CARIS (Computer Aided Resource Information System) is a software company that develops and supports geomatics software for land and marine applications.
The company was founded in Fredericton, New Brunswick, Canada in 1979 as Universal Systems Ltd. and was a spinoff from research into data structures and computer-aided cartography at the University of New Brunswick's Department of Survey Engineering (now the Department of Geodesy and Geomatics Engineering).
In the years that followed, the company completed the development of its first commercial software product, CARIS. The company name was changed from Universal Systems Ltd. to CARIS in recognition of this first product and recognized brand.
Initially, CARIS was focused on Geographic Information Systems (GIS) and related software for terrestrial applications such as land management, municipal planning and geology.
Working closely with national hydrographic offices, these technologies have since evolved to include software for marine and hydrographic applications. Today CARIS offers a line of software products to address the needs of the entire “ping to chart workflow” for marine and hydrographic organizations and take acquired hydrographic survey data from "ping", through to final product, "chart".
Through liaisons with the International Hydrographic Organization (IHO), and with the hydrographic community, CARIS has been closely involved in the development of the S-57, S-100, and other IHO standards. CARIS has worked on various consulting and development projects, and has participated in workshops with several international committees and hydrographic offices regarding the development, implementation, production and usage of electronic chart specifications such as Electronic Navigational Chart (ENC) and Digital Nautical Chart (DNC).
CARIS is a member of the Open Geospatial Consortium (OGC) and is a proponent of interoperability between different GIS systems. It markets its own GIS server which implements OGC specifications for Web Map Service (WMS) and Web Feature Service (WFS).
In December 2007, CARIS achieved ISO 9001:2000 certification of its comprehensive quality management system.
In addition to its Canadian headquarters in Fredericton, New Brunswick, CARIS has offices in the Netherlands, United States and Australia. There are also more than 40 resellers offering sales and support of the software to more than 75 countries.
CARIS Products include:
CARIS Active ENC
CARIS Bathy DataBASE
CARIS Carta
CARIS ChartServer
CARIS Easy View
CARIS HIPS and SIPS
CARIS HPD (Hydrographic Production Database)
CARIS LOTS
CARIS Notebook
CARIS S-57 Composer
CARIS Spatial Fusion Enterprise