A blog on my teaching, open source GIS, travel and life
I’d like to introduce gitRmap : a semi-automated map of locations that you can add your own points to. It’s designed for people who are new to GIS, but who know a little bit of Git. You can create a map like the one below, with your own pins on it, just by following the quick start at nickbearman.com/gitRmap . If you get stuck, I want to know! Message me, email me or open an issue on GitHub . What…
From 14th - 17th April, I was fortunate to be able to attend GISRUK 2026, at the University of Birmingham. GISRUK is a regular feature in my calendar and it’s a great opportunity to see what is happening in the world of GIS Research, catch-up with old colleagues and make new connections. For me, this conference was quite application focused, which I really enjoyed. It’s great to see what GIS can…
NCRM: Generative AI Tools for Quantitative Research David Bann and Liam Wright have put together a great guide to Generative AI Tools for Quantitative Research on the NCRM resources site. This is a great overview of what Generative AI is, how it works and all of the potential different models available, both commercial and open source, as well as how to run some models locally rather than relying…
QGIS 4.0 is now available! But yes, you have read my title correctly - I would recommend many people don’t upgrade…. yet. QGIS 4.0 is an ‘Early Adopter’ version - which means that there are new things in there that may break. I would also say for many basic users (and some intermediate users) there isn’t much new that’s changed, so you are not missing out on much (see below for some new things…
I’ve just returned from a fantastic 2 days in Leeds for FOSS4G:UK 2025. FOSS4G is an amazing group, and I am so proud to be part of the fantastic team that ran FOSS4G:UK 2025 Leeds on 1st and 2nd October 2025. We were in the great venue Horizon Leeds , with two days of workshops and talks. The people, workshops and talks FOSS4G is all about the people I always love the fact that for many of these…
It was great to be able to attend a couple of days of the RGS-IBG Annual International Conference at the University of Birmingham last week. The RGS conference is an annual gathering of around 2000 geographers, with presentations covering the full range of geography - from AI, GIS analysis, quantitative methods, transport geography, animal research, development studies, inclusive research…
This blog post isn’t about GIS, mapping, conferences or travel, so feel free to skip it if you want. However, if you’re interested in my experiences of becoming a Dad, read on. Be warned - it is quite a long post (~3000 words, ~6 pages) and contains details about birth, C-sections and medical treatment. Picture of Baby, first of many! This is the story of bringing our son, Baby Bearman, into the…
Last week I was fortunate to be able to attend GISRUK 2025, in Bristol, UK. I am a regular at the GISRUK conference series and it is always fascinating to see the latest work in GIS in the UK. This year it was hosted by University of Bristol, which gave me an opportunity to see a little of Bristol as well. I had a lovely walk up Cabot Tower, Brandon Hill, with some spectacular views of the city,…
For four days in April I was lucky enough to be able to attend the Open Science Retreat, in Batenberg, Switzerland. The Open Science Retreat (OSR) is a chance for anyone interested in and passionate about Open Science to get together, brain storm ideas and spend time working on projects related to this. It is run by the Digital Research Academy , with a focus on discussion and networking as well…
I had been invited to attend the Open Science Retreat (OSR), in Batenberg, Interlaken, Switzerland and this is my journey. I have posted another post about the event itself. When I was looking at travel options, I wanted to at least explore the option of going by train rather than flying. When travelling in Europe I always like to explore the options. Going by train is usually more interesting…
tmap version 4 has now been released, and is now available on CRAN . It has a whole range of new features, which we will explore in this blog post. If those words above mean nothing to you, a quick recap: tmap is a library used in R to make maps. I use it in my Introduction to Spatial Data and Using R as a GIS training course so if you have attended one of those, you have already used it. If you…
I was very lucky to be able to attend FOSS4G 2024 , in Belém, Brazil on 2nd - 8th December 2024. Belém is a fantastic city, and due to host COP30 in November 2025, with lots of construction on going. FOSS4G has a wonderful community and a great variety of talks - have a look at the agenda to see the different topics under discussion. Tri-lingual welcome, in Portugese, Spanish and English at FOSS4G…
It was great to attend FOSS4G:UK South West 2024 in Bristol on 12th Nov, at OSGeo:UK’s now regular Bristol Venue, The Engine Shed. The event was a sell out and we had 62 people in the Engine Shed’s main room. This was the first time in a while that I have been to a FOSS4G:UK as an attendee rather than as an organiser - and it made a nice difference! We had 14 great presentations, covering a whole…
I’ve been thinking for a bit of time that I need to redo my website as some of the pages had evolved a bit, and were getting a bit too long. What you see now is what I have come up with: I also took the opportunity to ‘rebrand’ myself. Previously I’d used the name Geospatial Training Solutions to market my freelance work. I was never completely happy with the name - it was a bit long and a bit…
In July I spent three days at Geovation in London attending the OGC Open Standards Code Sprint. OGC, the Open Geospatial Consortium manage and approve standards for geospatial data. Many people working in geospatial have heard of them, and have at least a vague idea that they do geospatial standards, even if they don’t know the details of what they do - the position I was in! Dr. Gobe Hobona,…
We finally have an end date for ArcMap! This has been something that has been a long time coming, but I would say is certainly due now. ArcMap final date of support for software updates and patches has been announced as Feb 2024. ESRI launched ArcGIS Pro, the replacement for ArcMap, several years ago and people have been slowly transitioning. ArcMap holds a special place in my heart because it is…
A couple of weeks ago I spent a fantastic week in Cape Town, South Africa, attending the 2023 International Cartographic Conference . The ICC (not to be confused with the International Cricket Council!) is held every two years by the International Cartographic Association (ICA). It’s a global conference, and this is the second time it has taken place in South Africa, previously being hosted in…
Along with many other people from the geospatial community, I was up in London earlier this week for ESRI UK Annual Conference, GeoBusiness and Spatial Data Science Conference. It was a great couple of days, and while I didn’t manage to attend everything (limited time, money and energy!) it was great to see and hear what I did. ESRI UK’s Annual Conference had a couple fewer streams than usual, but…
I recently attended my first international FOSS4G conference in Florence (Firenze), Italy, in August 2022. For those who don’t know, FOSS4G is Free and Open Source for (4) Geospatial, so all of the people involved in open source geospatial software (e.g. QGIS, R-Spatial, Geoserver, Mapserver, GRASS, etc. etc.) get together. It is a great opportunity to meet up with the community, get to know…
On PostGIS day last week, Thurs 17th Nov, we ran FOSS4G:UK Local 2022 . We were trying out a new model, with the conference distributed over 9 different physical venues (and online). I chaired three amazing keynotes, which were streamed to all the venues and on the internet. We then had 38 local presentations across the nine venues, with most of them streamed and recorded. Overall the day went…