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

pozi/GIS-on-a-Stick