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Open source GIS and R

8 messages · Manuel Spínola, Rainer M Krug, Sylvain Maillard +5 more

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Manuel Spínola
# 
Dear list members,

I am an ecologist interested in spatial and landscape ecology and a user 
of ArcView 3.3 with little experience in ArcGis but I would like to 
migrate to an open source GIS with an interface with R.
I know that there are several options: QGIS, SAGA, GRASS, Illwis.

What will be the best option of these or other alternatives?

Best,

Manuel
Rainer M Krug
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On 17/09/10 13:13, Manuel Sp?nola wrote:
Good decision - I did that some time ago, and never looked back.
GRASS: very usable GIS, now a nice GUI, brilliant cli support, stable,
recommendable. Disadvantage: uses "database" for map storage and that
takes some time to get you head around, but it is definitely worth it.

QGIS: nice userinterface, easy to use, has a plugin to use GRASS for
analysis, very nice for quick visualisation of data of different sources
(shape files, grass, ... can easily combined in one map). Disadvantages:
not many, but lmited analysis support without GRASS - second step after
QGIS is migration to GRASS.

SAGA: sounds like an interesting system, nice analysis capabilities;
GUI: haven't used it. Disadvantages: in contrast to GRASS and QGIS,
backwardcompatibility is not guaranteed (not even between 2.0.4 and
2.0.5 - that can cause (solvable_ problems. Nevertheless, I am
investigating the possibility to switch from GRASS to SAGA for usage
from R at the moment.

Illwis: never heard of it and never used it

So: all of them are a good choice, and it depends on what you want to do:

- - simple and fast visualisation of spatial data: QGIS
- - interfacing with R: GRASS or SAGA
- - powerful stand-alone GIS: GRASS (to a lesser degree GRASS through QGIS
lugin)

Hope this helps,

Rainer
- -- 
Rainer M. Krug, PhD (Conservation Ecology, SUN), MSc (Conservation
Biology, UCT), Dipl. Phys. (Germany)

Centre of Excellence for Invasion Biology
Natural Sciences Building
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stephen sefick
# 
I use GRASS and R on a more or less daily basis.  They play nicely
together.  The great strength of GRASS is you have the ability to use
shell scripts (with all the wonders of the *nix environment) once you
figure out the proper work flow (you can also run commands from within
R although I haven't tried this).  Set the computer to work, and go
home and have a beer while you are getting work done.   FYI the GRASS
team has just released the new stable version 6.4.1 (I think).
HTH,


Stephen
2010/9/17 Jos? Miguel Barrios <jmbarriosg at gmail.com>:

  
    

      
      
    

  


  


      

    

    

      
      

        


  

        

      Barry Rowlingson
    

    

      
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On Fri, Sep 17, 2010 at 12:13 PM, Manuel Sp?nola <mspinola10 at gmail.com> wrote:

            

      
      
      
    

        
What's best for you and best for me depends on what we are trying to do!

 The idea of an 'interface with R' is a bit fluffy, and could be a
number of things. QGis has the wonderful 'manageR' system, which is a
full environment for running and editing R, with rapid exchange of
R-Spatial objects back and forth from QGis. I think Carson is planning
to produce a standalone version that doesn't need QGis as an
independent R GUI, it's *that* good. I only wish I had more time to
help with the dev on that.

 You might also consider PostGIS. This is a spatial database, so you
would keep all your (primarily) vector data in that, and learn the SQL
magic for doing stuff like polygon overlay, point-in-poly,
what's-the-longest-river-that's-partly-in-Worcestershire-that-has-a-newt-density-of-more-than-10-newts/km-when-surveyed-by-either-Dave-or-Nigel-but-not-Simon
questions. You can read PostGIS data into R and use it as the front
end via the sp package mapping functions.

 So many options, so little time! If all you want is pretty map
production then you can do pretty maps in R, or export your final data
as Shapefiles or rasters for import into QGis (or gvSIG, or OpenJump
etc etc) for your open source mapping needs...

Barry

  
  


  


      

    

    

      
      

        


  

        

      Michael Sumner
    

    

      
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I know this is anathemic, but "you might consider" Manifold. It's not
open source, but it's accessible (i.e. affordable) and well, it's
pretty cool.

Sorry folks.

On Fri, Sep 17, 2010 at 11:47 PM, Barry Rowlingson

        
<b.rowlingson at lancaster.ac.uk> wrote:

            

      
      
      
    

        

      
      
    

        

  
    

      
      
    

  


  


      

    

    
4 days later

    

      
      

        


  

        

      Agustin Lobo
    

    

      
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Hola  Manuel,

May be this could be of some help:
http://2010.foss4g.org/papers/4181.pdf

All 4 programs you mention are very good, difficult to provide more
advice unless
you define your particular application better. In any case, I bet you will
end up using several packages. After all, you cannot make a Louis XIV chair
with just a hammer and a screwdriver!

Suerte!

Agus

2010/9/17 Manuel Sp?nola <mspinola10 at gmail.com>: