On Monday 16 November 2009 08:53:03 Carson Farmer wrote: > >... In addition, I use linux (Debian) and the desktop GIS tools that > > I tried (svSig, Qgis, and some more) did not provide publication quality > > maps. > > I would strongly suggest you take another look at some of these > packages (especially QGIS). > These are relatively young projects, and are growing (changing) > quickly. For example, just > recently, some very advanced symbology enhancements have been made to > the QGIS project, > and will likely be available in the next release (due out next month). > Though of course, for graphs > and other statistical outputs, nothing beats R! > > Carson >
Let me strongly second Carson's points. As a Debian user, I like QGIS and use it for my own visualization purposes. Being able to drag and drop a shapefile is pretty awesome. I suspect QGIS will continue to improve in its ability to render maps. That said, I don't think publication-quality output is what these software are about, at least not yet. R on the other hand gives you tremendous control. I used it exclusively for all maps, as well as other graphics, in my latest article. The same goes for non-free GIS software, by the way. My cartographer colleagues who use ArcGIS generally haul mapping output from there into other packages for font and other effect rendering. Yours, Ashton -- Ashton Shortridge Associate Professor ash...@msu.edu Dept of Geography http://www.msu.edu/~ashton 235 Geography Building ph (517) 432-3561 Michigan State University fx (517) 432-1671 _______________________________________________ R-sig-Geo mailing list R-sig-Geo@stat.math.ethz.ch https://stat.ethz.ch/mailman/listinfo/r-sig-geo
