In addition to these desktop tools, there are numerous tools beyond the desktop that GIS users can take advantage of. Desktop mapmaking only scratches the surface of what GIS can deliver. Just like any other industry, there's a big difference in the scale and scope of work done on the desktop when compared to the tools used to create interactive platforms with huge numbers of users, or processing performed on gigantic data sets. For a very in-depth look at a wide range of tools, check out this spreadsheet which provides details about feature support across a gamut of different open source desktop GIS tools. One that I've heard a good bit about but never personally used is gvSIG Desktop, a GPL-licensed tool for Windows, Mac, and Linux with several features around map creation, data queries, and geoprocessing, which supports a variety of different data formats. There are, of course, other open source tools that desktop GIS enthusiasts will want to explore. You can find the source code to QGIS, which is written primarily in C++, on GitHub under a GPLv2 license. If you're an experienced ArcGIS user and want to understand more about how QGIS is similar to and differs from that platform, this article will take you through 27 different comparisons. There are also a huge number of plugins that add a ton of functionality not found in the base package, and its Python interface makes it relatively easy for newcomers to create new ones. QGIS has great documentation which can be found in its user manual, as well as an active user community which has produced numerous tutorials, guides, and even books to help you succeed. In addition to Linux, downloads and instructions for macOS, Windows, BSD, and Android can be found on the project's website. QGIS supports a wide variety of raster and vector formats, and if you're a Linux user, there's a good chance that it's already packaged for your distribution's default repositories. It has a clean interface, it's easy to use, and it just works. You can find its source code in this Subversion repository under a GPL license.įor many people, discovering QGIS is the end of their search for an ArcGIS alternative. GRASS is written primarily in C/C++, although many of its modules are written in Python or other languages. GRASS is definitely the winner when it comes to data analysis and geoprocessing, and its tools can be used from external applications, making it an extremely extensible tool which is worth learning even if you don't take it on as your primary desktop GIS system. The second reason I like the interface is that it exposes the wide and powerful array of data manipulation tools directly. One, since it really is just a GUI abstraction to the underlying Python commands, advanced users can easily manipulate data and display directly from the Python console, for speed, preciseness, and importantly for academic applications, easy replicability. While the interface may not feel as intuitive to newcomers as some other GIS applications, I like it for two reasons. If the GUI feels like it was later tacked on to a powerful program working under the hood, well, that's probably what actually happened. I mention this history because it will help you to understand the interface, which launches with a terminal window and asks you a few questions about setting up your project before launching a separate control and display window for working with your data. In the time since, GRASS has been adopted by the academic community, where its development continues today. It has a very long history, dating back to original development which began in 1982 under the US government. GRASS, which stands for Geographic Resources Analysis Support System). Let's take a look at some of the options. While their flagship product is closed source, I would be remiss not to note that Esri has made numerous contributions to the open source community.įortunately, GIS users have a few choices for using open source tools to design maps and work with spatial data that can be obtained under free and open source licenses and which run on a variety of different non-Windows operating systems. Linux and Mac users are out of luck unless they want to run ArcGIS in a virtualized environment, and even then, they're still using a closed source product that can be very expensive to license. ArcGIS is an incredibly powerful tool, but unfortunately, it's a proprietary product that is designed for Windows. If you've ever worked with geographic data on the desktop, chances are that you used Esri's ArcGIS application in at least part of your work. Much more than just making pretty maps and helping us get from point A to point B, GIS technologies are what allow us to plan our cities, route the infrastructure that enables everything we do, preserve our natural resources, save lives in times of disaster, and so much more.
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