Total Open Station (TOPS for friends) is a free software program for downloading and processing data from total station devices.
This is a task which is usually done by proprietary, dedicated and Windows™-only software, but TOPS is different by nature, because:
- it is free software released under the GNU GPLv3 license;
- it works on any operating system, including mobile platforms like OpenMoko;
- it is designed to support as many devices and formats as possible, all within the same program, opposed to having one program per device.
Every model has its own quirks, but TOPS uses a modular structure and keeps the downloading of data logically separated from its processing, thus enabling exporting data to a variety of output formats, even at a later moment. Archiving of raw data is made easy by using plain text files.
:ref:`users` are a growing number, you can be the next. See which :ref:`models` are already supported.
Total Open Station 0.3 is in now available as a development preview and can be installed on all major operating systems.
Detailed instructions are available at the :ref:`installing` page.
If you are having problems with getting started, try first our :ref:`faq`. If that doesn't help, get in touch with the development team through our dedicated support channel and mailing list.
.. toctree:: :maxdepth: 1 :glob: installing running getting_sample_data models formats glossary library faq
.. toctree:: :maxdepth: 1 :glob: contributing users release roadmap
Total Open Station is mainly developed as part of the IOSA project by Stefano Costa and Luca Bianconi, archaeologists.
Total Open Station is licensed under the GNU General Public License version 3 or, at your option, any later version.
The application icons are copyright by Lapo Calamandrei 2008.