There are many software options for working with geospatial data, and which to choose depends on your purpose, skills and access to (license, institutional setup and money).
The software is sorted here by what you do with it in a workflow, not by product:
| Role | What you do there | Section |
|---|---|---|
| Processing | Run the analysis: the Tools and Recipes that carry out a Task | Processing environments |
| Communication | Design and present the results: maps, posters, 3D scenes, web pages | Communication environments |
| Programming | Write the analysis as code, or automate a GIS | Programming languages |
| Reproducibility | Make the environment itself repeatable, so the work runs the same way on another machine | Reproducible environments |
Some software has more than one role. JupyterGIS is both: a GIS for analysis inside a notebook, and a shared map that several people can edit at the same time.
Processing environments
General purpose GIS.
For most beginners, I recommend a general-purpose solution, whether as a native app on your computer or as a web app. For historical reasons, general-purpose solutions for working with geospatial data are called Geographic Information Systems (GIS).
Typical applications:
- QGIS, with the SemanticGIS plugin for finding data the semantic way
- ArcGIS pro
Notebooks and databases
- JupyterLab: notebooks that mix code, results and text; JupyterGIS adds a map view to them
- PostgreSQL with PostGIS: a spatial database, queried with Spatial SQL
Specialised tools
- Copernicus Browser: satellite imagery in the browser
- Transport networks: Conveyal R5, OpenTripPlanner
- osmium-tool: working with OpenStreetMap extracts
Field Data Collection
Often, you need to collect your own geospatial data, and a typical approach would be to use some app on a mobile device (Phone or tablet). There are options; most of them are paid solutions since they typically involve some server the device connects to. An alternative to a dedicated app is a website that enables spatial data entry.
Common applications
- survey123
- ArcGIS field Maps
- Qfield (There is a free version)
- Mergin Maps
Communication environments
Maps and posters
- the print layout of QGIS or ArcGIS Pro
- Affinity: A0 poster layout (Recipe - Affinity)
Interactive Web Maps
We often need to present maps in an interactive form to a larger audience, so being able to publish maps on the internet is an important task. Like apps for data collection, these solutions are often not free since they rely on a server to host them. Some interactive map publishing possibilities double as web page editors and enable the creation of entire web pages with interactive maps and more.
3D Modelling Software
This category of software transcends into the more architectural visualisation domain. This is a rather broad group of software and covers everything from creating 3D models from photos to creating photo realistic 3d scenes.
-
Blender: Introduction to Blender for 3D Urban Modeling, Context massing (Recipe - Blender), Line drawings and shadow plans (Recipe - Blender)
-
Twinmotion: White-context rendering (Recipe - Twinmotion)
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Collecting 3D data (Lidar photogrammetry)
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3D mech moddeling
Programming languages
Python and Geospatial Data
The programming language Python is the all-dominating programming language when it comes to processing geospatial data. be it for automating and extending general purposes GIS apps or as a stand-alone environment.
SQL and Spatial SQL are the languages of spatial databases.
Reproducible environments
When working with complex software and especially programming environments that use multiple libraries setting up reproducible environments becomes very important. They are not places where you do GIS, but the setup that makes a processing environment repeatable: Mamba for isolated Python environments and Docker for containers. Together with Snapshot packages for the data, they are part of looking after a project.