Slashgeo

Ofer writes "Open source tends to be lacking in consumer map programs ala Microsoft Streets and Trips and Delorme's Street Atlas. There are several efforts to repair that situation. GMap, Roadster, and RoadNav are three examples. Using US Census public domain data, all three of these generate map information on the fly. GMap and Roadster have the advantage of collaboration; both will be using the same file format in the future. GMap has the advantage of a navigation mode and Roadster has the advantage of being more complete and currently faster. RoadNav is complete but slower than roadster."

I've been waiting for the official announcement, but since main ports have been compiled, there you go: the multiplatform open source desktop GIS Quantum GIS 0.8 has been released! From the what's new: "* WMS support * Improved vector and attribute editing * Improved measure tools with area measuring * Attribute searching * New legend structure * Refactoring of API to allow the use of QGIS libraries in mapping applications * Improved MapServer export tool * Vector layer transparency and antialiasing * GRASS support in all platforms * Enhanced GRASS support and toolbox commands * Enhanced vector editing, including copy, cut, paste, snapping and vertex editing * Shapefile/OGR layer editing"

GEOconnexions runs a generic column about open source geospatial software, clearly presenting the context [pdf, 224k], written by Michael P. Gerlek of the OSGeo. From the column: "Second question: what do these all have in common? MapServer, MapGuide, PostGIS, GDAL, GRASS, OpenLayers, and QGIS. [...] This column is the first of a monthly series about the power of those packages, their developers, and their users. [...] The stability of the product is often much higher, making it a firmer foundation on which to build your own applications or perform your own data analysis. The release cycle is often much faster, meaning important bug fixes or new features appear more frequently. And while there certainly are many open source projects aimed at “cloning” popular closed source products, a number of open source products use technologies and approaches that are completely new and innovative, well ahead of their closed source cousins."

Tim Sutton writes "It is our great pleasure to announce the immediate availability of Quantum GIS (QGIS) Version 0.8.1. Quantum GIS (QGIS) is a user friendly Open Source Geographic Information System (GIS) that runs on Linux, Unix, Mac OSX, and Windows. QGIS supports vector, raster, and database formats. QGIS is licensed under the GNU General Public License. QGIS lets you browse and create map data on your computer. It supports many common spatial data formats (e.g. ESRI ShapeFile, geotiff). QGIS supports plugins to do things like display tracks from your GPS. QGIS is Open Source software and its free of cost (download here). We welcome contributions from our user community in the form of code contributions, bug fixes, bug reports, contributed documentation, advocacy and supporting other users on our mailing lists and forums. Financial contributions are also welcome. This release focusses on bug fixes and stabilisation of the 0.8 code base. QGIS is available is source form, and will be available as binary executables for Microsoft Windows, Mac OS X, and GNU/Linux. If the binary for your platform is not yet available, please check back in a day or two as our packages are still creating some packages. All versions can be obtained from our download page. As an open source project, we provide support for using QGIS via our mailing lists and bug tracker:

• For general enquiries subscribe to our users mailing list.
• For developer related enquiries subscribe to our separate developers list.
• If you think you have found a bug, please report it using our bug tracker. When reporting bugs, please include some contact information in case we need help with replicating your issue.

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The MapServer Team announces the release of version 5.0.0 and lists some of the new features, "This new version also includes dozens of small bug fixes, enhancements and performance improvements. Among the new features are: style and label attribute attribute binding; lookup table-based raster color correction; dynamic charting (pie and bar); explicit label prioritizing; enhanced debugging and logging; dynamic allocation for layers, classes, styles and symbols; improved memory management and garbage collection for MapScript; numerous improvements to OGC specification support, and lots more." First I saw to blog the announcement was Tommy's Blog writing from UGC's Boulder, CO meetings this week.

timlinux writes "It is our great pleasure to announce the immediate availability of Quantum GIS (QGIS) Version 0.9.0. Quantum GIS is a user friendly Open Source Geographic Information System (GIS) that runs on Linux, Unix, Mac OSX, and Windows. QGIS supports vector, raster, and database formats. QGIS is licensed under the GNU General Public License. QGIS lets you browse and create map data on your computer. It supports many common spatial data formats (e.g. ESRI ShapeFile, geotiff). QGIS supports plugins to do things like display tracks from your GPS. QGIS is Open Source software and its free of cost (download here). We welcome contributions from our user community in the form of code contributions, bug fixes, bug reports, contributed documentation, advocacy and supporting other users on our mailing lists and forums. Financial contributions are also welcome. This release introduces several new features including python bindings and many additional GRASS modules. The release also includes bug fixes and stability improvements. QGIS is available is source form, and as binary executables for Microsoft Windows, Mac OS X, and GNU/Linux. All versions can be obtained from our download page. As an open source project, we provide support for using QGIS via our mailing lists and bug tracker:

• For general enquiries subscribe to our users mailing list.
• For developer related enquiries subscribe to our separate developers list.
• If you think you have found a bug, please report it using our bug tracker. When reporting bugs, please include some contact information in case we need help with replicating your issue.

" This is really great news. Here's a few links from the official Quantum GIS blog that I kept waiting for this day: a link to the workbook named "Shuffling Quantum GIS into the Open Source Software Stack", the slides from the FOSS4G 2007 presentation named "Quantum GIS - Five Years and Counting" and here's a screencast for loading data into GRASS with QGIS. See also related stories below.

st_0x0ef writes "Not everyone wants a full blown GIS desktop application. Sometimes you want to just have a widget inside your application that displays a map while the main goal of the application lies elsewhere. In these tutorials Tim Sutton show how to embed QGIS widget in your C++ applications to quickly develop geospatial applications." A few previous stories on Quantum GIS copied below.

I'm happy to read the OSGeo's open source Quantum GIS (QGIS) 0.9.1 was officially released a week ago. From the announcement: "This is primarily a bug fix release and includes the following key changes: 70 Bugs closed, Added locale tab to options dialog so that locale can be overridden, Cleanups and additions to GRASS tools, Python Plugin Installer for installing plugins from the PyQGIS repository, Documentation updates, Improvements for building under MSVC." I copied some of the previous stories on QGIS below.