Free
&
Open Source Software (FOSS):
Applications
&
Technologies
Workshop on International Standards, Contemporary Technologies and Regional Cooperation,
Noumea, New Caledonia, 04–08 February 2008
FOSS: Applications & Technologies
Summary
•
Introduction
•
Interoperability and Data Conversion
•
The Geodatabase
•
Desktop Mapping
•
Geographical Analysis
•
Web mapping
•
GPS
•
Conclusion
Workshop on International Standards, Contemporary Technologies and Regional Cooperation,
Noumea, New Caledonia, 04–08 February 2008
Free & Open Source (FOSS)
•
Applications of which you can access the source code
•
Similar functionality as commercial software
applications
•
Becoming less IT oriented and more GUI friendly
•
Provides useful information to users about the
construction of applications
•
Provide the ability to learn how to construct tailored
applications for specific uses
•
Allows for a more informed decision on what is needed
outside the free and open source environment
Workshop on International Standards, Contemporary Technologies and Regional Cooperation,
Noumea, New Caledonia, 04–08 February 2008
Interoperability
•
Defined by the The Global Spatial Data Infrastructure
Association as…
• “The capability to communicate, execute programs,
or transfer data among various functional units in a
manner that requires the user to have little or no
knowledge of the unique characteristics of those
units.”
• [ISO 19118]
Workshop on International Standards, Contemporary Technologies and Regional Cooperation,
Noumea, New Caledonia, 04–08 February 2008
Interoperability & Data Conversion
•
GDAL - Geospatial Data Abstraction Library
(www.gdal.org)
a translator library for raster geospatial data formats
that is released under an Open Source license by the
Open Source Geospatial Foundation. It comes with a
variety of useful commandline utilities for data
translation and processing of both raster and vector data
•
Cartographic Projections library
(remotesensing.org/proj)
Reprojection of rasters and vectors among different
coordinate systems and datum are managed by the PROJ
library The precision is the same as for major
commercial software, and may be increased with slight
adaptations of the existing code. It includes several
related resources as well
Workshop on International Standards, Contemporary Technologies and Regional Cooperation,
Noumea, New Caledonia, 04–08 February 2008
Interoperability & Data Conversion
•
Current Grids and Datums
(asprs.org/resources/GRIDS)
• Since September 1998, the Grids and Datums column from
each issue of PE&RS has been made available on the web
site
Workshop on International Standards, Contemporary Technologies and Regional Cooperation,
Noumea, New Caledonia, 04–08 February 2008
GDAL - Geospatial Data Abstraction Library
Workshop on International Standards, Contemporary Technologies and Regional Cooperation,
Noumea, New Caledonia, 04–08 February 2008
Cartographic Projections Library
Workshop on International Standards, Contemporary Technologies and Regional Cooperation,
Noumea, New Caledonia, 04–08 February 2008
Grids and Datums
(American Society for Photogrammetry & Remote
Sensing)
Workshop on International Standards, Contemporary Technologies and Regional Cooperation,
Noumea, New Caledonia, 04–08 February 2008
Geodatabase
•
PostGIS (postgis.refractions.net)
•
Allows the storage and management of geographical
vector data directly from within the database (thus using
standard SQL and its Open Geospatial Consortium
extensions: distance, area, buffer, overlay etc much like
ESRI's SDE or Oracle's Spatial extension)
•
Every record is associated to a specific projection, thus
in the same database data in different projections can
coexist, and they'll be correctly overlayed
Workshop on International Standards, Contemporary Technologies and Regional Cooperation,
Noumea, New Caledonia, 04–08 February 2008
Geodatabase
•
The data model is non-topological, and fully compliant to
Simple Feature specifications of OGC (SFS 1.1, SFS TF
1.1).
•
Importing and exporting ESRI shapefile data is
straightforward. Raster geodatabase are not available.
•
Users in Australia, British Columbia, Colorado, Portugal,
Virginia, Georgia, Switzerland, Florida, Chile,
Switzerland, Brazil, Sweden, Italy, Norway, New
Zealand, Germany, Sri Lanka…
•
WFP and FAO
Workshop on International Standards, Contemporary Technologies and Regional Cooperation,
Noumea, New Caledonia, 04–08 February 2008
PostGIS
Workshop on International Standards, Contemporary Technologies and Regional Cooperation,
Noumea, New Caledonia, 04–08 February 2008
Desktop Mapping
•
Historically had a significant gap compared to commercial
applications, because most GFOSS users were IT persons, more
inclined toward problem solving than to graphical appearance
•
In the last few years, thanks also to a larger user base, the
situation has vastly improved
•
QuantumGIS (http://qgis.org)
• most advanced raster vector image and data display and
manipulation
Thuban (http://thuban.intevation.org)
• strong limitations in the handling of rasters
OpenEV (http://openev.sourceforge.net)
• powerful in image analysis -not easy for the unexperienced
user
•
•
Workshop on International Standards, Contemporary Technologies and Regional Cooperation,
Noumea, New Caledonia, 04–08 February 2008
Quantum GIS
or
QGIS
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QGIS Interface
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Geographical Analysis
•
•
Short for Geographic Resources Analysis Support System
Historically known as a raster GIS, difficult to use, mainly
command-line oriented, since 2002 it has known a heavy
development; the 2D and 3D vector section, as well as the
database integration, have been completely rewritten, and it is
now available as a new (6.0) stable version.
•
Very complete, with all functions required for a professional
use, from management and analysis of geospatial data to image
analysis, from chart and maps production to spatial modelling
and 2D, 2,5D, and full 3D visualization; a complete list of the
>350 modules (many of which with several options, giving a
total of more than 600 commands
•
Can Be Accompanied with R statistical package
(http://www.r-project.org) and a flow through with QGIS
Workshop on International Standards, Contemporary Technologies and Regional Cooperation,
Noumea, New Caledonia, 04–08 February 2008
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Noumea, New Caledonia, 04–08 February 2008
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GRASS
Interface
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Map Server Applications
•
Definition: Web Map Server-A service that can produce maps
drawn into a standard image format (PNG, GIF, JPEG, etc).
(GSDI Association ) based on a standard set of input parameters
•
The first Mapserver (also called UMN Mapserver:
http://ms.gis.umn.edu) has been developed originally by the
University of Minnesota. It is OGC compliant (WMS 1.1.0, WMS 1.0.0,
WMC 1.0, WFS 1.0.0, SLD 1.0, GML 2.0, Filter 1.0.0, WMS 1.1.1)
•
Examples include pmapper (http://pmapper.sourceforge.net),
Chameleon (http://chameleon.maptools.org) and Cartoweb
(http://www.cartoweb.org)
•
With these tools, customized map server applications can be
built in a very cost-effective way
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Noumea, New Caledonia, 04–08 February 2008
http://ms.gis.umn.edu
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Noumea, New Caledonia, 04–08 February 2008
http://ms.gis.umn.edu
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p.mapper
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p.mapper
& Mapserver
http://webgrs.wur.nl/cgi/Miscellaneous/EthioAtlas
Workshop on International Standards, Contemporary Technologies and Regional Cooperation,
Noumea, New Caledonia, 04–08 February 2008
Workshop on International Standards, Contemporary Technologies and Regional Cooperation,
Noumea, New Caledonia, 04–08 February 2008
GPS (Free & Open Source)
•
Global Positioning System receivers are very useful and
widespread;
•
Many free programs are available for interacting with GPS
hardware, from single-purpose command-line downloading
programs (e.g. gpstrans: http://gpstrans.sourceforge.net) to
the more sphisticated ones, with graphical interface and
conversion tools (e.g. gpsbabel:
http://gpsbabel.sourceforge.net);
•
Some have real-time navigation application (e.g. gpsdrive:
http://www.gpsdrive.cc) or differential correction
(dgpsip:http://www.wsrcc.com/wolfgang/gps/dgps-ip.html).
Workshop on International Standards, Contemporary Technologies and Regional Cooperation,
Noumea, New Caledonia, 04–08 February 2008
GPS data integration
•
Easy integration among different tools, characteristic of
open source programs, allows larger programs like
GRASS and QGIS to – and upload points and tracks
straight from/to the devices.
•
In the case of GRASS, data are reprojected
automatically in the working projection and converted to
the GRASS vector format.
Workshop on International Standards, Contemporary Technologies and Regional Cooperation,
Noumea, New Caledonia, 04–08 February 2008
gpstrans
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GPS
Babel
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Differential GPS Correction
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FOSS: Online Resources
•Open Source Geospatial Foundation: http://www.osgeo.org
•The FreeGIS Project: http://www.freegis.org
•Map Tools & Utilities: http://maptools.org
•Open Source GIS: http://opensourcegis.org
•Remote Sensing Open Source Support:
http://remotesensing.org
•Open Source Geospatial Consortium:
http://www.opengeospatial.org/
Workshop on International Standards, Contemporary Technologies and Regional Cooperation,
Noumea, New Caledonia, 04–08 February 2008
Open Source Geospatial Foundation: http://www.osgeo.org
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The FreeGIS Project:
http://www.freegis.org
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Map Tools & Utilities:
http://maptools.org
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Noumea, New Caledonia, 04–08 February 2008
Open Source GIS:
http://opensourcegis.org
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Noumea, New Caledonia, 04–08 February 2008
Remote Sensing Open
Source Support:
http://remotesensing.org
Workshop on International Standards, Contemporary Technologies and Regional Cooperation,
Noumea, New Caledonia, 04–08 February 2008
Open Source
Geospatial
Consortium:
http://www.opengeospatial
.org/
Workshop on International Standards, Contemporary Technologies and Regional Cooperation,
Noumea, New Caledonia, 04–08 February 2008
Conclusion
•
Several products are mature and ready for professional
use, whereas others, while usable, need further
development to be really competitive (setting aside the
cost of acquisition):
•
UMN Mapserver is fully functional; it does not have
significant limitations, and in several respects it is superior
to its commercial counterparts
•
PostgreSQL+PosGIS as a relational geodatabase is a very
reliable and powerful solution, and has already replaced
commercial top-end solutions
Workshop on International Standards, Contemporary Technologies and Regional Cooperation,
Noumea, New Caledonia, 04–08 February 2008
Conclusion
•
For geographic analyses, GRASS is fully functional, stable and
very powerful. In many situations (where money is an issue:
underfunded universities and public administrations, small or
heavily competing companies, etc.) it is the best alternative to the
(unfortunately very common) illegal use of (cracked or stolen)
proprietary software. Its inherent qualities, however, allow its use
also in large and more complex settings
•
Desktop mapping (and in particular QGIS) is usable, but still young;
some more months of development will be necessary to make it
more stable and powerful
Workshop on International Standards, Contemporary Technologies and Regional Cooperation,
Noumea, New Caledonia, 04–08 February 2008
Open Source Contributions?
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Noumea, New Caledonia, 04–08 February 2008