Open Source GIS

Can you make a career out of "free"?

UCL, 2016

Jo Cook / @archaeogeek

Follow along at archaeogeek.github.io/ucl_2016

The Questions

Who is this person standing up here?

Who does she work for?

What do they do?

What technologies do they use?

What do they look for in new recruits?

Who is this person?

I've been using GIS in my work since 2001...

... with no relevant qualifications!

My education is in Maths and Underwater Archaeology

Archaeologists have a lot of uses for GIS

A lack of money for specialist software meant that I had to go to open source software to do my job

but at the time, this was hard work!

...but...

This lead to an involvement with the Open Source Geospatial Foundation (OSGeo)

and I set up a local branch (OSGeo:UK) to promote the use of open source GIS in the UK

Stanstead 2006

Nottingham 2013

Today

I've been at Astun Technology since March 2011

We have a software suite called iShare that allows people to easily create maps and spatial content on their website

Who are our customers?

Councils, Local Authorities, Police Forces, Government Organisations, Mapping Companies...

Example Site: My Chichester

We also make bespoke sites

What software do we use?

We run training courses

We help organisations with metadata

We run user groups

and Hackathons

Day to day questions we get asked

(live list on google docs)

What's important

... and what's not

General IT Skills are very useful

Networking and scripting (python, bash etc)

Docker/Vagrant/AWS

Command-line, trouble-shooting, Version Control (Git, Mercurial)

GIS skills need to be broad-based

Server-based databases, a good overview of packages and formats

Standards and web-optimised formats like json

Multi-purpose libraries and languages (OGR, Python)

General people skills are the most important of all!

Self-learning

Self-motivation

Task/Time Management

What's not so important

In-depth knowledge of a particular software package

Qualifications (sorry)

4 software packages to focus on

PostgreSQL

Increasingly used as a cost-effective replacement for proprietary databases

The basics of server-based, spatially enabled databases are roughly applicable to PostgreSQL, SQL Server and Oracle

QGIS

A full replacement for proprietary desktop GIS

Fully cross-platform, with loads of support

Python

Both open source and proprietary GIS use python

It has modules for working with rasters, vectors, databases and many more

You WILL be able to write working code within minutes of starting to use it!

Scripting: JavaScript

It's now possible to do sophisticated visualisation of GIS data directly in the browser

Check out three.js, Turfjs, and D3.js

GitHub

The easiest way to learn about repositories and version control

It's not just for code- share documentation/presentations/data/your CV

Both proprietary and open source GIS companies have an increasing presence

My first GitHub commit

Things to take away

Learning cross-platfrom tools will get you a step up, whatever area you go into

Scripting and SQL will provide a flexible and powerful alternative to desktop-GIS workflows

Questions?

Thanks!

Find me at about.me/jocook

Find this talk at archaeogeek.github.io/ucl_2016

Find Astun at astuntechnology.com

PS: Astun are recruiting SysOps Roles

More info