Showing posts with label Open Source GIS. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Open Source GIS. Show all posts

Tuesday, November 12, 2013

New Zealand Ranks 4th in Global Open Data - Report

Monday, 11 November 2013, 3:00 pm
Press Release: New Zealand Government

Hon Bill English
Minister of Finance

Hon Chris Tremain
Minister for Internal Affairs

Hon Maurice Williamson
Minister for Land Information

11 November 2013

NZ ranked 4th in Global Open Data

New Zealand has been ranked 4th in the 2013 Global Open Data Barometer, released in London by the World Wide Web Foundation and Open Data Institute.

“This is a real coup for New Zealand. The Barometer is the first survey of global trends which ranks 77 countries on how they release their public data and the benefits those initiatives have for citizens and the economy,” says Mr English.

“This is proof we are lifting the performance of the public sector through transparency and shared information. New Zealand was commended for its Declaration on Open and Transparent Government, its release of open data, in particular, maps, land ownership and census data and for regular reporting to Ministers.”

“The open government data work aligns with the Government’s better public service targets that New Zealand businesses have a one-stop online shop for all government support and can complete their transactions with the Government easily in a digital environment,” says Mr Tremain.

“The Government Chief Information Officer (GCIO) is leading this work through the ICT Strategy and Action Plan which was launched in June last year.”

Land Information New Zealand (LINZ) is a lead agency in terms of making public data available for reuse, innovation and enterprise.

“A great example of this is the internationally-acclaimed LINZ Data Service (LDS), which has set the benchmark for the release of public data and is a testament to the value of the Government’s open data programme and geospatial strategy,” says Mr Williamson.

“The Government is committed to meeting the changing needs of New Zealanders through digital technologies. However this does not mean all data is open and freely available. The key focus will remain on maintaining privacy and security for restricted information.”

For further information go to: http://www.opendataresearch.org/dl/odb2013/Open-Data-Barometer-2013-Global-Report.pdf

Sunday, May 26, 2013

Mapmeter Public Beta Tool Launches

Mapmeter, a full administration and management tool for analyzing GeoServer systems, has been launched.

Mapmeter enables organizations to monitor the health of production deployments, optimize applications during development and diagnose critical issues. With these details, administrators and managers alike can better—and more cost effectively—make decisions about their geospatial deployments.

Mapmeter sits on top of GeoServer—within the OpenGeo Suite or standalone. As a complete web-mapping solution, the Suite enables organizations to easily install, effectively operate and optimally manage spatial assets.

The Suite is commercial open source software, offering customers the best of open source (greater access and control, scalability, customization and more) with the assurance of standards compliance, expert support and advanced capabilities guaranteed by OpenGeo. With Mapmeter, spatial monitoring and reporting become one piece in a complete IT workflow.

Mapmeter was launched Friday, May 24, 2013, at Sponsor Day at FOSS4G-NA 2013.

Information is available at http://mapmeter.com for those interested in learning more about Mapmeter’s exciting new features, connecting with the development team and joining the beta program. Organizations can then leverage the power of server analytics for spatial deployments with a tool that adds monitoring, discovery and analytics power (and transparency) to its production needs.

Wednesday, June 06, 2012

Open Source GIS Conference This June 2012

Join the Open Source GIS conference happening in The Netherlands from June 25 until 28 June 2012.

This conference is organized by the MapWindow GIS, DotSpatial, SharpMap and OSGeo.nl communities in partnership with Alumni association VVA-Larenstein. The purpose of the 4-day conference is to highlight significant aspects of Open Source GIS. The conference will appeal to developers, users, students and educators.

If you are interested, you can still register. The cost structure for this conference is kept low due to volunteerism and donations of time and resources from partners. For just €250 you have free access to all presentations, meetings and workshops of this 4-day conference.

More info about the conference can be found here.

Open Source GIS Conference Live Stream
For those of you unable to attend the conference, a professional recording company will live stream all of the 36 presentations over the 4 days. If you're keen to attend, but cannot do so, this is the perfect opportunity to be involved. For £10 or more you'll get the link to the live stream. After the conference the recordings will be placed on YouTube for everybody to watch. Read this for more info of the online streaming.

Saturday, May 19, 2012

WorldMap Open Source Software - Publish Your Map To The World

The Center for Geographic Analysis at Harvard University developed a free software called WorldMap that everyone around the world could use to explore, visualize, edit, collaborate with, and publish geospatial information.

WorldMap provides researchers with the ability to:

- Upload large datasets and overlay them up with thousands of other layers
- Create and edit maps and link map features to rich media content
- Share edit or view access with small or large groups
- Export data to standard formats
- Make use of powerful online cartographic tools
- Georeference paper maps online (http://warp.worldmap.harvard.edu)
- Publish one’s data to the world or to just a few collaborators

The WorldMap platform is Open Source software (here is the open source code) which means the source code which makes it work can be examined, improved upon, and extended by researchers and developers around the world. Because it is open source, new functionality can often be added rapidly at relatively low cost.

Build your own mapping portal and publish it to the world.

Getting started video:

Monday, March 22, 2010

MapWindow GIS Software - Open Source GIS Software

Geographic Information System (GIS) software MapWindow GIS developed by faculty and graduate students in the Idaho State University geosciences department and from Utah State University is proving to be an international hit, according to the press release. It has been downloaded more than 260,000 times from users throughout the world and has 9,000 registered users.

This free, open-source software is so popular that the ISU geosciences department will host the 1st International MapWindow GIS Users and Developers Conference March 31-April 2 at Disney World in Orlando, Fla. At least 60 users and developers from around the world are expected to attend the conference. Attendees include representatives from the Environmental Protection Agency, National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration and several private companies and universities.

“It’s been great to see the growing interest in this software,” said Dan Ames, ISU associate professor of geosciences who leads a team of programmers working on MapWindow GIS. “MapWindow is unique in that it provides software developers tools that they can use to build their own map-enabled software, and they can do this free of charge since the tools are all open source.”

Ames, with the help of several master’s degree and doctoral students in the ISU Geospatial Software Lab at the Center for Advanced Energy Studies at University Place in Idaho Falls, developed the software that joins the multibillion-dollar worldwide GIS industry. MapWindow is used to view and analyze computerized map data. The software can be used to make maps of environmental, political, social, economic, or any other spatial data and has a set of add-ons specifically for water resources and hydrologic analysis.

The project started under funding from the Idaho National Laboratory at Utah State University in the late 1990s, then was taken over by ISU 2004. The product was first made available as free, open-source software in late 2004, and 10,000 copies of it were downloaded by July 2006. The products popularity has grown exponentially since then.

Commercial GIS software capable of this type of data analysis has been available since the 1980s. However, the commercial software is typically expensive for the average user, costing as much as $5,000 – $15,000 for a single license. The ISU MapWindow GIS tool is unique as a free “open source” software package. This means that, like the popular open-source Linux operating system, MapWindow GIS is available for no charge, and users are free to manipulate or change the source code to improve it or modify it as needed. The software is also unique in the world of GIS as it is the only fully Microsoft Windows-based, open-source GIS software available for use on personal computers.

The creation of the successful special mapping software is a surprise byproduct of the offering of ISU’s new master’s degree program in Geographic Information Science that was begun in 2004 and is offered in Pocatello, Boise and Idaho Falls. Graduate students in the new program worked on creating the MapWindow GIS software as part of earning their masters degrees.

More information about MapWindow GIS is available at the website www.mapwindow.org.

Wednesday, September 30, 2009

Portable GIS 2.0: GIS on a USB drive, released

Free Geography Tools posted the latest update of the Portable GIS. The site confirmed the released of the free downloadable Portable GIS 2.0 by Jo Cook of Oxford Archaeology. "GIS on a USB Stick" is a suite of portable GIS programs that could be installed on a thumb drive and run from any computer.

Features:

* gvSIG (1.1.2)
* Quantum GIS (1.02)
* Grass (accessed through Quantum GIS)
* PostgreSQL (8.4.01)
* PostGIS (1.4.0)
* Xampplite: PHP, MySQL, Apache (1.6.2)
* Geoserver (1.7.6)
* FWTools: ogr, gdal, python, mapserver, openEV (2.4.2)

Plus a bunch of new apps for 2.0:

* Tilecache (2.10)
* Featureserver (1.12)
* PgAdmin III (1.10)
* OpenLayers (2.8)
* uDig (1.1.1)
* SqlSync (cross-platform database synchronization)
* Shp2Text (converts shapefiles into csv, with coordinate columns)
* Ogr2Gui (GUI for OGR toolkit)
* ShapeChecker (Checks and fixes corrupt shape files)
* GeoMetadataExtractor (extracts metadata from georeferenced images)
* libgeoGUI (extracts and embeds worldfiles and metadata to/from GeoTiffs)

Check it out. Download for free Portable GIS version 2!

Tuesday, July 22, 2008

Quantum GIS Version 0.11.0 released

Quantum GIS (QGIS) is a user friendly Open Source Geographic Information System (GIS) that runs on Linux, Unix, Mac OSX, and Windows. QGIS supports vector, raster, and database formats. QGIS is licensed under the GNU General Public License. QGIS lets you browse and create map data on your computer.

It supports many common spatial data formats (e.g. ESRI ShapeFile, geotiff). QGIS supports plugins to do things like display tracks from your GPS. QGIS is Open Source software and its free of cost. We welcome contributions from our user community in the form of code contributions, bug fixes, bug reports, contributed documentation, advocacy and supporting other users on our mailing lists and forums. Financial contributions are also welcome.

This release introduces several new features including python support and many new GRASS modules. The release also includes numerous bug fixes and stability improvements. QGIS is available is source form, and as binary executables for Microsoft Windows, Mac OS X, and GNU/Linux.

All versions can be obtained from our download page at http://download.qgis.org . As an open source project, we provide support for using QGIS via our mailing lists and bug tracker:

Major changes in this release are:

* over 60 bug fixes

* legend improvements

* revision of toolbars and dialogs for consistency improved usability

* extended QML style support

* automated generation of projection information in srs.db

* improved view and filter for GRASS toolbox

* support for Qt4.2.x discontinued

* separation of python support into its own library

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