In 1995 the
USGS was in need of a Windows viewer for their data products, Mike Childs, intern at the time developed the dlgv32 application for viewing their DLG (Digital Line Graph) vector data products. Between 1995 and 1998 the dlgv32 application was expanded to include support for viewing other
USGS data products, including DRG (topographic maps) and DEM (digital elevation model) and SDTS-DLG and SDTS-DEM data products. The development process is described in detail in the
USGS paper titled 'A Programming Exercise'. In 1998 the
USGS released the source code for
dlgv32 v3.7 to the public domain. In 2001, the source code for
dlgv32 was further developed by Mike into the commercial product
dlgv32 Pro v4.0 and offered for sale via the internet. Later that same year the product was renamed to
Global Mapper and become a commercial product of the company Global Mapper Software LLC. Mike capitalized on this opportunity and acted as the salesperson, developer and tech support for almost a decade. On November 2, 2011
Blue Marble Geographics, at the annual user conference, announced they had purchased Global Mapper LLC. Mike Childs joined Blue Marble Geographics after the sale, and remains a key developer and guru of the software. ==Releases==