This is because you can do it all with free GIS software. The best part is: These free GIS software give you the firepower to get the job done as if you’re working with. We’ve, but these 13 (out of 30) reign supreme for free mapping software. 1 QGIS – Formerly Quantum GIS Highlights: Community All-in-one Cartography Plugins GISGeography Favorite After the, we illustrated with 27 differences why QGIS is undoubtedly the #1 free GIS software package. Is jam-packed with hidden gems at your fingertips.
Free download. Quantum GIS (QGIS) 2.2 USER REVIEWS Quantum GIS (QGIS) 2.2: The application that allows you to create and edit maps with much ease. Arcgis and erdas imagine to process image classification,digitization and topological editing,i have also used quantum gis1.8 version to process parcell.
For example, you can automate map production, process geospatial data, and generate drool-worthy cartographic figures. There’s no other free mapping software on this list that lets you map like a rock star than QGIS. Boost this mapping software into a state of epicness. If the tool doesn’t exist, search for a plugin developed by the QGIS community. Volunteer effort is key to its success.
The support is impressively great. If you’re still searching for free GIS software, you’d be insane not to download the free GIS software QGIS. Here’s your to get your feet wet. In February 2018, QGIS 3 brings a whole new set of cartography, 3D and analysis tools.
We’ve got you covered on how to find all of its newest features and plugins: READ MORE: 2 gVSIG Highlights: 3D Tools Compatibility CAD Tools Data Management In 2004, the emerged as a free, open source GIS software option in Spain. We illustrate in this why we like it SO much: gvSIG really outperforms QGIS 2 for 3D.
It really is the best 3D visualization available in open source GIS. The NavTable is agile in that it allows you to see records one-by-one vertically.
The CAD tools are impressive on gvSIG. Thanks to the OpenCAD Tools, you can trace geometries, edit vertices, snap and split lines and polygons.
If you need GIS on your mobile phone, gvSIG Mobile is perfect for field work because of its interface and GPS tools. 3 Whitebox GAT Highlights: LiDAR Tools Hydrology GISGeography Favorite Yes, (Geospatial Analysis Toolbox) is #3 on the list of open source, free GIS software. Unbelievably, Whitebox GAT has only been around since 2009 because it feels so fine-tuned when you see it in action. There’s a hydrology theme around Whitebox GAT.
It actually replaced – a tool for hydro-geomorphic applications. Whitebox GAT is really a full-blown open-access GIS and remote sensing software package. Where it shines is LIDAR! With no barriers, Whitebox GAT is the swiss-army knife of.
The LiDAR toolbox is a life-saver. For example, LAS to shapefile is an insanely useful tool. But you may need a Java update to go in full throttle though. The cartographic mapping software tools are primitive compared to QGIS. But overall Whitebox GAT is solid with over 410 tools to clip, convert, analyze, manage, buffer and extract geospatial information. I find it amazing this free GIS software almost goes unheard of in the GIS industry.
Get more useful knowledge from the. 4 SAGA GIS Highlights: Geoscientific Tools Ease of Use GISGeography Favorite (System for Automated Geoscientific Analyses) is one of the classics in the world of free GIS software. It started out primarily for terrain analysis such as hillshading, watershed extraction and visibility analysis. Now, SAGA GIS is a powerhouse because it delivers a fast growing set of geoscientific methods to the geoscientific community.
Enable multiple windows to lay out all your analysis (map, histograms, scatter plots, attributes, etc). It provides both a user-friendly GUI and API. It’s not particularly useful in cartography but it’s a lifesaver in terrain analysis.
The morphometry tools are unique including the SAGA topographic wetness index and topographic position classification. If you have a DEM, and don’t know what to do with it – you NEED to look at SAGA GIS. Overall, it’s quick, reliable and accurate. Consider SAGA GIS a prime choice for environmental modeling and other applications. READ MORE: 5 GRASS GIS Highlights: Research Community Analysis Tools (Geographic Resources Analysis Support System) was developed by the US Army Corps of Engineers as a tool for land management and environmental planning.
It has evolved into a free GIS software option for different areas of study. Academia, environment consultants and government agencies (NASA, NOAA, USDA and USGS) use GRASS GIS because of its intuitive GUI and its reliability. It has over 350 rock-solid vector and raster manipulation tools. Not awfully useful in cartographic design, GRASS GIS excels primarily as a free GIS software option for analysis, image processing, digital terrain manipulation and statistics. 6 MapWindow Highlights: Hydrology Plugins Programmer Tools In 2000, was proprietary GIS software. However, it has been made open through a contract with the. At this point, The source code was released to the public.
Now that MapWindow 5 has been released, it surprisingly has some serious punch. For example, MapWindow does about 90% of what GIS users need – map viewer, identify features, processing tools and print layout. It has some higher level tools such as TauDEM for automatic watershed delineation. While HydroDesktop for data discovery, download, visualization and editing, DotSpatial for GIS programmers. In addition, it has an extensible plugin architecture for customization. 7 ILWIS Highlights: Open Source Ease of Use Free GIS software users rejoice. Once commercial GIS software, now turned into open source GIS.
(Integrated Land and Water Information Management) is an oldie but a goodie. The extinction-proof ILWIS is free GIS software for planners, biologists, water managers and geospatial users. ILWIS is good at the basics – digitizing, editing, displaying geographic data. Further to this, it’s also used for remote sensing with tools for image classification, enhancements and spectral band manipulation. Over time, it has improved support for time series, 3 analysis and animation. Overall, I found it difficult to do some of the basics like adding layers.
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However, the documentation is thorough with a pretty decent following for usage. READ MORE: 8 GeoDa Highlights: Open Source Geostatistics GeoDa Software is a free GIS software program primarily used to introduce new users into spatial data analysis. It’s main functionality is data exploration in statistics. One of the nicest things about it is how it comes with sample data for you to give a test-drive.
From simple box-plots all the way to regression statistics, GeoDa has to do nearly anything spatially. It’s user base is strong. For example, Harvard, MIT and Cornell universities have embraced this free GIS software to serve as a gentle introduction to spatial analysis for non-GIS users.
From economic development to health and real estate, it’s been used as an exciting analytical in labs as well. READ MORE: 9 uDig Highlights: Open Source Ease of Use Basic Mapping is an acronym to help get a better understanding what this Free GIS software is all about.
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u stands for user-friendly interface. D stands for desktop (Windows, Mac or Linux).
You can run uDIG on a Mac. I stand for internet oriented consuming standard (WMS, WFS or WPS). G stands for GIS-ready for complex analytical capabilities. When you start digging into uDig, it’s a nice open source GIS software option for basic mapping.
UDig’s Mapnik lets you import basemaps with the same tune as ArcGIS Specifically, it’s easy-to-use, the catalog, symbology and Mac OS functionality are some of the strong points. But it has limited tools and the bugs bog it down to really utilize it as a truly complete free GIS software package. 10 OpenJump Highlights: Open Source Conflation Formerly JUMP GIS, (JAVA Unified Mapping Platform) started as a first class conflation project.
It succeeded. But eventually grew into something much bigger. Because of how its large community effort grew, OpenJUMP into a more complete free GIS software package. One of its strengths is how it handles large data sets well. Rendering is above-grade with a whole slew of mapping options.
For example, you can generate pie charts, plotting and choropleth maps. Enhance its capabilities. There are plugins for editing, raster, printing, web-processing, spatial analysis, GPS and databases. Conflating data is another option with a whole lot more from its plugins. 11 Diva GIS Highlights: Open Source Biology Data Biologists using GIS unite!
This one specializes in mapping biological richness and diversity distribution including DNA data. Is another free GIS software package for mapping and analyzing data. Diva GIS also delivers useful, every day for your mapping needs. It’s possible to extract climate data for all locations on the land. From here, there are statistical analysis and modeling techniques to work with. For the biologist in you, it’s worth a long look for biologists around the world.
Otherwise, you should be looking at one of the top options above. 12 FalconView Highlights: Open Source Fly-throughs The initial purpose of FalconView is to be a free and open source GIS software.
Georgia Tech built this open software for displaying various types of maps and geographically referenced overlays. Now, most of FalconView’s users are from the US Department of Defense and other National Geospatial Intelligence Agencies. This is because it can be used for combat flight planning.
In SkyView mode, you can fly-through even using MXD files. It supports various types of display like elevation, satellite, LiDAR, KMZ and MrSID. 13 OrbisGIS Highlights: Open Source is a work-in-progress. Its goal is to be a cross-platform open source GIS software package designed by and for research.
It provides some GIS techniques to manage and share spatial data. OrbisGIS is able to process vector and raster data models. It can execute processes like noise maps or hydrology process without any add-ons. Are available but are very limited for the time-being. The developers are still working on the documentation.
You may want to look elsewhere until this project gets sturdy up on its feet. Another option is R. Because it does not rely on a GUI, some people find it tricky to get started.
But once you figure out the syntax and command-line workflow, it is undoubtedly one of the most powerful GIS systems going. Regarding gestatistics, it simply trounces competitors due to the vast array of contributed packages provided by statisticians: A great introductory resource on R for spatial data is provided by James Cheshire and myself and is free to download here: Note the opening quote by Gary Sherman who created QGIS: “With the advent of ‘modern’ GIS software, most people want to point and click their way through life. That’s good, but there is a tremendous amount of flexibility and power waiting for you with the command line. Many times you can do something on the command line in a fraction of the time you can do it with a GUI.”. Nice article. A few comments about FalconView. FalconView was originally part of a flight planning software suite developed by Georgia Tech for the National Imagery and Mapping Agency (NIMA, the predecessor to NGA).
It allowed military pilots to use digital versions of NIMA flight planning charts, including taking their flight plans and overlaying the plans on the charts. Pilots could also overlay multiple point symbols on the charts. Others soon discovered it was useful for making and printing basic maps quickly. I haven’t used it in years. It looks like GT continues to add functionality to the software. I am a single individual looking to map a woodland which I have just purchased.
Using GIS I would like to create maps of the woodland including the locations of individual tree species,their health,ground type,animal holes etc, so that I can make informed decisions on sustainable forest management. I currently have an iPad with gps capabilities to use on the site to collect the data, and will be buying a new computer soon, but am having difficulty finding the right program to use. Could you please help me with any suggestions about software and if it is Apple compatible many thanks John.
Could you perhaps help me with some advice? I’ve been typesetting an annual South Africa wine guide for 17 years and, more or less by default, have been drawing the maps that show the locations of the wineries. I’ve been doing these in CorelDraw, usually tracing an image of a map imported into a layer reserved for that. There are 20-odd maps showing the locations of several hundreds of wineries.
I would love to be able to do this properly, using real-world co-ordinates, and showing the topography. I would like to add all the wineries, and output windows showing specific regions at different scales (some maps cover large areas; other cover much smaller areas densely populated with wineries). Where should I start? I’d like at least to begin with free software, to see whether I get the hang of it. Can you suggest what would be the best to start with? Many thanks Gawie du Toit.
I should probably write a whole article how to do this, but I’ll go ahead and list the steps below. Step 1) You’ll need to download GIS software and data. My suggestion is to use QGIS and Natural Earth data. The reason why you’ll want to use Natural Earth is because it’s completely public use and they give permission to modify, disseminate and use the data in any manner. Here’s how to download – Step 2) The next thing you’ll have to do is go into the ‘Quick Start’ folder in Natural Earth and open up the.QGS file in QGIS by double clicking it. Step 3) I don’t know if you have coordinates for each winery or not.
Either way, you’ll have to create a shape file with each winery. This might take some time, but once it’s created you will always have that data to work with as a layer. There’s a button on the left panel ‘New Shapefile Layer’.
Make sure you choose ‘Point’. Give the shape file a name. You can add fields to your shapefile, which are like columns in a spreadsheet. For example, you can add the field ‘NAME’ as TEXT 100 length, which will be each winery name.
Click ‘ADD FIELD TO LIST’ and save your shape file somewhere. STEP 4) Now, it’s time to add point locations on the map. You’ll need some imagery to see where each winery point should go. Go to Plugins Manage and Install Plugins Search for the Open Layers plugin and Install it. Under Web OpenLayersPlugin, you can add Google, Bing or OpenStreetMaps imagery to QGIS. STEP 5) Finally, you can add points to your shape file.
In the Digitizing Toolbar (usually at the top), click the pencil icon to toggle on editing. Click the ‘Add Feature’ button to add points to the map. Keep on adding points until you have all the wineries.
To create a professional looking map, you can use the Natural Earth data as you’re basemap. Using QGIS Composer, you can add cartographic elements like a scalebar, north arrow, title, etc Export as an image file or PDF.
For purposes of my thesis, I plan to use qgis to map a spatial data layer of average agricultural yield of different crops in Colombia (such as coffee, sugarcane, oilseed, etc.) over a shapefile of Colombia divided in all its 1105 municipios and 33 departments (states). At the end, I would like to obtain a complete picture of the agro-climatical suitability of different crops per municipio in Colombia. However I have some problems. Firstly, I have some problems finding the needed data in the right format.
Does somebody knows a database where I can find such shapefiles as I need from Colombia? For the data on average agro-climatical yield, I was told to look at United Nations FAO’s website for GAEZ maps , however I only seem to obtain.jpeg images from this site, not really useful Does somebody has some experience in this field and knows where I can find the data? Lastly, I am a beginner with qgis, or gis software, so a short tutorial on how to map different spatial data layers on each other would be very welcomed! Thanks in advance! Hi Sophie The first link is just an image. You are going to need the GIS dataset found at the FAO GeoNetwork. You’ll find it in the search by typing “crop suitability”.
Each crop (maize, cereals, vegetables, etc) has its own data set. Values in it range from 0 as very marginal to 100 as very high. For the Colombia municipalities, go to the Esri Open Data Hub and search for Colombia sub regions or municipalities. It should turn up there, or directly contact Esri Colombia. These links are found here: As for the analysis, it depends on what you want to do with it.
A common analysis is measuring suitability per municipality by creating a pivot table report. Here are the steps to do this: 1. Add the two data sets by dragging the.SHP and GRID files in. From here you can work with the crop suitability raster data as is, or convert to vector. If you have a vector, the GroupStats plugin will help you summarize by municipality.
If you are working with crop suitability as a raster, then you can use the “Grid Splitter” plugin with the municipalities as the cut layer. Calculate the area in hectares for each municipality.
In Excel, take the average ‘suitability value’ per municipality. Now, you might have to do this for a lot of different crop types and their suitability. In this case, you might want to create a ‘Processor Model’ to automate the workflow for each crop suitability. Since you are going to be out in the field I would recommend two applications. The first I’d suggest is QGIS.
The reason is because it has a good field app for Android called QField for QGIS Experimental. Basically, the app helps you get data from the field to the office efficiently in a minimalist way. I’ve heard good things but haven’t tried it myself. It has 4.2 stars out of 5 so it can’t be too bad. Another option is using Collector for ArcGIS in combination with ArcGIS Online.
It has an app for Android and Apple. It does give you a certain amount of credits where you can use it for free, or a free trial for a period of time. Collector is solid, but Esri is a commercial software company that eventually wants to make you a customer. It’s a good way to test out the product, but you have to realize that you don’t get the full-blown thing with a limit. Hope this helps. As a field ecologist most of my mapping requirements can be achieved using Google Earth or similar. However I have a local government client who requires shape files to import into ArcGIS.
These will need to match ortho-photos. The cost of ArcGIS isn’t warranted and QGIS looks possible but it looks like QGIS doesn’t output files in an.shp format, is that easy to remedy? I also would like to work with the LENZ data set, This has 15 raster layers covering the whole of NZ on a 100m grid with numerically defined environmental parameters. I looked at your list and shortened it to QGIS, Grass, ILWIS, GEOda and OpenJump. If possible I only want one gis system, preferably one that is reasonably intuitive as my level might be described as 1 day introductory with ArcGIS. Hi, Thank you for your review of mapping programs.
Very thorough, but I’m still confused, hence this question: Which of the programs would be best for (1) mapping sets of geocoordinates (decimal degrees) on to the 5 boroughs of NYC — ideally, showing some street detail, and (2) allowing us to plot freeform lines and straight vectors in different colors to show viewers the courses of vanished waterways, current and abandoned subway tunnels, tectonic fault lines, etc? Also, we’d like to be able to crop the map to show this detail close-up, section-by-section. As well as develop a map showing all 5 boroughs at once, with the ability to crop out NJ and Long Island beyond Brooklyn/Queens.
We’re PC users, but not super technical.