Jeff at Vector One asks, “Why is there so little geospatial analysis?” I can think of any number of possible reasons:
- People aren’t aware of it, or what it can do; for some people, geographic analysis ends when you put a point on a map
- It can involve advanced analytical and statistical techniques that are challenging to learn
- Commercial software can be expensive, and difficult to learn; ArcGIS’s Spatial Analyst and Geostatistical Analyst extensions list at $2500 apiece.
While there are many freeware programs available for geospatial data analysis (I’ll post on some of them on the future), there’s one program I’d select as the best choice to address the above issues: GeoDA, from the University Of Illinois U/C. And that’s as much for its teaching materials and documentation as it is for its capabilities. There’s a 100+-page user’s guide, a 200+-page workbook that’s a mini-course on analyzing spatial data, multiple publications, dozens of sample datasets, even a QuickTime movie. It’s by no means complete; for example, there’s no geostatistical interpolation capabilities in this program (e.g. variograms, Kriging). But just by itself, it’s a great introduction to many techniques for analyzing spatial data correlation. It’s only for Windows now, but they’re working on a cross-platform open source port for Windows, Linux and Mac; no word on when that might become available.
Related posts:
- Two Free Textbooks On Geospatial/Geostatistical Analysis
- ILWIS GIS Is Now Open Source
- Get ESRI's ArcGIS 9.2 and ArcPad 7.01 Programs For Free
- Even More Mac GIS Software For Free
- LIDAR Data Coastal Erosion And Flooding Analysis Using MicroDEM
- The Big List Of Satellite/Aerial Imagery Analysis Software III – N Through R
- Additions To List Of Free GIS Programs For The Mac
- The Big List Of Satellite/Aerial Imagery Analysis Programs V – GIS
- The Big List Of Satellite/Aerial Imagery Analysis Software – A Through H
- Animated 3D Thematic Maps With Uuorld
- The Big List Of Satellite/Aerial Imagery Analysis Software II – I Through M
- Share Thematic Shapefile Maps Publicly On MapTube
- More Free Mac GIS Programs
- Free Sampling Design Tool Extension For ArcGIS
- Plot Demographic Data In Map, Graph, And Tabular Format With PolicyMap
Thx for your blog. I read it every day via feed. always good news.
Greetings, Peter
Another happy reader reporting in!
:)
Thanks
Why don’t you try gvSIG. It’s a Spanish free open software developed by Jaume I University and supported by Valencia’s Government.
http://www.gvsig.gva.es/
Hi Leszek
Another gem on your blog. You are worth every donation possible. Ans I am happy that you want to attack geospatial analysis.
Cheers
Askan.
Thanks for the comment, Andres. I’ve mentioned gvSIG briefly on this website before:
http://freegeographytools.com/2007/updates-for-two-open-source-gis-programs
http://freegeographytools.com/2007/putting-together-a-basic-linux-gis-workstation
but I’ve been meaning to look at it in more detail for quite a while. Of all the JUMP derivatives I’ve seen, it has the most promise.
Thank you. It’s valuable resource for me and my students.