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QGIS is a free, open-source, cross platform geographical information system

https://github.com/qgis/QGIS
76•rcarmo•2h ago

Comments

fithisux•1h ago
I have used it in the past, it is excellent.
aduffy•50m ago
QGIS is the shit. I absolutely love it, great for visualizing GeoJSON, GeoTIFF files, open data feeds, etc. My one gripe is that their macOS installers have been out of date for ages now, the best way I've found is to actually install from Conda Forge directly:

> brew install micromamba

> mamba install qgis

It's really crazy the number of open geospatial data feeds that exist out there from NASA, NOAA, and ESA. If you're interested in checking any of this stuff out, I highly encourage following Mark Litwinchik's blog, this guy is a legend and he does most of his work with open tools like QGIS and DuckDB

https://tech.marksblogg.com/

vincnetas•47m ago
brew install --cask qgis
perrygeo•33m ago
Unfortunately the homebrew cask is still Intel-only so it requires Rosetta, whereas the conda/mamba version has an osx-arm64 build. There are other workarounds discussed here: https://github.com/qgis/QGIS/issues/46299 and here https://geo.malagis.com/native-qgis-on-apple-silicon-solutio...
aerzen•46m ago
My wife uses this a lot. ArcMap used to be de-facto software in her field, but QGis has overtaken that completely. It might not be as polished as ArcMap, it's missing a few guardrails that would prevent you messing up, but it has more features, extensions, better platform support and is free as in beer.

For folks working on QGis: thank you

vincnetas•44m ago
When I have to do anything with geo data i think this is a one of the first tools i reach for. Integrates with lots of formats, storages. Have lots of plugins and scripting functionality. And it's free like in speech.
ageitgey•41m ago
QGIS is great. It's a slightly janky version of ArcMap, but ArcMap has always been janky anyway, so it doesn't matter for most things. And QGIS is super extensible.

There have been so many random times that QGIS has helped me out over the years. Thanks to everyone who has contributed to it!

mirchiseth•21m ago
Do you work in GIS field and it is useful? I am trying to see how a GIS tool will help a typical audience here that may be a little interested in maps + data.
4ndrewl•30m ago
I have nothing but good things to say about QGIS.
0cf8612b2e1e•27m ago
Is this on its way to pushing out the incumbent proprietary solution and becoming the standard a la Blender? Or is this more LibreOffice -it’s there, but missing so much functionality/polish that an expert will immediately find blockers vs the status quo?
Qem•20m ago
Probably closer to the first situation. It curb stomped ArcGIS in the geographic information system community. When I started working with GIS at work, expensive ESRI products were default in this market, a la matlab in another field. Most coleages of mine had not heard about QGIS. Now QGIS is ubiquitous. It did to ArcGIS and its countless paid add on modules what scipy/numpy did to matlab.
ingenieroariel•17m ago
The scipy/numpy to matlab is a good example. In my opinion it is on its way but in many places the timing is more like 2010-2013 where a lot of people knew python was the future but universities still used only Matlab.
snypher•7m ago
>It curb stomped ArcGIS in the geographic information system community

Maybe for home or casual use, sure. I use a ~$4500/y Esri license level and it's worth every penny.

Also, plenty of people are still using matlab!

ZunarJ5•20m ago
It is becoming more and more Blender. Europe relies on it more than Americans, but most GIS specialists use both this and ESRI.
ingenieroariel•19m ago
I think the answer depends on the country: In places where the government uses QGIS it is like Blender. In places where ESRI has a stronghold it is like LibreOffice.
larsiusprime•18m ago
I work in the mass appraisal space, and I use QGIS all the time. The professional alternative is ESRI's ArcGIS.

A lot of shops I know (private and public) will use ArcGIS still, but I'm noticing an increasing number of people (particularly younger researchers/analysts) who are exclusively using QGIS.

QGIS is powerful and full featured, but it is admittedly a bit rusty around the edges, especially when working with very large datasets. If they keep working on fixing some of the sharpest edges I think it will go on to have a good future. Just in the past few years I've noticed significant improvement.

In many ways it feels like Blender -- long ignored and dismissed, but slowly but surely improved over time, and then suddenly became quite a big deal.

dbacar•10m ago
When you mention QGIS, you should also mention GDAL, JTS, udig, geoserver, open stree maps, open scene graph, FWtools etc. Open source GIS has awesome list of projects and people, QGIS being only one of them. It really fascinates me.
boxerab•10m ago
QGIS is fantastic - it's the only OSS viewer I know of that can consistently and efficiently display multi-GB TIFF images without crashing. It has been a long journey - 20 years to capture ~8% of the geospatial market. ESRI still rules the enterprise, with 40-50% of the market share. More generally, there are so many excellent open source geospatial projects like Geoserver, GDAL, Geonode, Map GL Libre, kepler.gl, Martin, Mapserver, .... but they still have not managed to disrupt ESRI. I think because they are still too fragmented, and still mostly stuck on the desktop, while everything is moving to the cloud.
otter-in-a-suit•8m ago
I adore QGIS. I just built a map (and corresponding GeoPDF file for offline use) for two local wildlife management areas last weekend (and subsequently used them while on them).

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