[Gvsig_english] gvSIG is a viable robust alternative to commercially available GIS packages

[Simon Cropper (Botanicus Australia Pty Ltd)]

Hi Everyone,

I suppose this is preaching to the converted but I think it is worth 
getting positive feedback about your product, rather than "What about 
this?" or "Do you know about this bug".

I am a environmental consultant. Every job requires the acquisition and 
creation of geospatial data, simple geospatial analysis and the 
preparation of maps. Every job has variations on the theme with clients 
providing information in various datums and formats. Output is 
relatively constant with maps being used as JPGs in reports or supplied 
as shapefiles to the client. OK, this gives you some background to my 
situation and needs.

Originally I used ArcView, but have over the last year been searching 
for a reliable and robust alternative. I have tried QGIS, Grass, Kosmo, 
OpenJUMP, JUMP, llwis, OpenEV, etc to carry out what I needed. I tried 
early versions of gvSIG but found some basic requirements were not meet. 
Beta versions of 1.9 looked OK but they were unstable with regular 
crashes making it difficult to justify the time to learn the program.

Now that the stable version of 1.9 has been made available I have 
started using it in production. My belief is that the only way to verify 
if some thing is going to work is feed it real data and try to do real 
things with it. You will have noticed I have been regularly posting to 
the list server as I (a) explore the interface and try and understand 
how things are done, and (b) as I have uncovered various little glitches.

OK, my initial feedback after working with the program for several weeks 
is...
1) the transition from ArcView to gvSIG was seamless with most functions 
being found in similar locations. I had a similar experience when 
trialling Kosmo, but not with any of the other packages mentioned.
2) gvSIG uses ECW, Shape, DWG, DXF -- all file formats I regularly 
encounter.
3) gvSIG can convert from AGD66 geo/AMG55 to GDA94 geo/MGA55 -- 
something I need to do regularly. I did note however that the gvSIG 
files created varied slightly from files reprojected in ArvView. I will 
need to do some testing of both systems to verify that the output is 
comparable.
4) gvSIG could handle quite a lot of data, files, annotations, etc. The 
only time I noticed the system slowing down was in producing a map. Slow 
but it did not crash.
5) I have only had gvSIG crash a couple of times. These instances appear 
to be related to small bugs. In comparison with ArcView this is quite 
good - for some largish projects ArcView would crash 3-4 times a day 
(bad memory management). It is worth noting that I was using ArcView 3.1 
which is currently not still supported and is struggling to keep up with 
Operating System changes (XP service packs, Vista).
6) I am keen to eventually migrate from Windows XP to Ubuntu or Debian, 
so am keen to ensure the system I use is suitable for these operating 
systems. gvSIG does, so this is great.
7) I am still keen to see the map production facility improved. 
especially the output. I found I got a much better output file by 
capturing the screen and manipulating in GIMP, than use of any of the 
output options. I have not printed directly to a printer so can't 
comment on the ability to gvSIG to render a map properly. My needs are 
primarily generation of a file than can be imported into OpenOffice Writer.
8) Coupled with Sextante, gvSIG captures most of the tasks that I have 
done over the last 15 years. Table 1 shows my checklist of things I 
commonly do and whether I have figured out if gvSIG does them. Any help 
filling in the blanks would be appreciated. I will update my post with a 
completed table if I receive any feedback.
9) I have not been able to find any good tutorials on how to use the 
command box when editing a shapefile or the JPython Console. These 
features look very promising but without some sort of tutorial, examples 
or manuals it is impossible to evaluate these facilities. This was the 
old aspect that ESRI has over the open source communities -- they have a 
quite large and easily navigated script library which allows for people 
to contribute scribes for manipulation of spatial data and extensions 
that can be downloaded.

All in all what I am trying to say is gvSIG is fantastic. Everyday I 
learn about some new feature and I can't stop smiling. I think that 
finally I can legitimately say I have found an open source GIS system 
that has surpassed ArcView 3. Considering the plethora of open source 
packages available it has been frustrating that no one package bundled 
the core elements required by users like myself into one place. gvSIG 
has now done this and included a range of other features to boot. I am 
very pleased and want to congratulate the developers and the Generalitat 
Valenciana on a fantastic product. I look forward to being part of this 
dynamic open source community, and helping further the development of 
this product.


Table 1. Things I need a GIS system to do. If people can provide comment 
on any of the functions flagged with '?', I would appreciate it.

*Broad Category* 	*Function* 	*gvSIG 1.9
*
PLATFORM 	Familiar program structure 	YES 
PLATFORM 	Intuative structure 	YES
PLATFORM 	Linux Compatible 	YES
PLATFORM 	Project file to retain previous settings 	YES
PLATFORM 	Windows compatible 	YES
SUPPORT 	Able to be extended through scripts 	YES
SUPPORT 	Active script library 	NO
SUPPORT 	Manual 	YES 
SUPPORT 	Forums 	YES
LEXICON 	SHP Support 	YES 
LEXICON 	CAD Support 	YES
LEXICON 	DGN support 	? 
LEXICON 	DXF Support 	YES
LEXICON 	ECW Support 	YES
LEXICON 	JPEG Support 	YES
LEXICON 	MapInfo Support 	?
LEXICON 	MrSID Support 	 APPARENTLY  
LEXICON 	GDA94 Support 	YES 
LEXICON 	AGD66 Support 	 YES
VECTOR 	Features in shapefile - add, edit, delete 	 YES
VECTOR 	Points Images/fonts, scaleable 	 YES
VECTOR 	Polygon Area, Cleaning tools, centroids 	 YES
VECTOR 	Projections on the fly 	 NO
VECTOR 	Shapefile - add, edit, delete 	 YES
VECTOR 	Warp line files 	 ?
RASTER 	Change header data in supported image types (georeference) 	 YES
RASTER 	Use or convert TAB world files 	 ?
CONVERSION 	Cut-and-paste sections of aerial photographs and retain 
georeferencing 	 YES
CONVERSION 	Graphics to Shape, Shape to Graphic 	 NO
CONVERSION 	Polygon to Polyline 	 ?
CONVERSION 	Polyline to Line 	 ?
CONVERSION 	Reproject AGD66 --> GDA94 	 YES
ANALYSIS 	Address location along polyline 	 ?
ANALYSIS 	Buffer Features - field, value 	 YES
ANALYSIS 	Explode complex polygon files 	 ?
ANALYSIS 	Get coordinates for vertices 	 ?
ANALYSIS 	Identify features within distance 	 ?
ANALYSIS 	Image pattern analysis to extract vegetation types 	 ?
ANALYSIS 	Insert northing, easting, latitude and longitude 	 YES
ANALYSIS 	Get distance between objects 	? 
ANALYSIS 	Intersect Lines 	?
ANALYSIS 	Line length 	 YES
ANALYSIS 	Line or polygon intersect
	YES 
ANALYSIS 	Nearest Feature 	Sextante? 
ANALYSIS 	Nearest Neighbour Analysis
	Sextante?
ANALYSIS 	Update areas, perimeters, hectares and length 	 YES
CARTOGRAPGHY 	Map production facility 	 YES
CARTOGRAPGHY 	Ability to create or import legend symbology 	 YES
CARTOGRAPGHY 	Legends complex - based on more than one field 	 NO
CARTOGRAPGHY 	Export maps JPG 	 NO
CARTOGRAPGHY 	Export maps WMF 	 NO
CARTOGRAPGHY 	Export maps SVG 	 NO
CARTOGRAPGHY 	Gradicules and measured Grids 	 YES
CARTOGRAPGHY 	Gradicules - dynamic 	 YES
CARTOGRAPGHY 	Labels - add, edit, delete 	 YES
CARTOGRAPGHY 	Legend categories - unique value, graduated colour or 
single 	 YES
CARTOGRAPGHY 	Legends Auto Label 	 YES
CARTOGRAPGHY 	Text - add, edit, delete 	 YES



-- 

Cheers Simon

Simon Cropper
Botanicus Australia Pty Ltd
PO Box 160, Sunshine, Victoria 3020.
P: 9311 5822. M: 041 830 3437.
mailto: scropper at botanicusaustralia.com.au 
<mailto:scropper at botanicusaustralia.com.au>
web: www.botanicusaustralia.com.au <http://www.botanicusaustralia.com.au>