Nothing else to say after Barry's email, apart from noting yet another wonder of the free software world/community:
we even use our mailing lists to provide advice on commercial software!!! Uau! Would the reverse be true? Paulo Justiniano Ribeiro Jr LEG (Laboratorio de Estatistica e Geoinformacao) Universidade Federal do Parana Caixa Postal 19.081 CEP 81.531-990 Curitiba, PR - Brasil Tel: (+55) 41 3361 3573 Fax: (+55) 41 3361 3141 e-mail: paulojus AT ufpr br http://www.leg.ufpr.br/~paulojus On Sat, 6 Sep 2008, Christopher Paciorek wrote: > This is a bit of a distant memory from a few years back when I also was > trying to better understand what ArcGIS was actually doing, but I believe > there is some, though probably not a large amount of, additional technical > detail available in the following ESRI manuals: > > Johnston, K. et al. 2001. Using ArcGIS geostatistical analyst. Redlands, CA: > Environmental Systems Research Institute. > McCoy, J. et al. 2001. Using ArcGIS spatial analyst. Redlands, CA: > Environmental Systems Research Institute. > > I don't think I was able to find these online as I have a memory of tracking > them down through the university map library. > > -chris > > ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- > Chris Paciorek / Asst. Professor Email: [EMAIL PROTECTED] > Department of Biostatistics Voice: 617-432-4912 > Harvard School of Public Health Fax: 617-432-5619 > 655 Huntington Av., Bldg. 2-407 WWW: www.biostat.harvard.edu/~paciorek > Boston, MA 02115 USA Permanent forward: [EMAIL PROTECTED] > > > >>> "G. Allegri" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> 09/06/08 1:45 PM >>> > I faced the problem of collecting informations about ArcGIS Geospatial > extension while I was following the geostatics course at university. A > month looking for documentation about what was behind the scene, but > nothing... Just basics explanations about kriging. That's when I've > discovered gstat! > > In the Institute I come from ArcGIS/ArcInfo is the most widely used > system, for cartography and geoDB management. But nobody would use it > for geostatistical analysis! Ok, IDW, or other simple interpolations, > but nothing beyond this. > The only reason I would spend money for commercial software can be > Geovariances software (in the Institute they use Isatis) [1], nothing > else. > > Giovanni > > [1] http://www.geovariances.com/ > > 2008/9/6 Roger Bivand <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>: > > On Sat, 6 Sep 2008, Barry Rowlingson wrote: > > > >> 2008/9/6 D G Rossiter <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>: > >> > >>> Naturally we want the students to understand what the program is doing > >>> for them! Although ESRI promotes "press the button and look at the > >>> cross- validation". I do like their disclaimer in the ArcGIS Desktop > >>> 9.3 help: "Kriging is a complex procedure that requires greater > >>> knowledge about spatial statistics than can be conveyed in this > >>> command reference". They then ref. Burrough (1986! not even the > >>> revised book), Heine (1986), McBratney & Webster Journal of Soil Sci. > >>> 37:317 (1986), Oliver IJGIS 4 (1990), Press etc. Numerical Recipes, > >>> and Royle et al. Geoprocessing 1 (1981). Not exactly the most up to > >>> date or accessible reference list (no offrence to the fine authors > >>> mentioned). > >> > >> For software that costs $2500 dollars for a single- user license, I'd > >> expect documentation written in gold- leaf on human skin parchment. I > >> wouldn't expect to be palmed off with 'this bit is tricky, go read > >> some books', I'd expect the software to do just about everything, > >> explain what it was doing in the language of your choice, and give you > >> a backrub at the same time. > >> > >> I'm flabbergasted that a solution for what is probably not one of the > >> richest universities in the world is going to tie them to one of the > >> most expensive geostats packages I've ever seen. I'm staring at this > >> pricetag on the ESRI web site because I just feel like I must be > >> hallucinating. But I'm not. Two and a half THOUSAND dollars. Oh, and > >> you need an ArcView license as well, a mere snip at one and half > >> thousand dollars. Zimbabwe dollars? No, US dollars. I checked. > >> > >> I'm guessing you can't rethink your plans at this point, but you > >> could consider pointing out to students that free, cross- platform, > >> high- quality, open- source, well- documented software for statistics and > >> geostatistics is available to download from www.r- project.org, and > >> there's a friendly bunch of people willing to answer sensible > >> questions on the mailing list (including those professors who make it > >> their business to echo 'please read the posting guide' all the time). > >> > >> Hope this doesn't come over as too much of a rant, but I'm running a > >> course on Open- Source GeoSpatial Software in November and I think I > >> may have just found a nice counter- example :) > >> > >> Barry > >> [think I need a cup of tea and a lie- down now] > > > > And FOSS4G 2008 is about to happen in Cape Town! > > > > http://conference.osgeo.org/index.php/foss4g/2008 > > > > Just think what these young scientists could do with QGIS/GRASS/R/gstat or > > other suitable toolchains! > > > > However, I've seen similar things, I'm afraid they may be being driven by > > clueless "donor" organisations. > > > > I've just put the tea on ... > > > > Roger > > > >> > >> _______________________________________________ > >> R- sig- Geo mailing list > >> R- sig- [EMAIL PROTECTED] > >> https://stat.ethz.ch/mailman/listinfo/r- sig- geo > >> > > > > -- > > Roger Bivand > > Economic Geography Section, Department of Economics, Norwegian School of > > Economics and Business Administration, Helleveien 30, N- 5045 Bergen, > > Norway. voice: +47 55 95 93 55; fax +47 55 95 95 43 > > e- mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED] > > > > _______________________________________________ > > R- sig- Geo mailing list > > R- sig- [EMAIL PROTECTED] > > https://stat.ethz.ch/mailman/listinfo/r- sig- geo > > > > _______________________________________________ > R- sig- Geo mailing list > R- sig- [EMAIL PROTECTED] > https://stat.ethz.ch/mailman/listinfo/r- sig- geo > > _______________________________________________ > R-sig-Geo mailing list > [email protected] > https://stat.ethz.ch/mailman/listinfo/r-sig-geo > _______________________________________________ R-sig-Geo mailing list [email protected] https://stat.ethz.ch/mailman/listinfo/r-sig-geo
