UNLABELLED: The two main functions of bioinformatics are the organization and analysis of biological data using computational resources. Geneious Basic has been designed to be an easy-to-use and flexible desktop software application framework for the organization and analysis of biological data, with a focus on molecular sequences and related data types. It integrates numerous industry-standard discovery analysis tools, with interactive visualizations to generate publication-ready images. One key contribution to researchers in the life sciences is the Geneious public application programming interface (API) that affords the ability to leverage the existing framework of the Geneious Basic software platform for virtually unlimited extension and customization. The result is an increase in the speed and quality of development of computation tools for the life sciences, due to the functionality and graphical user interface available to the developer through the public API. Geneious Basic represents an ideal platform for the bioinformatics community to leverage existing components and to integrate their own specific requirements for the discovery, analysis and visualization of biological data. AVAILABILITY AND IMPLEMENTATION: Binaries and public API freely available for download at http://www.geneious.com/basic, implemented in Java and supported on Linux, Apple OSX and MS Windows. The software is also available from the Bio-Linux package repository at http://nebc.nerc.ac.uk/news/geneiousonbl.

UNLABELLED: Genetic linkage mapping enables the study of genome organization and the association of heritable traits with regions of sequenced genomes. Comparative genetic mapping is particularly powerful as it allows translation of information between related genomes and gives an insight into genome evolution. A common tool for the storage, comparison and visualization of genetic maps is CMap. However, current visualization in CMap is limited to the comparison of adjacent aligned maps. To overcome this limitation, we have developed CMap3D, a tool to compare multiple genetic maps in three-dimensional space. CMap3D is based on a client/server model ensuring operability with current CMap data repositories. This tool can be applied to any species where genetic map information is available and enables rapid, direct comparison between multiple aligned maps. AVAILABILITY AND IMPLEMENTATION: The software is a stand-alone application written in Processing and Java. Binaries are available for Windows, OSX and Linux, and require Sun Microsystems Java Runtime Environment 1.6 or later. The software is freely available for non-commercial use from http://flora.acpfg.com.au/.