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<p class=MsoNormal><font size=2 face=Arial><span style='font-size:10.0pt;
font-family:Arial'>I’m new to QGIS and GIS in general but come from a
background managing and developing a variety of hardware and software products.<o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
<p class=MsoNormal><font size=2 face=Arial><span style='font-size:10.0pt;
font-family:Arial'>My particular reason for trying QGIS is that I need to map
and correlate information with a specific emphasis on flooding and drainage in
rural communities. I’m evaluating QGIS in the hope that this can become
the basis for information exchange between local communities and government
bodies. The starting data would be from the <st1:country-region w:st="on"><st1:place
w:st="on">UK</st1:place></st1:country-region>’s Ordnance Survey
MasterMap GML (distributed as GZ) files.<o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
<p class=MsoNormal><font size=2 face=Arial><span style='font-size:10.0pt;
font-family:Arial'>To stand any chance of take-up the user must have an easy
introduction… or they will just give up. Having developed so many
products over the years, I know how hard it is to write guides that cope with
the lowest common denominator while not being insulting. <o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
<p class=MsoNormal><font size=2 face=Arial><span style='font-size:10.0pt;
font-family:Arial'>I’m currently still quite close to that ‘lowest
common denominator’ but am willing to have a go at writing an
introduction from the perspective of a UK, Windows and Ordinance Survey data
user. While I appreciate that I probably will have several areas where my
limited experience needs correcting, I’m at the stage of being able to
load MasterMap files and display (at least some of) the data. I have also had a
large number of dead-ends and confusion during this learning process that it
would be nice to stop others having to go through.<o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
<p class=MsoNormal><font size=2 face=Arial><span style='font-size:10.0pt;
font-family:Arial'>So:<o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
<ol style='margin-top:0cm' start=1 type=1>
<li class=MsoNormal style='mso-list:l0 level1 lfo1'><font size=2 face=Arial><span
style='font-size:10.0pt;font-family:Arial'>Would this be of interest?<o:p></o:p></span></font></li>
<li class=MsoNormal style='mso-list:l0 level1 lfo1'><font size=2 face=Arial><span
style='font-size:10.0pt;font-family:Arial'>Has anyone else being looking
at using MasterMap including importing symbols (I’ve now integrated
the point ones) and use of GML files?<o:p></o:p></span></font></li>
<li class=MsoNormal style='mso-list:l0 level1 lfo1'><font size=2 face=Arial><span
style='font-size:10.0pt;font-family:Arial'>While it is very nice to hear
about what QGIS can do, what seems to be missing is often a clear
explanation of what it cannot do. As an example, I loaded the new GML layer
which, from an examination of the XML data, contains both polygons and
polylines, but only the polygons get displayed or converted to shape
layers – this may be a problem of an ignorant user or, a limitation
of the current implementation.<o:p></o:p></span></font></li>
<li class=MsoNormal style='mso-list:l0 level1 lfo1'><font size=2 face=Arial><span
style='font-size:10.0pt;font-family:Arial'>How does a non-Linux user contribute?<o:p></o:p></span></font></li>
</ol>
<p class=MsoNormal><font size=2 face=Arial><span style='font-size:10.0pt;
font-family:Arial'>Regards,<o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
<p class=MsoNormal><font size=2 face=Arial><span style='font-size:10.0pt;
font-family:Arial'><o:p> </o:p></span></font></p>
<p class=MsoNormal><font size=2 color=blue face=Arial><span style='font-size:
10.0pt;font-family:Arial;color:blue'>Andrew Chapman</span></font><o:p></o:p></p>
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