shrug-l: Fall Course in Open Source GIS Software now accepted by
GIS CI for credit
Gary Watry
watry at steam.coaps.fsu.edu
Wed Aug 16 11:40:00 EDT 2006
Good Morning
We are getting ready to start the Free Open Source GIS course for the
Fall of 2006 that will be taught on-line at your own pace.One of the
changes is that if you take the course and complete it you will get a
certificate of completion that will in turn be accepted by URISA and The
GIS Certificate Institute for credit for part of the educational
requirements for certification or recertification.
If interested, Please go to http://www.coaps.fsu.edu/gis/. There is a
link on the bottom to register for the course.
The course set-up is a little different in that you can choose the
monitor the course or take the course. If you take the course, you will
be e-mailed a pdf formated certificate of completion at the end of each
software package.
All the data used in the lessons will be from the National Atlas or from
files that will be available at http://www.coaps.fsu.edu/gis/
All the software will be open source and available for down-load over
the Internet.
The purpose of this course is not to teach the buttonology of a
commercial software package such as ESRI ArcGis, Autodesk Map, or
Bentley Microstation. Nor is it intended to teach you the skills needed
to get a job as a GIS Technician. The concept is to expose you to the
concepts of GIS in an affordable format. The concepts and theory for the
use of GIS is the same regardless if you are using a commercial or open
source software. The idea of this series of lectures is two fold: the
first is to expose you to the world of GIS, and second to introduce you
to several software packages that you could access to if you had a need
for a quick map or chart for a presentation or as part of a research
project.
Several of the software packages I want to explore this Fall and Spring
include
In September
We will take a look at the latest version of uDig - The User-friendly
Desktop Internet GIS (uDig) is both a GeoSpatial application and a
platform through which developers can create new, derived applications.
uDig is a core element in an Internet aware Geographic Information System
In October
SAGA - SAGA is a free geographic information system (GIS), with a
special 'Application Programming Interface' (API) for geographic data
processing. This API makes it easy to implement new algorithms. The SAGA
API supports grid data, vector data, and tables.
In November.
We will once again review MapWindow by Idaho State University as there
have been significant enhancements. The MapWindow application is a
ready-to-use spatial data viewer, and a tool that can be modified into a
new custom application. Customization is done by editing the MapWindow
Configuration File, and/or a MapWindow Project File. These are the two
files that control the look and feel of MapWindow. Both are XML-format
files that can be edited directly through notepad or an XML editor.
In December,
An enhanced new version of Quantum GIS is in the process of release.
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 Public License. Some of the major features include: 1. Support
for spatially enabled PostGIS tables 2. Support for shapefiles, ArcInfo
coverages, Mapinfo, and other formats supported by OGR 3.Raster support
for a large number of formats 4. Identify features 5. Display attribute
tables 6. Select features 7. GRASS Digitizing 8. Feature labeling
As an aside, I will also explore
Diva-GIS (a free but not open source program by Lizard Tech, inc and the
University of California)
DIVA - DIVA-GIS is a free mapping program, sometimes called geographic
information system (GIS),that can be used for many different purposes.
It is particularly useful for mapping and analyzing biodiversity data,
such as the distribution of species, or other 'point-distributions'.
With DIVA-GIS you can: 1.Make maps of the world or of a very small
place, integrating, for example, state boundaries, rivers, a satellite
image, and the locations of sites where an animal species was observed.
2. Make grid maps of the distribution of biological diversity, to
identify hot spots and areas that have complementary levels of
diversity. 3. Map and query climate data. Predict species distributions
using the BIOCLIM or DOMAIN models. Create ESRI shapefiles, import and
export grid data, and much more!
Forestry GIS (fGIS™) is a compact but robust shapefile editing program,
digitizer and GIS data query tool for Windows®. fGIS was designed for
natural resource managers who are not GIS specialists. It’s easy-to-use
and simple to install. Many power users also like fGIS because they can
run it on laptops or home computers without copyright issues, it
produces data compatible with commercial GIS programs, and fGIS is free.
Notice! As of November 7, 2005, Forestry GIS (fGIS) updates are no
longer available for public download. Although Wisconsin DNR continues
to improve fGIS, a change in the license agreement for the TatukGIS
Developer Kernel would require payment of royalties to distribute newer
versions of fGIS outside of DNR programs. A list of updates to fGIS
since the September 24, 2005 build is available, which might explain
bugs you encounter in the older version. (You can continue to use and
freely share versions of fGIS released before November 7, 2005.)
______________________________________________________________
Gary L. Watry
--
Gary L. Watry
GIS Coordinator
Center for Ocean-Atmospheric Prediction Studies
FSU / COAPS
Johnson Building, RM 215
2035 East Paul Dirac Drive
Tallahassee, Florida 32306-2840
Phone (850) 645-7457
E-Mail: watry at coaps.fsu.edu
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