A new version of the free GIS mapping system QGIS has recently been released, further improving the capabilities of this powerful program. This system provides the unique opportunity to individuals and business to obtain GIS capability without the need for expensive software or hardware.
The QGIS team stated in their press release:
“QGIS is Free software and you are under no obligation to pay anything to use it – in fact we want to encourage people far and wide to use it regardless of what your financial or social status is – we believe empowering people with spatial decision making tools will result in a better society for all of humanity.”
The open source nature of QGIS has helped organisations throughout the world, particularly in developing countries, by providing mapping and spatial tools in their day to day work. For example, many fire stations in Romania are starting to use QGIS mapping to improve their fire response processes by computerising their hand drawn maps. To provide this capability using paid GIS software would have been cost prohibitive.
QGIS has also recently set up a board in order to help further improve the software and raise funding for future developments. Here is a quote from the board:
“In a world where proprietary GIS software licenses cost many times more than the annual income of most of its citizens, free access to spatial visualisation and analysis tools through QGIS (and its constituent projects such as GRASS, GEOS and GDAL) is a profoundly disruptive force for good.
QGIS is available to anyone with a reasonably modern computer. It makes the wise utilisation of the earth’s scarce resources and the ability to take care of its citizen’s civic and humanitarian needs based on sound spatial decision-making, that much more possible for a huge swathe of society which would otherwise have been disenfranchised.
Even in developed societies where finance is not necessarily the limiting factor, we cannot underestimate the impact of a software platform that is a freely extensible and shared body of knowledge. QGIS is a platform that enhances the ability of governments and private organisations to deliver services that deeply enrich the lives of their citizens and customers.”
The goals of QGIS reflect Ecosure’s commitment to enabling our clients to increase their efficiencies to help them care for the environment. The Ecosure GIS section has utilised QGIS for a number of years and has recently started providing GIS support and training for business that are interested in QGIS capabilities.
Support services for QGIS that Ecosure is providing includes:
- installation of QGIS software
- sourcing GIS data sets
- converting and/or digitising existing spatial data sets
- setting up mapping templates
- one on one training in the use of his software customised to your business requirements.
The QGIS program can be downloaded from:
Contact: Geoffrey Sinclair 07 4994 1000
