Introduction

At a minimum, Desktop GIS programs allow you to visualize data from a PostGIS database. This relationship gets more interesting with the ability to edit and manipulate data outside of the database and in a dynamic "play" environment.

Make a change, see a change! For this reason, visualizing the data stored in PostGIS is often critical for effective spatial database management—or at least as a now-and-again sanity check. This chapter will demonstrate both dynamic and static relationships between your database and desktop clients.

Regardless of your experience level or role in the geospatial community, you should find at least one of the four GIS programs serviceable as a potential intermediate staging environment between your PostGIS database and end product.

In this chapter, we will connect to PostGIS using the following Desktop GIS programs: QGIS, OpenJUMP GIS, gvSIG, and uDig.

Once connected to PostGIS, extra emphasis is placed on some of the more sophisticated functionality offered...