Desktop GIS: Mapping the Planet with Open Source Tools [Paperback]

Gary E Sherman (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: November 4, 2008

Desktop GIS explores the world of Open Source GIS software and provides a guide to navigate the many options available. Discover what kind of GIS user you are and lay the foundation to evaluate the options and decide what software is best for you.

Desktop GIS examines the challenges associated with assembling and using an OSGIS toolkit. You'll find strategies for choosing a platform, selecting the right tools, integration, managing change, and getting support. The survey of OSGIS desktop applications provides you with a quick introduction to the many packages available. You'll see examples of both GUI (Graphical User Interface) and command line interfaces to give you a feel for what is available.

This book will give you an understanding of the Open Source GIS landscape, along with a detailed look at the major desktop applications, including GRASS, Quantum GIS, uDig, spatial databases, GMT, and other command line tools. Finally, the book exposes you to scripting in the OSGIS world, using Python, shell, and other languages to visualize, digitize, and analyze your data.

Editorial Reviews

About the Author

Coming from a natural sciences background, Gary Sherman has been torturing computers and programming languages for years. Gary has been using and customizing Geographic Information Systems for well over 16 years. In 2002 he founded the Quantum GIS project, an Open Source desktop GIS application for viewing and editing data. Gary lives and works in Alaska and commutes virutally around the world via the Internet.

Product Details

• Paperback: 368 pages
• Publisher: Pragmatic Bookshelf; 1 edition (November 4, 2008)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1934356069
• ISBN-13: 978-1934356067
• Product Dimensions: 9.2 x 7.8 x 1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 2.3 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 4.8 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (6 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #659,162 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
  • #36 in Books > Computers & Technology > Computer Science > Software Engineering > Multimedia Information Systems
  • #51 in Books > Professional & Technical > Professional Science > Earth Sciences > Geography > Information Systems

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

25 of 26 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars An Excellent Primer on Open Source GIS, November 28, 2008

By 

Dylan Beaudette (Davis, CA) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Desktop GIS: Mapping the Planet with Open Source Tools (Paperback)

The book "Desktop GIS: Mapping the Planet with Open Source Tools" is an excellent resource for students and instructors in the field of GIS-- or the interested amateur cartographer. Most courses in spatial analysis and map-making are taught using expensive, proprietary software packages that are only available at universities or large consulting firms. Open source GIS software, while widely available, is not well known or used outside of a relatively small circle of power users. Getting up to speed on open source GIS applications used to require a tremendous time investment reading documentation, and asking questions on mailing lists or IRC. This time investment was a series limiting factor for many potential users of open source GIS software.

"Desktop GIS" fills this long-standing gap in the form of example-based and task-oriented documentation. The format of this book should appeal to a wide audience, as it can be used as a flip-through reference or can be read cover to cover for a more comprehensive overview. Already I have leant this book to colleagues seeking more information on QGIS, GRASS, and R integration. This book, and others like it will certainly empower interested users to answer spatial analysis questions and make beautiful maps- without being tied to expensive annual license costs.

9 of 10 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Recommended! Desktop GIS: Mapping the Planet with Open Source Tools, December 6, 2008

By 

B. A. Wood (Wellington, New Zealand) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Desktop GIS: Mapping the Planet with Open Source Tools (Paperback)

Desktop GIS: Mapping the Planet with Open Source Tools is a book I have already recommended to several people and organisations around the world who are starting out with GIS.

For anyone looking to explore or map data, from hobbyists to serious biologists, ecologists, etc, this book is the ideal introduction to GIS. It presents the underlying concepts of GIS in a chatty, easy to understand style, and introduces a range of freely available software tools which will enable virtually anyone to map or analyse their data, from beginners looking to plot data on a simple desktop map, to those who wish to carry out sophisticated spatial analyses, this book presents a range of solutions covering them all.

4 of 4 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars The place to start, October 2, 2009

By 

M. Henri De Feraudy (France) - See all my reviews
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Amazon Verified Purchase

This review is from: Desktop GIS: Mapping the Planet with Open Source Tools (Paperback)

There is not much choice. If you want to use free GIS software and you are starting out, you'll pretty much need to buy this book to get an overview of the possibilities.
Not that it's perfect, the book is necessarily a little outdated now, since the versions of such software such as Quantum GIS are no longer version 0.9 but 1.02 for the stable version and 1.3 for the development version.
But heck it's not the bells and whistles that count, it's the overall picture so you know where to look.
This covers a lot of different FOSS GIS applications, like GRASS UDIG, QGIS,OpenJump and others, but it gives most attention to GGis and Grass, which is not surprising, given the author is the person who started QGis and it works with Grass.
I would have saved a month of time had I started with this book rather than pester people on forums.