QGIS is a free and open source desktop GIS on which development began in 2002. Since 2007, the project has been developing under the umbrella of the Open Source Geospatial Foundation (OSGeo). A relatively young project, QGIS is gaining more and more popularity among individual users, private companies, and organizations all over the world due to the following reasons:
Distribution under the GNU General Public License (GPL), which guarantees users the freedom to use, study, share, and modify the software
Cross-platform support, which means that QGIS can run on Linux, Unix, Mac OS, Windows, and Android operating systems
Multiple vector and raster data format support, as well as database formats and functionalities
Permanent improvement of the core functionality, which encompasses data creation, editing, manipulation, analysis, storage, and visual representation
Permanent growth of the external functionality available from the so-called plugins supported by the international community of developers
Note
You can find more information about QGIS from its official website at http://qgis.org/ and its documentation chapter available at http://documentation.qgis.org/.
According to the release schedule of the QGIS project, a new version of QGIS is available every 4 months. Starting from QGIS 2.8, every third release has been a long-term release (LTR). It is maintained for a year, and then the next LTR occurs. Throughout this book, an LTR of QGIS 2.8 called "Wein" is used.
Installers for the current QGIS version are available for different operating systems from the download page of the official website at http://download.qgis.org. The 32-bit and 64-bit installation files for MS Windows are distributed as follows:
QGIS Standalone Installers: QGIS installation using these has no differences from the conventional software installation procedure under Windows
OSGeo4W Network Installer: Compared to standalone installers, this provides the following advantages:
Aside from QGIS, it allows us to install a large number of other packages to work with spatial data (command-line utilities, libraries, and desktop and server applications)
It ensures installation of the most up-to-date software versions being directly linked to constantly updating repositories
Once defined, the OSGeo4W working environment is convenient to use for automatic and timely updates, package addition, or package deletion
Let's go through the installation procedure of QGIS and its components with the OSGeo4W installer in the example of the latest 32-bit version. Since the installation (especially primary) requires downloading a large number of files, it is desirable to have a high-speed Internet connection. The installation procedure is as follows:
Download the latest version of the OSGeo4W 32-bit Network Installer, and double-click on
osgeo4w-setup-x86.exeto run the installation.In the installer window, select Advanced Install, as shown in the following screenshot. From now on, just read carefully and follow the instructions.
Choose Install from the Internet with the option to keep the downloaded files for future reuse.
Choose the directory for the OSGeo4W software suite installation.
C:\OSGeo4Wis a usual and convenient choice. If you want to use another directory, give it a proper name with a short path, excluding spaces and special symbols.Then, choose a directory to save the downloaded packages. You can create a new directory,
C:\OSGeo4W\Downloads, by typing in its name manually. Keep in mind that the volume of files to be downloaded is about 200 MB and you will need enough space to keep them all.Configure your Internet connection parameters, if any, and click on the Next button to proceed. After hitting the Next button, the list of all packages is downloaded and you enter the mode of package selection, as shown in the following screenshot. The available packages are grouped into the following categories: Commandline_Utilities, Desktop, Libs, and Web.
To install a package, click on the + sign to expand the category, and choose an application by clicking on the rounded arrow beside it (the word Skip will be replaced by the latest available version number).
To install the latest QGIS version, choose qgis: QGIS Desktop, and grass: GRASS GIS stable release. GRASS is a standalone GIS application that is closely integrated into QGIS and provides advanced geoprocessing functions.
After you've clicked on the Next button, the installer automatically detects the necessary dependencies and proceeds to download the packages and installation, as shown in the following screenshot:
After the installation completes, you will find the OSGeo4W group in the Start menu, with the following components:
MSYS: This is a set of GNU tools that ensure the creation of applications traditionally dependent on UNIX tools
OSGe4W Shell: This is a command-line interface for OSGeo4W utilities
QGIS Browser 2.8.1: This is a QGIS explorer used for navigation and data preview
QGIS Desktop 2.8.1: This is a QGIS desktop application
Setup: This is a OSGeo4W Installer launcher
GRASS GIS 7.0.0: This is GRASS GIS and its components
If you want to update QGIS or expand the current installation with some new components, simply click on the Setup shortcut from the OSGeo4W menu folder and run the Advanced installation procedure. The installer will check for available updates and necessary dependencies, download them, and install them.