DEPARTMENT OF NATURAL RESOURCES, ENVIRONMENT, THE ARTS AND SPORT

Improving ESRI productivity with Freeware tools.

NRETAS, Weed Management Branch

ArcGIS, the elephant in the room

Large skilled user base Comprehensive suite of functions Difficult licensing arrangements Price prohibitive for some users

A basic ArcGIS user license has some remarkable shortcomings

DEPARTMENT OF NATURAL RESOURCES, ENVIRONMENT, THE ARTS AND SPORT

www.nt.gov.au/nretas

Todays lesson

How to improve the basic ArcGIS package

.for FREE

www.nt.gov.au/nretas

Clip the inside of a polygon! Import KML Perform RASTER operations! Create random sampling points Make a mobile data collection tool!
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DEPARTMENT OF NATURAL RESOURCES, ENVIRONMENT, THE ARTS AND SPORT

How to #1 - Mapwindow
Full featured GIS Available at http://www.mapwindow.org/ Similar but different to ArcGIS

DEPARTMENT OF NATURAL RESOURCES, ENVIRONMENT, THE ARTS AND SPORT

www.nt.gov.au/nretas

Mapwindow Pros & Cons

Fast, easy work environment Many tools smarter than ESRIs Excellent shapefile tools Impressive hydrological tools Horribly dangerous shapefile editor Some releases Crash happy

DEPARTMENT OF NATURAL RESOURCES, ENVIRONMENT, THE ARTS AND SPORT

www.nt.gov.au/nretas

Mapwindow Demo

Clip Erase

Import KML

DEPARTMENT OF NATURAL RESOURCES, ENVIRONMENT, THE ARTS AND SPORT

www.nt.gov.au/nretas

How to #2 GME

Successor of Hawths Tools Available at http://www.spatialecology.com/ Totally different interface to ArcGIS Dependant on R stats Hence, impressive statistical tools Useful range of spatial processing tools
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DEPARTMENT OF NATURAL RESOURCES, ENVIRONMENT, THE ARTS AND SPORT

www.nt.gov.au/nretas

GME Pros & Cons

Extremely well tailored for ecological users Useful for repetitive/similar tasks Transparent statistical processes Difficult/Impossible for ad hoc tasks Archaic command line interface Difficult to install for non R users

DEPARTMENT OF NATURAL RESOURCES, ENVIRONMENT, THE ARTS AND SPORT

www.nt.gov.au/nretas

GME Demo Before

DEPARTMENT OF NATURAL RESOURCES, ENVIRONMENT, THE ARTS AND SPORT

www.nt.gov.au/nretas

GME Demo During

Clip Raster

Sample Points

DEPARTMENT OF NATURAL RESOURCES, ENVIRONMENT, THE ARTS AND SPORT

www.nt.gov.au/nretas

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GME Demo After

DEPARTMENT OF NATURAL RESOURCES, ENVIRONMENT, THE ARTS AND SPORT

www.nt.gov.au/nretas

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How to #3 Cybertracker
Loosely equivalent to Arcpad Available at http://cybertracker.org/ Development shell for PDA spatial apps Simple apps are quick and easy to make Flexible data structures Export to shapefile or any row/column format
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DEPARTMENT OF NATURAL RESOURCES, ENVIRONMENT, THE ARTS AND SPORT

www.nt.gov.au/nretas

Cybertracker Pros & Cons

Easy for newbies to pick up Tailored to ecological data collection Many common sense features Plays nice with any GIS system No iPhone or Android version *yet* Different to conventional software development Needs a tame geek to make it work
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DEPARTMENT OF NATURAL RESOURCES, ENVIRONMENT, THE ARTS AND SPORT

www.nt.gov.au/nretas

Cybertracker Demo

Cybertracker

DEPARTMENT OF NATURAL RESOURCES, ENVIRONMENT, THE ARTS AND SPORT

www.nt.gov.au/nretas

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Finish.

DEPARTMENT OF NATURAL RESOURCES, ENVIRONMENT, THE ARTS AND SPORT

www.nt.gov.au/nretas

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