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Geocomputing using CSC resources

Geocomputing using CSC resources
Date: 24.10.2018 9:00 - 25.10.2018 16:00
Location details: The event is organised at the CSC Training Facilities located in the premises of CSC at Keilaranta 14, Espoo, Finland. The best way to reach us is by public transportation; more detailed travel tips are available.
Language: english-language
lecturers: Kylli Ek Eduardo Gonzalez
Price:
  • 120 for-finnish-academics
  • 560 for-others
The fee covers all materials, lunches as well as morning and afternoon coffees.
registration-closed
The seats are filled in the registration order. If a cancellation is received five (5) business days prior to the course, the course fee will be refunded with the exception of a handling fee of 10 €. For no-shows and cancellations after the cut of date no refunds will be made. Registration can be transferred to someone else from the same organization without additional charge.

Payment can be made with electronic invoicing, credit card, or direct bank transfer. Note that for electronic invoicing you need the operator and e-invoicing address (OVT code) of your organization. Please also note that invoice reference is needed for electronic invoicing in your organization, so please have this available when registering.
Additional Information
Content: giscoord@csc.fi
Practicalities: event-support@csc.fi

This two days course focuses on using the CSC environment for spatial analysis. The CSC environment offers two main options for doing spatial data analysis: Taito and cPouta. We will have a look on both of these, but will spend more time on working with Taito. On Taito the most common use case for a GIS-user is to run R or Python scripts. The starting point of this course is, that you know how to use R or Python for spatial analysis, we will not have time for explaining that. The aim is to learn how to use CSC environment for spatial analysis, so that you could use the additional computing power, memory and/or storage space.

Besides scripting options Taito supports alos graphical user interfaces, so it is possible to use QGIS, GRASS and SagaGIS also via GUI.

The first day of this course is similar to "Using CSC environment efficiently" course, so if you have taken that course, it might make sense to join only for the second day.

There will be later separate courses about using Python and R for spatial analysis.

If you are unsure, if CSC computing environment could be useful for you, please take a look at our geocomputing pages and/or ask us from giscoord@csc.fi.

Learning outcome

  • How to use Taito:
    • How to connect to Taito, and where to store your data.
    • How to use the modele and the batch job system of Taito.
    • How to run your R or Python scripts.
    • How to use several cores from R or Python scripts.
    • How to use QGIS, GRASS, SagaGIS, GDAL/OGR and other pre-installed GIS-software.
  • How to use cPouta:
    • How to set up a virtual machine in cPouta
    • How to install GIS software to cPouta.

Prerequisities
The participants are required to be able to use at least one programming language, especially useful are R or Python skills.

Some Linux skills are very helpful for this course, but if you have not used Linux before there is a short Linux intro in the morning of the first day. We will learn some very basic commands of Linux, like: cd, ls, mv, cp, rm, chmod, less, tail, echo, mkdir etc. If you know these commands already, you welcome to sleep a little longer and join us at 10:15 :)

CSC organizes also Linux courses, which materials are publicly available: Linux 1, Linux 2.

Quick intro to useful Unix commands and CSC environment: Unix Cheat Sheet 

In case you do not have an account to CSC's services, please apply for it before the worshop, if you are from an university or state research institute - it will prove useful. (Also training accounts are available on-site.)

Program

Preliminary timetable:

1. day

08:00 - 8:50 Linux intro.
09:00 - 10:15 Introduction to CSC services, Scientist's User Interface (SUI)
10:15 - 10:30 Coffee break
10:30 - 12:00 How to connect: how to access CSC's computers, NoMachine client, taito-shell. CSC's computing environment: different platforms, module system,
12:00 - 13:00 Lunch break
13:00 - 14:15 Running your jobs, resource-management (a.k.a. batch job) systems. Array and batch jobs
14:15 - 14:30 Coffee break
14:30 - 16:00 Running R code in Taito.
2. day
09:00 - 10:30  Running Python code in Taito.
10:30 - 10:45 Coffee break
10:45 - 12:00 GIS software and data in Taito. Using virtual rasters.
12:00 - 13:00 Lunch break
13:00 - 14:30 cPouta, setting up an virtual machine
14:30 - 14:45 Coffee break
14:45 - 16:00 Running GIS software in cPouta

Course materials
Slides » Exercise instructions » Exercise data »
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