Bookmark this page:
If you were Registered and logged in, you could reply and use other advanced thread options
Quantum GIS is painfully slow rendering and searching through data in
moderately sized, and evidently even tiny, shapefiles. That's *with*
scale-dependent display set to reasonable values.
Seems QGIS is a decade or more behind even ArcView 3.2 (very nice
product) with regard to performance and basic (non-OGC and web)
functionality.
Will importing the shapefiles into PostgreSQL solve the data access
speed issues? Is the rendering engine itself problematic, or is the
slowness a function of its inability to work efficiently with
shapefiles?
I find QGIS simply unusable when working with shapefiles. Considering
many GIS novices still work with shapefiles, I'm guessing the lack of
an efficient FOSS GIS client will stall wider adoption of FOSS GIS.
Am I mistaken, or is FOSS GIS weakest when it comes to the non-web
based GIS client arena?
I seriously want to like QGIS, but am having a tough time of that
presently. Are there other FOSS GIS clients that can access, search
through, and render shapefile data better than QGIS? Must be
something.
Finally, have the QGIS, uDig, and other folks considered joining
forces to create a killer GIS client? I find it depressing to see many
different fiefdoms in the FOSS community generally. If several
projects merged, it may lead in many cases to one heck of a FOSS
software product. Then again, one of the beauties of FOSS is that
anyone with a vision can start a project and create something better
than is already out there.
However, it seems to me if people joined forces more often and
consolidated projects, QGIS, for instance, might not still be choking
trying to access, search, and render moderately sized shapefiles after
5 years of development.
So what gives? At conferences like FOSS4G, is there ever talk of
project consolidation? If not, why not? I tend to think of all the
development hours spent on, say, 8 FOSS GIS clients, wasted, when, if
there was focus, 1 or 2 FOSS GIS clients could really kick some butt
and give commercial products real competition.
moderately sized, and evidently even tiny, shapefiles. That's *with*
scale-dependent display set to reasonable values.
Seems QGIS is a decade or more behind even ArcView 3.2 (very nice
product) with regard to performance and basic (non-OGC and web)
functionality.
Will importing the shapefiles into PostgreSQL solve the data access
speed issues? Is the rendering engine itself problematic, or is the
slowness a function of its inability to work efficiently with
shapefiles?
I find QGIS simply unusable when working with shapefiles. Considering
many GIS novices still work with shapefiles, I'm guessing the lack of
an efficient FOSS GIS client will stall wider adoption of FOSS GIS.
Am I mistaken, or is FOSS GIS weakest when it comes to the non-web
based GIS client arena?
I seriously want to like QGIS, but am having a tough time of that
presently. Are there other FOSS GIS clients that can access, search
through, and render shapefile data better than QGIS? Must be
something.
Finally, have the QGIS, uDig, and other folks considered joining
forces to create a killer GIS client? I find it depressing to see many
different fiefdoms in the FOSS community generally. If several
projects merged, it may lead in many cases to one heck of a FOSS
software product. Then again, one of the beauties of FOSS is that
anyone with a vision can start a project and create something better
than is already out there.
However, it seems to me if people joined forces more often and
consolidated projects, QGIS, for instance, might not still be choking
trying to access, search, and render moderately sized shapefiles after
5 years of development.
So what gives? At conferences like FOSS4G, is there ever talk of
project consolidation? If not, why not? I tend to think of all the
development hours spent on, say, 8 FOSS GIS clients, wasted, when, if
there was focus, 1 or 2 FOSS GIS clients could really kick some butt
and give commercial products real competition.
