For this first exercise you will be examining how you can use various software for geospatial analysis and graphical display of spatial data. Because of the variety and availability of operating systems in use today, each of the exercises in this course can be completed in either ArcGIS Pro, QGIS, or R. Each of these software have their pro’s and con’s but for simplicity purposes here is a table that might suggest which software would be best for you:
| ArcGIS Pro | QGIS | R |
|---|---|---|
| Available on Windows PC Only | Available for PC, Mac, or Linux (limited) | Available for PC, Mac, Linux, ChromeOS, iOS, or Android via web modern browser |
| Available by subscription only | Open Source | Open Source |
| Graphical User Interface with built-in functionality for Python; add-ons available for statistical languages | Graphical User Interface with built-in functionality for Python; use of plug-ins for other languages and analyses | Scripting language, mostly used for statistical purpose; packages expand its use to other applications such as geospatial analyses |
| Widely used in academia, government, and industry jobs | Widely used in academia and industry | Predominantly used in academia, research, and specialized industry jobs |
| Help available at ESRI.com and through various outlets via a google search | Help available at QGIS.org and through sites like stackoverflow.com or other sites via google search | Help available through individual package documentation and sites like stackoverflow.com or other sites via google search |
For the purposes of this course, you can complete the laboratory exercises in any of these software. There will be drop-down menus in every lab color-coded for the three software. Ultimately, you will have access to all of this material during and after the course and while the steps might be different between each version the outcomes will be the same. So if you choose to complete the course with one software you can always go back and complete the work in another software in your own time.
While all of the software will be available on the computers in McCord 210, if you choose to use ArcGIS Pro you will need to contact the APSU GIS Center with your student information to obtain a one year license for your personal computer. QGIS is available for download using this link. If you are completing the course in R you will not need to install any software, however you will need a Google account and access to the Chrome browser. When using R you will be completing all of the lab exercises in the Google Colaboratory and will access everything you need from the exercise pages on GitHub.
More information for each software and the steps to complete this exercise can be found below. Be sure to follow the color-coded drop-down for the specific software you are using for the lab.
ArcGIS Pro is a proprietary software from ESRI. Student access is available in McCord 210 and several other computer labs on campus. If you wish to obtain the software for use on your personal computer (Windows-based PC only) you will need to contact the APSU GIS Center at 601 N 2nd St, Clarksville, TN 37040, (931) 221-7500. Please have your APSU student ID and A# available for verification prior to obtaining a license. Please contact the GIS Center if you have any issues downloading or installing the software.
If you will be using QGIS for the exercises you will need to have the software installed on your computer. QGIS is available for PCs, Mac, and Linux computers. You can find the appropriate download for your operating system here:
When installing on macOS for the first time you may need to go to Systems Preferences > Security and Privacy and on the General tab “Allow apps downloaded from” App Store and identified developers and click Open Anyway. Please contact your instructor if you have any issues downloading or installing the software.
You will be completing the R portion of each exercise using the Google Colaboratory Executable Environment. Colaboratory, or “colab” for short, is based on the popular Jupyter Notebooks and allows you to write and execute R or Python in your browser, with:
Each colab notebook is separated into code cells and text cells. A code cell is used to write and execute a script interactively. Each text cell uses simple markdown syntax for creating plain text information. You can easily share the notebook like other Google Drive based documents by clicking the “Share” link in the upper right-hand portion of the window.
Before beginning each exercise using R, you will need to open the Exercise Colab Notebook and alter the URL to view/edit the file in colab. To do this you will navigate to the exercise’s GitHub page; in this case https://github.com/chrismgentry/GIS1-Exercise-2. In the list of folders and files you will find a file that will always be identified as GIS1_EX followed by the exercise number and a .ipynb file extension. So for this exercise it will be GIS1_EX2.ipynb