Next week I will be in Bonn (Germany) for FOSS4G 2016. This will be my first trip to a conference of that scale.
Together with Victor Olaya we will run a workshop on Processing. And as the QGIS project decided to hold another hackfest in parallel with the conference, I will also work on QGIS improvements and bugfixes.
The second (and first for me) QGIS User Conference is over. More than 150 participants, 9 workshops in three parallel sessions, 18 presentations from people all over the world: two incredibly busy days flew really fast.
Workshops from QGIS core developers and the most experienced community members were interesting and useful for both beginners and those who have been using QGIS for a long time. Personally, I managed to attend four workshops:
From data model to QGIS project — Matthias Kuhn and Andreas Neumann were showing how to prepare data and setup QGIS to comfortably use datasets containing lots of interdependent tables with and without spatial information.
QGIS Cartography Tips and Tricks — Alexandre Neto demonstrated QGIS capabilities to create beautiful printed maps. The workshop was dedicated not only to the use of Print Composer and Atlas functionality but also highlighted powerful QGIS features for layer styling, labeling, using map themes, and multiple styles for a single layer.
Advanced Processing — actually, I attended this workshop not as an ordinary participant, but as a second mentor. Together with Victor Olaya we showed some “secret” features of Processing that could take analysis productivity to the next level.
Your first steps in Python with QGIS — led by Martin Dobias and targeted at beginners who want to automate their work by developing scripts and plugins. I attended this workshop to see how others talk about PyQGIS and maybe borrow some ideas for my own workshops.
18 presentations on a wide range of topics once again confirmed that QGIS turned from a “pet project” into a full-fledged competitor of such well-known products as ArcMap and MapInfo a long time ago. It was very interesting to listen to reports on the migration of government agencies to QGIS as well as on using QGIS in conservation and educational institutions. Presentations about new QGIS features, plugins, and other related developments, such as QGIS Server clients, were also captivating.
Many thanks to the organizers for their hospitality and impeccable organization of the conference.
Actually, I’m on a train right now, and this post should be published automatically.
I am going to take part in the 2nd QGIS User Conference and QGIS hackfest. The conference should be really interesting. Even though this is only the second event, the conference program is extremely rich. There are presentations demonstraing how QGIS is used in real-world applications in different areas, workshops from QGIS core developers and advanced users, an overview of new features, etc. It is quite difficult to decide where to go and whom to listen to; almost all talks and workshops are intriguing.
On March 18–20, Kharkiv hosted the annual GIS-Forum “Education, Science, and Production”. It was the fourth conference and the second one I participated in (the first time was last year).
This year there were minor organisational issues: the opening on the first day was delayed for about half an hour due to some problems with the equipment and with the joining of remote participants; most of the speakers were hard to hear despite the presence of a microphone and speakers; and there was no Wi-Fi.
The talks were different: both outright trash and very interesting. This year, the works presented at the student competition and the results of the competition itself left a mixed feeling. Firstly, some works were presented for the second time without any improvements or changes. Secondly, the selection of the winner in the category “Best ideas for GIS application”… From my point of view, the selection process and criteria were not transparent, and the results were strange. Though, two strong presentations still won prizes.
This year’s workshops attracted more participants, but they were not active at all, just like last year. However, the discussion organized by Daria and me was quite lively. We didn’t even have enough time to cover all the planned topics.
I want to say thank you to the organizers for their hospitality and interesting program. Hopefully the next anniversary Forum will be even better.