I DEVELOPMENT of FREE/LIBRE and OPEN SOURCE SPATIAL
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DEVELOPMENT OF FREE/LIBRE AND OPEN SOURCE SPATIAL DATA ANALYSIS SYSTEM FULLY COUPLED WITH GEOGRAPHIC INFORMATION SYSTEM A THESIS SUBMITTED TO THE GRADUATE SCHOOL OF NATURAL AND APPLIED SCIENCES OF MIDDLE EAST TECHNICAL UNIVERSITY BY VOLKAN OSMAN KEPOĞLU IN PARTIAL FULFILLMENT OF THE REQUIREMENTS FOR THE DEGREE OF DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY IN GEODETIC AND GEOGRAPHIC INFORMATION TECHNOLOGIES MARCH 2011 i Approval of the thesis: DEVELOPMENT OF FREE/LIBRE AND OPEN SOURCE SPATIAL DATA ANALYSIS SYSTEM FULLY COUPLED WITH GEOGRAPHIC INFORMATION SYSTEM Submitted by VOLKAN OSMAN KEPOĞLU in partial fulfilment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy in Geodetic and Geographic Information Technologies Department, Middle East Technical University by, Prof. Dr. Canan Özgen ____________________ Dean, Graduate School of Natural and Applied Sciences Prof. Dr. Vedat Toprak ____________________ Head of Department, Geodetic and Geographic Information Technologies Prof. Dr. ġebnem Düzgün ______________________ Supervisor, Mining Engineering Dept., METU Examining Committee Members: Prof. Dr. Oğuz IĢık ______________________ City and Regional Planning Dept., METU Prof. Dr. ġebnem Düzgün ______________________ Mining Engineering Dept., METU Assoc. Prof. Dr. Ahmet CoĢar ______________________ Computer Engineering Dept., METU Assoc. Prof. Dr. Nurunnisa Usul ______________________ Civil Engineering Dept., METU Assoc. Prof. Dr. Çiğdem Varol ______________________ City and Regional Planning Dept., Gazi University Date: _____31 / 03 / 2011_____ ii I hereby declare that all information in this document has been obtained and presented in accordance with academic rules and ethical conduct. I also declare that, as required by these rules and conduct, I have fully cited and referenced all material and results that are not original to this work. Name, Last name: Volkan Osman Kepoğlu Signature : iii ABSTRACT DEVELOPMENT OF FREE/LIBRE AND OPEN SOURCE SPATIAL DATA ANALYSIS SYSTEM FULLY COUPLED WITH GEOGRAPHIC INFORMATION SYSTEM Kepoğlu, Volkan Osman Ph.D., Department of Geodetic and Geographic Information Technologies Supervisor: Prof. Dr. ġebnem Düzgün March 2011, 220 pages Spatial Data Analysis (SDA) is relatively narrower and constitutes one of the areas of Spatial Analysis. Geographic Information System (GIS) offers a potentially valuable platform for supporting SDA techniques. Integration of SDA with GIS helps SDA to benefit from the data input, storage, retrieval, data manipulation and display capabilities of GIS. Also, GIS can benefit from SDA techniques in which the integration of these techniques can increase the analysis capabilities of GIS. This integration serves for disseminating and facilitating improved understanding of spatial phenomena. How SDA techniques should be integrated with GIS arise the coupling problem. The complete integration of SDA techniques in GIS can be applied without the support of GIS vendor when the free/libre and open source software (FLOSS) development methodology is properly followed. This approach causes to interpret the coupling problem in a new way. This thesis aims to develop a fully coupled SDA with GIS in FLOSS environment. A fully coupled SDA in free GIS software as FLOSS system is developed by writing nearly 13,000 line Python code in 2.5 years. Usage of this system has reached to nearly 1600 unique visitors, 3000 visits and 8600 page views in two years. iv As the current status of development in GIS is considered, it is unlikely in commercial market to have full coupled SDA techniques in GIS software. However, it is expected to have more SDA developments in proprietary GIS software in the near future as there is an increasing trend for requesting more sophisticated SDA tools. Keywords: GIS, Spatial Data Analysis, Free Software, Open Source Development v ÖZ COĞRAFİ BİLGİ SİSTEMİ İLE ENTEGRE ÖZGÜR VE AÇIK KAYNAK KODLU MEKANSAL VERİ ANALİZ SİSTEMİNİN GELİŞTİRİLMESİ Kepoğlu, Volkan Osman Doktora Jeodezi ve Coğrafi Bilgi Teknolojileri Bölümü Tez Yöneticisi: Prof. Dr. ġebnem Düzgün Mart 2011, 220 sayfa Mekansal Veri Analizi (MVA) mekansal analiz alanına göre daha dar bir alandır. Coğrafi Bilgi Sistemi (CBS) MVA tekniklerini iĢlemek için potansiyeli yüksek ve değerli bir platformdur. MVA teknikleri CBS ile tamamen entegre edildiğinde, MVA, CBS‟nin veri giriĢi, depolama, geri getirme, veri iĢleme ve görüntüleme yeteneklerinden yararlanabilecektir. Ayrıca, MVA tekniklerinin entegrasyonu sayesinde CBS kendi analiz yeteneklerini daha da artırabilir. Bu entegrasyon, mekansal olayların daha iyi anlaĢılarak yaygınlaĢtırılmasına ve kolaylaĢtırılmasına hizmet edecektir. MVA tekniklerinin CBS ile nasıl entegre edileceği bağlantı probleminin konusudur. Özgür ve açık kaynak kodlu yazılım (ÖAKKY) geliĢtirme metodolojisi uygun bir Ģekilde gerçekleĢtirilebilirse ticari bir CBS yazılım firmasının desteği olmadan CBS ile MVA teknikleri tümüyle entegre edilebilir. Bu yaklaĢım bağlantı probleminin yeni bir Ģekilde yorumlanmasına neden olmaktadır. Bu tezde, MVA ile CBS‟nin ÖAKKY ortamında tamamen entegrasyonun sağlanması amaçlanmıĢtır. 2,5 yıl içinde MVA teknikleri ile entegre özgür bir GIS yazılımının ÖAKKY sistemi olarak geliĢtirilmesi için yaklaĢık 13.000 satır Python kodu yazılmıĢtır. GeliĢtirilen bu sistemin kullanımı iki yıl içerisinde yaklaĢık 1600 tekil ziyaretçi, 3000 ziyaret ve 8600 web sayfası izlenim sayısına ulaĢmıĢtır. Bu rakamlar MVA tekniklerinin kullanıcı dostu CBS yazılımı ile entegre edilmesine duyulan bir ihtiyacın kanıtıdır. vi CBS alanındaki mevcut durumun geliĢimi dikkate alındığında, tüm MVA tekniklerinin CBS yazılımları ile entegre edilmesinin ticari pazarda mümkün olmadığı gözükmektedir. Ancak, MVA için daha geliĢmiĢ araçlara artan eğilim nedeniyle yakın gelecekte daha fazla MVA geliĢtirmelerinin sahipli CBS yazılımlarında da gerçekleĢebileceği düĢünülmektedir. Anahtar Kelimeler: CBS, Mekansal Veri Analizi, Özgür Yazılım, Açık Kaynak Kodlu Yazılım GeliĢtirme vii ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS I would hereby like to express my sincere appreciations to my supervisor Prof. Dr. ġebnem Düzgün for her great guidance and support. This development could not be completed in the FLOSS environment without her encouragement and motivation. I would like to thank to Chair of my committee, Prof. Dr. Oğuz IĢık and committee members; Assoc. Prof. Dr. Ahmet CoĢar, Assoc. Prof. Dr. Nurunnisa Usul and Assoc. Prof. Dr. Çiğdem Varol for their guidance, critics, motivations and invaluable discussions. I would also like to thank all members of QGIS community, especially to Gary Sherman for setting up user friendly environment of QGIS, to Barry Rowlingson, Martin Dobias, Carson Farmer, Anne Ghisla, Borys Jurgiel, Horst Düster, Adrian Baddeley, Roger Bivand, Giovanni Manghi and all my users for testing the system, using the plug-in, reporting bugs and motivating me to add more tools. I would like to add special thanks UlaĢ Alagöz for his help, Servet Ahmet Çizmeli for setting access to Debian Server, Burak Beyhan for motivation in the FLOSS subject and Osman Yalçın for valuable contribution to FLOSS. Finally, I would like to thank to my family especially my father, Günaydın Kepoğlu for his strong patience, my wife, Arzu Kepoğlu for her great support and my daughter, Nil Kepoğlu for her understanding and love. Without their encouragements and motivations, this thesis could not be completed. viii To My Dear Wife and Lovely Daughter ix TABLE OF CONTENT ABSTRACT ............................................................................................................... iv ÖZ ............................................................................................................................. vi ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS......................................................................................... vii TABLE OF CONTENT ................................................................................................ x LIST OF TABLES ..................................................................................................... xii LIST OF FIGURES ................................................................................................... xiii LIST OF ABBREVATIONS ........................................................................................ xv CHAPTERS 1. INTRODUCTION .................................................................................................... 1 1.1. INTRODUCTION ............................................................................................ 1 1.1.1. Coupling of SDA and GIS ..................................................................... 4 1.1.2. Need for FLOSS Development ............................................................. 7 1.2. MOTIVATION AND OBJECTIVE OF THE THESIS ......................................... 9 1.3. ORGANIZATION OF THE THESIS ............................................................... 14 2. SPATIAL DATA ANALYSIS (SDA) ......................................................................... 15 2.1. SDA VERSUS SPATIAL ANALYSIS .............................................................. 15 2.2. TYPES OF SPATIAL DATA ANALYSIS ......................................................... 16 2.3. COUPLING OF SDA SOFTWARE WITH GIS .............................................. 18 2.4. OVERVIEW OF EXISTING SDA SOFTWARE ............................................. 25 2.4.1. Standalone SDA Software .................................................................. 27 2.4.2. Close Coupled SDA Extension ..........................................................