Re: [Qgis-user] Qgis-user Digest, Vol 130, Issue 23

[Innisfree McKinnon]

That you could make the transition so easily is an argument that it doesn't
really matter which program is taught in school. If someone has some decent
GIS skills then can pretty quickly figure out how to do things in QGIS and
find resources to help them make the transition. That is what I did when I
got out of school and had some small consulting jobs and no ArcGIS license.

I want to transition to teaching mainly in QGIS, but it is difficult to
counter the argument that most job ads in the U.S. still list ArcGIS.
Portland is just ahead of the curve. ;) Here in Wisconsin the open source
revolution is still in the early stages.

Innisfree

On Fri, Dec 16, 2016 at 2:07 PM, Edward Curran <curran.edw...@gmail.com>
wrote:

> Arc is what is taught in US schools but the switch to Q is not that hard.
> in fact from a students perspective I feel that by learning from  different
> perspectives one can learn better. Here in Portland the whole public
> transit system switched onto Q and I intend to work in Q once I start out
> in the field. Arc is a fine suite of tools but they cost money - from what
> I can tell , learning Python, R and some kind of  open source graphics
> program, spreadsheet, also Q cost nothing licence wise and  are
> collectively a decent skill set to start out a career in GIS.
>
>  I complete my assignments in arc but pursue side projects in Q because I
> know once I am out of school I won't have the license anymore, plus Q can
> do the job just as well anyway.
>
> On Dec 16, 2016 3:35 AM, <qgis-user-requ...@lists.osgeo.org> wrote:
>
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>> Today's Topics:
>>
>>1. Re: QGIS vs ArcGIS in Education and Practice (Blumentrath, Stefan)
>>2. Re: QGIS vs ArcGIS in Education and Practice (Erik Meerburg)
>>3. Re: QGIS vs ArcGIS in Education and Practice (Nicolas Cadieux)
>>4. Re: QGIS vs ArcGIS in Education and Practice (Innisfree McKinnon)
>>5. Re: QGIS vs ArcGIS in Education and Practice (Nyall Dawson)
>>6. Digitising a vector line by measurement (Paul Shapley)
>>
>>
>> --
>>
>> Message: 1
>> Date: Thu, 15 Dec 2016 19:54:49 +
>> From: "Blumentrath, Stefan" <stefan.blumentr...@nina.no>
>> To: Markus Weidenbach <landcons...@freenet.de>,
>> "qgis-user@lists.osgeo.org" <qgis-user@lists.osgeo.org>
>> Subject: Re: [Qgis-user] QGIS vs ArcGIS in Education and Practice
>> Message-ID: <668886fbc5284208b2acc72879a2c...@ninsrv23.nina.no>
>> Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1"
>>
>> Hi,
>>
>> There is http://gisgeography.com/mapping-out-gis-software-landscape/
>>
>> Which hopelessly overrates ArcGIS, also because of a US centric
>> perspective. However, the Authors use Google trends and statistics on
>> GIS.SE to rank popularity of GIS. And if you do that QGIS is nr. 1 in
>> Europe at least. Note also the trend in the google trends curves, esp. If
>> you take Italy as an example.
>> People close to retirement can probably stick to Arc, but people who are
>> students now will have to learn open source in their career, no doubt...
>> Even in a rich country like norway a significat number of university
>> courses on GIS (esp. such related to ecology) switched to Open Source and
>> mostly QGIS...
>>
>> Cheers
>> Stefan
>> 
>> Von: Qgis-user [qgis-user-boun...@lists.osgeo.org] im Auftrag von Markus
>> Weidenbach [landcons...@freenet.de]
>> Gesendet: Donnerstag, 15. Dezember 2016 20:07
>> An: qgis-user@lists.osgeo.org
>> Betreff: [Qgis-user] QGIS vs ArcGIS in Education and Practice
>>
>> Dear List,
>>
>> I was asked to give a 5 days international GIS training course at the
>> university and proposed to do it with QGIS. The program leader finally
>> insisted on doing it with ArcGIS arguing  that the students had better
>> chances to find a job knowing ArcGIS rather than QGIS. This argumentation
>> does not reflect my long profession

Re: [Qgis-user] QGIS vs ArcGIS in Education and Practice

[Innisfree McKinnon]

Hello again,
Many, if not the majority of university students in GIS classes are not
going to end up with GIS as their main career focus. The vast majority of
my students are environmental science majors who are going to end up
working in government positions that require some GIS. So yes, lots of
students who are in college GIS classes aren't that motivated. In my
experience in every class there are a few students who take to GIS and
could make a career out of it. The rest are going to get enough basic
skills to use it if their job requires it, but it isn't their passion.

I have been arguing the QGIS is more affordable and accessible, but
learning two or more applications complicates things. Do I have them repeat
things they already know how to do in one application in the other? Do I
teach certain skills/techniques in one platform and others in the other
platform? Ideally I would like to teach them how to evaluate and select the
application that they like best for a particular project, but how do I do
that?

Most QGIS users seem passionate about open source, and tend to avoid ESRI
products if at all possible, in my experience. But most gov. jobs in the
U.S. still say must have experience with ArcGIS. Otherwise I would love to
move to all open source.
Innisfree

On Thu, Dec 15, 2016 at 11:40 PM, Nyall Dawson 
wrote:

> On 16 December 2016 at 08:38, Nicolas Cadieux
>  wrote:
> > Hi,
> >
> > This is a good question! My answer would be that students have a better
> > chance of having a job if the learn GIS and not a software.
>
> +1 to that. To put it bluntly, I think ANY GIS practitioner who can
> only list experience with a single application (or vendor's suite) on
> their resume is not at all competitive in today's market. There's
> enough free open source or trial software available that it really
> shows a lack of motivation for someone not to have skills in more than
> one application.
>
> Nyall
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Re: [Qgis-user] QGIS vs ArcGIS in Education and Practice

[Innisfree McKinnon]

This is an interesting discussion. I teach GIS classes at a small
university in the U.S. and while I completely agree with the concept of
teaching spatial concepts and not the software, in practice, this
distinction doesn't eliminate the need to choose in a university setting.
In practice GIS is taught through tutorials and tutorials are set up for
particular programs. You can't expect beginning students to go from
abstract concepts to multi-step analysis processes without some direction
as to how to use the software.

Also, the students at my university get campus issued laptops that don't
have space to run GIS software, so they have to work in the one campus
computer lab where GIS is installed. I have to work with campus IT to make
sure the software is properly installed and updated. When students log in,
they don't have admin permissions so they can't choose to install QGIS if
it isn't already installed.

I have be advocating for teaching open source software. But once students
get used to one software, they don't want to go back and try to figure out
another system. I did have students try out QGIS, but they weren't excited.
I haven't used QGIS enough to discuss the differences and potential
benefits in particular situations, other than accessibility and
affordability.

It shouldn't be one software or another, but students need to have a reason
to learn a new platform. I know there are some articles/posts online
comparing, but I have never seen a class that actually integrated teaching
with more than one platform. Beginning college students are usually
frustrated enough just trying to understand one.

I would love to hear suggestions for approaches or resources. Also, many
university instructors have a heavy teaching load and limited time to keep
up with shifting software. I'm pretty much the only person at my U. that
teaches GIS. I am being expected to teach everything related to geospatial
technologies...so it is tough to stay up to date without introducing
additional software to learn. I need to focus on how best to teach concepts
not spend my time learning how to troubleshoot multiple software packages.

Innisfree

On Thu, Dec 15, 2016 at 4:38 PM, Nicolas Cadieux <
nicolas.cadi...@archeotec.ca> wrote:

> Hi,
>
> This is a good question! My answer would be that students have a better
> chance of having a job if the learn GIS and not a software.  The software
> is only a tool!  If they have an ArcGIS licence at the university and can
> use it year round with the university, they could learn with that.
>
> My experience is that afterwards, they will either pirate the software or
> abandons GIS because they cannot pay for the software.  Also, more and more
> students are on Macs and ArcGIS will not work unless you have a dual boot,
> a virtual PC or a online licence.
>
> Also, if you want to just use a software as a technician and make GIS
> research,  you can use ArcGIS.  If you want a really good paying job and
> want to be able learn how to develop software and develop GIS, then QGIS or
> OpenSource is the way to go!
>
> To think that learning GIS = learning a software is short sighted.  Would
> you trust a statistician if all he learned in university is how to use a
> particular software or would you prefer someone who really knows what
> statistics are all about???
>
> Nicolas
>
>
>
>
> Le 15 déc. 2016 à 14:18, Markus Weidenbach [via OSGeo.org] <[hidden email]
> > a écrit :
>
> Dear List,
>
> I was asked to give a 5 days international GIS training course at the
> university and proposed to do it with QGIS. The program leader finally
> insisted on doing it with ArcGIS arguing  that the students had better
> chances to find a job knowing ArcGIS rather than QGIS. This argumentation
> does not reflect my long professional experience as a GIS consultant at all!
> But how can I proof that knowing QGIS is the better choice for young GIS
> professionals than ArcGIS (or at least that both systems are equally
> suited)?
> Does anybody know any official numbers of GIS users worldwide or on the
> worldwide application of QGIS over ArcGIS?
>
> I know the Master thesis from Boku Vienna (https://geoobserver.
> wordpress.com/2016/02/09/arcgis-vs-qgis/) but it is focused on a
> technical comparison of both systems only.
> Also the link https://www.g2crowd.com/grid_report/documents/gis-winter-
> 2016-report is not really helpful because it is based on some 40 reviews
> only and therefore not representative.
> I really need to know some proven facts on the number of global QGIS users
> and renown companies using QGIS worldwide.
>
> Thanks for your help in advance,
> Markus
>
> --
> Dr. Markus Weidenbach
> *landConsult.de *
> Geographical Information Management
> and Environmental Planning
> D-77815 Bühl
> Germany
> e.mail see: http://landConsult.de
>
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[Qgis-user] optimal route plugin?

[Innisfree McKinnon]

Hello all,
Sorry if this is a common question. Is there a plugin to help with
calculating optimal driving routes? I have a number of addresses to visit
and need to figure out the most efficient route and order to visit them.
This would be something like what UPS uses to route their trucks.

I googled around but didn't see anything obvious.

thanks,
Innisfree
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Re: [Qgis-user] opening kml files

[Innisfree McKinnon]

Oh thanks! That is really helpful since this is probably something I will
want to do again in the future. And I need to improve my scripting
skills/knowledge.
Cheers,
Innisfree


On Sun, Aug 31, 2014 at 11:19 AM, Richard Duivenvoorde rdmaili...@duif.net
wrote:

 On 30-08-14 08:53, Innisfree McKinnon wrote:
  Hello all,
  I'm also having an issue opening a .kml file. I downloaded a .kmz file
  of a historic map and would like to open it in QGIS. After reading what
  I could find online, I opened it in Google Earth and saved it as a .kml
  file. Then I went into QGIS and attempted to open it as a vector layer,
  selecting files of type:Keyhole Markup Language. The title appears
  under layers, but it doesn't actually display. I thought it might be a
  projection problem, so I tried zoom to to layer but that doesn't seem
  to have any effect.
 
  Any help would be much appreciated. I could georeference the file
  myself, but since it has already been done, I was trying to avoid
  duplicating that work.

 Have a look at this article:

 http://www.qgis.nl/2014/07/10/qgis-processing-scripts-gebruiken/?lang=en

 it is about writing a little processing script to do exactly what you
 propose.

 Regards,

 Richard

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[Qgis-user] opening kml files

[Innisfree McKinnon]

Hello all,
I'm also having an issue opening a .kml file. I downloaded a .kmz file of a
historic map and would like to open it in QGIS. After reading what I could
find online, I opened it in Google Earth and saved it as a .kml file. Then
I went into QGIS and attempted to open it as a vector layer, selecting
files of type:Keyhole Markup Language. The title appears under layers,
but it doesn't actually display. I thought it might be a projection
problem, so I tried zoom to to layer but that doesn't seem to have any
effect.

Any help would be much appreciated. I could georeference the file myself,
but since it has already been done, I was trying to avoid duplicating that
work.

thanks,
Innisfree
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Re: [Qgis-user] opening kml files

[Innisfree McKinnon]

Thanks Andre. I eventually found directions that made more sense
considering it is a raster. As you said, open the .kml file in texteditor,
look at the coordinates, then put them into the georeferencer in QGIS.
I.


On Sat, Aug 30, 2014 at 12:36 AM, Andre Joost andre+jo...@nurfuerspam.de
wrote:

 Am 30.08.2014 08:53, schrieb Innisfree McKinnon:

  Hello all,
 I'm also having an issue opening a .kml file. I downloaded a .kmz file of
 a
 historic map and would like to open it in QGIS. After reading what I could
 find online, I opened it in Google Earth and saved it as a .kml file. Then
 I went into QGIS and attempted to open it as a vector layer, selecting
 files of type:Keyhole Markup Language. The title appears under layers,
 but it doesn't actually display. I thought it might be a projection
 problem, so I tried zoom to to layer but that doesn't seem to have any
 effect.

 Any help would be much appreciated. I could georeference the file myself,
 but since it has already been done, I was trying to avoid duplicating that
 work.


 The KML driver is designed for importing vector data (points, lines and
 polygons). From your description, the .kml seems to display a raster file,
 therefore nothing gets imported. The same might happen if the kml only
 contains an internet link to the raster file.

 You can however look into the kml file with any text editor, and look out
 for georeferencing information. That can be used to build a .vrt file,
 which serves for QGIS as a wrapper the same way as your kml does for Google
 Earth.

 Mabe you can provide the dwomload link of the original kmz to help further.

 HTH,
 André Joost

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[Qgis-user] openstreetmap problem

[Innisfree McKinnon]

Hello all,
I'm a QGIS newbie. I'm working on a project involving making a map of the
Croix-Rousse in Lyon France. I need the street grid and a few landmarks
such has churches, parks, and plazas. I'm having frequent shutdowns when
working with the openstreetmap layers within QGIS.

I just downloaded the openstreetmap data by going to Vector, OpenStreetMap,
Download Data...I probably left all the settings on default. I'm basically
trying to select the items I need for my map and creating new (simplified)
layers. My project shuts down frequently, sometimes in the middle of a
selection process, sometimes just when looking at the data.

Any ideas what I am doing wrong?

thanks,
Innisfree
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Re: [Qgis-user] openstreetmap problem

[Innisfree McKinnon]

Hi Alex,
I just downloaded QGIS from the Kyngchaos site last week, so 2.4.0-1? I'm
running Lion - 10.7.5. The area I downloaded is about 2.5km by 1.5km.
thanks,
Innisfree


On Fri, Aug 29, 2014 at 11:15 AM, Alex Mandel tech_...@wildintellect.com
wrote:

 On 08/29/2014 11:03 AM, Innisfree McKinnon wrote:
  Hello all,
  I'm a QGIS newbie. I'm working on a project involving making a map of the
  Croix-Rousse in Lyon France. I need the street grid and a few landmarks
  such has churches, parks, and plazas. I'm having frequent shutdowns when
  working with the openstreetmap layers within QGIS.
 
  I just downloaded the openstreetmap data by going to Vector,
 OpenStreetMap,
  Download Data...I probably left all the settings on default. I'm
 basically
  trying to select the items I need for my map and creating new
 (simplified)
  layers. My project shuts down frequently, sometimes in the middle of a
  selection process, sometimes just when looking at the data.
 
  Any ideas what I am doing wrong?
 
  thanks,
  Innisfree
 

 Just to clarify Innisfree, what version of Mac OS X and which version of
 QGIS (and where did you get the installers I assume Kyngchaos)?

 Also in your estimate or from the dialog how big/what is the bounding
 box you tried?

 Thanks,
 Alex


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