experience using FOSS4G live-dvd in teaching FOSS Geo

I was invited by PAFID a non-profit organization to provide an overview of using FOSS Geo tools. The organization provides mapping services to Indigenous Peoples in the Philippines through collaborative efforts like participatory and resource mapping as a tool for asserting IP rights to resources and ancestral domain. The participants are in-house geo-analysts coming from indigenous communities as well (note that the participants have no formal GIS “schooling” and has no experience using FOSS Geo thus far).

Previously, I was requested to install the OSGEO stack to some old windows machines but this time I have to teach it. :-S

I provided several exercise using QGIS and GRASS using the FOSS4G 2008 live-dvd (no offense to uDIG and gvSIG: don’t use, can’t teach). I didn’t used the GRASS sample dataset, because I want local sample data for my exercise. My datasets are just a small LANDSAT image and a DEM.

The exercises are as follows:

Part 1 Open GRASS and QGIS - load vector and raster layers, saving project files
Part 2 Editing GRASS vectors and rasters
Part 3 Remote sensing based-classification
Part 4 Map layout and visualization


In GRASS’ CLI terminal

The initial plan was to do everything GUI, but I had to move to GRASS terminal when we did the image classification because QGIS doesn’t have the i.smap in the GRASS toolbox plug-in. Anyway, this provided me the opportunity to show the advantages of using the command line interface. At the end of the session, I showed them that by understanding the CLI, you can actually paste every command to a text file, run a bash script, implement all the exercise including the map layout we did for 3 hours, in just several seconds!

The reaction was: “Hey, I can do more work with GRASS while drinking my beer!” Reminds me of xkcd:compiling. =D>

The overall experience was good and I believe I was able to demonstrate FOSS Geo’s power over the $2,500 ESRI stack they have (the DVDs I bought and distributed was just a little over $1!).

Some thoughts (and requests) on improving my subsequent FOSS Geo demos:
1. I can’t get the live-dvd running laptop to display to the LCD projector. I had to use another windows laptop for the presentation and GRASS/QGIS demo. Is there way to fix that in the live-dvd? Or is it the projector?
2. If the live-dvd running laptop works on the LCD projector, I can’t show my presentation slides because it has no OOO Impress (which is correct to strip down the iso size). Is it possible for future release of the live-dvd to at least add a pdf reader? This way I can convert my presentation slides to a pdf document and I won’t be needing another machine for my slide presentation.
3. It is best to use local datasets, participants can “relate” to the data better. Although my sample data are just a LANDSAT image and a DEM, I was able to demonstrate how to produce several map layers (landcover, hillshading, contours, etc).
4. Never underestimate the power of showing newbies the CLI. I usually hide the CLI when introducing FOSS Geo to noobs for fear that they might be overwhelmed with the cryptic commands with no menus and icons to click-on. This time, they were easy converts to using the CLI.

This entry was first posted and being discussed on the osgeo-discuss list and osgeo-edu.

Vacation offer: Map the Island of Boracay!

Boracay in OSM

Enthropia is making an offer nobody can refuse. They are looking for an openstreetmapper to gather information and map the whole island of Boracay. The map bounty: 25,000 Philippine Pesos.

Boracay in Openstreetmap is fairly complete, but as we say in OSM, “it’s a wiki, it’s never complete”.

Here’s a snip of the announcement.

So, we are looking to pay 25,000 pesos for someone to go and map and index all of Boracay, the entire island.
By index we mean gather information on every single point of interest (beaches, restaurants, hotels etc), get that location's GPS coords,
picture with a Digicam and map the place out in OSM.


Interested? Head-over to the OSM Philippines mailing-list or contact Enthropia (email is in the list announcement).

Dude, got a GPX fix?

UPDATE:
One prolific Philippine OSMer accepted the offer and will start updating the island in the next few weeks.

please help me map this area in OSM

For one week, I need to map an area as part of an environmental advocacy of a non-profit organization. I have been struggling with doing OSM mapping these days due to work schedule. So why not throw a plea to the crowd?

So here goes, I need help getting as much information as we can around this area:

Openstreetmap link

Basically all roads (tracks, trails, etc), waterways, landuse and other info you can add in OSM.

I will be tracking changes around this area for a week and hope to finish the map within the deadline. Thank you in advance for all your
help.

Please drop me a note here if you have been editing/contributing.

UPDATE:
After a few days of editing, I have a good basemap to start my map layout.

Now, if there is way to convert an OSM file to ESRI shapefile without the ruby gems I struggled before (nothing against ruby, it’s just I don’t grok it).