have been sold to Microsoft Corporation. They are no longer available from Geodyssey. For further information about Hipparchus Library products, please direct enquiries to Microsoft at Ed.Katibah@microsoft.com. We have retained the registered trademark Hipparchus®. We continue to offer the two demo suites, Galileo and Georama, for free download. We are maintaining this website for reference purposes only. Consequently, some pages have been modified or removed.

Hipparchus, (the ancient Greek), invented latitudes and longitudes and was the first to measure distances in terms of angles.

Hipparchus, (our product), was an "open" GIS toolkit that enabled software developers to incorporate geography into their applications. And yes, we too measured distances with angles, but not using the familiar latitudes and longitudes. Instead, we work with direction cosines. And from that true "paradigm shift" flows an unexpected mathematical power and significant performance gain.

Use of the Hipparchus Library of C language functions has permitted the C/C++ language developer to deal with the "where" of things, without requiring proprietary database management systems (DBMS's) or specific graphical user interfaces (GUI's).

Firmly grounded in the science of geodesy, Hipparchus combines the speed and precision of 3D ellipsoidal vector algebra with a novel spatial indexing scheme to provide seamless and lightning-fast geographic functionality.

Here's an Overview of Hipparchus

Interested in sampling the full power of Hipparchus? View the extensive Galileo for Windows Guide. Then check out and download our free offering, Galileo for Windows GIS Programmer's Workbench.

Want to see an extensible, GPS-ready, end-user Atlas reader built on Hipparchus? Then download our free Georama Sampler for Windows, which is a full-featured Atlas that focuses on New Zealand. It has been extracted from our CD-ROM-based Georama for Windows Digital Atlas of the World. View its extensive Georama for Windows Guide. Next check out our free Georama (New Zealand) download instructions.

Curious about the academic interest in spatial indexing for global geographic data? Then have a look at the program and proceedings of a comparatively recent UCSB National Center for Geographic Information and Analysis International Conference on Discrete Global Grids. In particular, see the two contributions of our Chief Scientist, Hrvoje Lukatela.

Interested in protecting your geographic data? Read about our recently updated downloadable public-domain cryptographic offerings. They are exceptionally well suited to the protection of geographic data.


Hipparchus has been in general use for more than eighteen years. More than 200 customer/developers in 27 countries have been using Hipparchus to address the geographic aspect of their applications.


About Geodyssey

Geodyssey is a private Alberta, Canada corporation funded exclusively through the investment of its principals and the revenues from its technology sales. Geodyssey was founded in 1992 by Hrvoje Lukatela and John Russell, experienced survey engineering and computer systems technology managers, respectively. In 1993, they were joined by Ron Gilmore, also an experienced technology manager.

It should be noted that Geodyssey developed the Hipparchus Technology and brought it to market without the financial support of any government or academic agency.

Here's some background on our principals:

For more information about Geodyssey, write, e-mail, or call:

Geodyssey Limited,
c/o John or Dorothy Russell
2725 Signal Hill Bay SW,
Calgary, Alberta, T3H 2L5, CANADA
Tel 1-403-243-1437,
E-mail: info@geodyssey.com

Hipparchus® is a registered trademark of Geodyssey Limited.
© Copyright 1992-2011 by Geodyssey Limited. All rights reserved.
Last revised 2011/08/27.