Automatic conversion of OSM data into LULC maps: comparing FOSS4G based approaches towards an enhanced performance

Open Geospatial Data, Software and Standards

Table 4 Criteria used to select which GIS Software to be integrated in OSM2LULC

	GRASS GIS	gvSIG	QGIS	GDAL/OGR	SAGA GIS	PostGIS
Do they provide fundamental tools for the envisaged processes?	Yes	No tool to compute near distance between features is available	Yes, but most of the relevant tools were from other FOSS4G	Yes, but depends of other packages (e.g. Spatialite) to accomplish some analysis	No tool to compute near distance between features is available	Yes
OSGeo project?	Yes	No, by the time our work started	Yes	Yes	No	Yes
Quality documentation available?	Yes	No	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes
Examples of its application available?	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes
Python-based API available?	Yes	No	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes
Is the implementation of tools in Python Scripts easy?	Yes	No	Yes	No. All types of analysis could be done, but some would need additional configurations and the use of SQL (e. g. difference of polygons or near distance analysis)	Yes	No, layers are treated as database tables; advanced SQL queries are needed for some tools
Previous experience of the team?	Yes	No	No	Yes	No	Yes