Desktop GIS for Mac OS X

Peter Rukavina

The last time I went looking for a desktop GIS application for my Mac all I found was the beast of a system that is GRASS (it looked so powerful, but yet so far beyond my reach to properly grasp).

Suddenly it seems that GIS apps for the Mac are all over the place: Quantum GIS and uDIG are two I tried tonight with good success (both are cross-platform PC-Mac-Linux).

The task at hand was updating an old MapInfo layer of The Old Farmer’s Almanac long-range weather forecast regions and getting it ready to live as a MapServer-friendly SHP file.

I began by exporting the MapInfo file as an ESRI shapefile using the trial version of MapInfo running on my Mac using Virtual PC. Both Quantum GIS and uDig then opened this file with no problems:

uDig Screen Shot Quantum GIS Screen Shot

Now the fun begins: I’ve got some “ZIP code in polygon” magic to perform and my next step is to see which tool supports this sort of thing best. Stay tuned.

Update: There’s also Thuban.

Almanac.com
GIS
Mac OS X
Quantum GIS
uDig

Comments

Submitted by dylan on

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There is an excellent MacOS X installer for GRASS6.1 with support for integration into QGIS. Couple this with PostGIS, and you have a very flexible GIS system. Note that the GRASS installer for the mac comes with gdal. here is a link:
http://wwwamb.bologna.enea.it/…

For hard copy maps, GMT compiles easily on the mac.

cheers,

D

Submitted by Christian Harder on

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Question: Does ArcGIS running in XP inside of Parallels or Bootcamp on OSX on an Intel Mac qualify as a GIS on a Mac? Works great.

Submitted by Willian Sanchez on

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For Mac platfforms there are TNTmips, which is a profeesioanl GIS and Remote sensing software, this tool is a strong rival for ESRI products, alos is a cross-platform between MAC, Win, Lunix and Solaris.

More information http://www.microimages.com

Submitted by jon on

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What about doing a brief side-by-side comparison of the GIS packages for OSX? Or is that available somewhere else?

Submitted by Rosacea on

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For Mac platfforms there are TNTmips, which is a profeesioanl GIS and Remote sensing software, this tool is a strong rival for ESRI products, alos is a cross-platform between MAC, Win, Lunix and Solaris. Also, both Quantum GIS and uDIG are cross platform PC-Mac-Linux.I’ve tried them & they’re good one.

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