-------- Original Message --------
Subject: Re: Mapping Software
Date: Mon, 28 Jan 2008 17:54:05 -0000
From: Nicholas Verge <[log in to unmask]>
To: Maps, Air Photo & Geospatial Systems Forum <[log in to unmask]>
All,
Having used open source and cheap mapping software in a previous life, I
would implore others wanting to do the same not to make the mistakes i
made by using it. At first sight and upon initial use freeware seems like
a gift, but it is a false economy as during the couse of my work i ran up
against three problems:
1. I found that as I gained experience and my project evolved (dont
discount this) the software was just not extensible and function enough to
achieve what I wanted.
2. I found that it did not allow working with large volumes of data
3. It was bug-ridden and caused much work i had produced to be irrevocably
corrupted (it could not handle complex vector drawing topologies)
Point 3 may have been unique to the software i used, but if you want to
gaurantee as far as possible that such issues do not occur, then you have
to use a professionally produced COTs product. Only those whose income and
credibility is dependant on a reputation for bomb-proof programming
provide this guarantee.
The questioner wanted to plot village names over a digital elevation model
of China. To do this will require sophisticated COTs software and
considerable computational horsepower. China is a huge country and unless
the DEM to be used will be very low resolution, this project will require
display of enormous elevation datasets (I assume that the DEM is likely
SRTM3).
I recommended Manifold System GIS, because this was created to fill the
market gap for a product that was both highly functional and affordable to
the masses - unless you read the product help manual you wont appreciate
just how much you are actually buying. You can have the functionality of a
GIS costing upwards of 10 000USD for the less than Microsoft Office. This
kind of a deal is known by the technical term of a "no-brainer" or
"ESRI-killer"
Manifold System is the only GIS that is 64-bit enabled so can take
advantage of up to a petabyte of RAM (if you could install it) - no more
of the 2Gb memory limit that hobbles 32-bit systems. It is also able to
harness CUDA, which if you have the right hardware installed, can provide
you with what was until very recently computing power of the world's 100th
most powerful supercomputer and able to deliver several teraflops. You
only need a pair of the latest highend NVidia SLI Graphics cards for such
computational capabilities.
Thus Manifold System is ideally suited to the questioners needs, since by
leveraging NVIDIA's GGPU Compute Unified Device Architecture (CUDA (TM))
technology to enable parallel processing, very large arrayed infromation
sets such as DEMS and images can be very rapidly loaded and navigated (by
large I mean 10'000s pixel rows and columns, eg a 90 000 x 90 000 pixel
image mosaic will load in under a minute on and this is not using ecw/jp2).
The old chestnut of "why not use Google Earth" has arisen. There are
several fundamental reasons why you should not.
1. You do not have ownership of the content, even that which you may
upload. Larry and Sergei can do what they like with it.
2. The ability to do anything useful with your information is very limited
and you certainly cannot do anything useful with the information provided
by Google. Does Google earth provide advanced database querying
capabilities and scripting? No.
3. You do not have ownership of the software. You are the mercy of Google.
You cannot run Google Earth on your own system. You need to be connected
to the internet.
4. If the questioner is intending to commercialise their work or to use
Google Earth for commercial purposes, then they will be infringing its
terms and conditions of use if they do not obtain a commercial license
from Google (expensive!)
Cheers
Nicholas
On Mon, 28 Jan 2008 14:16:25 -0000, Angie Cope <[log in to unmask]> wrote:
> -------- Original Message --------
> Subject: Re: Mapping Software
> Date: Sun, 27 Jan 2008 12:20:16 -0800
> From: Edward Sullivan <[log in to unmask]>
> To: <[log in to unmask]>
>
>
> Well, there's not much easier or less costly than Google Earth:
>
> http://www.gearthblog.com/blog/archives/2007/05/multilingual_global.html
>
>
> http://bbs.keyhole.com/ubb/showthreaded.php/Cat/0/Number/882095/page/0/vc/1
>
> http://bbs.keyhole.com/ubb/showflat.php/Cat/0/Number/438464/an/0/page/150
>
> http://bbs.keyhole.com/ubb/showthreaded.php/Number/804601
>
> but the Open Source Quantum GIS desktop GIS (QGIS) would certainly be
> capable of doing the job,
> and is available for all of the major desktop operating systems:
>
> http://www.qgis.org/
>
>
>
>
> Edward A. Sullivan, III
> Senior Technical Associate
> Economic & Planning Systems, Inc.
> 2501 9th Street, Suite 200, Berkeley, CA, 94710-2515
> Voice: 510-841-9190 FAX: 510-841-9208
> Email: [log in to unmask]
> Web site: www.epsys.com
>
> Due to the potential that information exchanged by
> electronic media can deteriorate, be damaged, lost
> or modified, intentionally or otherwise, use of this
> electronic data by anyone other than
> Economic & Planning Systems, Inc. shall be at the
> sole risk of such user and without liability or legal
> exposure to Economic & Planning Systems, Inc.
>
> The recipient is responsible for verifying the accuracy
> of data against governing hard copy documentation.
> If there is a discrepancy between the hard copy and the
> electronic copy, the hard copy will govern. Recipient
> assumes all risks in the changing or modification of data
> and revisions or updating of hard copy documents.
>
>
>>>> [log in to unmask] 1/25/2008 1:01 PM >>>
> -------- Original Message --------
> Subject: Mapping Software
> Date: Fri, 25 Jan 2008 12:48:24 -0800 (PST)
> From: Anita Oser <[log in to unmask]>
> To: [log in to unmask]
>
>
>
> Hello Everyone,
>
> A genealogist friend of mine would like to plot old place names on a
> shaded relief map of China. He is looking for mapping software
> (preferably free or relatively inexpensive) that would allow him to do
> this and that would be relatively easy to use. Any suggestions?
>
> Thanks.
>
> Anita
>
>
> Anita K. Oser
> Cullowhee, NC
> Phone: 828-293-5484
> E-mail: [log in to unmask]
>
>
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--
----------------------------------------------------------------------
Nicholas J. Verge BSc. FGS
Geologist and geological remote sensing/GIS consultant
CEO,
Earthscience Technologies,
Henley-on-Thames, Oxfordshire, UK.
Voice: ++ 44 (0)1491 572022 (office hours 0900-2200UTC, Monday - Saturday)
Email: [log in to unmask]
|
