Transcript Lecture 3 QGIS - GeoTech Center

Quantum GIS (QGIS)
Kurt Menke, GISP
First of all, how do you say QGIS?
They took a poll once…
 Q-G-I-S = 42%
 Queue-Jis = 30%
 Queue-Gih-Is = 23%
 Inka-Dinka-Doo = 3%
 Qwig-Is = 2%
What Is It?
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A viewer for common vector and raster formats
An editor for common vector formats, including
shapefiles and PostGIS layers
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A front-end for GRASS data and modules
A set of libraries and bindings for application
development in C++ and Python
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An extensible platform
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Now a project under OsGeo
More about QGIS
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It's undergoing rapid development
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It has great help resources:

User manual

Listserv

Wiki
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Conferences
A Brief History
Version Milestones
July 2002 v0.0.1 - First release
 Aug 2002 v0.0.3 - Support for OGR formats
 June 2003 v0.0.11 - Plugin support
 Feb 2004 v0.1 – “Moroz” Raster support for GDAL formats
 Oct 2004 v0.5 – “Bandit” First Windows version
 Dec 2004 v0.6 – “Simon” First Mac OS X binary, vector
editing
 Nov 2005 v0.7 – “Seamus” Projection support, GRASS
integration
 Dec 2006 v0.8 – “Titan” Port to Qt4, WMS, and library
refactor
 Sep 2007 v0.9.0 – “Ganymede” Python bindings
 Jan 2009 v1.0!!! “Kore”
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Version 1.0 Features
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Several milestones had been listed for 1.0
Needed to be able to load numerous vector and raster
formats
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e.g. :Shp, mif, gml, PostGIS, Gtiff, ECW, SID, img, etc, etc.
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Act as an OGC Client for WMS & WFS
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Act as a GRASS Front end
Have Python language bindings with rich plugin
ecosystem
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Stable API and Frozen User Interface
Why So Long to 1.0?
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Seven years to get to 1.0!
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Version numbers are arbitrary
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The feature set of 1.0 was established long ago

They were working towards that feature set
At 1.0 they wanted a stable API, interface, and
user experience

A Brief History cont…
Version Milestones
 May 2009 v1.1 “Pan”
 September 1, 2009 v1.2
“ Daphnis ”
 September 20, 2009 v1.3 “ Mimas ”
 January 2010 v1.4 “ Enceladus ”
 July 29, 2010 v1.5 “Tethus”
 November 27, 2010 v1.6 “Copiapo”
 June, 2011 ??? v 1.7 “Wroclaw”
Moons of Saturn
Some Development Statistics as of 2009
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38 developers over the life of the project
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26 person years of effort
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Approximately 124K lines of code
Users Around the World
Who’s Using It?
Operating Systems
GDAL
Command line utilities
Made available via a python plugin
Adds Raster menu
Resources
QGIS Documentation Page – User Guides as PDF's
Resources
Resources
Listserv's
 User
 Developer

Community Team
 Education
 Release Team
 Etc.
 FAQ's
 Commercial Support
 Developer Support
 User Groups
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Quantum GIS
Review
Part of the C tribe
 Available for Windows, Linux & Mac
 Active Development community
 User Plugins
 Active listserv's
 Lots of new functionality
 Easy intuitive interface
 Can be used as a front end to GRASS
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