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An Overview of Free & Open Source Desktop GIS (FOS-GIS) |
| Below you can find links to two tables that should give an overview of free Desktop GIS and projects. Desktop GIS means thereby that we did not inlcude map web server tools or basic GIS libraries. Please be aware that this listing is probably not comprehensive and that the comparison was done End of 2007. | |||
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OS Desktop GIS - general overview table | ||
 html |
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 word-doc |
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OS Desktop GIS - functionality table | ||
| Google
Docs spreadsheet - 2010 version (note, things are ordered a
bit different) |
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| hmtl - 2007 version |
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| word-doc - 2007 version |
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GIS software that does not qualify for the tables above | ||
| html |
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| The tables can be altered on request. Please write to sstein[-at-]geo.uzh.ch - and preferably add the tables with your changes (use for instance word doc + track changes mode) | |||
| We also
wrote one article that provides some more information on the
desktop GIS projects and additionally contains an introduction on open
source licenses and FOSGIS
organizations (the first link). A second article presents a better
"user-oriented" introduction, but focuses also more on the general
GI(S) tools for landscape ecology - and not only desktop GIS. The third
article concentrates on several free GIS tools, not just Desktop GIS. |
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(revised version from Sept. 2008; final 2009 version DOI: 10.1080/13658810802634956)
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(revised version from July 2009; final version DOI: 10.1016/j.ecoinf.2009.07.004) | ||
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Free
and open source GIS software
for building a spatial data infrastructure. (revised version from May 2010; in press; OGRS 2009 proceedings published by Springer) I have also given a talk on this - see the video on youtube & slides. |
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Notes
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| Other FOS-GIS related comparisons: |
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| . The GeoTux team did a webmap client comparison (i.e. MapFish, MapBuilderm etc.). It should be updated every 6 months. | |||
| . Atle Frenvik Sveen wrote a n
interesting thesis on how to evaluate and select a FOS (desktop) GIS
for companies/projects called: "Use of Free and Open
Source GIS in Commercial Firms" (it's from Dec. 2008) |
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| . I came
across this
thesis by
Todd R. Buchanan (2005) that compares the desktop GIS GRASS 6.0 and
ArcGIS 9.0 |
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| . The Boston
GIS Blog compared the following database systems SQL Server 2008
Spatial, PostgreSQL/PostGIS 1.3-1.4 and MySQL 5-6 (in May 2008) |
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| Websites with listings of free GIS software (projects): | |||
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www.freegis.org | ||
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www.opensourcegis.org | ||
| Related |
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If you
ever wanted to know what
the OpenStreetMap project
is, then I recommend to watch this
video presentation by Richard Weait. |
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| Acknowledgments: I have to thank numerous people of the different projects for contributing information: GRASS & QGIS: Markus Neteler, Otto Dassau, Marco Hugentobler and Stefan Holl; KOSMO: Manuel Navarro; MapWindow: Daniel Ames, uDig: Jody Garnet and Jesse Eichar, SAGA: Olaf Conrad; ILWIS: Martin Schouwenburg; OpenJUMP: Michaël Michaud, DeeJUMP: Andreas Schmitz; PirolJUMP: Arnd Kielhorn; SkyJUMP: Larry Becker; gvSIG: Mario Carrera; and OrbisGIS: Erwan Bocher. I would like to thank Ralf Tauscher, Jan-Oliver Wagner and others for comments and suggestions on foregoing presentation slides and first manuscript versions. The icons used on this page are from FAMFAMFAM. Finally many thanks to Gary Sherman for hosting this page. |
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