If I were a small city GIS manager, how would I deploy City's GIS infrastructure? What database? What desktop GIS technology? What application server? What presentation and mapping layer?...
Indeed Paul. No beating ArcMap for cartography (although I do prefer Geomedia and Autocad Map for editing.) Regardless, desktop GIS is usually the entry point and we all know who dominates there.
Can anyone from government chime in on the barrier to open source solutions for enterprise GIS?
Thanks Adam, I am posting this to Google+ (which you should join, btw, there are lots of Geo-peeps there). I think you sort of answered my first presenting question: how does Q-GIS compare to ArcGIS for cartography? But also, how does it compare GM Pro and A-cad Map for editing?
Anyway, I think we’ll make good on setting up an R&D environment based on your recommendations here in our office.
Hi Adam, I’d estimate that for small government users, barriers to open source solutions are an arm-wrestling match with their IT departments. For those GIS folks with sufficiently deep technical skills, the case can be made and backed up with demonstrations. A typical local government GIS manager will be better rewarded for building cooperative teams, deferring to incumbent IT decisions, and relying on IT for support more than reinventing GIS for them.
Perhaps in the fairly near future, an acknowledgement of better ROI with open source GIS will take the form of recruitment for GIS managers that demand facility with the open source stack you’ve mentioned.
Sometimes it can take an astoundingly long time to rewrite local government job descriptions, and technology will be a decade or more past the details of verbiage that guide selection of the candidate.
@ Pete…thanks for the Google+ recommendation. I’m on it.
For the databases it natively works with (shapefiles, spatialite, and Postgis) QGIS is just as good as Geomedia Pro. Given that I prefer Geomedia over ArcGIS for editing, question answered.
@ Brian… insightful input. As usual, the biggest challenges are institutional, and not technical. Do you see that shift occurring at Marin County?
I am assessor in small rural county-.No money -would like to start GIS am looking at QGIS and am learning layer import etc. Barriers are vendors want to drop in full system which I can not afford. Would like suggestions of steps to take to do in house. Have air photos down loaded and plss qqq- soils-roads- Can I just make a parcel layer with these or am I missing something. I am in iowa so pacels are mostly squares. I am not afraid of the work but I don’t know what I don’t know. Question- if making 40 acre parcel how I snap to existing points on different layer pls qqq Also existing parcels are not geo referenced- should I just do that now or is it really important. Any insight would be helpful
@ Niel:
In the context of this blog, I’ll just shortly say that QGIS has the functionalities that you need - including georeferncing tools and snapping. As with any GIS software, getting the coordinate system settings and snap tolerances right takes some getting used to, but if you look closely at the user manual and persever you’ll get it.
On a more general level, your problem sounds to me like one of source data, not software functionality. Source data for generating an assessor parcel base might include (in order from least favorable to most): written deeds, assessor map book pages, recorded parcel and subdivision maps (again on paper), CAD drawings, and existing GIS data. My experience is that parcel data for an entire county usually comes from a number of different sources and formats, and it is a matter of patching together your best available data into a single, consistent GIS dataset.
Advice on how to get there in your specific case? Let’s face it - that’s where hiring some experienced help comes in. I’d be happy to have short phone conversation with you about the possibilities. Feel free to call the office any time.
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In answer to your question: Powerful desktop data editing tools and paper cartography. Now, GIS shops are doing less and less of that, but since historically ESRI is already installed there for those needs, the tail wags the dog.
By Paul Ramsey on 2012-01-06