EOWorks began as a simple didactical image processing software, including only the most basic functions for viewing and processing imagery. The software has expanded in line with increasing availability of satellite imagery and algorithms for processing.
First versions of LEOWorks were based on IDL, which limits the extent of future development. It was hence decided that version 4 shall be open source and based on Java. The main reason to rebuild LEOWorks from version 3 was to make it platform independent, avoiding recurrent high licence fees. In addition much higher flexibility and a more efficient use of the limited computing resources, typically occurring in schools (and universities), will become possible. Furthermore this rebuilding allows significant enhancement to the software, by exploiting existing material primarily from BEAM/NEST