Paul Shapley's Open Source Geospatial Blog

QGIS seems to get all the attention these days and perhaps rightly so. Grass on the other hand shows no sign of waning in the 'SAAS' world, if anything it has a continuing loyal bunch of users but in South Wales (UK) it is the outsider, it has an odd non microsoft like non-conforming interface. If you listen to the I.T departments it is too difficult for users to grasp, has an old fashioned command line and odd sounding module names like "i.fusion.brovey". Two years ago i would have walked the other way but since version 6 and a Python GUI there really is worthy alternative. As with anything considered 'too' difficult for newcomers (fed up with 'newby') the long nights spent trying to grapple with 'mapsets' and 'regions' will eventually give way and reward you with the power and control over your work flows, customisations, alternative's and options in fact the Grass complexity hides a very simple no nonsense 'frill free'...

All Authorities need to assess the potential for low, medium and high wind resources within their respective areas. In Wales the WG (Welsh Government) have produced a publication entitled 'Planning for Renewable and Low Carbon Energy - A Toolkit for Planners' in 2010. I've attached a 'How to' guide which attempts to work through the toolkit using Grass and QGIS 1.8 to interpret the guide as we understand it. This includes a detailed description of how to import ascii files into Grass GIS to display as a raster layer. https://docs.google.com/file/d/0BwWaeb1nDyejSnRTTV9JV3BrN3M/edit?usp=sharing

I've come across another Open Source Blog worthy of a look. What is immediately interesting about this Blog is that it does not use any reference to 'I.T', 'Information' 'System', 'Science' or 'location' in it's title...how refreshing to know 'Geography' is still out there. http://www.digital-geography.com/tag/en/

Until now there has not been a book that covers QGIS and Python. There was 'Rapid GUI Programming with Python and Qt' by Mark Summerfield and 'Python Geo-spatial Development' by Eric Westra but for people like me who never learned programming in thier youth this prospective new book may be the incentive I need to get started. There are plenty of Python Books available but if I'm going to learn a scripting language I want it to be relevant to the geo-spatial field I work in. Gary E. Sherman author of 'The Geospatial Desktop' and 'Desktop GIS, Mapping the Planet with Open Source Tools' is promising to fill the gap again with 'The PyQGIS Programmers Guide, Extending Quantum GIS with Python '. Although not available yet it is due in the second quarter of 2013. Click on the link for the proposed content. http://pythongisbook.com/

Don't forget the dates...17th-21st September 2013 East Midlands Conference Centre, Nottingham. This event is directly following on from the AGI Conference. http://2013.foss4g.org/

Now that OSGIS is an acceptable alternative to proprietary offerings we need to be aware of 'the other' tools and libraries that rarely get a second look against the likes of QGIS, Geoserver and PostGIS. I'm referring to Cameron Shorter's excellent OSGEO Live DVD, a ready compiled .iso image which can be copied and run from a usb drive or DVD and used without installation on the host computer. It is worth checking this presentation for a comprehensive selection of Open Source Mapping Tools. http://live.osgeo.org/

Hope someone was lucky enough to get along to this weeks fully booked AGI Cymru Open Source event in Wrexham sponsored by Astun Tech and Dotted Eyes. Hope i wasn't the only AGI Cymru member to miss this one along with a 'no show' for the GeoDATA 2012 Seminar in Wales. At least we won the Grand Slam!