Virtually Free GIS GIS Options for Small Businesses Lizzy Warren Evonne Schroeder

Introduction Our needs scenario:  Small, growing business with less than 15 employees  Limited resources to commit to a geographic information system.  Interested in using GIS for monitoring current and potential customer base.  Limited experience in GIS

ESRI ArcView Widely recognized as the technical and market leader in GIS $1500/Software Package Additional Computer Licensing Extra Other Options: ArcGIS Server

Criteria for GIS 4 Free or inexpensive 4 Full-featured and PC compatible 4 Easy to Learn and Maintain 4 Compatible with other large vendor GIS software

 Created in May of 2002, the QGIS program was developed with the idea that anyone with access to a computer can use it.  It is an open source software package that runs on Linux, Unix, Mac OSX and Windows  Supports a variety of vector and raster formats, including industry standard files, shapefiles, and coverages.  Allows for GRASS function integration.  Can change symbology, select and label features, display attribute tables and, enhanced with PostGIS and PostgreSQL, allows for work with a database or query. Strengths  Responsive to its users (welcomes contributions in the form of coding, bug fixes and reports, documentation, and general support from the users )  User-friendly, fast GIS for the small business owner or personal GIS user  Because of the simplistic nature of QGIS, the basic user guide lets novice users to see results quickly  Currently running on version 0.7.4, released November 4, 2005, to fix various bugs and stability issues that come with its relatively new and still developing status Weaknesses  It is not a full function GIS tool, and lacks many of the analysis tools found in other GIS.

GRASS GIS Strengths  Source code available to create own developments  Lots of documentation and support to help: FAQs, user manual, Tutorials, special topics and mailing lists with other GRASS users Weaknesses  no geocoding  intense intial setup -- at least 7 separate downloads  perhaps best for those experienced with GIS and ready to make own developments  Originally Developed by the US Army Corp of Engineering and Research Laboratories (USA-CERL)  Open Source Software runs on Unix, MacOS X and Windows (NT/2000/XP) with Cygwin  Version Stable -- Two other versions in the works in testing and development phases.  Supports raster and vector data formats Geographic Analysis Support System

Strengths  User friendly, with many spatial tools for analysis. Geocoding capabilities; several sources for help Weaknesses  Prior knowledge of GIS is assumed in the various user guides; Confusing; Website not as informative as would like. Deegree provides the following OGC services:  Web Map Service (WMS): Maps are created out of raster and vector datasets in a format recognized by common web-browsers. Transformation between the 180 recognized coordinate systems is possible “on the fly”.  Web Feature Service (WFS) – a flexible web-based access to vector geo-data in a wide variety of databases and data formats, delivered to the client as GML conformant XML-documents for further processing.  Web Coverage Service (WCS) – web-based access to raster geo-data that is deliverable in image format (TIFF, GIF, JPEG, BMP, PNM) for further processing  Web Catalog Service – a catalog service for administration and querying of metadata.  Web Gazetteer Service – transforming place names and addresses into direct georeferences (coordinates) to support spatial queries or to geocode data.  Web Coordinate Transformation Service – allows the web-based transformation of geographic coordinates from one coordinate system to another. Deegree2 now offers simplified installation and configuration, support of PostGIS 1.0 and Oracle spatial/locator, advanced capabilities for object-relational mappings in the WFS, multiple data sources for WMS layers, and high-quality, large-size print options deegre e

Manifold System Strengths  Business support of software program  Unlimited project size, including unlimited size images (16 exabytes) Weaknesses  Tech Support? Yes, extra. Tokens? Confusing.  Unprofessional web site  Geocoding Tools Extra “Release 7x is the biggest, coolest, most sophisticated and easiest to use Manifold System ever.” - manifold.net  Windows based (XP, 2000, ME)  Integrated system that simultaneously works with vector drawings, raster images, raster data, terrain simulations, multi-layered maps, user supplied or automatically generated labels and a vast range of database table formats.

Comparison QGISGRASSDEEGREE Manifold Price Version PC compatible Support Data Included? Add-ons User friendly $245FREE 7 YES Lots of downloads to install program Yes, Cygwin download req. Sample data to learn only Various - user created User Mailing Lists, FAQs, Tutorials YES 2 Free Incidents, then $19.50/each Geocoding, Business and Spatial Tools ?? 7.42 YES Extensive and Responsive Demo Available, tutorial, 3 different mailing lists, FAQ No Yes, mainly created by other users Yes Very Yes

Summary For our needs scenario, we chose... deegre e  No Program Cost and demo available to test  Tutorial provided  Able to install on unlimited number of workstations  Object-oriented methodology  Geocoding Capability

References DEEGREE official web site. Hosted by lat/lon GmbH © October 5, Fitzke, Jens, Klaus Greve, Markus Muller, & Andreas Poth. “Building SDIs with Free Software - the deegree project.” Global Spatial Data Infrastructure, 7 th Conference, February 2-6, 2004 Bangalore, India.. GRASS Development Team, Geographic Resources Analysis Support System (GRASS) Software. ITC-irst, Trento, Italy. Manifold System Official Web Site. OpenSource GIS for Small Businesses in the Atlantic Provinces: A Software Review.. Engineering Technologies Canada, Ltd. May QGIS Community. October 5, GIS and Remote Sensing Resources on the Internet