late biased review of QGIS 1.0 “Kore” part 2

The previous post talked about my 5 favorite feature of QGIS “Kore”. This time, I appeal to the QGIS developers to add a few more features. Once again, this is from user’s POV and I believe these “little” features could make me perform better in my geo-job. :)

5 feature request

Custom key bindings – An option/plugin to customize assignment of shortcut keys to call any QGIS function. Several commands supports this feature like “Zoom to full” (“F”) and “Zoom to selection” (“Ctrl-F”). But AFAIK, you cannot assign other shortcut keys. A Python plugin would be great.

CAD-like digitizing tools – as we acquire more high-res imagery, digitizing features in ultra-detailed resolution is and will still be an enormous task. There are automated techniques, available, but it has it’s limits. We need more CAD-like tools within the digitizing toolbox (such as creating arcs/circles/regular polygons; mirror and array existing objects).

No, this isn’t QGIS but QCAD :)

Metadata generator – we were always reminded by this rule:

Never trust data without metadata.

Needless to say this is the rule I always break. A good way to get the hang of creating metadata is to integrate a metadata creator tool within QGIS. No I don’t mean the standard where most fields are blank. All we need is a simple model on the “what, where, when, who” of the data. Perhaps DClite4G is a good starting point.

Multiple map views- I was going to propose a plugin to split the main map canvass into multiple views, where we can add independent map layers and vary the zoom levels. But a prototype is already in development. Nice work Aaron!

Bring back the standalone MS Windows installer – When I introduce FOSS-Geo to people, QGIS is the first app I mention.

“Dude! Better try QGIS! Just download and install the latest version.”

The latest windows installer is bundled under the OSGeo4W installer package. The OSGeo4W installer is an excellent way to package several OSGeo apps for MS/Win users. It should make the install process of several geo-apps (QGIS, GRASS, MapServer, etc.) easier.

What packages!?

But it isn’t. Even the “Express Install” asks you to select several packages you might not need (at the moment) to install QGIS. A “not-so-easy-to-install-in-windows” gives the impression that it’s “not-so-easy-to-use”. I know there are several issues (technical and manpower) that limits the release of a single binary installer. There is a workaround, but I still believe a single binary installer is the best way to easily encourage new users.

That’s my top 5 request feature, I hope the developers can take a peak and take interest :). What’s your list? Post them here or even better, add them to the QGIS trac.

Other people’s wishlist:

• http://sites.google.com/site/eospansite/myqgiswishlist
• http://wiki.qgis.org/qgiswiki/PythonPluginIdeas

late biased review of QGIS 1.0 “Kore” part 1

So my favorite GIS app was finally in version 1.0. I have been using this app since version 0.6 and it has improved a lot both in stability and functionality. For me, QGIS is mainly for my daily GIS needs (display data, vector editing, a quick map layout). While bare bones analysis and processing (mostly raster and imagery) are in GRASS GIS.

I finally managed to install QGIS in my Ubuntu Intrepid 64-bit machine. At first, I tried the usual install process:

sudo apt-get update
sudo apt-get install qgis

However, this method doesn’t include all the QGIS python plugin goodies. I had to follow Tim’s advice to get all the required dependencies.

After a brief twirl, I have to say that the developers lived up to QGIS principles of providing an easy-to-use-yet-very-powerful GIS app. I made a couple of notes of what I like about QGIS. This post lists my top 5 favorite feature of QGIS. Well, from a fanboi/user’s (not developer’s) point-of-view.  First, here’s a screenshot of QGIS the first time I load it.

5 favorite feature

Dockable windows - when working with any GIS app, I use the pan/zoom functions the most. I usually don’t need all the toolbars and window panels. Oftentimes, it is waste of valuable screen space. Fortunately, I can remove all the unnecessary toolbars and panels and leave only those I need.

My minimal QGIS window

Python plug-ins – Plug-ins, plug-ins and more plug-ins! ArcView calls it extensions and we love the community-generated free ArcScripts. The plug-in framework is not new to QGIS (we already have C-coded plug-ins since time immemorial). Plug-ins are scripts (no compiling is necessary) that provides additional functionality to QGIS to solve a particular (i.e. “Find by attribute”) or a series of task (i.e. “Geoprocessing”). Using Python as the plug-in framework, user-contributed plug-ins remarkably increased. Here’s a compilation of community maintained plugins available.

That’s a lot of plugin!

One of my all-time favorite is CFarmer’s meta-plugin ftools.

GRASS toolbox - one of the catch-on for me when I started using QGIS is the integration of GRASS tools (actually it is just another meta-plug-in, but I think it deserve special mention in my list). The then cryptic world of GRASS modules using CLI can now be accessed via friendly GUI of QGIS. I like QGIS’ approach to making the GRASS modules simple and easy for beginners. As a rule of thumb, GRASS modules within QGIS must:

1. have 3 or less options;
2. be robust so that it doesn’t allow a user to run a module with wrong option

New GRASS modules are added with every release of QGIS, .

The power GRASS in QGIS

Mapserver and WMS layer – Mapserver is a great for publishing your map on the web but configuring your mapfile is a very painful process. Using the mapserver plugin, you can create your mapfile in minutes without even opening a text editor. Simply load all your data layers, edit your layer styles within QGIS and save the QGIS project file as a MapServer mapfile . You can then test and view the resulting WMS layer via the WMS layer plugin.   In addition, the WMS layer provides access to any public WMS available.

Create a MapServer mapfile in a GUI

Choose and load your favorite public WMS in QGIS

The community – a good software is never good enough without active community support. Among the mailing-list I subscribe, the QGIS community provides an excellent resource for many of my GIS problems.  Solutions are provided both by the developers and users. In the QGIS mailinglist, you don’t get the “RTFM” response although they have an excellent User’s Manual made no other than the community.

Got a problem? Ask the community for help.

So that’s my top 5 pick. A lot more is available, check out the detailed visual log for more. Give it a try and tell me what you like best (you will probably have a different list).

In conclusion, do I like the it? You bet! But I want more, I also made a list of what feature should be added in QGIS, that will be another post.

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.

Announcing the release of QGIS 1.0 ‘Kore’

Had to post this for my favorite everyday GIS app. Make sure you visit the visual release changelog.

 

 


Dear QGIS Users, Developers and FOSSGIS devotees,

We are extremely pleased to announce the release of QGIS 1.0 and the shiny new QGIS 1.0 User's Guide. We have also revamped our web site at http://qgis.org. 

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This release is the culmination of literally hundreds of hours of work by a team of developers, translators, documentation writers, and graphics designers.

QGIS began life in February of 2002, with the first release in June of the same year. The initial goal was to create a viewer for PostGIS data that ran on Linux. From those humble beginnings, QGIS has become a true cross-platform application that runs on all major versions of unix, Linux, as well as Mac and Windows. It supports editing and map composition as well as integration with GRASS to provide powerful GIS capability. QGIS has been translated into many languages by a dedicated internationalization team.

At 1.0 we provide a stable API from which you can develop custom solutions in Python or C++. Even though 1.0 is fresh, there are a number of exciting developments underway in both the core application and plugins. Although it took nearly 7 years to get to version 1.0, I think
you'll find that this version is the best yet. Thanks for using QGIS---you, the users, have played a large part in its success.

-- Gary Sherman, Chair, QGIS Project Steering Committee
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For more detailed release information, visit:

http://blog.qgis.org/node/123

For Gnu/Linux, Mac OS X and Microsoft Windows downloads, visit:

http://download.qgis.org

Source code and User's Guide are also available from this site.