Hi Tilottama, After training in Arc for a few years, I started using open source about two years ago. I use both for my day job, but for my side work at home I just us open source GIS.
I can tell you that Quantum GIS is very useful and powerful. Some tasks, such as creating a new shapefile, editing a shapefile, or referencing a raster, actually seem easier in Quantum compared to Arc. The program also has plugins that integrate with GRASS and with R. The most recent version of QGIS is a big improvement, though you will still have to overcome a few bugs if you get into more complicated analysis and statistical tasks. Using GRASS standalone, it took me a little while to get things started. But once you get over the initial steps, it has a lot of tools with an very intuitive GUI. I've tried to work with spatial data in R, but I'm not much of a coder so I didn't get very far. As far as gvSIG, I have not used it yet, but I have been looking at the documentation and it looks very powerful and usable. Finally, you might want to also took into SAGA, another OS GIS Desktop program. The bottom line is that you can certainly replace Arc with OS software. Some things are going to be easier. Other tasks will require some initial patient debugging and customization, but that really is the advantage that OS has over Arc. Hope this helps!!! Ezra On Sun, Nov 27, 2011 at 10:31 PM, Tilottama Ghosh <waggyma...@gmail.com> wrote: > Hi, > > I have been using ArcGIS for all my projects for over four years. I moved > back to India, my home country, this year, and have realized how > unaffordable ArcGIS is for most people in India. Therefore, it is time for > me to start using the available Opensource GIS software. I mostly use the > Analysis tools, Spatial analyst, Spatial statistics, Data Management > tools in ArcGIS. Could you please suggest which of the open source GIS > software - GRASSgis, Quantum GIS, and gvSIG, would provide me with similar > tools to work with? Any kind of suggestions will be greatly appreciated. > > Thanks and Regards, > > Tilottama > > > -- > > > _______________________________________________ > Discuss mailing list > Discuss@lists.osgeo.org > http://lists.osgeo.org/mailman/listinfo/discuss > _______________________________________________ Discuss mailing list Discuss@lists.osgeo.org http://lists.osgeo.org/mailman/listinfo/discuss
