QGIS is the main tool for working with spatial information. An Overview of Thematic Resources for Beginners

Seals have always worried the IT community. But the issues of the development of geographic information systems were not always worrying. Previously, GIS was a narrow and specific area in the IT industry, where all participants knew each other. However, with the advent of popular Internet mapping services, as well as mobile applications, each housewife was able to master the technologies that were previously available to the gurus in the field of GIS and remote sensing .

Yandex and Google did everything so that the life of users when using cartographic applications was comfortable. However, when the layman begins to allow himself more, his life is dramatically complicated. This review aims to reduce the circles of hell in the development of a new specialty. There is nothing complicated, however, as in any specialization, there are a lot of nuances.

In a zoo, software that works with spatial information is easy to get lost. Therefore, I recommend starting the development of this unpretentious industry with desktop GIS applications. The most popular applications are ArcGIS, MapInfo, and QGIS. Objectively, the ESRI line of GIS products is the best. If you have extra llamas in your bosom, you can start with ArcGIS. However, we are for open source communism all over the world , so we will start with QGIS, since it is getting better every day and there are less and less objective reasons for using proprietary products.

QGIS works on all popular OSs, even Android. All information about the installation can be read on the project page . For lovers of complete import substitution, QGIS collects the domestic NextGIS office .

After installing QGIS, you must first start QGIS Desktop. QGIS Browser will be needed in future work, but not now.

Currently, many QGIS tutorials have been written. In RuNet, they mainly concentrate on gis-lab.info . First of all, I would recommend starting with a “Brief Introduction to GIS” . Then, read articles on interests, since in the article section you can rank publications by keywords.

In addition, you can refer to the official documentation on the project website . Those who do not want to digest a lot of letters can watch videos , for example, this one . And then download the training projectand practice on cats. Owners of Python and C ++ can complement the functionality of QGIS as a plugin .

If you suddenly did not find the answer to your question, you can contact the gis-lab.info forum or use other informal communication channels, for example, ask a question on Facebook, the “Household Mapping” group , or flood on gis.stackexchange.com .

So, we got acquainted with the tool, but to work we need data that can cost a lot of money. In the case of highly detailed satellite imagery, you really have to fork out. However, for most tasks, open data is sufficient. This is primarily OpenStreetMap, as well as remote sensing data posted by US taxpayers. For example, Landsat, MODIS, SRTM, ASTER DEM, etc. The most complete overview of open data is presented here .

In conclusion, I would like to note that, despite the growing interest in geographic information systems, useful information about GIS is highly fragmented. I hope this review partially closes this gap.

useful links


1. The site of the QGIS project
2. A popular resource in the Internet in the field of GIS and remote sensing Gis-Lab.info
3. An article on the Habr “Visualize this”
4. Facebook group “Household cartography”
5. A popular English-language GIS forum

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