Development of open-source GIS Educational Tools for Urban Planning Migration to the GRASS-GIS package in the GIS educational environment
Kei Saito
Faculty of Systems Engineering, Shibaura Institute of Technology
Shinji Chiba
Archi Pivot, Inc.
Michihiko Shinozaki
Faculty of Systems Engineering, Shibaura Institute of Technology
要旨
This paper investigates the possibility of substituting open-source GIS software for commercial GIS software through the comparison of functional differences between them. In this case, we attempted adapting coursework for undergraduate urban planning education to the GRASS-GIS from materials originally developed using commercial software. We compared the features of the commercial and open-source packages, such as their respective spatial analysis functions, operational performance and user-interface. The adaptation to GRASS-GIS from Commercial GIS environment was successful. Herewith, we can expect the benefits of cost reductions with open-source GIS. In addition, the open-source environment provides the additional benefit of permitting users and developers to allocate some of their future software maintenance budgets to customization of the open-source code and training materials. This can result in better suitability in our applications, and better software and training materials for all other users of the thus-enhanced open-source software environment.
