Evaluation and Customization of Different Open Source Desktop GIS Software

This paper gave a general evaluation on existing three popular free and open source desktop GIS projects,according to the selected evaluation criteria.To further the understanding of the open source software,this paper also presented a customization example of QGIS with python and PyQT.     

Radiometric mapping of the Berg River estuary

Geographic Information Systems (GIS) consists of various tools to perform spatial analyses in a wide variety of disciplines, including radiometric analysis to characterize the distribution of natural radionuclide concentrations. Recently, open-source GIS has become popular among geospatial users because it can be freely used, and powerful tools are constantly developed to enhance software capabilities. Gamma-ray spectroscopy was used to measure the concentrations of these natural radionuclides by dragging a Delta Underwater Gamma System (DUGS) among the sediment in the Berg River estuary located in Velddrif, South Africa. In this study, QGIS was used to visually illustrate and interpret the distribution of natural radionuclides, that is, potassium (K⁴⁰), thorium (Th²³²), and uranium (U²³⁸). These concentrations can be used to investigate various geographical and geological phenomena, which include sediment processes. The data were then interpreted to derive sediment characteristics. Various features of tidal estuaries were demonstrated by the results.     

Meeting the Need for GIS Skills in Developing Countries: The Case of Informal Settlements

Informal settlements are a chronic issue in developing countries. Management and formalisation processes require good spatial data and analytical tools. While software such as geographic information systems (GIS) are widely available, access to good data and skilled users may be limited. In this paper we suggest that digital multimedia learning tools, accessible via the World Wide Web (WWW) may be part of the solution. We present the rationale for, and structure of, a suite of prototype learning modules for neighbourhood operations. We illustrate the use of these operations by converting shack locations into population density maps for the Imizamo Yethu settlement near Cape Town, South Africa. This prototype forms a part of a larger web site that also includes background information, data sources and software.     

Towards an Open Source Analysis Toolbox for Street Network Comparison: Indicators,Tools and Results of a Comparison of OSM and the Official Austrian Reference Graph

This article presents a novel open source toolbox for street network comparison based on the Sextante geoprocessing framework for the open source Geographic Information System Quantum GIS (QGIS). In the spirit of open science, the toolbox enables researchers worldwide to assess the quality of street networks such as OpenStreetMap (OSM) by calculating key performance indicators commonly used in street network comparison studies. Additionally, we suggest two new performance indicators for turn restriction and one‐way street comparisons specifically aimed at testing street network quality for routing. We demonstrate the use of this toolbox by comparing OSM and the official Austrian reference graph “Graph Integration Platform” (GIP) in the greater Vienna region.     

开源体系在GIS软件开发课程中的应用

商用GIS软件在GIS教学中的应用削弱了学生对原理和算法的认知和探索,有必要采用开源GIS体系进行代替。本文针对GIS软件开发系列课程的教学目标和知识点,对开源GIS软件体系进行了分类,并从许可协议、开发模式等方面提出了一套涉及GIS软件底层开发、桌面端开发、WebGIS开发和移动GIS开发的开源解决方案。通过教学实践证明,本文提出的开源解决方案能够显著提升学生的GIS软件开发技能。     

开源GIS进展及其典型应用研究

近年来,开源GIS软件取得迅猛发展,越来越多的科研机构、企业和组织开展了开源GIS软件开发和应用研究。本文首先综述了当前主流的开源G1S软件及其典型应用,讨论了开源GIS软件版权许可形式;其次,分别从模块功能、体系架构和开发使用环境等方面分析了主流开源桌面GIS软件和WebGIS的特点,并提出研发和教学方面开源GIS软件选择的建议;最后,讨论了基于GeoServer、Nasa World Wind、MapServer和SharpMap四种开源GIS软件在地图制图、3维可视化表达、网络地理信息服务和移动GIS软件等方面的典型应用实例,对开源GIS的应用和发展前景进行了展望。     

R数据统计分析语言及其在GIS中的应用

R数据统计分析软件是Linux平台下的一个优秀的数据统计软件,现在也已提供了在Windows平台下的安装版本并且具有简单的图形用户界面。它使用简单、功能强大且完全免费,因此与SPSS、SAS等较为流行的数据统计分析软件相比具有与一定的经济优势。同时,R语言的灵活性、可扩充性使得R能很容易地应用到GIS领域,在GIS空间数据分析、地统计分析以及图像处理等方面具有很好的应用前景。本文概要介绍了R语言的一些功能特点及其与GIS开源软件GRASS的集成。     

Integrating spatial data analysis functionalities in a GIS environment: Spatial Analysis using ArcGIS Engine and R (SAAR)

Spatial data analysis (SDA) tools to efficiently handle and explore spatial data have become readily available. Although these SDA tools have their own strengths and purposes, they suffer from limited support in terms of a development environment offering easy customization and high extensibility, a strength of open source software. This article presents a standalone software package for SDA in a geographic information system (GIS) environment, called Spatial Analysis using ArcGIS Engine and R (SAAR), which provides an integrated GIS and SDA environment. A set of SDA tools in SAAR utilizes functions in R using R.NET, while other tools were developed in .NET independent of R. SAAR provides an efficient working environment for both general and advanced GIS users. For general GIS users with limited programming skills, SAAR furnishes advanced SDA tools in a popular ArcGIS environment with graphical user interfaces. For advanced GIS users, SAAR offers an extensible GIS platform to help them customize and implement SDA functions with relatively little development effort. This article demonstrates some functionalities of SAAR using census data for Texas counties.     

开源GIS软件安装使用方式综述

开源GIS软件的安装使用有源代码编译,可执行文件,USBGIS,GIS CDROM/DVD,GISVM,LiveGIS等多种方式,利用开源GIS软件可以集成搭建企业级通用GIS方案平台,对比研究了多种安装使用方式,充分满足GIS教学、科研和生产的需要。     

Measuring Accessibility with GIS-Tools: A Case Study of the Wild Coast of South Africa

Although most GIS-based planning support have the capacity to show the location and attributes of different places, very few GIS-based systems are able to describe adequately the degree of spatial interaction, or the geographic accessibility, between places. The Faculty of Geographical Sciences of the Utrecht University (The Netherlands) and the South African Council for Scientific and Industrial Research (CSIR), are developing a methodology to address the problem of measuring accessibility by integrating specialised GIS software (FlowMap) that measures the geographic accessibility between locations within a spatial decision support system (AccessMap). The resulting GIS-tool is applied to the Wild Coast area in South Africa. In this region a lack of accessibility to market centres is perceived as one of the major constraints of economic development in the region.     

Mobile GIS occupancy audit of Ulana informal settlement in Ekurhuleni municipality,South Africa

ABSTRACT

Relocating people in informal settlements and upgrading the lives of those people require consistent commitment, good strategies, and supporting systems. In South Africa, in order to allocate subsidized housing to beneficiaries of an informal settlement, beneficiary administration needs to determine the number of people who qualify for subsidized houses. Without geo-spatial data-based technical verification, conventional methods of occupancy audits are often cumbersome, are unreliable, and do not promote smart and evidence-based decision making. Accordingly, the aim of this study is to propose and develop an Oracle-based mobile GIS tool to conduct an occupancy audit for Ulana, an informal settlement in Ekurhuleni Municipality in South Africa. Android-based tablets were used to collect the geographic and socio-economic attributes of the informal dwelling units (DU). Spatial analysis (in ArcGIS software and geo-spatial modeling environment) and statistical analysis were conducted to produce the occupancy audit. The results indicated that the use of mobile GIS provides up-to-date, accurate, comprehensive, and real-time data so as to facilitate the development of smart and integrated human settlements. The results of this audit also indicated that only 57% of the households residing in Ulana could potentially benefit from receiving a subsidized house. Accordingly, the occupancy audit enables planners to plan appropriate upgrading and housing development strategies for informal settlement. This study demonstrates that successful planning of housing delivery for post independent integrated neighborhoods is not a mere political rhetoric but is viable when it is based on reasonable geo-spatial techniques and information. The use of mobile GIS therefore needs to be extended to other informal settlement upgrading projects in South Africa as well as other cities in the global south. However, proper professional training is required to ensure the successful usage of smart mobile GIS tools.     

Virtual globes for UAV-based data integration: Sputnik GIS and Google Earth™ applications

The integration of local measurements and monitoring via global-scale Earth observations has become a new challenge in digital Earth science. The increasing accessibility and ease of use of virtual globes (VGs) represent primary advantages of this integration, and the digital Earth scientific community has adopted this technology as one of the main methods for disseminating the results of scientific studies. In this study, the best VG software for the dissemination and analysis of high-resolution UAV (Unmanned Aerial Vehicle) data is identified for global and continuous geographic scope support. The VGs Google Earth and Sputnik Geographic Information System (GIS) are selected and compared for this purpose. Google Earth is a free platform and one of the most widely used VGs, and one of its best features its ability to provide users with quality visual results. The proprietary software Sputnik GIS more closely approximates the analytical capacity of a traditional GIS and provides outstanding advantages, such as DEM overlapping and visualization for its dissemination.     

The Maps of Tolkien's Middle-earth by Brian Sibley and John Howe; The Lord of the Rings: Weapons and Warfare by Chris Smith; and The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King Visual Companion by Jude Fisher.

A conceptual design is presented for a lineage meta-data base system that documents data sources and geographic information system (GIS) transformations applied to derive cartographic products. Artificial intelligence techniques of semantic networks are used to organize input-output relationships between map layers, and frames are used for storing lineage attributes characterizing source, intermediate, and product layers. An example indicates that a lineage meta-data base enables GIS users to determine the fitness for use of spatial data sets.     

基于开源架构的GIS原型系统的设计与开发研究

本文阐述了基于开源架构的GIS原型系统SharpMap的设计思想,分析了SharpMap的总体架构设计,详细介绍了其软件内核、核心功能设计和实现原理,并对基于开源技术的GIS系统的开发提出了一些建议。     

跨平台开源桌面GIS软件的设计与实现

GIS软件开源可有效促进GIS软件技术的发展,这也是GIS技术发展的趋势之一。目前,国内还没有跨平台的专业桌面GIS开源软件。本文研究并实现了跨平台的开源桌面GIS软件-SuperMap iDesktop Cross,采用C++语言实现了GIS功能内核,同时基于OSGi框架,采用Java语言实现了用户界面开发。该软件具备数据管理、数据处理、三维可视化、空间分析等GIS功能,同时提供应用程序编程接口（API）,支持定制开发。这将使专业桌面GIS软件广泛应用于包括Linux在内的更广泛的操作系统,使更多的人参与到GIS软件技术的发展中来,共同推动国产GIS软件技术的发展。     

基于GeoTools的地图服务快速发布系统研究

随着互联网技术的发展,网络带宽不断提升,使用WebGIS服务可以更流畅地查看空间数据信息。目前使用的WebGIS服务软件主要是Esri公司的ArcGIS Server、超图公司的SuperMapiServer等商业软件。商业软件都有自己的格式,对数据的组织方式也有所不同,而且操作相对烦琐,使用许可费用较高,这也限制了WebGIS的发展和应用。开源GIS软件的出现,给广大开发者提供了一个新的选择。功能要求不高的系统开发,可以借助开源软件来实现。GeoTools是使用Java语言编写的开源GIS工具包,实现了常用的GIS功能。使用GeoTools可以开发出一套地图服务的快速发布和管理平台,对空间地图信息进行展示。本文通过对相关技术的讨论和对开发过程中出现的问题的分析,介绍了使用GeoTools进行地图服务快速发布系统开发的研究成果。     

Cumulative spatial impact layers: A novel multivariate spatio‐temporal analytical summarization tool

Scientific inquiry often requires analysis of multiple spatio‐temporal datasets, ranging in type and size, using complex multi‐step processes demanding an understanding of GIS theory and software. Cumulative spatial impact layers (CSIL) is a GIS‐based tool that summarizes spatio‐temporal datasets based on overlapping features and attributes. Leveraging a recursive quadtree method, and applying multiple additive frameworks, the CSIL tool allows users to analyze raster and vector datasets by calculating data, record, or attribute density. Providing an efficient and robust method for summarizing disparate, multi‐format, multi‐source geospatial data, CSIL addresses the need for a new integration approach and resulting geospatial product. The built‐in flexibility of the CSIL tool allows users to answer a range of spatially driven questions. Example applications are provided in this article to illustrate the versatility and variety of uses for this CSIL tool and method. Use cases include addressing regulatory decision‐making needs, economic modeling, and resource management. Performance reviews for each use case are also presented, demonstrating how CSIL provides a more efficient and robust approach to assess a range of multivariate spatial data for a variety of uses.     

UD-SV: Urban data services and visualization framework for sharing multidisciplinary research

With the widespread availability of a large volume of urban data, stakeholders from different domains require advanced tools to manage, visualize and understand cities and their evolution. During the last few years, researchers have proposed numerous research works and applications to illustrate the cities of the past and possible scenarios of the future under different conditions. However, many of these approaches are one-time solutions and not based on standards, making them obsolete and unusable for reproducible research. In this article, we present UD-SV: an Urban data-Services and Visualization open-source framework for multidisciplinary research to handle complex processing, analysis, and visualization of urban data. However, our goal is not to present a one-time monolithic software solution for urban data management and analysis, but we demonstrate the design and development of an open and interoperable software framework driven by use cases from diverse users to solve applied research challenges. The main contribution of UD-SV is that it uses open standards and open data with documented and reproducible processes with a particular emphasis on the reuse of existing open-source software components. We also show an enhanced use of standards to enable a shift toward components that are interchangeable or composable with other existing components in the GIS community.     

GIS软件的发展方向研究

GIS软件发展到现在已经到了一个比较成熟的阶段。开源GIS的提出,从本质上为GIS软件的新发展提供了方向。开源GIS以开放、分享的特点将会成为以后GIS软件研发的主流方向。文章概述了开源GIS的基本构架、数据类型和优势特点,同时从研发角度以及商业角度分析了开源GIS的意义。     

基于开源软件的WebGIS服务器构建

随着Internet的发展,WebGIS已经成为GIS发展的必然趋势.开源软件具有成本低、稳定性和安全性高的优点,成为许多中小型WebGIS项目的首选.本文先是介绍了WebGIS的基本原理,然后选择了需要的开源软件:开源操作系统Linux、开源应用软件Apache、MapServer、PostgreSQL/PostGIS,之后使用这些软件构建了WebGIS服务器并论述了服务器工作流程,最后介绍了开源WebGIS的一个具体应用.