Mappoint Alternative

February 17, 2011 6:25 AM

Looking for a free Mappoint alternative GIS program... any suggestions? I'd prefer not to use Google Earth, so something else...

I have data in csv form that i want to graph. Data is sensitive, so i can't upload it to any server. Need to create HeatMaps, and other maps for analysis.

posted by fozzie33 to Computers & Internet (6 answers total)

GRASS is the gold standard of free / open-source GIS programs, and will handle anything you need to do. The learning curve can be steep for some applications, though, and if you only need to do some simple mapping w/o much analysis their might be a simpler application.
posted by JumpW at 6:36 AM on February 17, 2011 [1 favorite]

I use Q-GIS, which is an open source program that can also be used as a friendlier and simpler front end for GRASS.
posted by jb at 7:23 AM on February 17, 2011

QGis. Grass is hard.
posted by scruss at 7:45 AM on February 17, 2011

Yeah, Quantum GIS (QGis) is the new gold standard in open source GIS. Throw your CSV data into some sort of raster format it can understand (anything GDAL can digest, basically), then load it on top of whatever base maps you have. Will be easy.
posted by Nelson at 8:15 AM on February 17, 2011

TileMill. (Made by a few of MeFi's own)
posted by schmod at 9:53 AM on February 17, 2011 [1 favorite]

QGis is definitely the more intuitive of the open source GIS software I've used, but that may just be that it's easier to understand coming from ArcGIS.
posted by that girl at 6:16 PM on February 17, 2011