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QGIS is a free, open-source, cross platform geographical information system

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Re: QGIS is a free, open-source, cross platform geographical information system

#61

Post by SparkyMcUnicorn »

michaelhoney wrote: post #58

I work with QGIS, but until recently I’ve only skated over the surface. In the last year or so I’ve found LLMs increasingly useful as a companion to help me code automation scripts or just to ask “how can I do this?” questions. QGIS is deep and powerful but that power can be hard to access. LLMs make it a lot easier.

A couple months ago I needed some info about a home/property. The county publishes a zip file of "geo data", and after downloading it I asked Claude Code how I can work with the files. It recommended QGIS, but I was lost when I opened it and searched GitHub to find this MCP server[0].

20 minutes later it had every piece of data I could possibly want placed onto the parcel on the map. It felt magical.

[0] https://github.com/jjsantos01/qgis_mcp/

Re: QGIS is a free, open-source, cross platform geographical information system

#62

Post by Qem »

Tarq0n wrote: post #52
boxerab wrote: post #19

QGIS is fantastic - it's the only OSS viewer I know of that can consistently and efficiently display multi-GB TIFF images without crashing. It has been a long journey - 20 years to capture ~8% of the geospatial market. ESRI still rules the enterprise, with 40-50% of the market share. More generally, there are so many excellent open source geospatial projects like Geoserver, GDAL, Geonode, Map GL Libre, kepler.gl, Mar…

I do all my GIS work in R, and prefer it to a GUI first approach to be honest.

What R modules do you use for that?

Re: QGIS is a free, open-source, cross platform geographical information system

#63

Post by bobosola »

Fabulous software. I used it to create LIDAR map tiles from free UK government LIDAR data of my local area (Hampshire, UK) at https://solentmaps.uk. When used as a layer placed under standard map tiles, you can see all sorts of long-hidden historical artefacts under modern deep foliage. The ruins of a long-forgotten WW1 hospital near me can be clearly seen under the modern day trees. Fun stuff to play with.

Re: QGIS is a free, open-source, cross platform geographical information system

#64

Post by kevinkoning »

I can't help but pile on here. I have had a corporate license of ArcGIS but have used QGIS instead because it simply worked better to process the data I had. ESRI and ArcGIS have a long history of reporting errors with absolutely no helpful information. I swear half the errors are something like "Error 999999: Error executing function." Good luck debugging!!

Re: QGIS is a free, open-source, cross platform geographical information system

#65

Post by n8cpdx »

dvdkon wrote: post #56
n8cpdx wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

LibreOffice vs Office 365/Google Drive is probably the more relevant comparison. I won’t comment on market share, but even if theoretically QGIS totally displaced ArcGIS Pro/ArcMap/ArcGIS on the desktop, the arena of competition has shifted to ArcGIS Online and its competitors. And once you’re in ArcGIS Online, Pro becomes the convenient choice for desktop editing. LibreOffice could be miles better than Office on des…

I don't think the comparison is quite apt, because while LibreOffice has no support for collaborative workflows (short of error-prone shared drives), QGIS can connect to quite a few geospatial databases, with third parties offering plugins for their own cloud platforms. It would be nice to have better support for browser-based sharing and editing, but the desktop-based parts are there already.

That’s an important point. The collaboration model is more complex in GIS because it’s not just documents (maps and map projects) but the underlying data is coming from databases that are independently editable.

The comparison still works in some ways though, because ArcGIS is selling you both the software (ArcGIS Pro, Map Viewer, Field Maps, etc) and the backing services (hosted feature services, basemaps, locators, etc), similar to how Office is selling you data hosting, sharing, and mobile + web app integration.

You can accomplish the same things with QGIS, GeoServer, QField, etc, but then you’re in the position of building a GIS from parts. Whereas with ArcGIS, setting up a new map and database (feature service) for data collection is a point-click workflow.

Of course you pay a premium for that level of integration.

Re: QGIS is a free, open-source, cross platform geographical information system

#66

Post by stevage »

QGIS is a very useful tool that I often rely on for quick exploration of datasets in my work. But dear god the UI is in desperate need of a huge overhaul by someone who knows what they are doing.

Massed rows of toolbars with tiny icons, lots of unintuitive behaviour, and a few weird quirks.

It's a very powerful tool, but so much of its utility is completely inaccessible without tutorials and videos to explain it.

Re: QGIS is a free, open-source, cross platform geographical information system

#67

Post by stevage »

motorest wrote: post #27
dbacar wrote: post #18

When you mention QGIS, you should also mention GDAL, JTS, udig, geoserver, open stree maps, open scene graph, FWtools etc. Open source GIS has awesome list of projects and people, QGIS being only one of them. It really fascinates me.

> When you mention QGIS, you should also mention GDAL (...) GDAL should be front and center. It's the xkcd 2347 of earth observation and geographical information systems

Yeah out of these GDAL is the one I use the most because it's easy to script. I honestly find it easier to use GDAL on the command line than the QGIS GUI which says a lot about the latter.

Re: QGIS is a free, open-source, cross platform geographical information system

#68

Post by ecommerceguy »

atoav wrote: post #38
rthnbgrredf wrote: post #31

If you are in an enterprise setting and you currently evaluate ArcGIS vs QGIS, pick QGIS and thank me later. ArcGIS Enterprise is a piece of software that feels straight out of the 90s and has no native linux binary (can be started with wine). It is expensive as hell and resource hungry.

My brother is a GIS expert and does this for a living. At his workplace (trans-european electrical project) they use ArcGIS and privately he uses QGIS. He said he'd pick QGIS over ArcGIS every single day. ArcGIS is very polished, but everything costs extra. QGIS has less polish but is supremely hackable and there are plugins for nearly everything. Having used QGIS as a non-expert to extract mountain heightmaps from a…

I come from the ArcView 3 / ArcInfo days. I still maintain a non professional home license which is nice, however they killed off ArcMap for non-enterprise and I just cant for the life of me get into Arc Pro or QGis. Old dog, no new tricks for me I guess.

Re: QGIS is a free, open-source, cross platform geographical information system

#69

Post by stevage »

michaelhoney wrote: post #58

I work with QGIS, but until recently I’ve only skated over the surface. In the last year or so I’ve found LLMs increasingly useful as a companion to help me code automation scripts or just to ask “how can I do this?” questions. QGIS is deep and powerful but that power can be hard to access. LLMs make it a lot easier.

Yeah I've started doing the same thing with ChatGPT. You know that it's already read all the manuals and tutorials...

Re: QGIS is a free, open-source, cross platform geographical information system

#70

Post by berryg »

stevage wrote: post #66

QGIS is a very useful tool that I often rely on for quick exploration of datasets in my work. But dear god the UI is in desperate need of a huge overhaul by someone who knows what they are doing. Massed rows of toolbars with tiny icons, lots of unintuitive behaviour, and a few weird quirks. It's a very powerful tool, but so much of its utility is completely inaccessible without tutorials and videos to explain it.

Used QGis for the first time a couple of weeks ago. Could only used it with the help of ChatGPT. But, I got what I wanted in a reasonable amount of time.
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