I’ve blogged about putting GIS applications on USB memory sticks in the past, but there seems to be some traction going on with this. Jo Cook presented at FOSS4G2007 a talk about Portable GIS. Jo has followed up with a blog post about the talk:
Thanks to everyone who attended my talk at FOSS4G and/or came up and offered me kind words of encouragement afterwards. I’m pretty overwhelmed in the level of interest in this.
That is encouraging. There is now a dedicated page to portable GIS and with more community involvement, maybe we’ll start seeing some real progress here. As I wrote in the comments over there, I feel that for open source GIS to get penetration in many organizations, folks will need to be able to run these applications without the need to install them. Portable GIS is more than just running GIS applications on a USB memory stick, but the idea that these are self contained applications. Of course you don’t want to run production GIS using such applications, but being able to show how many of these open source products can integrate with existing workflows and improve your output might start getting companies to look at them and start deploying them internally.
This is sure something I’m keeping my eye on.
James’ stick has FWTools, Metacarta Labs-on-a-stick, QGIS and SDSFIE on a stick
12 Comments
When I can put my Metacarta geoDrive on a USB stick I’ll REALLY be excited. Somehow I don’t think it will fit on a Cruzer mini 1Gb though
Wasn’t this demo’d at the ESRI UC? In addition to the “GIS on a stick” (nice name) they had Linux on the same stick so that you could boot to the GIS from any x86 laptop to use an engine app to view your data.
Unfortunately, many IT departments in medium- and large-size organizations are beginning to lock-down USB drives in an attempt to prevent theft of intellectual property and/or the introduction of viruses, worms, bots.
In other words, the gathering momentum of ‘GIS on a Stick’ may be impaired by our IT overlords.
The nice feature of these apps is that they are usually just “zipped up”. Thus you don’t need to run them on your thumb drive. You can run there from anywhere.
I never saw any GIS on a stick at the ESRI UC….definitely not ArcGIS anyways. I can see how ArcGIS server running on Linux on a stick would be possible….but I’m really after something like the U3 system where the app installs all it needs on the stick but can run without booting to a different OS than the native.
I, for one, welcome our new IT Overlords
We’ve have ArcPAD 7 on a USB’s for about 6 months now and it’s been great to have when on the go. I am in the process of “attempting” ArcGIS on a stick. Obviously, the good old licensing server is an issue, however, we are making good progress.
As far as I’m concerned, if we’ve doled out enough cash to feed a small third-world country, I figure the software should be ours to put where we want.
ArcView 3.x runs beautifully from a USB stick.
ArcExplorer 2.0 also runs fine from a USB stick in some cases.
We have developed a GIS software to be used within Non Comercial activities as well as humnatiaran Emergency response. It all runs from a memorystick without installation. It has all main GIS features and support for more than the most common 30 vector formats & 15 rasterfornmats. Its all based on OPEN GIS standards… The GisSystem is Called OASIS (Operational Activities Situation Information System). Best of it all IT’S FREE! For questions or request of a free copy.. Contact: jdonahue@immap.org
A lot of GIS programs will run portably. On mine drive I carry: Qauntum GIS, GlobalMapper, USAPhotoMaps, fGIS and GoogleEarth. All work perfect (except GE which hickups on open, but otherwise OK).
Irony, what I would pay for a ArcGIS Lite that would run off a USB and be less bloated.
Also, many of these programs can even run off a burned CD! So take that damn IT Overlords!
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