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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

#111

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.

This is great and inspiring. Well done. Thanks!

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

#112
post #89

Earlier quoted context omitted.

+100. There is very little QGIS cannot do as well or better than ArcGIS. For any shortcomings, there are generally other specialized tools that can fill the gaps. It's really just a training issue more than technical one at this point imo.

The _one_ thing I wish would be improved is the georeferencing pipeline. The fact Arc gives you a transparent live preview of where your image will end up is 1000x better than QGISs, "save a tiff, load it, check it, do it again" approach.

You're so correct. It's an odd shortcoming in the whole suite of tools and I desperately wish it would get a refresh.

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

#113

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.

ArcGIS is a social club that issues software. How do you spot GIS people? They tell you about planning for, going to, or what went on at the ESRI conference.

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

#114

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.

What about GRASS? https://grass.osgeo.org

GRASS is integrated to QGIS https://docs.qgis.org/3.40/en/docs/user_manual/grass_integra...

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

#115
post #80

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is horrible!

It's sadly the norm for monopolistic industry-specific software. You see the same lack of due diligence in SCADA software and the like.

How is it monopolistic?

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

#116
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

Also PROJ, the quiet bit closer to the core that does projections.

The sqlite db alone that's packaged with PROJ is a pillar of knowledge that one can only marvel at. The most authoritative and wide-ranging collection of projection/datum information I'm aware of.

https://www.osgeo.org/projects/proj/

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

#117

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.

Uh, that is demonstrably not true. ArcGIS Enterprise (Portal, hosting servers, datastore, geoevent) all also run on Linux. Now where ArcGIS enterprise succeeds is being in an actual enterprise (thousands of users), having groups collaborate, data control, and more. None of the enterprise-y bits exist. And QGis is more akin to ArcGIS Pro, not Enterprise. Now, yes, it is definitely resource hungry. And also, if you adm…

> ArcGIS Enterprise (Portal, hosting servers, datastore, geoevent) all also run on Linux

This isn’t about what platform an enterprise hosts its cloud offerings on. That barely affects the customer experience, outside of lock-in situations.

The concern was on OS support for customer-run software.

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

#118
post #81

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I played with it some last year. not much has changed since I used it in a GIS class in 2007 in college.

I'd argue a lot has changed, though mostly extensions and bottlenecks in QGIS. Cant's speak much for arcgis, but it is bloated usually for me so I use it sparingly.

I was talking about ArcGIS.

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

#119
post #89

Earlier quoted context omitted.

+100. There is very little QGIS cannot do as well or better than ArcGIS. For any shortcomings, there are generally other specialized tools that can fill the gaps. It's really just a training issue more than technical one at this point imo.

The _one_ thing I wish would be improved is the georeferencing pipeline. The fact Arc gives you a transparent live preview of where your image will end up is 1000x better than QGISs, "save a tiff, load it, check it, do it again" approach.

It’s been a while since I georeferenced in qgis, but there used to be some great plugins. Looks like some of those are gone now, and the core module has improved a lot. This newer plugin looks promising, though: https://github.com/cxcandid/GeorefExtension

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

#120
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.

Been using QGIS for about 6 years now for doing manual data analysis, as well as GDAL and Spatialite in C++ for creating/saving datasets and geopandas, Shapely, pyproj, etc for automated analysis. QGIS is an odd duck. Part of the complexity of using it is the fundamental complexity of GIS software. There’s way more background info that I didn’t know (what do you mean a latitude and longitude doesn’t mean anything wit…

> what do you mean a latitude and longitude doesn’t mean anything without a bunch more info?!

Is the more info just the coordinate system like WGS84, or am I missing something else?

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