Module 2: How GIS works

QGIS is a geoinformation system that is offered for installation free of charge as open source software. The programme is supported by a dedicated group of developers, users and enthusiasts who are committed to the further development, expansion and application of the QGIS software as a virtual community around the world. The community is constantly working to improve QGIS, which explains the frequent updating and release of new versions. The QGIS community uses a scheme consisting of major, minor and patch for versioning, i.e. the designation of programme versions. Using this standardised scheme, the software version used can be sorted chronologically. Version 3.32 should therefore be interpreted in this way: The 3 represents the major version, the 32 the minor version, with no patch version. In addition, the QGIS versions are given names that generally refer to geographical locations or landmarks. Examples of this are "Dufour" (version 2.0), "Vienna" (version 2.8), "Las Palmas" (version 2.18), "Girona" (version 3.0), "Zanzibar" (version 3.8), "Hanover" (version 3.16) or "Maidenhead" (3.36). The names are particularly popular with users of the software and lend the more technical and informative version designations a reference to geoinformation and geodata.
In addition to documenting and providing the software, the community is constantly developing the software, fixing bugs, optimising the usability and user interface or introducing new functions, spatial analysis tools and algorithms. New functionalities and tools are usually not integrated directly into the main programme, but made available as plugins. The large number of plug-ins available has meant that QGIS now offers a wide range of functionality and is on a par with commercial GIS programmes. Plugins are often programmed very specifically for certain applications or even regions.
An entire ecosystem for QGIS software has been established around the development work of the QGIS community. This also includes training courses, forums, the creation of tutorials, FAQs, translations of the user interface into various languages and now also scientific and application-related conferences, workshops and events. Scientific papers in the field of geoinformatics also frequently refer to the use of QGIS or even discuss the further development of the software. The extensive work of the QGIS community has contributed to making QGIS a powerful and user-friendly GIS tool. The software supports Windows, MacOS and Linux and interacts with other open source GIS packages such as PostGIS, GRASS GIS and SAGA GIS, which represent additional alternative GIS applications.
The practical examples in the book refer to the QGIS software. For the introduction to the basic applications and functionalities, it is irrelevant whether you are using the latest version of the QGIS software. From a user perspective, it is recommended that you always use the latest stable version of the software. The stable versions generally no longer contain any major errors that could cause the software to crash.
Find out more about the QGIS community and the programme via this link https://qgis.org. You can also obtain the software there in order to install it on your PC. Please also note the click video in the main menu of the course.

 

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