Welcome to Introduction to GIS Software: QGIS, Class 1
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Introduction to GIS Software: QGIS
Syllabus
GIS
cartography
projections
choropleths
geoprocessing
heat maps
georeferencing
maps that I've made
What is a map?
GIS
VIDEO
the history of cartography in four bullet points:
up to 15th c: maps mostly as diagrams
up to 15th c: maps mostly as diagrams
15th c: world maps for navigation
up to 15th c: maps mostly as diagrams
15th c: world maps for navigation
19th c: maps combined with data
up to 15th c: maps mostly as diagrams
15th c: world maps for navigation
19th c: maps combined with data
mid 20th c: GIS
"The geographical concept called 'land use' is normally restricted to property mapping. But land is also used directly by humans. What is it that the human child in Fitzgerald actually touches? Is this a suitable surface for human contact, or it just cheap, easy to maintain, easy to drain?"
Bill Bunge, Fitzgerald
"During the last 50 years or so cartography and GIS have very much aspired to push maps as factual scientific documents. Critical cartography and GIS however conceives of mapping as embedded in specific relations of power ."
Crampton, Mapping
GISs layer data
vector vs raster
a GIS will generally help you:
a GIS will generally help you:
a GIS will generally help you:
view spatial data
make maps with spatial data
a GIS will generally help you:
view spatial data
make maps with spatial data
create spatial data
a GIS will generally help you:
view spatial data
make maps with spatial data
create spatial data
modify spatial data
a GIS will generally help you:
view spatial data
make maps with spatial data
create spatial data
modify spatial data
analyze spatial data
What are latitude and longitude?
in-class exercise, part 1
open data
open data
data that is:
accessible (online, in a widely-used format)
open data
data that is:
accessible (online, in a widely-used format)
licensed freely
open data
data that is:
accessible (online, in a widely-used format)
licensed freely
usually created by a large entity
How do we give data back?
collaborative data
Haiti in OpenStreetMap before 2010 earthquake
source
Haiti in OpenStreetMap after 2010 earthquake
source
QGIS is Open Source
Free / Open Source Software
goal is to protect the "fundamental freedoms of software users"
by opening source code
freedoms to
use,
study,
modify, and
redistribute
this source code
in exchange for
attribution, and sometimes
sharing your changes under the same license
backed by licenses
who would ever contribute to FOSS?
GitHub, the popular site for hosting code, much of it open source, had well over 3.5 million users and 10 million repositories at the end of 2013.
source
reasons people contribute to FOSS projects
reasons people contribute to FOSS projects
reasons people contribute to FOSS projects
community
recognition
it's educational
reasons people contribute to FOSS projects
community
recognition
it's educational
it's fun
who would ever use FOSS?
recommended readings
in-class exercise, part 2
in-class exercise, part 3