In the year 2012 the United Nations Committee of Experts on Global Geospatial Information Management requested that a paper be published that explained the future trends in Geospatial Information Management. This essay focuses on one of those trends, namely open-source. In this essay we will describe the trend, its importance as well as the challenges and opportunities of open-source regarding Geospatial Information Systems (GIS). We will also focus on the effects of open-source GIS software on our graduating class and will consider the trend from a global and South African perspective.
Contrary to popular belief, free software is not necessarily equivalent to open-source software, and vice versa. According to the Open-Source Initiative, open-source refers to software whose design and source code is publicly available for study, use, modification and redistribution by anyone under a free software license. For example, Google Earth is a GIS application that is freely available for download and use, however, its source code is not publicly available (Tsou & Smith, 2011: 2).
Open-source GIS products are becoming more popular in the geospatial community as a viable alternative to proprietary software (Carpenter & Snell, 2013: 14). Projects such as Quantum GIS, PostGIS and Open Layers have been able to attract large amounts of users and developers, which has subsequently influenced software functionality and support and raised their attractiveness to new users. (Steiniger & Hunter, 2013: 137 and Sherman, 2009)
The idea behind open-source was that groups or communities of people with common interests can work in collaboration on a project and handle improving and maintaining it rather than have it handled by a single company or enti...
... middle of paper ...
...d the International Cartographic Association. (2014) About [Online] Available at: http://www.geoforall.org/about/ [Accessed 28 March 2014]
The Open-Source Geospatial Foundation and the International Cartographic Association. (2014) Mission - “Making geospatial education and opportunities accessible to all” [Online] Available at: http://www.geoforall.org [Accessed 28 March 2014]
The Open Source Initiative. (n.d.) The Open Source Definition [Online] Available at: http://opensource.org/osd [Accessed 25 March 2014]
Tsou, M. H. & Smith, J. (2011). Free and Open Source software for GIS education. [Online] Available at: http://www.iapad.org/publications/ppgis/tsou_free-GIS-for-educators-whitepaper.pdf [Accessed 25 March 2014]
Yeung, A. K. & Hall, G. B. (2007) The GeoJournal Library, vol. 87, Spatial database systems: design, implementation and project management, Springer.
Hess, D., McKnight, T. L., & Tasa, D. (2011). McKnight's physical geography (Custom ed. for California State University, Northridge ; 2nd Calif. ed.). New York: Learning Solutions.
In a world where geography only makes the headlines or points of coffee house discussion if a new study is released about how terrible students are at it, however, amazingly there ARE still students and people alike that simply love it and are thriving in their point of interest. Some stare at maps endlessly searching for things that most people would never even care to look at such as what makes this state similar with this state or why is the population more or less here. Some long to find and view the rarest maps available; others embrace the future by participating in an activity known as geocaching. Geocaching is when the participant visits special areas with “treasures” hidden using their GPS devices and smartphones. Some people even draw thousands of their own imaginary maps, highlighting details in worlds and countries they long to visit.
The map was developed by the CIPD in conjunction with professionals and organisations around the world and is made up of the following 3 sections:
Comparing to "Free Software", the term ``open source software'' is associated with a different engineering approach, different values, and even a different criterion for which licenses are acceptable. We differentiate the Free Software movement and the Open Source movement with different views and goals, although engineers can and do work together on some practical projects.
Geographers plan new communities, decide where new highways should be placed, and establish evacuation plans. Computerized mapping and data analysis is known as Geographic Information Systems (GIS), a new frontier in geography. Spatial data is gathered on a variety of subjects and input onto a computer. GIS users can create an infinite number of maps by requesting portions of the data to plot.
Historical geographer JB Harley wrote an essay on Map Deconstruction in 1989, in which Harley argues that a map is more than just a geographical representation of an area, his theory is that we need to look at a map not just as a geographical image but in its entire context. Harley points out that by an examination of the social structures that have influenced map making, that we may gain more knowledge about the world. The maps social construction is made from debate about what it should show. Harley broke away from the traditional argument about maps and examined the biases that govern the map and the map makers, by looking at what the maps included or excluded. Harley’s “basic argument within this essay is that we should encourage an epistemological shift in the way we interpret the nature of cartography.” Therefore Harley’s aim within his essay on ‘Deconstructing the Map’ was to break down the assumed ideas of a map being a purely scientific creation.
People: The most important and powerful part if GIS. With the introduction of the computers, they’ve been used for various purposes and by different experts and institutions, thus with the increasing use of computers, GIS has just not been limited to the GIS experts. It has been used by schools, by botanists to locate and map various plant species, by hydrologists and geologists, police has been utilizing it for solving crimes, also used by disaster management authorities etc. With the availability of various open source softwares and freewares the user community has increased exponentially.
Linux is becoming more and more used in business today. One of the main reasons is the cost-effectiveness of the operating system itself. As well, there are numerous articles all over the Internet and news media detailing the positive aspects of open source operating systems in business today. One reference found on the Open Source website describes the basic idea behind open source code. “When programmers on the Internet can read, redistribute, and modify the source for a piece of software, it evolves. People improve it, people adapt it, and people fix bugs. And this can happen at a speed that, if one is used to the slow pace of conventional software development, seems astonishing.” (Open Source, August 2000)
[7] Elmasri & Navathe. Fundamentals of database systems, 4th edition. Addison-Wesley, Redwood City, CA. 2004.
Hillier, A., & Culhane, D. (2013). GIS Applications and Administrative Data to Support Community Change. In M. Weil (Ed.), The Handbook of Community Practice (2nd ed., pp. 827-844). Thousand Oaks, CA: SAGE. Retrieved from
GIS is an emerging method of data storage and interpretation. GIS is, simply put a database. It is many tables of data organized by one common denominator, location. The data in a GIS system is organized spatially, or by its physical location on the base map. The information that is stored in the database is the location and attributes that exist in that base map, such as streets, highways, water lines, sewers, manholes, properties, and buildings, etc. each of these items don’t just exist in the database, the attributes associated with the item is also stored. A good example of this would be a specific sewer line, from and arbitrary point A to a point B. Ideally, the sewer line would be represented graphically, with a line connecting the two points or something of the like. When one retrieves the information for that line in particular, the attribute data would be shown. This data would include the size of pipe, the pipe material, the upper invert elevation, the downstream invert elevation, the date installed, and any problem history associated with that line. This is the very gist of what a GIS system is.
The information system that will be evaluated in this paper is from Malaysia. This information system is used by one of the government department in Malaysia. The government department involved is Department of Survey and Mapping Malaysia or in Malay Jabatan Ukur dan Pemetaan Malaysia (JUPEM). JUPEM started in 1885 and actually one of the earliest departments in Malaysia where it main purpose is to perform survey and mapping activities within Malaysia and also country international boundaries. The vision of establishment of JUPEM is to make JUPEM an important organization that provide survey and mapping services outstandingly and together with geospatial data management to accomplish the nation’s vision.
The risks and rewards of such efforts being borne by regional members. Scalability of infrastructure projects can be replicated and the lessons learned can be transferred from one regional group to another until all the continent has a robust GIS infrastructure and allow less dependence from image providers Because the regional groupings are already functional dialogue, planning and implementation of GIS projects would be much easier along already established regional
De, Blij Harm J., and Peter O. Muller. Geography: Realms, Regions, and Concepts. New York: J. Wiley, 1997. 340. Print.
Longely et al (2005) state that there are many possible ways of defining spatial analysis but at the end all the definitions express the basic idea that information on locations is essential. Analysis carried out without knowledge of locations is not spatial analysis (Longely et al, 2005). Spatial data analysis (SDA) is a set of techniques created to support a spatial perspective on data (Goodchild et al, 1992). SDA can be differentiated from other forms of analysis by definition. It might be defined as a set of techniques whose results are dependent on the locations of the objects or events being analyzed, requiring access to both the locations and the attributes of objects (Goodchild, 1987; Goodchild et al, 1992). Spatial analysis is the heart of GIS because it includes all of the transformations, manipulations, and methods that can be applied to geographic data to add value to them. In a nutshell, spatial analysis is the process by which raw data is turned into useful information, in scientific discovery and decision making (Longely et al, 2005). A geographical information system (GIS) provides a powerful collection of tools for the management and visualization of spatial data. These tools are more influential when they are integrated with methods for spatial data analysis (Krivoruchko and Gotway, ). Bailey and Gatrell (1995) distinguish between spatial phenomena using the basic GIS operations such as spatial query, join, buffering, and layering and spatial data analysis as the application of statistical theory and techniques to the modeling of spatially referenced data, which is the discipline of spatial statistics. ArcGIS spatial analyst provides powerful spatial modeling and analysis features. GIS ...