GIS-on-a-Stick

Note: GIS-on-a-Stick is no longer a maintained project. We are no longer posting out free USB drives of GIS-on-a-Stick. We apologise for any inconvenience.

GIS-on-a-Stick is a USB flash drive containing the open source QGIS software and free Vicmap data in a self-contained spatial database. It was designed as a quickstart for projects that could benefit from GIS software and Victorian Government data.

GIS-on-a-Stick was launched at the Newtech Conference in Ballarat on March 2014: http://slid.es/simonokeefe/gis-on-a-stick

GIS-on-a-Stick is a winner in the inaugural Data Vic Competition: http://premier.vic.gov.au/media-centre/media-releases/9402-open-access-to-government-data-driving-innovation.html

Supported Platforms

• PC - run Start.bat straight from the stick to launch QGIS and included project (no prior installation of QGIS required)
• Mac, Linux - download and install QGIS to your machine, then launch it and open up data/Victoria.qgs on the stick

Components

Applications

GIS-on-a-Stick contains the following Windows software applications.

Portable QGIS

• Source: http://webgis.arpa.piemonte.it/geoportale/index.php/documentazione/manuali-e-strumenti/accesso-con-qgis/100-quantum-gis-qgis
• More information: http://wiki.gfoss.it/index.php/Qgis_Portable
• Destination: \apps\qgis_portable

Recommended settings:

• Settings > Options > General > Project files > untick Prompt to save...
• Settings > Options > Map Tools > Identify Mode > Top down, stop at first

Pozi Connect

• Source: http://www.groundtruth.com.au/pozi-connect-admin-guide
• Destination: \apps\poziconnect

Optionally edit PoziConnect.site.ini file to exclude tasks from drop-down list that aren't related to GIS-on-a-Stick.

[Settings]
Include: GIS-on-a-Stick
Exclude: 

Spatialite GUI

• Source: http://www.gaia-gis.it/gaia-sins/windows-bin-x86
• Destination: \apps\spatialite_gui-1.7.1-win-x86

Data

Spatial Database

A Spatialite portable spatial database contains a wealth of Vicmap data, made available by the Victorian state government are provided under a Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 Australia licence.

• Vicmap Address

• Vicmap Admin

• Vicmap Planning

• Vicmap Transport

• Vicmap Elevation

• Vicmap Lite

• Vicmap Hydro

• Vicmap Property Simplified 1 - Vicmap Property

• Vicmap Vegetation

• Destination: \data\Victoria.sqlite

Project

The map layers have been ordered, grouped, filtered, styled, zoom layered and labelled in a QGIS project.

• Source: https://github.com/groundtruth/GIS-on-a-Stick/raw/master/data/Victoria.qgs
• Destination: \data\Victoria.qgs

Tools

Duplicate GIS-on-a-Stick

\tools\Duplicate GIS-on-a-Stick.bat

Run this batch file to copy the contents of your GIS-on-a-Stick to another flash drive.

Making and updating your own sticks

GIS-on-a-Stick is designed to be shared. Starting with one stick, you can make as many copies as you need.

Tips:

• although you can build your own GIS-on-a-Stick by sourcing the individual components, you can request a stick from Groundtruth to get you up and running quickly
• use only USB 2.0 (cheap) or 3.0 (fast), but never 1.0, and at least 8 GB
• reformat your blank USB drives to NTFS (as opposed to the default FAT32) because the .sqlite file is larger than the maximum file size allowed by FAT32.
• to increase the speed of creating copies, copy the contents of your stick to your C drive first to use as your master copy
• use the tools\Duplicate GIS-on-a-Stick.bat script to copy your master copy to another stick
• use in conjunction with a multi-port USB hub to run off multiple copies at once - we've tested it with up to five sticks at once