Greets - GIS Analyst here... just here for my hobby

[randomblink]

Hey all. I literally found, and joined, because of one link.

The Blessed R'Lyeh

I'm owner of the domain cityofrlyeh.org and have been planning out a City Government website complete with custom maps and everything. As a GIS Analyst I have access to the tools necessary to make this happen, I just can only dedicate my lunch hours (sometimes) to this... so it's SLOOOOOOWWWWWW going... I'm dreaming of a full-fledged map of R'Lyeh, complete with topography, streets, building footprints, coastline, etc. Kinda hoping I can get someone at ESRI to pony up a free account or two for a non-profit, for fun, license or two. (we'll see)

Anyway, I dabble in a little bit of everything, so feel free to say hello...
Peace, Love and Ley Lines...

[Chick]

Hello randomblink! Welcome to the Guild!

[Hai-Etlik]

Kinda hoping I can get someone at ESRI to pony up a free account or two for a non-profit, for fun, license or two. (we'll see)

There are options other that Esri. You might take this as an opportunity to expand the range of tools you're familiar with. Admittedly I'm speaking as Developer who works for one of those alternatives, so I do have a bit of a vested interest.

[johnvanvliet]

A lot can be done with non proprietary tools
like
GRASS
GDAL
Qgis
or depending on your database
postgis
-- for space --
ISIS3

depending on the needs there are many tools

[priggs]

Hi randomblink

I do a lot of GIS in my job, and grew up east of you in Sallisaw, OK. Yes, the ESRI pricing puts it well out of reach for a lot of us. I have it at work, but at home I rely on other less expensive tools. I'm on a Mac at home, so I don't know if these would interest you, but some I use are:

Cartographica (MacGIS.com) A bit pricey, but a lot less than ArcMap.
Ortelius (MapDiva.com) Like Adobe Illlustrator, but focused on map design.
NaturalSceneDesigner (naturalgfx.com) Really cool scene renderings.

But honestly, I do cartoon maps, so most of what I do is hand drawn.

[Triceratops]

There are now very reasonably priced 'not for profit' licenses available from ESRI. You just can't sell anything you make. I would have one myself if I didn't still have my student access for another year.

[johnvanvliet]

use Qqis

a recent posting
"27 Differences Between ArcGIS and QGIS – The Most Epic GIS Software Battle in GIS History"

http://gisgeography.com/qgis-arcgis-differences/


and GDAL opens esri formatted data just fine

[tilt]

hello randomblink and welcome to the guild - looking forward to seeing your mapping, personally I map in photoshop/illustrator and wouldn't know where to start in those programs, but all maps are loved in here - check out our tutorial section, and post your maps in the WIP section as you work on them for help and critique.

[arsheesh]

Welcome to the Guild!

Cheers,
-Arsheesh