3.2. Software

Version 4.2 by Franz Schmid on 2018/08/01 14:04

Index

  • Application Programming Interface
  • Geographic Information System
  • Jupyter notebook
  • Python
  • QGIS
An Application Programming Interface (API) is a set of subroutine definitions, protocols, and tools for building application software. In general terms, it is a set of clearly defined methods of communication between various software components. A good API makes it easier to develop a computer program by providing all the building blocks, which are then put together by the programmer. An API may be for a web-based system, operating system, database system, computer hardware, or software library.
A Geographic Information System (GIS) is a system designed to integrate, store, edit, analyze, share, and display geographic or spatial data. GIS applications are tools that allow users to create interactive queries (user-created searches), analyze spatial information, edit data in maps, and present the results of all these operations. Geographic information science is the science underlying geographic concepts, applications, and systems.
The Jupyter Notebook is an open-source web application that allows you to create and share documents that contain live code, equations, visualizations and narrative text. Uses include: data cleaning and transformation, numerical simulation, statistical modeling, data visualization, machine learning, and much more. The IPython Notebook is now known as the Jupyter Notebook. It is an interact2ive computational environment, in which you can combine code execution, rich text, mathematics, plots and rich media.
Python is an interpreted high-level programming language for general-purpose programming, with a design philosophy that emphasizes code readability, notably using significant whitespace. It provides constructs that enable clear programming on both small and large scales. Python features a dynamic type system and automatic memory management. It supports multiple programming paradigms, including object-oriented, imperative, functional and procedural, and has a large and comprehensive standard library. In addition, Python is available for many operating systems.
QGIS (previously known as Quantum GIS) is a free and open-source cross-platform desktop GIS application allowing users to analyze and edit spatial information, in addition to composing and exporting graphical maps. QGIS supports both raster and vector layers. Multiple data formats are supported such as: shapefiles, coverages, personal geodatabases, dxf, MapInfo, PostGIS, and other formats. Web services, including Web Map Service and Web Feature Service, are also supported to allow use of data from external sources.