Now that USB flash memory drives are so large and so cheap, we can start running programs off of them. We’ve seen that you can run Firefox and Thunderbird (among many others) on these drives, but many don’t know you can also run desktop GIS software on it. Head over to QGIS, download the latest version and install it. Then navigate to the QGIS folder (on windows this would be c:\Program Files\Quantum GIS) and copy it to your flash drive (You’ll need about 80 MB free). Anytime you need GIS, you’ll only have to whip out your memory stick and plug it in. Then just browse for the “qgis.exe” and you’ll be set.
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James Fee - jfee@weogeo.com
James works for WeoGeo helping people organize, share and monetize their geo-content.
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8 Comments
That is so cool! I had no idea you could put GIS on one of these drives.
Hey James,
How about a few more posts about QGIS?
I hadn’t thought about trying this yet, but I think it is possible to do the same trick with the FWTools kit (http://fwtools.maptools.org/) which has a lot of utilites for raster and some vector map conversion (GDAL/OGR), Mapserver, and a pretty good raster viewer (OpenEV).
I’ll try to give it a shot and report tomorrow.
Sounds great Robert.
Tried the FWTools install and it works… But…
The package uses a couple of batch files to set environment variables (setfw.bat and openev.bat) as well as a couple of shortcuts pointing to those batch files. I had to hand-edit them to point to the install directory. Since the path includes the drive letter, it changes between systems.
I’m trying to dust off my memory of batch file scripting to see if there is an easy solution. I’ve just noticed a new update (1.0.0a9) on their site it may have other changes to consider.
Wow – QGIS is stunningly simple compared to setting up Grass or TNT on my mac (a few years ago, admittedly).
Dear Robert, QGIS runs well from a flash drive, and with a 4 gig drive, there is enough room for base file data. If you are working with imagery, you can also run HyperCube [ http://www.tec.army.mil/Hypercube/index.html ] from a flash drive. If you work with SDS compliant mapping, you can download and install SDSFIE on a Stick [ http://www.upper-90.com/public_tools.htm ] if you need to browse SDS domains, subtypes, attributes or create filters for the geodatabase builder.
I’m looking to use a ASUS R2H to GIS plot but would like to get down to sub 1 metre accuracy . Any thoughts/suggestions? Thank you
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[...] Yes, you can have a GIS on a thumb drive. Here’s how. [...]
[...] Robert Wood like the sound of the idea of running GIS from a flash USB drive for those emergencies so he went out and tried to get the great FWTools running. After playing around a bit with 1.0.0a7 (windows release) I found I could get it to work by doing the following: [...]
[...] is an idea that seems to come up every so often- what GIS programmes can you run from a USB stick. Well it appears that the list has just got longer. I’m probably the last person to realise [...]