North River Geographic Systems Inc

Geospatial Problem Solving

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FOSS4G in Knoxville Wrap-up

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For those that didn’t know it – FOSS4GNA came to Raleigh NC in 2016. Part of the thought was “Community Building”. So to help that along – I joined forces with some good people and put on a meeting in Knoxville.

It was quite the affair. We had between 36 and 42 people attend. We had 10 presentations. Which – you might be going “That’s not that big”. It wasn’t. This was put on with minimal effort and minimal advertising. It was huge because everyone that came wanted to be there. People wanted to speak. We had people from Alabama, North Carolina, and two people from Florida. We had a majority of attendees from TN.

How much can you do with NAIP and QGIS? A lot. So much so I’m a bit embarrassed by how much I didn’t know.

Ever Processed LIDAR data in SAGA? We did. The state of TN had a LIDAR meeting the day before – Oh how I wished they had seen these talks.

Running a small business is hard. Maybe it shouldn’t be – but for me it is.  I enjoy getting out. I enjoy like minded individuals. So that’s why this community is so important to me. I need people to talk to – so I’m making an attempt to push the envelope in that area. I dont’ want to join a board. It’s not an us vs them thing.  I could care less if you’re using ESRI Software – but I’d like for you to have a few extra tools in your toolbox though. I’d like for you to join in the discussion and talk to a developer. Talk to other users. Introduce people to other people. Learn something – and it doesn’t have to come at the expense of an online class or a book. It’s just conversation – but it’s oh so important.

To wrap this up: Sponsors for the event.

  • UTK went above and beyond thanks to Mike Meyers and Michael Camponovo. They provided a space.
  • Julian Burke from Chatsworth Water Works Commision donated and his donation paid for parking.
  • Thea Aldrich with the Eclipse Foundation donated and covered lunch
  • NRGS chipped in a few dollars and some sweat.

Another event? There’s another coming to Knoxville in 2018. There is a strong possibility you might see a FOSS4G flag planted in Savannah soon. Keep watch – it’s about to get fun.

You can’t start a revolution sitting back and hoping someone does something. Hope isn’t a strategy.

 

 

FOSS4G event in TN

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Join this email list if you haven’t already: https://lists.osgeo.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/southeast-us

I know with this being Labor Day many of you may be off so I’ll be repeating this email on Tuesday Sept 6th also.

Over the last few months I’ve been getting more and more comments of “We need to do something FOSS4G related in the area” with the area being the general area of East Tennessee. So after a lot of emails to various people from Texas to Canada and all points in between:

  • There is momentum after the FOSS4GNA Raleigh event. People are interested in Free and Open Source GIS and People are using Free and Open Source GIS.
  • Colleges in Particular have been vocal (more so than usual): ETSU and UTK I’m looking at you and I’m yelling to anyone else in the area.
  • The consensus is this needs to be cheap and fun. Emphasis on Cheap and we can always make it Fun. It will be Informative by default.
  • Location: We don’t have no stinkin’ location – we need one (see above bullet point for cheap).
  • We have some funding to pull this off (more funding sources are welcome).
  • This will be a “Pre Boston FOSS4G 2017 event” – whatever we do needs to feed into that event. I’ve been talking to them and they are excited and send energy our way.
  • There are three conferences we will be avoiding and as this gets more momentum I’ll be sticking those up somewhere. The three conferences are good conferences and we in no way want to hurt those events (NC TNGIC FOSS4G2017).
  • Date: We don’t have no stinkin’ dates.

With all that being said – A Free and Open Source GIS event of some type and shape at some point is happening. FOSS4G people in the surrounding areas – we welcome your input and participation.

This will all be done probably on this list – so if you don’t like a lot of email – Sorry. This is community building at the ground level. Step 1 was this email list. Step 2 is happening. Step 3 is ????.

If I can repeat two things: Cheap and Fun.

FOSS4GNA 2016 – First Post

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It’s over.

As one friend pointed out there are something like 4 stages of conference attendance:

  1. Go for the Tech
  2. Go for the Friends
  3. Go for Free Beer
  4. You Stop Going

On most everything I’m at 4. It takes a lot to drag me to a conference these days. I think my most attended conference is the Georgia URISA Conference. I’ve made three FOSS4G Conferences. For FOSS4G events I’m still at a 1 and 2.

There’s going to be several blog posts over the next few days on the conference. I can’t cram all my thoughts into one post. Plus my posts have been getting longer and longer and I really want to shorten them up a bit.

I’ve made the conferences in 2013, 2015, and 2016. Each one gets a little bit bigger…..BUT – each one has the same community feel I’ve missed elsewhere and enjoy. It really doesn’t matter who is the super star rolling into this conference – you’re going to have the same good group of people finely arrayed from business casual to “Well Day 3 for these Cargo pants”. You have people who really get don’t enjoy crowds and then you have the people who can command a room full of people. This conference accepts all kinds and it’s nice. It’s refreshing. It’s the way GIS should be.

We were somewhere around 550 strong for FOSS4GNA – which if you noticed there was also the ESRI SERUG or whatever conference running at the same time during this event. Overall – didn’t hurt us a bit. In fact – ESRI – please plan competing ones from here on out. It actually may have helped.

If you haven’t been to a FOSS4G Event you should go. This is coming from a guy who is at a 4 for everything. You will meet friends, you’ll learn something, you will walk away refreshed (and a little tired).

Like I said – more posts coming shortly. This was my get up and “stretch and warm up” post for the rest of this week.

Just in case you’re debating going to something:

foss4g-logo

BOSTON

 

The Cost of QGIS

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The too long didn’t read version is “It’s mostly Free”.  This post is more targeted to the new user or the curious user because I’m getting a lot of questions these days from those good people.

To be sorta honest I don’t care what software you use. I’ve got ESRI clients and FOSS4G clients. I have some  that are a mix. I really enjoy a mix of FOSS4G and Commercial software just for the flexibility.

To be completely and entirely honest (which you may not be used to with consultants) –  I care. If you walk into the door with nothing I’m going to push you in a FOSS4G direction. We will start with QGIS and work PostGIS into the Mix. If you walk in the door a full ESRI shop I’m going to suggest we mix it up a bit with some FOSS4G. Why – because you need to break out of your shell.

A few of my clients (who appeared on my doorstep over the last bit) went the route of “We are picking QGIS because it’s free”.  I always groan a bit because while it’s free – it’s not free. Just because you have software doesn’t mean you have a Geographic Information System. Software is one component in a long process of spending money on a functional GIS. As I tell people all the time – “It’s the process”. Process trumps software and if you don’t have a plan to get from Point G to Point S it doesn’t much matter what you are using. So yes – Free – but – that’s only one part of the big picture.

I was going to do a top 10 reasons to used QGIS. Everyone loves a list but the more I thought about it the more I drifted into a top 15 and then it dwindled to 12. Then shot up….etc. Finally I just went with 5…..

It I use the QGIS Class I teach as a blueprint (and I’ve been re-writing it for 2.14.1 and adding extra chapters) for why I tell people to USE QGIS it’s the following:

  1. Community. Join the QGIS Users list. I encourage them to post bugs on the hub.qgis.org website. Once you start participating in the community the value of QGIS goes way up. I will argue it is the most valuable component to QGIS. Paid support is nice because you can call up someone and yell at them – but communal support for your software….that is huge.
  2. It’s Professional Grade Software. You can edit data. You can view data. You can manipulate imagery. You can view Imagery. You an make a map. You can consume standard OGC Services. It has small foot print so you might be able to leverage some lower end hardware. It works and it’s not that hard to use.
  3. Going back to 1 – you have a say so in it’s development. You can vote by filing bugs or you can vote with your currency and donate/hire a developer or you can talk to the community. YOU HAVE A VOICE. That’s a powerful thing anywhere.
  4. It’s Open Source. You can see the code. Which if you are like me looking at pages of software code is about as exciting as watching paint dry on most days….but you can if you wish. You can help document. You can write small articles on a blog for people to follow along.

If you decide at this point you want to use QGIS sit down and get a plan. Use a lot of words like shareholder and stakeholder but look for people who want this to happen and who want their work life to get better and more informative. Don’t start off going “Well the software is free”. You get this foggy discussion of “This is going to be really cheap because of free software”. It’s not going to be as cheap as you think. It helps you aren’t spending a ton of money on desktop software – but that frees you up to leverage that money in another direction – like better data…or GPS Data collection…or a server…

…….and then finally: 5. It’s FREE. Yeah it’s free. It’s an investment…and it just so happens it’s financially free to get this started. When I was an ESRI Certified Trainer I always felt a bit guilty (but it was good business) in seeing someone buy tens of thousands of dollars of software only to call me in for training classes that ran upwards of 500 dollars a day per person. Most times they had no plan or barely a plan so the training “helped” some but not really. The QGIS class is a bit different as I’m running it cheaper and different goals these days. If your budget is tight there’s nothing wrong with going “we’ve got to start out cheap” – just realize there are at least 4 other reasons to pick it that are better (in my opinion) than “It’s FREE”. Just so you know – I went from ArcGIS Enterprise….Desktop…Professional…..whatever it is called to QGIS/PostGIS. I went from Commercial to “Free” for my GIS life and Services. Why? 1 through 4 above.

There are 50 other reasons to use QGIS. I listed 5 and really 2 are repeats and for me because it’s all community oriented. To me it’s also fuI have slightly loftier goals than moneyn…each release brings more functionality (fun is not a good reason to pick software) and more stability. Some might go “It Crashes”. Yes it does. Find me software that doesn’t.

Anyway – if you stumble upon this article while searching for more information. Join the QGIS listserve. Call or email if you want – that seems to happen a lot these days and I like answering questions.

Happy QGIS’ing! Download it and give it a shot. You can Dooooooo it.