Hardware and software represent basic tools for performance of various tasks in all fields of
engineering. This is particularly true today, as available technologies offer considerably more
than they used to in the past. The GIS technology and engineering software namely,
represent particularly expensive products, which offer an excellent start-up and support for
any company knowledgeable in their use. In addition to commercial products, there is also a
wide spectrum of open source solutions, which offer same quality of service and meet the
professional standards of use. The situation is similar when it comes to free and open source
operating systems, the Linux family systems for example. Performance of spatial analysis in
a fully open source system is tested in the thesis from the point of view of algorithm content,
which was carried out in Python programming language. Python has become the standard
scripting language for the requirements of GIS and for designing plug-ins in programmes
such as ArcGIS (ESRI, Arcpy) and QGIS. Programming language uniformity provides the link
among various programming tools as well as among various system platforms. The
exchange of scripts and plug-ins is thus completely compatible, including in the cases of
transit and use of the same script among different operating systems and among various GIS
tools. The simplicity of language enables the engineers to focus on solutions of engineering
tasks without having to spend too much time on the process of programming. Focus on
programming is however required by more complex programming languages such as C++
and Java. The process from the initial installation the Linux Mint operating system until
installation of Python development environments and their use is described in the thesis. The
thesis provides tests of selected scripts for performing spatial analysis in various operating
systems (in Linux Mint 17 Qiana and in Windows 8.1 operating systems) and gives
qualitative and quantitative evaluation of the results.
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