Wednesday, October 9, 2013

Quantum GIS 2.0 Dufour Released

This entry is out-of-date.  Please read: http://opensourcegisblog.blogspot.com/2014/07/qgis-24-chugiak-released.html

Quantum GIS or QGIS 2.0 has been released!  Be sure to check it out on the newly redesigned QGIS website: http://www.qgis.org/en/site/.
New Sleek Looking QGIS Website

The user interface has undergone some improvements aesthetically and functionally.  Several of the plugins appear to be working better--including the heat map add-on--for getting your spatial analysis started. The user can even choose the type of kernel function.  Symbolizing layers also has improved and appears to be easier.

A Heat/Density Map of Healthy Food Stores in Philadelphia
 For a full list of the new features, go here: http://www.qgis.org/en/docs/user_manual/preamble/whats_new.html

If you have not used QGIS before, be sure to check out the user's section: http://www.qgis.org/en/site/forusers/index.html

Lastly a new e-book and book in print has been published by a top QGIS blogger.  Be sure to check it out, even if you have some experience using QGIS before! http://www.packtpub.com/learning-qgis-2-0-to-create-maps-and-perform-geoprocessing-tasks/book

Trivia: Previous releases of QGIS have been named after places.  However, this release is named after a famous cartographer: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Guillaume-Henri_Dufour

Open data combined with open source GIS is an extremely powerful and versatile platform!