Working with Vector Data - Desktop GIS: Mapping the Planet with Open Source Tools - page 28

Simple Viewing
If you need help installing uDig, take a look at Section B.4 , uDig, on
page 293 . OK, let's fire up uDig so we can get a look at that sample
data:
• Linux : Change to the udig subdirectory, and run udig .
• Mac OS X : Double-click the uDig icon in your Applications folder.
• Windows: Click the Start button, find the uDig program folder in
Program Files, and choose uDig.
When you first start uDig, you are presented with a start-up screen.
You can explore the options, but if you are anxious to get busy, click
the curved arrow in the upper right of the workspace. This gets us to
the business end of uDig.
The uDig workspace isn't much to look at the first time you run it. You'll
notice that when uDig starts up, it displays a fairly typical Tip of the
Day dialog box. Feel free to click through the tips and see what pearls
of wisdom you can find. You can turn off this feature if it bothers you
(or you've read them all).
Now let's load the world borders layer to get a feel for how uDig manages
layers, as well as the options for symbolizing features. To view the data
from our sample dataset, start by clicking the Layer menu and then
choosing Add . This opens the Data Sources dialog box, as shown in
Figure 3.1 , on the next page.
As you can see from the Data Sources dialog box, uDig supports a
good selection of formats. Let's start by adding our shapefile of all
the countries in the world. Since this is a file-based data store, 2 we
choose Files from the Data Sources dialog box and click Next, which
opens a file selection dialog box from which we can choose our shape-
file. We navigate to the directory containing the shapefile (in this case
world_borders.shp ) and click Open (or whatever the standard dialog box
calls it on your platform). This loads the shapefile into uDig and dis-
plays it, as shown in Figure 3.2 , on page 41 . We've closed the Web
Browser tab to maximize the map area and still give you a feel for the
entire interface.
If you are feeling adventurous, go ahead and load the cities layer as well,
using the same process.
2. This is a fancy way to say a GIS data file on your disk drive as opposed to web-
accessible or spatial database data.