QGIS and FOSS GIS Wishlist for 2016

Happy holidays! I am certainly thankful for QGIS this year as it showed significant improvements to its capabilities and the user experience.  Many other free and open source GIS projects also improved including a major update of GRASS GIS and gvSIG graduating from incubation. In addition, SaTScan continues to get easier to use while providing advanced spatio-temporal statistics. GeoDA has reached nearly 150,000 downloads, and LAStools continues to rock!

Thanks to QGIS and  ALL FOSS GIS Developers!

I wanted to take a moment to talk about my QGIS wishlist for 2016.  In the coming year, I hope to get more involved...I am aiming for trying to create some plugins. You can checkout the QGIS roadmap and submit requests for new features at: http://hub.qgis.org/projects/quantum-gis/roadmap.

What are your wishes for QGIS in 2016?  Feel free to leave them in comment section below!

Of course, the core QGIS developers are always hard at work, and some of these may not be scheduled for the near or future release, but it is always good to dream! These are on the advanced feature end, and although not critical, would be nice to have.

My QGIS wishlist for 2016:

• Continued commitment to cartography (definitely happening)
• Full-funding goals reached for crowdsourced QGIS plugins and projects.
• More maps in the QGIS Flickr Showcase (Do your part!)
• Continued improvements to the Print Composer
• Error-free or near-error free releases of QGIS. 
• I worry as more features are added, more bugs could creep in!
• Ability to join points to lines - visualizing data by street segments can be extremely cool!
• More spatial analysis tools integrated directly into QGIS core
• Might include linear directional mean, standard distance, or others...
• Ability to create an address locator from reference data
• Online locators have limitations (number of records that can be (batch) geocoded) and can't be used for confidential data

Some other/non-QGIS wishes

• Open routing and isochrone maps for the US (See also: http://openrouteservice.org/)
• Some new and exciting projects!  Revival of old favorites?

How to contribute
Lastly, there are many ways to contribute to QGIS: http://qgis.org/en/site/getinvolved/index.html. Also, if you use QGIS, whether for school, business, government, or non-profit, please consider a donation!  https://www.qgis.org/en/site/getinvolved/donations.html

Video: A Quick Introduction to Free and Open Source GIS

My first video has been posted to YouTube.  It briefly covers the landscape of free and open source GIS (FOSS GIS), remote sensing and processing, a few related tools, and JavaScript libraries for creating online interactive webmaps.  It does not cover every program out there but gives new and returning users a place to see all of the options available.  You can check it out here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rB_qnTE-W9c or subscribe to the channel by clicking here.

I hope to bring out more videos in the near future including delving into each of the programs and step-by-step tutorials.  So stay tuned!  As always feel free to leave comments, questions, or feedback below.  Be sure to like the video and subscribe if you would like to see more.

FOSS GIS Version Checks - March 2015

Keeping software up-to-date is extremely important. Free and open source (FOSS) GIS software are no exception.  Typically, updates bring fixes, better stability, sometimes performance improvements or security patches, and even new features, some of which can be game changers!  Keep an eye on FOSS GIS websites or subscribe to their e-mail listserves to keep up-to-date.

Here's a quick list of a few free and open source GIS programs, related software packages and libraries, and their version numbers.

Desktop GIS
GRASS GIS 7.0.0 LTS
QGIS 2.8.1 Wien LTR
OpenJump 1.8.0

Remote Sensing/Image Processing
Orfeo Toolbox 4.4
Opticks Image Processing 4.12.0

LIDAR
Fusion LIDAR 3.42
FugroViewer 2.0
LAStools (March 2015)

Spatial Analysis
GeoDA 1.6.7
GWR 4.0
SaTScan 9.4.1

Web map development
Leaflet 0.7.3 - an open source JavaScript library for mobile web maps
Open Layers 3.4
GeoServer 2.7.0

QGIS Visual Changelog makes learning about new features a breeze!

Many open source GIS programs have a roadmap, 'wiki', or version log. These exhaustive sources of information can give you the heads-up on when an update will be released and what features the new version may contain.  They also contain lists of bugs, potential fixes, and the progress toward the fix.

Lastly, updates for paid software are also important and sometimes may require you to update your license agreement, depending on when you purchased the software. Additional fees may apply.

GRASS vs. ArcGIS: Thiessen Polygons

This is the first of a few showdowns, or throwdowns if you prefer, comparing open source GIS' spatial analysis tools to ArcGIS.  This week: Thiessen polygons. You will need an ArcGIS Advanced Desktop (formerly ArcInfo) license to create these, or some patience with open source software.

See below for a comparison.  Unfortunately, QGIS produced some different/strange results.  I'm not sure why this is but I am investigating.  Haven't tried with pysal yet.  Anyway, see below.  Fyi.

Non-GIS Open Source, Worthy Companions

Do not look at the title twice!  Yes, this post is about non-GIS open source software.  However, these open-source programs make great companions to any analysis. 

For example, you may find the need for a traditional statistical software package. R Statistical Software can aid in importing, analyzing, and cleaning your data.  You can perform traditional statistical analyses.  There's even a spatial package, although you will better off sticking with open source GIS programs like GRASS or QGIS.  A good overview of its spatial package can be found here.

Want to examine social networks?  Then, Gephi's great!  I just analyzed my Facebook network in only a few minutes after following a tutorial.  In addition, Gephi has features and plugins to help you map geographic data. 
   
At some point you may also need Python.  Editing and organizing code, then give Notepad ++ a try.

A some point you will have to compress files, then 7-zip is a sure thing.  You may want to playback some videos or animations and VLC Player works great.

GIMP is a image maniupulation program similar to photoshop.  You can see an example of combining GIS with GIMP on a great GIS blog.

You will probably want to type up your results or make a few "PowerPoint" slides...so there's Open Office and the Libre Office implementation. If you need a standalone pdf creator, then there's PDF creator.

Lastly, if you ever want to venture away from Windows or other operating systems, there's Ubuntu--an easy installation of Linux.  Be sure the open-source or for-fee programs you want to run have a Linux version before making the switch.  Naturally, many open source programs have a Linux version but some do not.

GRASS GIS - In 3D

GRASS GIS is one of the oldest open source software out there, and has extensive capabilities for GIS.  It was my initial encounter with an open source GIS.  While many parts of GRASS will feel familiar, adopting to folders, workspaces, mapfiles, naming conventions, and ensuring projections are correct will help you get acclimated a lot faster.  Be sure to understand all of these and where they are located on your computer before you begin.  Other open source GIS desktop software have adopted similar convetions, so learning in GRASS will be a good investment.

Moreover, GRASS has extensive 3D capabilities --an increasingly important part of GIS. If all maps are representations of reality, then putting them into 3D certaintly goes a long way towards feeling more real.  I am not a 3D analyst, so for me GRASS is a great learning tool that also carries over occasionally to work.