Wherever I May Roam…

Working in a Utility company has its advantages and disadvantages. I’m surrounded by Engineers with years of experience… you can only imagine just how threatening an environment I’m in right now. The stress is off the scale and the demands are too many to manage. But the challenge motivated me… and now, a day hasn’t passed by without us learning something new.

The Block Metering Project was created to help identify Non-Technical Losses and calculate Distribution Systems Loss. I’ve been, fortunately enough, tapped to help out with this project. I’ve been tasked to administrate an SQL Server and create a customized web-based frontend to our Database in addition to managing 4 Windows XP workstations and a Linux system that also moonlights as a LAMP and eGroupware server. I’m really thankful that Microsoft’s greed became the deciding factor on what server OS to use.

Now you may ask what’s preventing the other 4 workstations from migrating to my beloved Kubuntu…. three letters… GIS, or more specifically, DWG files. I’m aware of OpenDWG, but it’s too young to even consider. DXF? Sorry, all departments work on only two file formats, the other’s SHP. Too bad the company only recognizes two applications when working on GIS, AutoCAD 2000i and ArcView.

But today, during my lunch break, I’ve tested QCAD and QGIS. I also tried installing ArcView on WINE but failed. I am, however, pleasantly surprised that ArcExplorer works well.

QCAD
Got it from the repo and works as expected. However, QCAD only recognizes DXF, and I spent three man-hours (read: 3 lunch breaks for 3 days) converting all our DWG files to DXF on AutoCAD. QCAD has all the features that we need, BUT it’s too sluggish. Zooming In/Out and Panning takes an average of 8 seconds to render our files. Smaller ones loads fast enough, but our data spans 1 city and 11 municipalities segregated into 21 Feeder files.

QGIS
Another one from the repo. QGIS seems fast, that is until I started loading additional layers. And we just can’t work on a single layer, we need at least 5 loaded. Like QCAD, this one’s too sluggish to be productive. But this one’s version 0.8. I’ll anticipate the release of version 1.0. Maybe it’s just too young, and I’m hoping the devs are working on performance hacks.

Quick Conclusion
QCAD and QGIS are both very promising applications. If, in a few months, performance improves, I’ll see to it that 4 more workstations get migrated, and hopefully, convert my colleagues. But for now, I have to remain objective and continue using XP.

ArcExplorer
As I’ve said, I was pleasantly surprised that ArcExplorer installed and runs on WINE. Kudos to the devs for creating and improving WINE. Now, we may not be able to work with DXF or DWG, but at least we can work and manage SHP files. ArcExplorer on WINE works just as fast in XP. I’ve worked with it for over an hour and haven’t come across a single glitch. I’m still not happy that my colleagues are forced to work with proprietary softwares though, but at least it’s running on Kubuntu. And I’m sure an Open Source alternative is just around the corner.

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