Quantum GIS

[ TS ] Tim, welcome to this the next in our QGIS interview series. Could you start by telling us a bit about yourself...where do you live, what are your hobbies etc?

[ TB ] I have lived in Austin, Texas for the past 9 years where I am an electrical engineer for a semiconductor company. Typically, I do embedded assembly language programming, but at times I have also done system administration for the company -- a task I learned while in college. I am also an extra class amateur radio operator, licensed for about twenty years now. About ten years ago, while in college, I also got involved in flying balloons although I have never obtained my pilot certificate.

[ GS ] How long have you been using OpenSource GIS applications?

[ TB ] I started researching OpenSource GIS during the summer of 2004 and it was about then that I built a couple of the applications to play with. However, it wasn't until about March of this year that I dove in head first. I've been hooked ever since.

[ TS ] You recently were involved in creating a system for mapping balloons in a balloon race - can you describe the system you created and the open source components that went into it?

[ TB ] We needed a mapping system for tracking long distance balloon flights that served two purposes. One was for the benefit of the race organizers who constantly monitor the position of the teams flying the balloons, while the second purpose was to provide real-time tracking updates to a web page so the general public can watch the event unfold. It's a bit like watching a three day horse race! After exploring several other possibilities for a solution, I settled on using the UMN MapServer, PHP MapScript, GDAL/OGR, Postgres/PostGIS and Apache2 on a RedHat Fedora3 system.

Balloon positions are transmitted every 6 minutes and sent back to the race command center via Internet where the mapping server would enter the positions into a PostGIS database. When a request to render a map is made, MapServer would query the database to return a line for each of the balloons from the set of positions received for each balloon. The map would then be rendered along with all the usual objects you might find on a map. One of the biggest challenges I found was dealing with the immense amount of map data I would need. I found out that most GIS users only focus on a small area while I needed detailed map data for most of the US, Canada, and Mexico.

[ TS ] What comments do you have to offer the open source community that develop GIS related applications? Did you find the tools you needed? When you did find tools, did they do what they advertised 'on the box'?

[ TB ] Great question. I have been using OpenSource software for 10-12 years now, and one of the challenges in the early days was documentation.

Generally, software advances faster than documentation (if there is any), but I think the OpenSource community has really stepped up to the plate to fix this in the past 5 years. As for the GIS applications, I was quite impressed. It appears that OpenSource GIS is nearing an adolescence of a sort. First, there is a number of online documents and tutorials written for the various applications (MapServer, QGIS, PostGIS). This was my primarily focus when I started researching OpenSource GIS as a solution to our balloon tracking in 2004. But, I was in for a sweet surprise once I started development of our tracking system this year -- there were two books on the subject scheduled for publishing. Web Mapping Illustrated and Beginning Mapserver Open Source GIS Development were quite valuable in my development. So, I think that documentation is very important, and I believe the OpenSource GIS community is advancing well in that area.

Usability of the software is also important, and again, I think the community has had success in this area as well. In fact, I found the setup and configuration of MapServer easier than proprietary mapping packages I evaluated. QGIS isn't even 1.0 and still undergoing a lot of development, but when I first ran it I was impressed with it's clean, easy interface.

If I had to pick an area that could use a lot of improvement, I think it would have to be in locating the various packages that are required. A lot of times, I found out about some other OpenSource GIS package simply by reading about it on a mail list. I don't know how this could be improved, due to the distributed nature of different OpenSource projects.

[ GS ] How did you discover QGIS?

[ TB ] I read an email about Tyler Mitchell's interview on the MapServer list or IRC channel! I believe there was a link to the interview which lead me to the QGIS website. Until I found QGIS, I was using MapServer to examine all my mapping data, so I was quite happy to see a GUI GIS application!

[ GS ] We've seen your tracking application and its quite impressive. Is it still online?

[ TB ] Yes, the final maps will remain online at the Albuquerque International Balloon Fiesta web site until the next event in October 2006. It can be found at http://www.balloonfiesta.com/Gas/tracking/index.php?type=cluster&view=1&id=All

[ TS ] Is there any particular reason why you chose OpenSource GIS tools over the commercial offerings?

[ TB ] I like the freedom. It's the freedom to keep using a version of software from ten years ago if you wish. It's the freedom to share data between applications. It's the freedom to find information about your application.

The goal of the OpenSource community for releasing a new version of an application is to improve the software. The goal, in my opinion, of proprietary software makers is to sell you a new package. Paying for an application is fine, but I didn't want to have to buy it again (or the upgrade) in a few years when they didn't want to support our version any longer.

I also did not want my data to be locked into a particular product. I've had that happen several times in my professional job, and it angers me to do a lot of work only to have my data end up locked away in some special file format only their tool can read.

As a firmware programmer I know bugs in software are inevitable. OpenSource projects always publish their bugs, but at my day job I actually experienced one vendor hiding their bugs then requiring us to pay to learn of the bug's existence.

The OpenSource community also seems more 'open' than the user groups of proprietary vendors. In the OpenSource community everyone helps everyone else. It's great. You see it all the time on OpenSource mailing lists.

[ GS ] How would you characterize the support you received from the Open Source community?

[ TB ] Outstanding. It's been my experience that questions from newcomers are always welcome. People are willing to share ideas, experiences, and the programmers working hard on the projects are happy to see people using their work.

Of course, one wants to do their homework first. I've been around the OpenSource community and software enough to know that you won't get very far without first trying find the educate yourself. That said, sometimes all one needs is a guide in the right direction, a pointer to the right document, etc. The mailing list archives are great sources too, but it's awfully hard to dig through them sometimes. A person can spend hours (or days) doing that.

[ GS ] If you could give one item of advice for someone starting out in Open Source GIS, what would it be?

[ TB ] I would tell them to go buy Web Mapping Illustrated and read it. They can also use QGIS in conjunction with Web Mapping Illustrated to understand the concepts of GIS given in the book. Then, if they want to create their own web mapping sites they'll want to buy Beginning MapServer which digs deeper into MapScript and web page development. The community is lucky to have these books.

[ GS ] Mr. Sutton had to depart but he wanted me to ask you one last question: Do you think the Belgians that won the race were good balloonists or are they just full of hot air?

[ TB ] I thought they were trying to fly all the way home! Their flight did in fact set a world record for the distance flown in that type of balloon.

All participants in the race are excellent balloonists. Winning this race is a mix of excellent equipment, excellent skill, and excellent luck. It takes a certain kind of person to sit in a small basket with a friend for several days at a time, sometimes in very cold weather. The Europeans fly these type of long distance gas balloons much more often than we do in the US, so they have plenty of opportunity to sharpen their skills. They enjoy coming to the Albuquerque event since they can fly longer distances without crossing as many countries (and water) as they would in Europe.

Ballooning is another great community where everyone works together, much like the OpenSource community.

[ GS ] Thanks (that was our obligatory joke question). It certainly sounds like a challenging event. Thanks for being a part of our interview series. Do you have any last comments?

[ TB ] Keep up the great work! I always anticipate the next releases to see what is new.

[ GS ] Mr Sutton and I thank you for your time and the interesting interview.

[ TB ] Thank you.