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Getting Started with GIS?
The Plan 9 Bunny asks: "A company I work for is just getting starting to work with GIS and they want me to get it up and running. However, I don't know a damn thing about it. There's a slew of information on the Internet -- of widely varying quality. If the software is from ESRI, what would be a satisfactory starting point when it comes to laying the latticework for learning GIS? A plethora of books have been written about it, but like any subject, some are better than others. Also, I'm interested to hear about GIS horror stories: what to avoid, what NOT to purchase, etc... The ultimate goal is to have the data available on a publicly accessible webserver so clients can access it without needing the $30,000 worth of hardware and software. Can this be done with a UNIX-based solution, or are we yet again stuck in an NT world?" Those interested in GIS may wish to check out the last article we did on the subject. Considering the question, this older article on GIS mapping may also be of interest.
Getting Started with Geographic Information Systems by Keith Clarke (ISBN 0-13-294786-2). Short and skimmable for important info. It's a bit dated (1996) but will give you a quick overview of GIS terms before you move on to more specific needs (ESRI vs. Intergraph), and your local library probably has a copy. There are shortcomings to both packages, and you'll need to know something about what your people want to do with the GIS in order to select the best package. And, yes, Virginia, there is a Unix version. My employer (a university in the northeast) is a Sun house and we use ESRI's packages on a dozen SunBlade 1000s.
Give them an inch and they'll take a foot. Much more than that, you won't have a leg to stand on.
Their Spacial Database Engine (SDE) runs on many databases including Unix, but those who have had to work with it in my agency havn't had much good to say about it. It does work, but backwards compatibility doesn't seem to be a priority with ESRI and our developers have to check everything. Whenever I bring it up, even in the GIS department, there is always a groan of discontent.
ArcInfo is a windows only based product as of version 8. You can still get ArcInfo version 7.something for Solaris but last I heard they don't plan on making another Unix version. They do alot with "map objects" which is as I understand it very useful in Visual Basic and other COM based RADs but useless outside of windows.
They do have a new version of ArcIMS (Internet Mapping Server) which runs on the Struts framework from the Jakarta project. We just got version 4.0 a couple days ago but havn't opened the box yet. Hopefully it will be better than previous versions. I can say that ArcIMS 3.1 was MUCH better than ArcIMS version 3.0.
As a web developer I have been lusting over MapInfo's products but alas we already have ERSI in house and MapInfo and ESRI have never played well together.
If I wanted to deploy on a unix platform, just from what I have heard and seen thus far, I would look at MapInfo's product unless there is something you need that they can't do and ESRI can.
I too have been getting up to speed on GIS this year. I'm doing a Postgrad Dip in it at the moment. From all accounts ESRI is the defacto standard amongst most governmental bodies - councils, states, defense etc. Here in NZ ESRI is very strong - about 11 from 14 regional councils use ESRI. And yes it is windows only, the internal scripting which used to be Avenue, now uses Visual Basic. You also have objects that you can chuck in other VB applications to provide instant access to maps. This is not so bad when you consider that as a proportion of the total cost of the GIS, the hardware and software represent a small percentage of the total outlay - most of the expense comes back to data collection and management.
For a good theoretical background on GIS, Burrough et al (1998) Principles of Geographical Information Systems is proving quite good. For practical experience try ESRI's campus where a number of free and/or cheap (compared to training courses) practical courses in GIS are provided.
Hope this helps!
Cheers Gav
GIS is a vast field even if you dont throw in web access to data. narrow down your interest or hire someone to do the GIS side and you do the web access side.
web server..
MapServer - works and is mature and stable
ESRI's GIS data server is super expensive but the new version runs on Linux
PDFMap - combine this with mapserver so that your users can download maps they make
SVG - ive seen some cools things happening with SVG
MRSID - for image compression, costs for the compressor but i have built some cool stuff with thier free server.
desktop... .. if its open source and GIS its
at freegis.org but frankly there isnt allot built out yet thats simple yet modular
and will grow with GIS users as they begin to get specialized (image interp,
business siteing, habitat annalysis, etc).
ESRI has a free viewer which reads a XML file. its works ok. there is a Linux version but i havnt used it yet. all of the free (not open source) GIS viewers suck in one way or another cause the companys have some "real" version they really want you to buy (ala ESRI).
Free GIS
theres GRASS and some others but nothing close to the commercial products (unfortuantely). furthermore all of the commercial products are over priced. you have to spend 3,000$ US (single licence) to get anything at ESRI that works. If your going to manage a GIS data collection you should get ArcView but try to find a free solution for end users on the desktop. look at combining MapServer and some of the Content Management systems that are out there for developing GIS access online.
no sig today, come back tomorrow
This isn't a direct answer to your question, but the USGS has made its TIGR data set available for FREE download. This data is dated (looking at some of the places I've lived, it looks like it's about 15-20 years old now), but if you're learning how to work with GIS data it's good enough.
And did I mention it's FREE? This is a non-trivial concern - I'm pretty sure this is the dataset that Bruce Perens bought a number of years ago to turn over to OSS projects, at a cost of something like $2000. But now you can download it from their website.
If you go this way, you'll need at least 16 GB for the data. You'll also need to write your own ISO-8821 decoder. It's not too hard - it's not even hard to write tools that can read the compressed tar balls directly. But knowing what to do with that data is another matter....
For every complex problem there is an answer that is clear, simple, and wrong. -- H L Mencken
You might also want to look into PostGIS. It's a set of extensions to PostgreSQL so that the later understands shape files, etc.
Their site should also have pointers to some projects that have successfully used the software.
For every complex problem there is an answer that is clear, simple, and wrong. -- H L Mencken
This was my Ask Slashdot question, so here's the deal, just to put the kibosh on the usual round of pissing and moaning, and especially the "use Google" and "why do we have to do your work?"
One: You don't have to. There's a dozen other slashdot stories. It's a favor, and if you're not up for assisting, then don't.
Two: GIS is not some crazy fucking one-time use thing. There's a hell of a lot of people in the EXACT same place as the Plan 9 Bunny, and any collective knowledge that can be amassed in one particular forum will help the collective good. Google crawls this site like mad, and the results are usually high on its list. So it helps a lot of people by being easily searchable.
Three: Google has a shitload of information, but it is impossible to determine the validity of it. My question addressed this. Hell yes, I searched Google. Mostly, I found ESRI stuff -- the prime seller of GIS stuff. Do you think that ESRI themselves will admit to publishing a shitty book on GIS? However, maybe some slashdot reader has read the ESRI stuff and can comment on its utility and validity (or lack of), or perhaps recommend an alternate text.
Four: This is the best spot on the Internet for discovering Linux (and UN*X) alternatives to expensive, proprietary solutions. Google is scant in this respect. If a project is new, or relatively unknown, it won't be high on the Google list. GIS is exploding, so truly functional alternatives have to be new if they are to be on par with the commercial options.
Five: Here's a good place to start for your Pascal compiler project.
Six: Even at 19 replies currently, 18 if you don't count your irrational rant, at least half have been helpful and insightful. That's already well above what I found on Google -- and I trust this information. Anyone who is willing to donate their time to answer my questions is likely to Have a Clue.
This is really cool software which can either create and serve up images, or act as an interactive front end. It's open source, and very well engineered. Check it out
I saw 'GIS' and thought "Hurrah! New Geeks in Space! Woo!".
Then read the whole thing.
*sigh*
Try there. I downloaded a ton of mapfiles from that site to begin trying to figure out how to convert them into something i can use for realtime navigation in my car.
I haven't gotten very far. But there are plenty 'o maps for download.
I have downloaded a chunk of the US census' free maps from ftp.census.gov, and started playing with stuff available from www.freegis.org, but I haven't been able to get the two to work together.
How the heck do I take the free maps (in particular, the layers with roads, borders, parks, forests, water, and other useful navigation stuff) and use them for realtime navigation with something like GPSDrive?
Is there any free nav software that will use shapefiles directly?
And what about the 2000 census data? It doesn't seem to be in a format I can even determine.
Any help is greatly appreciated. If I can ever get it working, I'll write a HOWTO.