by Laurie Veska, (Click to contact Laurie), May 2013
Following on from my previous article, what are some practical and cost-effective approaches to encourage the use of Geographic Information Systems (GIS) in your company or organisation?
One approach is to purchase some or all of your GIS licences as floating network licences if possible, this means that you must decide on the maximum number of concurrent users you can afford. You then augment this with free stripped-down versions of the GIS software for view-only users, providing basic access to your company’s GIS layers. Whilst this model may suit the requirements of many small resource companies, I personally favour a model employing the additional use of Open Source GIS software, this has been termed by others as the Hybrid GIS approach.
The Hybrid GIS model I propose in this article is:
- Retain a minimum licence holding in your GIS of preference – even just a single licence if possible, shared between your power-users’ machines – but whatever you do, don’t get offside with this group!
- Install Quantum GIS (QGIS) on all users’ machines: power-users, standard-users and occasional or view-only users
- Encourage the use of QGIS in your organisation, possibly also pay for commercial support and/or training for your workers
You will likely find that many if not all of your GIS business requirements can be accomplished by using free open-source GIS software such as the GRASS/Quantum GIS combination, and any remaining tasks covered with your preferred commercial GIS product.
Screen shot showing exploration data over a geophysical image using Quantum GIS software
Examples of plug-ins for Quantum GIS
Below is a table showing a basic comparison of some of the main features of QGIS compared to MapInfo and ArcView products. It is not intended as an exhaustive or even an in-depth comparison as many features in these three products are implemented using third party plug-ins, so ultimate functionality depends on these external tools. This comparison is provided to hopefully entice you to investigate and consider the use of open source GIS tools in your organisation.
I don’t preach that one piece of software can be the ultimate solution for every need, but nonetheless, QGIS is a great tool, and it proudly occupies the top tray in my geology tool chest.
| Quantum GIS | ESRI ArcViewGIS | MapInfo GIS | |
| Price | Free | $$$ | $$$ |
| Spatial Analysis capability | √ (using GRASS functions) | √ (ArcINFO for advanced functionality) | √ |
| Commercial product support available | √ | √ | √ |
| SQL Server/Oracle support | √ | √ | √ |
| Standalone viewer available | √ | √ | √ |
| Tab file support | √ | √ | √ |
| Shape file support | √ | √ | √ |
| Windows OS | √ | √ | √ |
| Macintosh OS | √ | Early versions | X |
| Linux /Unix | √ | ArcInfo (Unix) | X |
| Android OS | √ | X | X |
| On-the-fly projection | √ | √ | √ |
| Cartography/Maps | √ (limited) | √ | √ |
| Raster image support | √ | √ | √ |