In this chapter we’ll cover some popular open source GIS desktop viewing and loading tools that are often paired with PostGIS. We’ll also cover Jupyter Notebook and JupyterLab, which are not GIS desktop tools, but are very popular among GIS and data science folks for ad hoc analysis. You’ll find that each of these tools has its own strengths and weaknesses and each caters to a certain niche of users or tasks. We’ll cover these tools, look at differences between them, and walk you through getting them installed and configured so you can try them out. For more in-depth coverage, you should refer to the websites and manuals provided for these tools.
We’ll start off by providing a brief summary of these tools, liberally ladling out our personal opinions. Then we’ll go into a little more detail about each tool. We’ll focus mostly on the use of these tools to view and query data, but we’ll also highlight the features each offers for building custom desktop applications, and the availability of plug-ins and scripting to extend the built-in features. We hope that once you’ve read this chapter, you’ll have a better understanding of which tools will be best for what you’re doing and for your particular style of working.
The data and code used in this chapter can be found at www.postgis.us/chapter_05_edition_3.