Free and Open Source GIS for new and professional users

Somethings just feel right. One was having a degree in Geography, followed by a zeal to continue with the subject as far as it went. Richard Hartshorne defined geography as “concerned with the description and explanation of areal differentiation of the earth's surface.” But was exceptional about my education in geography was its manual nature. Devoid of any modern GIS tools or the skills to use them. We had to draw projections, place objects, trace maps, calculate isolines, and colours and then use the basics of arts and science to complete our work. This went on every day, in every lab that we did. Little did we know that the world was using a tech that by far eased out the process of mapping. All that we had an idea of was just one professor, who was very distant, having some skills at it, and charging a reasonable amount for teaching it too. There was towards our final year a growing urge to know what it was, though. Since we had already studied, enough of climatology, geology, minerals, population and demography, urban transport, plannings, surveying, health geography, advanced climatology, geomorphology, cultural geography and you name it. One of my all time favourite yet being the nature and history of geography, though.

Having not have afforded to pay separately for a software training course on GIS. And the fact that, it was being taught over a pirated copy of that software. I had to look for my own avenues of understanding how to approach, the subject. It wasn't unless a couple of years in 2006 after my graduation that I found out about ubuntu. You could write them an email and they would graciously and generously send you a copy of their operating system on securely packaged, compact disk. This was a treasure trove, although for a starter installing it was a bit tricky but nothing goes wrong with a computer, unless you are trying to open a Pepsi can next to it, that has been delivered a second ago.

One interesting find while working with Ubuntu was grass GIS and subsequently the FOSS GIS tools. These were interesting, did not require buying expensive licenses and were regularly updated by enthusiasts, from the GIS community. They have also been a major source of inspiration to do more with the digital GIS technology for me, since whatever was not there. I had to find a way to do it there, while I must admit there is far little to add to the ecosystem as time grows by. The developer are to their best of abilities benefiting from the modular nature of free and open source software. You name it and FOSS is there to provide a solution for. From basic image processing and atmospheric correction in GRASS GIS, to complex image processing algorithms and machine learning tools in Orfeo Toolbox, or QGIS combining the overall effect of GRASS GIS, Orfeo Toolbox, SAGA GIS and Geospatial Data Abstraction Library (GDAL) and OpenGIS Simple Features Reference Implementation (OGR).

These, such as Geoserver, Mapserver, Cesium, istSOS, Mapbender, Geostyler, Generic Mapping Tools (GMT), Rasdaman and many more are a useful set of mapping related applications, that enable complex GIS assignments. These can help you store big raster arrays, run complex geo-processing and statistical operations, seamless and easy conversion of raster and vector formats, management of large spatial data and real-time processing. Keeping this in view and many of the other benefits that FOSS GIS offers, we at the Institute of Geographical Information as a part of one of our National Center for GIS and Space Application (NCGSA) project have decided to run a training series on the use and application of the OSGeo, software suite online. The training is going to be initially in the following software, to be gradually elevated to more complex tools and utilities.

1. QGIS
2. GDAL and OGR tools
3. GRASS GIS
4. PostgreSQL
5. GeoServer
6. Orfeo Toolbox
7. SAGA GIS
8. MapServer
9. Cesium

You are welcome to join us every Saturday for your weekly tutorial and assignments for the week.

Please register here. https://forms.gle/n83pfz5byeNeYgZSA

We start in January 2024.