Gothos

I’ve hit a couple of milestones this month.

I had my first peer-reviewed journal article published, Evaluating open source GIS for libraries. After my initial exploration of open source GIS that I documented on this blog over a year and a half ago, I took a systematic approach to evaluating a number of software packages for thematic mapping. This article documents the tests and results and provides the requisite background on open source software, GIS, and how both are manifest in academic libraries. Given the lengthy process of academic publishing (the whole process began in Dec 2008 with my first test and ended in March 2010 with publication), some of my observations of individual software packages have changed with the release of bug fixes, new features, and new versions. Generally, individual software packages and open source GIS as a whole have improved during this short span of time, but my primary observations and the big picture still hold.

Title: Evaluating open source GIS for libraries
Author(s): Francis P. Donnelly
Journal: Library Hi Tech
Year: 2010 Volume: 28 Issue: 1 Page: 131 – 151
ISSN: 0737-8831
DOI: 10.1108/07378831011026742
Publisher: Emerald Group Publishing Limited

I’ve previously mentioned Steiniger and Bocher’s excellent article, An overview on current free open source desktop GIS developments in the International Journal of Geographic Information Science, which Steiniger has posted on his website. I recently discovered he’s written a second article with Hay entitled Free and Open Source Geographic Information Tools for Landscape Ecology in Ecological Informatics, which is also available there. The second article provides an in-depth look and great summary tables of landscape analysis applications for eight different open source GIS apps, focusing on advanced tools for researchers. In contrast, my article focuses on basic mapping capabilities for novice to intermediate users.

The other milestone is this blog – I just noticed that we’ve passed the two year mark. While there have only been a few public comments here and there, I have received a number of emails over the years with questions and comments and the number of visitors to the site has grown consistently from month to month. I’m glad that it’s been useful to so many people; it’s certainly been useful to me (as an extension to my feeble brain) and I’ll endeavor to keep it going. Thanks to everyone for your comments and feedback. Best – frank

I recently went through my pages of suggested links for data and resources to update and clean them up. I’ve included many of the cool resources I’ve discovered since I started writing this blog, which ended up in individual posts but not in these pages. I went over the resources page in particular, to try and classify the reference materials, tools, and software into useful categories rather than just having one large blob of stuff.

I’ve been on an open source GIS tear this month, so in this post I’ll wrap up some odds and ends:

• There is a project called Sextante, which is essentially an open source ArcToolbox for gvSIG. It adds a lot of geoprocessing and analysis functions and is pretty easy to install. There are 200 + tools in the box, but for some reason not all of them are active. I’m not sure why this is the case, but haven’t poked around much to find out.

• There are also a number of extra plugins for QGIS that are available through the QGIS wiki under PluginRepository; they include plugins that add more symbolization and that make table joins possible. Haven’t had a chance to try this yet either, but it sounds like these extras could make QGIS a lot more viable as a thematic mapping option.

• I found out about the QGIS plugins from this article, which offers a good overview of QGIS. The article also discusses one of the other shortcomings of open source GIS – the lack of a support for a simple, desktop geodatabase similar to the Microsoft Access personal geodatabases. PostGIS is certainly powerful and there has been a lot written about it, but a server based geodatabase is not always the best solution, particularly for small, stand-alone projects. There is a cool project called Spatiallite, where someone has created geographically enabled SQLite databases (which are small, stand alone dbs). You can export shapefiles to them, or simply view and edit the attributes in a shapefile via a virtual connection. Based on what I’ve looked at thus far, you can access SQlite databases directly in GRASS and when using GRASS datasets via QGIS, but I haven’t been able to connect to a SQlite db with the other software I’ve looked at – it’s just not supported yet.

• In researching open source GIS, I’ve looked at a book specifically on GRASS, Open Source GIS: A Grass Approach, as well as two books on web mapping (GIS for Web Developers: Adding ‘Where’ to Your Web Applications and Web Mapping Illustrated: Using Open Source GIS Toolkits)which cover GDAL and OGR, QGIS, GIS servers, PostGIS and PostgreSQL, and a few other tools. There is a book that’s recently been published that focusses specifically on Open Source Desktop GIS – Desktop GIS: Mapping the Planet with Open Source Tools. I pre-ordered a copy on Amazon that was supposed to ship in Mid September, but is now being delayed until late October. Based on the table of contents it looks pretty thorough and covers many of the choices I listed in my previous post, and I’m looking forward to its arrival.

Last week I shared my adventures evaluating open source software. Why bother looking at alternatives to ArcGIS? There are significant barriers of entry to ArcGIS. Whenever I give an introductory GIS presentation to anyone, I inevitably have to answer the question of “How can I get access to this software?” Inevitably, the answer is you have to spend a lot of money, or if your institution already has a subscription, you need to go through a lengthy process to get access.

• Price. A single, stand-alone copy of ArcView costs $1500. Not only is that prohibitively expensive for me, it’s impossible for students. Which means that students who are taking a GIS class have to use the software in a computer lab on campus to complete assignments. This is not always convenient for many students, and is particularly problematic where I work since we are primarily a commuter campus.

• License limitations. If you’re running Arc through a central license server, PCs have to be connected to the server through a hardwired connection – no wireless. Our library has a laptop checkout program for students which would give students an alternative to using a computer lab. But not being able to install the software on a laptop eliminates this possibility. It also makes it a pain for me to give presentations, as I always have to make sure that the room I’ll be presenting in has the software. My short term solution is to use an eval copy on a laptop. You can purchases USB keys that have the license info on them, but if you work in a large, complex academic or government setting, getting one can be a challenge. And every year we have to go through the process of getting the license renewed.

• Installation and Bugs. As Arc users know, installation can be time consuming, particularly since you can’t have two versions of Arc installed concurrently – you have to uninstall one before installing the new one. And how many service packs have been issued for version 9.2? Six. IT people love it when they have to install fixes in a dozen labs / classrooms in the middle of a semester, particularly when they have to do it 5 or 6 times a year. In reality, we skip several service packs and live with the bugs.

• Forced Obsolescence. This is particularly aggravating. Every year or two, we all have to go through the ritual of making an upgrade, which involves time consuming un-installation and installation. And you need to make sure that different branches of your organization that use GIS are on the same page, otherwise you’ll run into incompatibility issues (like when mxd files created in version  9.2 don’t work in 9.1).

• Cross platform. I run a linux box at home and occasionally would like to take my work with me. There are a number of students and faculty members at my school who are ardent Mac users. But ArcGIS runs only on Windows.

The open source alternatives are free, easy to install (usually), can be installed anywhere without restrictions, the software doesn’t expire, and upgrades are a rather simple affair. The obvious downside is that none of them have the power, scope, or usability that ArcGIS has. At least, not yet.