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Open Source Geospatial Software Introduction

posted by Satri on Wednesday May 09, @09:40AM   Printer-friendly   Email story  Permalink  Trackback URI  Slashdotthis  Diggthis  Del.icio.us
from the learning-to-freely-fly dept.
Open Source Community Software OSGeo
GEOconnexions runs a generic column about open source geospatial software, clearly presenting the context [pdf, 224k], written by Michael P. Gerlek of the OSGeo. From the column: "Second question: what do these all have in common? MapServer, MapGuide, PostGIS, GDAL, GRASS, OpenLayers, and QGIS. [...] This column is the first of a monthly series about the power of those packages, their developers, and their users. [...] The stability of the product is often much higher, making it a firmer foundation on which to build your own applications or perform your own data analysis. The release cycle is often much faster, meaning important bug fixes or new features appear more frequently. And while there certainly are many open source projects aimed at “cloning” popular closed source products, a number of open source products use technologies and approaches that are completely new and innovative, well ahead of their closed source cousins."

Related Stories

Application Domains: Introducing Quantum Navigator and QGIS MapServer 2 comments [+]
Over the Quantum GIS blog, the easy-to-use open source desktop GIS in active development, we learn about Quantum Navigator, a new open source routing / navigation system in the works. From the announcement: "The aim of the project is to enable basic routing and navigation capabilities on a roadmap. Given a shapefile of roadmap with correct format, you'll be able to select start and end point of your route. The application will calculate you a route that will meet your needs (shortest, fastest or economic path). This route should follow all restrictions like one-way streets or turning restrictions from one road to another one." I wonder if they're aware of the open source GMap, Roadster, and RoadNav efforts? Related to QGIS, there's a QGIS MapServer project in development, described as: "QGIS mapserver is a server module for geographic maps. The content of vector and raster datasources (e.g. shapefiles, gml, postgis, wfs, geotiff ) is visualized according to the request parameters. The generated map image is sent back to the client over the internet.".
Technology: Announcing the Release of Quantum GIS Version 0.8.1 [+]
Tim Sutton writes "It is our great pleasure to announce the immediate availability of Quantum GIS (QGIS) Version 0.8.1. Quantum GIS (QGIS) is a user friendly Open Source Geographic Information System (GIS) that runs on Linux, Unix, Mac OSX, and Windows. QGIS supports vector, raster, and database formats. QGIS is licensed under the GNU General Public License. QGIS lets you browse and create map data on your computer. It supports many common spatial data formats (e.g. ESRI ShapeFile, geotiff). QGIS supports plugins to do things like display tracks from your GPS. QGIS is Open Source software and its free of cost (download here). We welcome contributions from our user community in the form of code contributions, bug fixes, bug reports, contributed documentation, advocacy and supporting other users on our mailing lists and forums. Financial contributions are also welcome. This release focusses on bug fixes and stabilisation of the 0.8 code base. QGIS is available is source form, and will be available as binary executables for Microsoft Windows, Mac OS X, and GNU/Linux. If the binary for your platform is not yet available, please check back in a day or two as our packages are still creating some packages. All versions can be obtained from our download page. As an open source project, we provide support for using QGIS via our mailing lists and bug tracker:
  • For general enquiries subscribe to our users mailing list.
  • For developer related enquiries subscribe to our separate developers list.
  • If you think you have found a bug, please report it using our bug tracker. When reporting bugs, please include some contact information in case we need help with replicating your issue.
"
Technology: GRASS GIS 6.2.2 Released [+]
markusN writes "GRASS 6.2.2 is a new stable release which fixes several bugs discovered in the 6.2.1 source code. This release is solely for stability purposes and adds no new features. The default Graphical User Interface has been further stabilised, and the LIDAR processing tools and Linear Reference System support significantly improved. GRASS 6.2.2 also includes a number of new message translations, and updates for the help pages." More on the official page.
Introductory Open Source GIS Articles [+]
The OSGeo mailing list links to a new articles on open source GIS from the GIS Development magazine, including articles on Quantum GIS and deegree. From the "Open Source Tools for GIS Professionals" article: "Open Source Software (OSS) has been maturing over the last years into robust, well-supported tools whose code base grows exponentially. Open Source GIS is no exception to this trend and it is now able to address the needs of GIS professionals worldwide. [...] Building on existing OSS operating systems, database, web services and software development technologies, today we find well-established OSS systems focused on geospatial applications. These systems range from spatially enabled databases like PostGIS, data analysis environments like GRASS, web server technologies (MapServer, GeoServer, Deegree) and client-building tools (MapBuilder, MapBender) to professional desktop GIS tools like gvSIG. Due to their emphasis on interoperability, these OSS tools have strong support for OGC standards, including web geoservices." See the open source community topic to learn more about previous stories on the subject.
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  • Who wrote it?

    (Score:1, Insightful)
    by Anonymous Voxel on Wednesday May 09, @03:35PM (#1421)
    "Michael P. Gerlek is a charter member of OSGeo, the Open Source Geospatial Foundation, and currently serves as Vice President for Promotion and Visibility. He is also the engineering manager at LizardTech, and works
    on a number of projects involving image compression, JPEG 2000, and OGC standards."

    I suggest that for anything in our industry magazines, you note the author. (It matters.)