raleigh

GRASS GIS Meetup – Raleigh NC November 5th 2016

Interested in using GRASS GIS as a geospatial processing backend? Or for reproducible research with Python? Or as a surprisingly powerful desktop GIS? Then come to the November GRASS GIS Raleigh meetup which will be specifically focused on getting newcomers started with anything ranging from using GRASS GIS to programing and contributing. The meetup is planned for Saturday, November 5. Meet in 4502 Fishbowl at the Hunt library at NC State Centennial Campus at 2 PM. Map here. Join any time during the afternoon; we will be there at least till 6 PM, but there is an option to stay longer.

Contact Vashek if interested in attending, or if you have any questions:
wenzeslaus@gmail.com

More information: https://grasswiki.osgeo.org/wiki/GRASS_GIS_Raleigh_meetups_2016

Classes at UNC in October 2016 on QGIS and GRASS

From the email bag …and no this isn’t anything I’m doing but I support anyone doing this in the area.

Greetings, all!

Also, at UNC in Chapel Hill there will be a one week short course on Open Source (QGIS and GRASS) GIS that is open to the public. Two, 2-hour classes on QGIS and one 2-hour class on GRASS, running Oct. 24, 26, and 28:

http://www.irss.unc.edu/odum/contentSubpage.jsp?nodeid=21

Introduction to the QGIS Open Source Software: Part 1

Scott Madry
This will be the first of two, 2-hour hands-on workshops using the QGIS open source GIS package. This first workshop will begin with an overall introduction to the “OSGEO Stack” of open source GIS tools, including QGIS, GRASS, R and other tools. Then we will explore the QGIS software, which can run on Windows, Mac or Linux environments, runs in over 40 languages, and includes vector, raster, georegistration, and other capabilities, all using ESRI shapefiles as the basic vector data structure and Geotiffs as the basic raster data structure. The first workshop will be a general introduction to the QGIS user interface and will explore the various elementary functions, loading vector and raster data, etc. Additional tutorials and data will be made available to the participants so you can continue to work on your own. Feel free to bring your own laptop so you can download the software, tutorials, and data, or use a computer in the lab.

There is no fee for this course.

No registration required. UNC students, faculty, and staff will need to show their UNC OneCard.

Davis 247
Date: October 24, 2016

TImes: 10:00am – 12:00pm

Introduction to the QGIS Open Source Software: Part 2

Scott Madry
The second class will continue the introduction to the QGIS software. We will explore various plugins, including live linking OpenStreetMaps and Bing maps and images, creating cartographic maps using the composer cartographic interface, working with vector attribute tables, and downloading and working with raster satellite imagery. Web resources will be explored. Additional tutorials and data will be made available to the participants so you can continue to work on your own. Feel free to bring your own laptop so you can download the software, tutorials, and data, or use a computer in the lab.A

There is no fee for this course.

No registration required. UNC students, faculty, and staff will need to show their UNC OneCard.

Davis 247
Date: October 26, 2016

Times: 10:00am – 12:00pm

Introduction to the GRASS Open Source GIS and image processing software

Scott Madry
This third 2-hour workshop will cover the GRASS GIS package, which is included in the QGIS download and can be used either as a set of integrated tools in the QGIS environment, or run as the stand-alone GRASS package. GRASS is the original open source GIS package, and is a very powerful and integrated GIS, image processing, spatial analysis, visualization and modeling environment. The first hour of the workshop will use GRASS within the QGIS environment, where data can be used as GRASS files in the same environment as QGIS shapefiles, and can be converted easily between the two. The current QGIS software can now call all of the GRASS functions (over 400) remotely and does raster and vector data format conversion on the fly. In the second hour we will use GRASS in its stand-alone configuration. Additional tutorials and data will be made available to the participants so you can continue to work on your own. Feel free to bring your own laptop so you can download the software, tutorials, and data, or use a computer in the lab.

There is no fee for this course.

No registration required. UNC students, faculty, and staff will need to show their UNC OneCard.

Davis 247
Date: October 28, 2016

Times: 10:00am – 12:00pm

Intro to GRASS – Raleigh NC – Sept 8 2016

From the Email Bag:

For those from Raleigh area:

Intro to GRASS GIS

Geospatial Studio this Thursday at NC State University

September 8, 3:30 pm – 4:30 pm

Take your first steps in GRASS GIS by attending the Geospatial Studio and learning how to use this free (as in freedom) software at this free (as in free beer) event. After the introduction, there will be time to try your own data in GRASS GIS. Attendees are encouraged to bring their own laptops. Please arrive a few minutes early if GRASS GIS is not already installed on your computer.

https://cnr.ncsu.edu/geospatial/event/geospatial-studio-intro-to-grass-gis/

https://twitter.com/NCSUgeospatial/status/773156753768902656

Synopsis of FOSS4GNA 2016

I am seriously slacking on my 2016 FOSS4GNA report. Perhaps today I will get caught up.

I’ve been on conference committees before – but nothing quite this large and complicated. To be completely 100% honest I don’t deal with committee work well. Committees work at a slow steady pace and I’m more sporadic. It’s something I came to realize a few years ago and after finally “seeing the light” as it were I removed myself off every committee/board I was on. Since I was part of the group attempting to get this conference South – I was asked and I served on it. You can go the website and read about all the board members. Andrea Ross served as the producer and Rob Emanuele served as the program committee chair and Sarah Cordivano was the community chair. If you had to point at three people and go “how did this happen?” – there are your three. They did an excellent job. You can always look back and go “What would I have done differently?” and probably that answer would have been “Don’t put Randy on the committee”.

It’s a lot of work. Especially when you fight hard to get the conference into North Carolina and then the Transgender Bathroom Bill becomes a thing. If you had told me a year ago I would be concerned about who pees where I would have said you were insane. I even had to have a sit down talk with my mom who was horrified men would be in women’s bathrooms (as she put it) and So I had to paint the issue with my very wide gray brush. At the end it was “I never thought about it like that so yeah this is pretty mean spirited”.

Everyone did well – there were discussions ranging from “How do we get people there that need scholarships?” to “What do we do for Socials?” to “Do we really have to discard all these submissions – they are good submissions”.

Anyway – A summary is making the rounds on several listserves and since I said I would discuss the conference more:

The conference ran from May 2-5, at the Raleigh Convention Center, in Raleigh North Carolina. The code sprint & unconference ran May 6 & 7 at Red Hat’s headquarters, a few blocks from the convention center. A Tour of the NCSU OSGeo Research and Education lab took place on May 6th.
The conference featured 1 day of workshops, 3 days of sessions, a code sprint, an unconference, and social events every night. There were 93 full length (35 minute) sessions, 36 short length (15 minute) sessions, 10 workshops, and 3 keynotes. This represented an increase in full length. The rooms were generally always near full or slightly overflowing for particularly popular talks, despite them being big rooms.
The conference grew by 33% . There were 558 attendees. This level of increase is very positive, when so many other conferences are in decline.
Like 2015’s team, 50% of the 2016 committee were women. Also like 2015, a significant proportion of speakers and attendees were women (in the 30% range), which is great to see.
23 people were at the conference who wouldn’t have otherwise been without the financial support we gave them.
From the attendee survey, people were clearly thrilled about the conference… 99% positive feedback. (n=102). The one negative response said they were disappointed there was no lunch served. We’re not sure how they missed it! The venue, the strong program, and the positive & supportive atmosphere were the things people commented (positively) on most.
People loved the keynotes, and especially Tamar Cohen’s entitled Extreme Mapping.
The video recordings of sessions are being uploaded to Youtube, with dozens up, and more each day.
90% of sponsors rated the value excellent. 10% rated it very good. The layout of the conference was especially appreciated as it meant plenty of traffic for sponsors at all times.

So there you have it – a summary by the numbers. That should gear you up for 2017 Boston .

FOSS4GNA 2016 – First Post

It’s over.

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

Go for the Tech
Go for the Friends
Go for Free Beer
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: