Micro Resources

Sometimes the "out-of-the-box" GIS applications don't fulfill your need. While writing your own application isn't something to enter into lightly, sometimes it is the best solution.

A custom application might be the answer when you need:

• A simplified interface
• Special functions and tools
• Integration with other tools and data

The key to a successful custom application is to leverage the available toolkits and libraries---in other words let someone else do the hard work for you.

Some open source resources for writing your own applications are:

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Eventually, most of us are interested in getting our GIS data from the desktop to the web. If you use Quantum GIS (QGIS) there are a couple of handy plugins/tools that allow you to do just that.

There are two ways to convert a QGIS project file to a MapServer map file:

1. The MapServer export plugin included with QGIS
2. The new standalone QgisToMapServer application

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If you are using a newer version of QGIS, you may find that the icons do not match those found in Desktop GIS. You can revert to the "classic" icons in newer versions of QGIS by going to Edit|Options, choosing the General tab, and then selecting "classic" from the Icon theme drop-down box.

Looks like the ink is dry on Desktop GIS and it should start shipping soon. You can get the full scoop from the Pragmatic Bookshelf.

Update: It’s now shipping. See the announcement.

If you want to work through the examples in Chapter 3. Working With Vector Data, the bird observation data can be downloaded here:

http://desktopgisbook.com/files/desktop_gis_birds.zip

For the backdrop, use the world mosiac raster which is available from the Data page.

After a rather long lapse, I had the occasion to write some Java code recently (mainly because it didn’t look like Howard’s PySDE was functional).

I didn’t like it.

Not to start a language flame war, but after using Python almost exclusively for 6 months, I found Java to be cumbersome. I kept thinking “if it were Python I could do it this way”.

Sending an email from Java—frightening. From Python—simple.

Lest you think I’m a Java newbie, I’ve been using it for both desktop and web applications for over 10 years.

Its ease of use and rapid development time, coupled with the fact that Python is the de facto “GIS” scripting language in most arenas, makes it my new favorite language.

Of course the old axiom still stands—To each his own…

This weekend I finished reviewing Pragmatic Version Control Using Git by Travis Swicegood. If you are a git user or interested in learning about the latest in version control for your source code, check it out. The book is available in beta now.

QgisToMapServer converts a saved QGIS project file to a map file, ready to be served with MapServer. A binary preview version for both Mac and Windows is available now. For Linux/Unix users, the source code is available from the Git repository.

QgisToMapServer is different from the plugin in QGIS. It is a standalone Python application providing the following features:

• Create MapServer map files from saved QGIS project files
• Preview the map file (requires shp2img)
• Customizable data path

For full details see: http://spatialserver.net/qgis2ms