.. only:: html
Foreword
========
Background
----------
In 2008 we launched the :ref:`Gentle Introduction to GIS
`, a completely free, open content resource for
people who want to learn about GIS without being overloaded with jargon and new
terminology. It was sponsored by the South African government and has been a
phenomenal success, with people all over the world writing to us to tell us how
they are using the materials to run University Training Courses, teach
themselves GIS and so on. The Gentle Introduction is not a software tutorial,
but rather aims to be a generic text (although we used QGIS in all examples)
for someone learning about GIS. There is also the QGIS manual which provides a
detailed functional overview of the QGIS application. However, it is not
structured as a tutorial, but rather as a reference guide. At Linfiniti
Consulting CC. we frequently run training courses and have realised that a
third resource is needed - one that leads the reader sequentially through
learning the key aspects of QGIS in a trainer-trainee format - which prompted
us to produce this work.
This training manual is intended to provide all the materials needed to run a 5
day course on QGIS, PostgreSQL and PostGIS. The course is structured with
content to suit novice, intermediate and advanced users alike and has many
exercises complete with annotated answers throughout the text.
License
-------
.. image:: img/license.png
The Free Quantum GIS Training Manual by Linfiniti Consulting CC. is based on
an earlier version from Linfiniti and is licensed under a
`Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International `_.
Permissions beyond the scope of this license may be available at below.
We have published this QGIS training manual under a liberal license that allows
you to freely copy, modify and redistribute this work. A complete copy of the
license is available at the end of this document. In simple terms, the usage
guidelines are as follows:
* You may not represent this work as your own work, or remove any authorship
text or credits from this work.
* You may not redistribute this work under more restrictive permissions than
those under which it was provided to you.
* If you add a substantive portion to the work and contribute it back to the
project (at least one complete module) you may add your name to the end of
the authors list for this document (which will appear on the front page)
* If you contribute minor changes and corrections you may add yourself to the
contributors list below.
* If you translate this document in its entirety, you may add your name to the
authors list in the form "Translated by Joe Bloggs".
* If you sponsor a module or lesson, you may request the author to include an
acknowledgement in the beginning of each lesson contributed, e.g.:
.. note:: This lesson was sponsored by MegaCorp.
* If you are unsure about what you may do under this license, please contact us
at office@linfiniti.com and we will advise you if what you intend doing is
acceptable.
* If you publish this work under a self publishing site such as
https://www.lulu.com we request that you donate the profits to the QGIS project.
* You may not commercialise this work, except with the expressed permission of
the authors. To be clear, by commercialisation we mean that you may not sell
for profit, create commercial derivative works (e.g. selling content for use
as articles in a magazine). The exception to this is if all the profits are
given to the QGIS project. You may (and we encourage you to do so) use this
work as a text book when conducting training courses, even if the course
itself is commercial in nature. In other words, you are welcome to make money
by running a training course that uses this work as a text book, but you may
not profit off the sales of the book itself - all such profits should be
contributed back to QGIS.
Sponsoring Chapters
-------------------
This work is by no means a complete treatise on all the things you can do with
QGIS and we encourage others to add new materials to fill any gaps. Linfiniti
Consulting CC. can also create additional materials for you as a commercial
service, with the understanding that all such works produced should become part
of the core content and be published under the same license.
Authors
-------
* Rüdiger Thiede (rudi@linfiniti.com) - Rudi has written the QGIS instructional
materials and parts of the PostGIS materials.
* Tim Sutton (tim@linfiniti.com) - Tim has overseen and guided the project and
co-authored the PostgreSQL and PostGIS parts. Tim also authored the custom
sphinx theme used for this manual.
* Horst Düster (horst.duester@kappasys.ch ) - Horst co-authored the PostgreSQL
and PostGIS parts
* Marcelle Sutton (marcelle@linfiniti.com) - Marcelle provided proof-reading
and editorial advice during the creation of this work.
Individual Contributors
-----------------------
Your name here!
Sponsors
--------
* Cape Peninsula University of Technology
.. _data_downloadlink:
Data
----
The sample data that accompanies this resource is freely available and comes
from the following sources:
* Streets and Places datasets from OpenStreetMap (https://www.openstreetmap.org/)
* Property boundaries (urban and rural), water bodies from NGI (http://www.ngi.gov.za/)
* SRTM DEM from the CGIAR-CGI (http://srtm.csi.cgiar.org/)
Download the prepared dataset from the `Training data repository `_
and unzip the file. All the necessary data are provided in the :file:`exercise_data`
folder.
.. _training_data: https://github.com/qgis/QGIS-Training-Data/archive/v2.0.zip
Source files and Issue reports
-------------------------------
The source of this document is available at GitHub `QGIS Documentation repository
`_. Consult `GitHub.com
`_ for instructions on how to use the git version control
system.
Despite our efforts, you could find some errors or miss some information while following
this training. Please report them at https://github.com/qgis/QGIS-Documentation/issues.
Latest Version
--------------
You can always obtain the latest version of this document by visiting the online
version which is part of the QGIS documentation website (https://docs.qgis.org).
.. note:: There are links to online and PDF versions of the Documentation and Training manuals.
Tim Sutton, May 2012