The 32GB HP Touchpad I purchased during last year’s fire sale for $150 is running QGIS for Android. This is full-featured open source desktop GIS software I’m talking about. It works well and is surprisingly fast.
First you’ll want to set up your HP Touchpad to dual-boot into WebOS or Android 4.0.3 (Ice Cream Sandwich) using the instructions here: http://liliputing.com/2012/01/how-to-install-android-4-0-on-the-hp-touchpad-cyanogenmod-9-alpha.html CyanogenMod is undoubtedly the best aftermarket firmware you can get for your HP Touchpad, and now’s the time to take the plunge if you haven’t already done so. I’m running CyanogenMod 9 Alpha 2 and only the microphone and camera aren’t working yet. Also, the article mentions a lot of users having issues with wireless connectivity. I have yet to experience any problems (using WPA2-PSK on a TP-Link Wireless N router).
Boot into Android (it’s the default now), set up your wireless connection and then download the latest nightly build of QGIS for Android directly onto your Touchpad: http://hub.qgis.org/wiki/android-qgis/Download You’ll also need access to the Android Marketplace, or Google Play or whatever they’re calling it now-a-days.
Load up the Touchpad with your favorite QGIS project and data layers. QGIS for Android will open a .qgs project file created from your Windows or Linux version of QGIS. All your symbology, labels and project settings transfer over. S-l-i-c-k-! Just tell QGIS the new location of your data layers when you open the project from your tablet, then save.
Pinch to zoom and swipe to pan the view. You can play with the font size and icon size inside Quantum GIS (settings, options, general tab) to suit you preferences.
As you may expect from an alpha version app running atop an alpha version tablet operating system, not everything is going to work perfectly. The attribute table is unusable unless you put it in docked mode (also under QGIS settings). Not a lot of plug-ins are supported yet, but you know it’s just going to get better. IMHO, this is a good entry point to start playing around with Desktop GIS on a tablet device.
I agree that using an alpha app on an alpha OS device is quite strange and cannot lead to safe conclusions, since one will always try to excuse any problems because of this. My first question is why didn’t you try QGIS for Android on a “pure” android tablet?
My second question, based on your experience so far, is whether you had proper GPS functionality working on QGIS.
Johnny,
I was going to get a 32GB Motorola Xoom last year for $500 until I caught wind of the HP Touchpad fire sale. Really I just wanted a tablet that I could use to check mail, read some PDF files and browse the web from the couch. If I can save $350 on the deal, then why not. I only discovered QGIS for Android a couple months ago and was able to get it to work on my Touchpad just yesterday (after trying a few different nightly builds a few weeks apart). Figured this would be a great way for a field crew or inspector to access information while in the field, so I decided to play around with it. Field maps can only go so far in certain situations, and who wants to carry a laptop around everywhere they go.
Unfortunately GPS functionality leaves something to be desired in QGIS for Android. I don’t really have first-hand experience with this, but my colleague has been trying to get it working on his Motorola XY Board with limited success. It doesn’t let you project your live GPS position or track into another coordinate system. Haven’t yet tried to project the GIS data layers to WGS84 to see if that helps or not, mostly because I just can’t stand the way the data looks all stretched out. It hurts to look at it. I’ll keep playing with it though and let you know what I find. Look for a Part 2 to this blog post in the coming weeks.
Cheers!
I was so excited to see this post! Putting QGIS has been my dream since I got my 32GB firesale Touchpad. I figured that I was going to have to install Ubuntu, which really made me drag my feet – I’ve been a Fedora user since it was Red Hat, and yes, long before I started trying GIS. Despite my fear of the Google overlords, this looked easy enough to try. I still working on getting this up and running with installing any Google aps, particularly Google Play. I downloaded Ministro II directly from SourceForge and right now it’s chugging away installing QT. I guess the main appeal to me of the QGIS for Android is that it’s coded for an ARM processor and a touchscreen interface.
I am a field engineer, and putting in locations onsite using QGIS is my goal. I don’t know whether using high resolution aerial photography will be enough, but I’ll also be trying to Bluetooth my Garmin Oregon 450t to the Touchpad. I’ll let you know how it goes!