North River Geographic Systems Inc

Spatial Problem Solving

Training

Teaching in Dumas TX

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QGIS Training usually goes one of two ways: Mediocre or great. With a class of 10 you have 2 or 3 that are really excited about QGIS and 2 or 3 that are glad they aren’t at work while the rest scratch their heads and go “Why won’t this guy shut up”. In the training in Dumas Texas – Someone yelled “Holy Sh*t” and I was caught off guard……

 

I’ve been getting more training requests from organizations looking at moving off their COTS system or integrating QGIS into their workflow.  So far I’ve been to 2 conferences to talk about QGIS and 2 organizations to teach QGIS. Last week had me in Dumas Texas. If you fly to Dallas TX and get in a car it’s almost exactly one tank of gas away. Dumas is a town of 16,000 but they also house the North Plains Groundwater Conservation District. NPGCD is moving off their commercial system – actually have moved and have dived fully into Open Source Software. RESPEC had built a backend system for them and most of the work happens there – but work happens in QGIS. RESPEC called and asked if I could do some training. My answer was yes and off I went.

NPGCD is in the groundwater protection business. They work with the local population from farming to industry to protect the water supply. The water supply being the Ogallala Aquifer. Fun part for me – it’s been a bit since I’ve been this close to my old job of “environmental GIS” work and since I’m a geologist by training I find the whole thing of aquifers fascinating.

tractor
I went to the Dumas Museum while I was there. If you like Tractors – have I got the place for you.

One of the fun things with the Intro Class is the exercises – well at least I think it’s the exercises. It took a while but I have them to a point to where I can rip them out and replace them in about half a day. The Problems cover the basics of what I think people struggle with in QGIS …. well GIS in general. So in walking to meet the group the day before class I realized I had all the exercises wrong. What I thought they needed wasn’t what they needed. So – I replaced them the night before class. Granted they were still not perfect but I caught the spirit of the problem. We ran through slides for 4 hours and then I went and sat with each person individually and answering questions.

In 27 years of doing this – people are always stuck with editing and attributes. You can run through toolboxes and python and talk about colors – but it always falls down at editing and attributes .

  • How do we find stuff?
  • How do we edit the stuff we find?
  • How do I save stuff?
  • (plus the How do I make a PDF to print because we need a paper map).

There aren’t many times I get to sit with a client during training and learn what works and what doesn’t. Day 2 we just threw the class out and played “Stump the instructor”. When we touched on editing that’s when the “Holy Sh*t” moment happened. We covered how to edit and merge data and move vertices and not create more problems than you started off with. No one has ever been happy enough in class to curse. It was great.

sunrise
Leaving Dumas while listening to Waylon Jennings

I’ve had some horrid classes. I’ve had some mediocre classes. I think this one was probably the best classes I’ve had the pleasure of conducting….way out in the middle of North Texas. Heading out Saturday morning I stopped on the side of the road and caught the sunrise while Waylon Jennings blared from the radio.

 

 

New Training Classes on QGIS

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I know – possibly my most failed blog topic as I talk about this a lot and never get anything done.

Well – I finally got something done. Well almost done. The first part of January found me in Denver Colorado teaching a 3 day QGIS class for SolSpec  covering the ins and outs of QGIS. I have a 1 day intro class that has made the rounds for about 5 years. It’s well tested and works and hasn’t been adjusted much except for changes to the software.

I am serious. And don’t call me Shirley.

Now that I’m back and have a chance to reviews notes on what went well and what didn’t – I’m announcing two more classes to round out the QGIS trilogy: QGIS II and QGIS III. I want to call the whole thing: QGIS, A New Hope, QGIS Strikes Back, and Revenge of QGIS. I won’t as I don’t want sued out of existence.

Anyway – the next two days cover:

  • Project settings
  • Raster and vector tools
  • Processing
  • Processing modeler
  • Analysis tools
  • Maybe some python – I’m undecided on this one for day 3.

I end this all by pointing at PostGIS and yelling a lot. Well – not really yelling but pointing wildly.

Keenesburg Colorado

Why didn’t I do this years ago? I actually work more on client projects more than I teach but there’s been a pretty big upswing in people asking for training on QGIS. So I’m currently reworking parts and portions and getting ready to push this two more days out the door. As far as Pricing I’m working on a 3 day package deal for people and pricing for organizations.

Introduction to QGIS Class in Chattanooga – 1st Quarter 2019

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…or somewhere close.  The QGIS class may be just outside of Downtown or in some trendy part where we can eat lunch. At some point……yeah I know nothing like specifics.

Due to popular demand – I’m actually going to attempt a QGIS Class locally. There are some people I’ve emailed BUT in the hope of more people I’m including a form for you to put some information so we can figure out when it’s a good time to hold the class. Everyone has different schedules and maybe this doesn’t happen, or it does happen, or it happens twice. Yeah – I know. This should happen early in 2019 and I’ll give everyone enough time to plan – but I need to know interest before I start putting this together.

Anyway – this will be the 1 day QGIS Workshop and this will be a “certified” class as we will throw money back towards the QGIS community. Price will be $325 for 1 day. Food not included. Fun included. Bring some questions, a laptop, and other things and we’ll learn something. I’m hoping for between 7 to 10 people.

Intro to QGIS Training – September 25th 2018 – Montgomery Alabama

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The Intro to QGIS class is going to Alabama! Actually – Montgomery Alabama September 25th 2018.

It was picked to start off the Alabama Damage Summit. Also – with much luck this will be certified! Actually – there is no luck about it. It’s a certified class. Which means approximately 25 dollars per student goes back to the QGIS Organization.

Anyway – if you’re coming to the conference sign up! If you’re not ding the conference organizers and maybe you can attend. The more the merrier at this event.

What will we cover?

    1. QGIS Community
    2. Navigating the Interface
    3. Data and Symbology
    4. Geoprocessing and Plugins
    5. Editing
    6. Layout Manager
    7. Databases

The Database section might change a bit depending on time constraints. It should be a blast – so come down/up/over/back and learn some new software.

The QGIS Class at TNGIC

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So for those of you just tuning in (https://wp.me/p244MI-2nT), I did a QGIS 4 hour intro class at TNGIC. TNGIC is the State GIS group. They’ve been around a good while. I don’t really participate that much anymore. Why? Eh – There’s  a few things I like doing and going to conferences doesn’t rate high anymore. I’m excited about FOSS4GNA because I get to see a lot of friends. Well – and the presentations. Mostly the people.

What happened – It was all pretty comical. Conferences are really just screw off time for a lot of people. This conference was at Montgomery Bell State Park. So you drive to Nashville, Head west for about 20 or so miles (maybe more) you end up in a pretty nice state park that has limited everything. 7 people signed up. By the time I gave everyone 15 minutes to get settled I had about 20 people in there. That set off a mad scramble to grab QGIS and follow along. We covered QGIS 3 in all it’s gory details – well as much gory detail as I could muster in 3.5 hours. There were questions. I had most of the answers. Three things stuck out at this event. Well – four.

  1. I broke my first rule of training in that “I’m not doing it for free”. We bartered and they paid for a room. So I had the chance to ride my bike and goof off a bit as I didn’t have great internet access. I worked a little that night. Did some pretty cool things I’ll talk about coming up. Plus hand out business cards. So overall – I’m OK with this.
  2. One guy walked up and went “you’re the website guy – with the tutorials?” and I said “probably”. Turns out he had been using them to get some much needed work down using QGIS. I had helped someone without even knowing. Which – made me take a hard look at the tutorial pages and realized I need to do something to make them easier to manage. They are behind – still useful but behind.
  3. A park ranger snuck into the class. We started talking and turns out he needed GIS help – as in he had to share with the entire state about 10 ArcGIS licenses. So we started looking at what he needed done vs what he was doing. 100% can be done with QGIS. Most of their data is stored locally. So that was a win. Hopefully he emails with more questions. I’m all for people becoming self sufficient.

I make a  decent living off the FOSS4G and my 26 years of being in the Geospatial Industry. These days I mostly try to focus on the data for work and really only get passionate about software during classes. I generally pitch QGIS as “another Tool in the Tool Box”. So part 4:

  • If you bought arcview and hate it – there’s no reason to stick with it. QGIS is better than an Arcview license. I ran into a few that just went “Well we already bought ESRI <fill in the blank> and we’re stuck”. Well – no you aren’t. Don’t get rid of it – just add to the tool set. It isn’t all or nothing these days.
  • Twenty six years ago we struggled to get and maintain data. Flash forward to 2018 and there are still people struggling to get and maintain data.
  • People in the class looked at QGIS similar to a software company. Do they make a “collector type of app”? Well no – this isn’t a company it’s a group of people. There are some mobile apps like this, that, and the other thing but it’s not a software company. QGIS grows as the community grows. Which caused me to play with QFIELD that night. It’s a mobile data collection app from the QGIS side of life.

So I’m adjusting the class. The first time I taught this class people had questions and problems. There are still questions and problems but it’s morphed into a more advanced line of thought. Can I get the data out into the field? My AutoCAD package can pull in spatialite…can I work in Spatialite? Those weren’t questions from 5 years ago. So I need to update and adjust. It’s a good thing – it’s been over a year or two since I’ve taught this large of a group and fielded questions.

Next outing is in St Loius at FOSS4GNA.

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