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8:42 am
September 25, 2011
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Having read the interesting posts on Data Interoperability and particularly Alex’ last post…
"Hi,
just been looking at Quantum GIS and this will open shapefiles and save them as Mapinfo tabs.
BTW it’s open source."
I’ve started to investigate the world of free GIS solutions. I’d be interested if anyone else has delved into these solutions.
I’ve recently been looking at Map Window which seems to provide a vast range of data interoperability, with the exception of ESRI geodatabases it seems to be able to handle most data formats. Apart from some initial installation issues it provides a stable GIS platform for free! http://WWW.Mapwindow.org
I haven’t looked at Quantum GIS as yet but intend look at it following the post by Alex, I also intend to look at GRASS.
My question is what are other people’s experiences of free GIS solutions and whether you have any recommendations?
2:57 pm
January 23, 2009
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I’ve never really played with any open source or free GIS and i think thats a real shame, we should all try and keep an eye on GIS outside our current vendors. I’ll certainly be watching this thread with interest
One question I have is would your organisation deploy a company wide open source GIS? generally we stick to off the shelf solutions so that should the member of IT leave then we can easily recruit a new member of staff or get support from the vendor. This is something that we have discussed a lot lately, and so far generally people are against any major customisations. 
1:58 pm
May 7, 2008
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Hi
You might be interested in the Open Geospatial Foundation (http://www.osgeo.org) and its UK chapter (wiki.osgeo.org/wiki/United_Kingdom).
I’ve been looking into some open source web mapping solutions specifically GeoServer, MapServer and OpenLayers and would be interested in anyones opinion of these. We already use Postgis as our spatial database and get on really well with it. At some point I am going to have a look into some of the open source desktop GIS applications.
Graeme
8:02 pm
September 25, 2011
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I use Quantum quite a bit and I do really like it. I’ve read quite a few blog posts about the recent FOSS4G conference and everyone is recommending it right now. The general consensus is that whilst opensource desktop software used to be a weak link, that shortly QGIS will easily rival normal software if it doesn’t already.
It also has GRASS inbuilt into it if you wish to use it. The thing I would say about grass is that people used to go for it because it was one of the few opensource options I think, where now that is not the case. So whether it is worth playing around with it I’m not so sure.
4:30 pm
November 25, 2010
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Just picking up on this thread with a bit more information about open source GIS tools and solutions, which we use extensively in energy modelling services. I'd endorse the comments about QGIS, which is now an excellent tool, particularly when used with some of the many specialist plugins. I'd recommend upgrading to the latest version, 1.7.3, which has some improvements on the styling front.
We also use a combination of PostGreSQL/PostGIS, GeoServer, OpenLayers and GeoExt for web publishing – although there's some integration work to do in getting a platform up and running, once this is done we've found that these are all very stable components, and work well together.
As Graeme says, OSGeo is a good reference point, and the UK chapter is gathering momentum, with a possible bid for FOSS4G to be held in the UK in 2013, so I'd encourage anyone who's interested to get involved via the mailing list or monthly IRC chats – it's an informal and friendly group. The OSGIS UK conference at Nottingham University is also a good place to pick up on the latest tools and developments – this year it will be on 4th and 5th September. The website is here - it doesn't have details on it yet, but there's information about previous conferences.
I'll try and put some more relevant information together for the resources and links sections of the sites – we've been working on a case study with Ordnance Survey too, so I'll reference this when it's published.
Antony
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