Open Source GIS – Alternatives to ArcCatalog

open-source-gissoftware-recommendations

I'm looking for open source alternatives to ArcCatalog. The software should run on both Win and Linux and support the usual file formats (shp, kml, gml, …) and databases (especially PostGIS, additional SpatiaLite support would be great). I'd like to browse and search for datasets and probably rename (renaming all parts of a shapefile at once) and delete files.

Best Answer

For a basic viewer, I've been playing with WxGIS Catalog, which does the basics nicely but could use some fleshing out for more complex use cases. There's also RasterCatalog for QGIS, but as the name states, its only for rasters. On OS X, try GISlook, but none of these look to handle the spatial database engines directly.

Related Solutions

Open Source GIS – Alternatives to pgRouting for Network Analysis

[Edit: this has been superseded by nx_spatial which is available from pypi (easy_install nx_spatial). Importing shapefiles is now standard in networkx 1.4]

I've been kind of disappointed by the lack of geometric network tools in ESRI's Python GP API, so I wrote up something that loads Shapefiles and Feature Classes into networkx directional graphs (DiGraphs).

It is still a work in progress, but it might be an okay starting off point for something that can help with your problem.

http://bitbucket.org/gallipoli/utilitynetwork/

Samples:

from utilitynetwork import Network

net = Network()

#load single file, method reqs OGR
net.loadshp("/shapefiles/test.shp")

#load directory full of shapefiles
net.loadshp("/shapefiles")

#load a feature class, req ESRI gp object, should work with shps as well
import arcgisscripting
gp = arcgisscripting.create(9.3)
net.loadfc("C:\somedb.gdb\featureclass", gp)

#Accessing node/edge data is done by the key value (the geometry as a tuple).
#access node data at x=4, y=2
nodekey = (4, 2)
net.node[nodekey]

Network is inherits from networkx.DiGraph, so all of that functionality is available.

[GIS] Seeking open source GIS platform

Here's a vote for Quantum GIS with GRASS plugin enabled as your desktop application. (QGIS is available on Windows, MacOS X and Linux). OGR/GDAL will take care of nearly any file format. Store all your data on PostgreSQL/ PostGIS and serve it out with Geoserver.

Link to QGIS API Documentation.

Best Answer

Related Solutions

Open Source GIS – Alternatives to pgRouting for Network Analysis

[GIS] Seeking open source GIS platform

Related Question