Message-ID: <Pine.SOL.4.05.9911271021250.8415-100000@titan.cc.wwu.edu> Date: Sat, 27 Nov 1999 11:16:22 -0800 From: Nancy West <mailto:n9510239@CC.WWU.EDU> Subject: Re: Help: GIS softwares? To: mailto:DEVEL-L@LISTSERV.AMERICAN.EDU
Dear Jose,I am a Master's candidate in geography at Western Washington University in Bellingham, Washington, USA.
As a geography undergraduate I received a minor in GIS and I continue to use it both professionally and in my thesis work.
I would be happy to try to answer your questions about GIS. If you prefer, you may email me direct to mailto:n9510239@cc.wwu.edu
When considering which software to purchase you must take into consideration a couple of things--how much you can spend, what the GIS will primarily be used for and the complexity of the system.
I have not used Map Info. I have mainly used ArcView, ArcInfo and Idrisi. I would not consider ArcInfo unless you have a trained cartographer/GIS person. Don't try to learn ArcInfo by yourself.
ArcView is basically the "industry standard" and therefore it would probably be easier to use data that is already available because much of it is in ArcView compatible files or can be easily converted. I think that you can do more with ArcView than with Map Info. ArcView has a lot of extensions that can be purchased separately and allows you to gear it towards your individual needs. But Map Info probably has this as well. I think, but am not sure that Map Info is used more by social/health types of organizations.
Idrisi is probably the least expensive but is not used by many organizations. It was developed by Clark University as a GIS teaching tool. It can do a lot but it might be a little harder to work with.
Before you begin, if none of you are trained geographers/cartographers, you should read a good map reading book, a map design book and a basic GIS book. I would suggest the following or similar ones:
"Map Use" by Muehrcke and Muehrcke "Elements of Cartography" by Robinson, Kimerling, Morrison, Guptill and Muercke "Geographic Information Systems: An Introduction" by Jeffrey Star and John Estes.
If you choose ArcView as your GIS, the book "Getting to Know ArcView GIS" is very good, easy to follow and uses the sample data provided with ArcView.
I may be kind of biased on some of this information because it is what I was trained with and what I have continued to use.
As far as available information on the web, I don't know any URLs right off, except for www.esri.com. ESRI makes ArcInfo/ArcView.
Searching the web would probably produce a quite a few results and I will do this for you if I get a chance. I am sure you probably have to pay for all your time online so I imagine your doing a search could get expensive. Just let me know if you want me to do this.
Good luck and let me know if I can be of any more assistance.
Nancy West M.S. Candidate in Geography Huxley College for Environmental Social Studies Center for Geography and Environmental Social Sciences Western Washington University Bellingham, Washington 98225 mailto:n9510239@cc.wwu.edu