Drawing Site Plan with DraftSight a FREE Alternative to AutoCAD

There are many low budget or free Computer-Aided Design (CAD) software alternatives to Autodesk's AutoCAD out there and DraftSight is one of the best alternatives I have used.

Using the free version, you could plot or draw a professional survey plan just as you would do in AutoCAD. In this blog post, I will demonstrate how you will do just that using the free DraftSight CAD software. So, download the DraftSight here and follow the instructions below to activate it.

Instruction 1: Download the software from the link above and launch it to install

Instruction 2: Select Free option and click the next button as seen above.

Instruction 3: Accept the terms in the license agreement and install

The difference between "Geocoding" and "Geolocation"

These two terms are often confused by users in of spatial data. Here is a quick explanation to help clarify the difference between the two. Both of these terms are consistently been misuse by people within the geospatial community.

Address: "Abuja International Conference Centre, Herbert Macaulay Way, Abuja, Nigeria"
Coordinates (in 3D): "Latitude: 9.0438014, Longitude: 7.4919024, Sea level: 503m"

Looking at the landmark address above and its corresponding coordinates in three-dimension (3D), we could say:-

Geocoding - means to 'Convert addresses to geographic coordinates, or the reverse'. While  Geolocation - means to 'Return the precise location of a device based on Wi-Fi or cell towers'.

More elaburate explanation from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia:-

Geocoding is the computational process of transforming a physical address description to a location on the Earth's surface (spatial representation in numerical coordinates). Reverse geocoding, on the other hand, converts geographic coordinates to a description of a location, usually the name of a place or an addressable location. Geocoding relies on a computer representation of address points, the street / road network, together with postal and administrative boundaries.

Geolocation is the identification or estimation of the real-world geographic location of an object, such as a radar source, mobile phone, or Internet-connected computer terminal. In its simplest form geolocation involves the generation of a set of geographic coordinates and is closely related to the use of positioning systems, but its usefulness is enhanced by the use of these coordinates to determine a meaningful location, such as a street address.

Installed Python Libraries on QGIS Vs Anaconda

As some one who uses Python for Geospatial development, I was tempted to know what modules are installed on QGIS python environment compared to that of Anaconda python.

On the console of the two platforms, I executed this: help('modules') and I got the following out puts.


QGIS:

MetaSearch	console	mkgraticule	sre_parse
PyQt5	contextlib	mmap	ssl
__future__	copy	mmapfile	sspi
_ast	copyreg	mmsystem	sspicon
_asyncio	crypt	mock	stat
_bisect	csv	modulefinder	statistics
_blake2	ctypes	msilib	string
_bootlocale	curses	msvcrt	stringprep
_bz2	cycler	multiprocessing	struct
_codecs	datetime	nbformat	subprocess
_codecs_cn	dateutil	netbios	sunau
_codecs_hk	db_manager	netrc	symbol
_codecs_iso2022	dbi	networkx	symtable
_codecs_jp	dbm	nntplib	sys
_codecs_kr	dde	nose2	sysconfig
_codecs_tw	decimal	nt	tabnanny
_collections	decorator	ntpath	tarfile
_collections_abc	difflib	ntsecuritycon	telnetlib
_compat_pickle	dis	nturl2path	tempfile
_compression	distutils	numbers	textwrap
_csv	doctest	numpy	this
_ctypes	dummy_threading	odbc	threading
_datetime	easy_install	ogr	time
_decimal	email	ogrmerge	timeit
_dummy_thread	encodings	opcode	timer
_elementtree	ensurepip	operator	token
_functools	enum	optparse	tokenize
_hashlib	epsg_tr	os	trace
_heapq	errno	osgeo	traceback
_imp	esri2wkt	osr	tracemalloc
_io	exifread	owslib	traitlets
_json	expressions	parser	tty
_locale	faulthandler	past	turtle
_lsprof	filecmp	pathlib	types
_lzma	fileinput	pbr	typing
_markupbase	fnmatch	pct2rgb	unicodedata
_md5	formatter	pdb	unittest
_msi	fractions	perfmon	urllib
_multibytecodec	ftplib	pickle	urllib3
_multiprocessing	functools	pickletools	uu
_opcode	future	pip	uuid
_operator	gc	pipes	venv
_osx_support	gcps2vec	pkg_resources	warnings
_overlapped	gcps2wld	pkgutil	wave
_pickle	gdal	platform	weakref
_pydecimal	gdal2tiles	plistlib	webbrowser
_pyio	gdal2xyz	plotly	win2kras
_random	gdal_auth	poplib	win32api
_sha1	gdal_calc	posixpath	win32clipboard
_sha256	gdal_edit	pprint	win32com
_sha3	gdal_fillnodata	processing	win32con
_sha512	gdal_merge	profile	win32console
_signal	gdal_pansharpen	pstats	win32cred
_sitebuiltins	gdal_polygonize	psycopg2	win32crypt
_socket	gdal_proximity	pty	win32cryptcon
_sqlite3	gdal_retile	py_compile	win32event
_sre	gdal_sieve	pyclbr	win32evtlog
_ssl	gdalchksum	pydoc	win32evtlogutil
_stat	gdalcompare	pydoc_data	win32file
_string	gdalconst	pyexpat	win32gui
_strptime	gdalident	pygments	win32gui_struct
_struct	gdalimport	pylab	win32help
_symtable	gdalmove	pyodbc	win32inet
_thread	gdalnumeric	pyparsing	win32inetcon
_threading_local	genericpath	pyplugin_installer	win32job
_tracemalloc	getopt	pyproj	win32lz
_warnings	getpass	pythoncom	win32net
_weakref	gettext	pytz	win32netcon
_weakrefset	glob	pywin	win32pdh
_win32sysloader	gnm	pywin32_testutil	win32pdhquery
_winapi	gzip	pywintypes	win32pdhutil
_winxptheme	hashlib	qgis	win32pipe
abc	heapq	queue	win32print
adodbapi	hmac	quopri	win32process
afxres	html	random	win32profile
aifc	http	rasutil	win32ras
antigravity	httplib2	re	win32rcparser
argparse	idna	regcheck	win32security
array	imaplib	regutil	win32service
ast	imghdr	reprlib	win32serviceutil
asynchat	imp	requests	win32timezone
asyncio	importlib	rgb2pct	win32trace
asyncore	inspect	rlcompleter	win32traceutil
atexit	io	runpy	win32transaction
audioop	ipaddress	sched	win32ts
base64	ipython_genutils	scipy	win32ui
bdb	isapi	secrets	win32uiole
binascii	itertools	select	win32verstamp
binhex	jinja2	selectors	win32wnet
bisect	json	servicemanager	winerror
builtins	jsonschema	setuptools	winioctlcon
bz2	jupyter	shapely	winnt
cProfile	jupyter_core	shelve	winperf
calendar	keyword	shlex	winreg
certifi	lib2to3	shutil	winsound
cgi	libfuturize	signal	winxpgui
cgitb	libpasteurize	simplejson	winxptheme
chardet	linecache	sip	wsgiref
chunk	locale	sipconfig	xdrlib
cmath	logging	sipdistutils	xlrd
cmd	lzma	site	xlwt
code	macpath	six	xml
codecs	macurl2path	smtpd	xmlrpc
codeop	mailbox	smtplib	xxsubtype
collections	mailcap	sndhdr	yaml
colorsys	markupsafe	socket	zipapp
commctrl	marshal	socketserver	zipfile
compileall	math	sqlite3	zipimport
concurrent	matplotlib	sre_compile	zlib
configparser	mimetypes	sre_constants