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Andalucia III -Tuesday-
An Introduction to the Free Desktop GIS gvSIG
Andalucia III -Tuesday-
Tuesday, 06 April 2010 09:30

Benjamin Ducke
Oxford Archaeology Digital (oadigital.net)

Target audience:  GIS users (beginners and experts)

Please note: Participants will need to bring their own laptops to run gvSIG on! If you can, please download and install gvSIG OADE 2010 beforehand.


The software can be downloaded here: http://oadigital.net/software/gvsigoade/gvsigoade2010beta

At the time of writing, the latest version was gvSIG OADE 2010 Beta 2. But please make sure to check and get the most recent version before you travel to the CAA!

Description:

Open source GIS technology has shown unprecedented dynamics in its recent development. There are spatial databases like PostGIS, number crunching heavy-weights like GRASS GIS, versatile tools such as GDAL/OGR, web map servers and countless other tools and applications that provide solutions for virtually every imaginable GIS task.

A more recent phenomenon has been the emergence of several user-friendly desktop GIS solutions, such as Quantum GIS, OpenJUMP, Kosmo GIS, and, perhaps most remarkably, gvSIG. The latter is a relatively young project, but generously funded by the Valencian "Conselleria d'Infraestrutures i Transport" (http://www.gvsig.gva.es/eng/inicio-gvsig/).

GvSIG has been growing rapidly, attracting a large number of users and developers world-wide. This is perhaps due to the fact that, in its latest release, gvSIG represents the first open source desktop GIS that is quasi up-to-par with commercially licensed products when it comes to interactive data management and analysis.

The software is now well established in Spanish speaking communities around the world but has been struggling for a foothold in other countries, mainly due to incomplete and ambiguous translations of its user interface.

Recently, we at OA Digital (http://oadigital.net), as part of our open source software development activities, have decided to create and maintain a customized and enhanced version of gvSIG, targeted specifically at English speaking users and archaeologists. We provide our own distribution of gvSIG, available for free download at http://www.oadigital.net/software/gvsigoade.

The OA Digital Edition of gvSIG features a much-improved English user interface translation and menu structure, a simpler installation procedure and additional documentation and sample data. It also comes bundled with everything you need to experience the full richness of gvSIG's features in one package. This includes extensions for remote sensing, advanced geoprocessing and network analysis.

GvSIG represents a historic chance to establish a free GIS application, designed by archaeologists for archaeologists, in our discipline. At Oxford Archaeology, this software now serves as a corner stone of a complex GIS production workflow.

We invite you to join this introductory workshop and see for yourself. Participants will get a concise and targeted introduction to gvSIG, its main usage paradigms and potentials plus some hands-on examples of data analysis functions. Basic GIS knowledge is required.
 
An Introduction to Open Source GIS: GRASS
Andalucia III -Tuesday-
Tuesday, 06 April 2010 11:30

Juan Carlos Torres

Grass is the leader open source GIS nowadays. It manage both raster and vector information, 2D and 3D models, and can be used on different operating systems and platforms. features more than 350 functions, including image processing, raster analysis, import and export, and vector and network analysis.

GIS are frequently used for archaeologist as a documentation tool, and also to analyse archaeological data. For this purpose it is necessary to have a powerful GIS system with a complete set of analysis tools.

Open source software is a wonderful choice for this purpose. As anyone can improve the system and add new functionality, open source systems are more dynamic.

One of the main characteristic of Grass GIS is that it can be operated, besides the usual graphical user interface, from the operating system shell. This provides it with a powerful scripting capability.

This workshop aims to introduce in a concise way the main functionality of Grass and its usage paradigms. Special attention will be devoted to the scripting capability. Basic GIS knowledge is required.
 
The Archaeological Recording Kit (ARK) - an open-source solution to excavation and project recording
Andalucia III -Tuesday-
Tuesday, 06 April 2010 14:30
ARK - the Archaeological Recording Kit (ark.lparchaeology.com) - is an opensource, standards compliant, web-delivered system for the creation, storage, manipulation and publication of archaeological data and media.

Or in fewer words, it’s a system you can use to put your archaeological data on the web so that you can work on it and share it.

ARK is currently in use on a large number of different archaeological and non-archaeological projects around the world and has been available for download for a couple of years. Due to the imminent release of v0.7 of the code, we thought that CAA 2010 was a good opportunity to bring together all of the ARK users so that everyone can share experiences, configurations and introduce the user and development community to the new code. This is also a perfect opportunity for potential new users/developers to come and find out more about ARK and how it can be used on your own projects. We will be holding demonstrations of some of the new features, as well as a quick set-up guide for those interested in trying the software out and joining the growing community.