Getting Started with GIS? 46
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.
Questions (Score:1, Offtopic)
P.S. I have a pascal compiler due for school. Anyone know where I should start?
Re:Questions (Score:1)
Re:Questions (Score:1, Insightful)
I am also very aware of the irony in me posting this. I know that if I didn't want to read the comments which include you bitching then I could skip over them. That is the reason I haven't got this rant off my chest earlier. Even though I see this parallel, I am sure that some of you will point it out to me anyway. Feel free.
Just please stop complaining about why stories were posted. "This isn't news" or "Why do the Ask Slashdot questions always suck" posts are dumb. Just because something isn't interesting to you doesn't mean that it isn't to someone else, it obviously was to the editor who posted it. If you don't have anything useful to add then just refrain from pressing the reply button.
Thank you.
Re:Questions (Score:2, Interesting)
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. [google.com]
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.
A good start would be the book... (Score:2, Informative)
ESRI (Score:2, Informative)
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 [apache.org] 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 [mapinfo.com] 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.
Re:ESRI (Score:1)
Re:ESRI (Score:1)
Re:ESRI (Score:1)
did you get the linux(redhat) version?
my agency is moving towards ArcIms. I took the training (waste of time). im interested in what it will be like to install ArcIms 4.0 on Debian.
Re:ESRI (Score:1)
Re:ESRI (Score:1)
(that's fingers crossed and evidently not reading his posts before he clicks submit).
Internet GIS (Score:1)
Intergraph Blech (Score:1)
esri products blow intergraph out of the water. ArcIMS is far superior that geomedia webmap, giving you much more control over the data. webmap is more for viewing data, arcims is for manipulation and dynamic queries and such.
The Esri shapefile format is pretty much the standard.
ESRI and learning (Score:3, Informative)
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 [esri.com] where a number of free and/or cheap (compared to training courses) practical courses in GIS are provided.
Hope this helps!
Cheers Gav
Re:ESRI and learning (Score:1)
Cheers Gav
KISS (Score:2)
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 [umn.edu] - works and is mature and stable
ESRI's GIS data server [esri.com] is super expensive but the new version runs on Linux
PDFMap [freegis.org] - combine this with mapserver so that your users can download maps they make
SVG [freegis.org] - ive seen some cools things happening with SVG
MRSID [lizardtech.com] - for image compression, costs for the compressor but i have built some cool stuff [csuchico.edu]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 [esri.com] 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 [freegis.org]
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.
TIGR data is dated, but free (Score:4, Informative)
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....
Re:TIGR data is dated, but free (Score:3, Informative)
If you are looking for data (the original askslashdot doesn't mention needing any, but jic) EROS Data Center [usgs.gov] and the GIS Data Depot [geocomm.com] are my favorite spots. Oh, yes, and the data are free.
Re:TIGR data is dated, but free (Score:2)
The dataset I have is the 1:100,000 DLG data, but I don't seem to have recorded the URL of the website. But I definitely recall the data being described as "TIGR", not "TIGER."
ftp.census.gov (Score:2)
I haven't gotten very far. But there are plenty 'o maps for download.
PostGIS (Score:2)
Their site should also have pointers to some projects that have successfully used the software.
OpenMAP (Score:2, Interesting)
Free On-Line Courses from ESRI (Score:1)
"yet again stuck in an NT world" (Score:1)
GIS (Score:2)
Then read the whole thing.
*sigh*
ESRI ArcMap, ArcView opinion (Score:1)
that's my only impression of it, after taking an intro to GIS class and going through the exercises. I dont know what happened, but with a version number 8.1, it ought to be pretty damn well tested by that version, but no...
GIS software isnt something extremly complex. take some bitmaps, some vectors and some points, layer them for display, throw in some CIS101 Algorythms and voila.
Okay, second word: Inconsistent interface! not very MFC-adhering. and for godssake, the wheel mouse doesnt work! how annoying when dealing w/ LONG lists of data.
alright, last word: clueless error messages. an operation doesnt work, and you get a non-descriptive error message which gives you no clues as to why it didnt work. In one case, operations were half completing then bombing out because I still had a spreedsheet open w/ excel in the background. No error message saying "Oh this file is in use by another program, we dont like that", just "Error". other cases not in mind right now.
GIS Books and a few comments (Score:1)
My company develops GIS applications for utilities (power, water, sewer, gas, etc.) and we are an ESRI business partner, and I am a former Intergraph employee, so I won't get into who's best/worst in the business discussion.
I will say that GIS is a pretty wide open field, since very few colleges have undergraduate GIS programs and what most people need to find good jobs in the field is GIS combined with a solid Computer Science background. ArcInfo/ArcMap/SDE/ArcIMS give you the tools to "do" GIS, but they do require training and good knowledge of fundamental GIS principles. To create systems that combine GIS with day-to-day operations, you need to be able to customize these tools and/or create new applications that utilize these tools, which requires a combination of Computer Science and GIS (or a steep learning curve of on-the-job training).
If your GIS applications are strictly "in-house", you have much wider choices. ESRI has a lot of marketing and inertia behind their products, so you will find many GIS houses with an strong devotion to ESRI as a "standard" and many commercial data sources are going to be oriented toward that "standard".
Intro to GIS (Score:1)
Note that the above are for the older, 3.x version of ArcView. Information on the newer ArcView 8 can be found in book [esri.com] and online course [esri.com] formats.
I hope that helps some. What I would ask in return is that when your company gets going with GIS you help promote the use of GIS in Schools [esri.com] (book [esri.com]) by helping any local schools that are interested in getting started with this. School/Business partnerships benefit everybody, especially when it provides the schools with alternatives and additions to the standard Microsoft [microsoft.com]/Intel [intel.com] curriculum.
Using census map data for navigation? (Score:2)
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.
ArcGIS and printing (Score:1)
We originally started running our print spooler off a netware box, which had the tendency to crash every few days. Then, we tried a unix box, which still had issues with crashing. Now, we use a win2k box for printer spooling, and the print spooler crashes after about 12 hours of use. This is a major pain for people needing to export stuff to paper.
Introductory GIS Course (Score:1)
http://geography.rutgers.edu/courses/01fall/321
What's important to realize is GIS isn't some magic program, but a way of looking at a problem to find possible solutions. Any other use besides that is a waste of time and money, and you should just use maps.