Qgis
Qgis
Qgis
Release 2.8
QGIS Project
Contents
Preamble
Conventions
2.1 GUI Conventions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
2.2 Text or Keyboard Conventions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
2.3 Platform-specific instructions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
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5
6
Foreword
Features
4.1 View data . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
4.2 Explore data and compose maps . . . . . .
4.3 Create, edit, manage and export data . . . .
4.4 Analyse data . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
4.5 Publish maps on the Internet . . . . . . . .
4.6 Extend QGIS functionality through plugins
4.7 Python Console . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
4.8 Known Issues . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
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14
Getting Started
6.1 Installation . . . . . . . . .
6.2 Sample Data . . . . . . . .
6.3 Sample Session . . . . . . .
6.4 Starting and Stopping QGIS
6.5 Command Line Options . .
6.6 Projects . . . . . . . . . . .
6.7 Output . . . . . . . . . . .
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15
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20
QGIS GUI
7.1 Menu Bar . .
7.2 Toolbar . . .
7.3 Map Legend
7.4 Map View .
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7.5
8
Status Bar . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
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43
QGIS Configuration
9.1 Panels and Toolbars
9.2 Project Properties . .
9.3 Options . . . . . . .
9.4 Customization . . .
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61
General Tools
8.1 Keyboard shortcuts
8.2 Context help . . .
8.3 Rendering . . . .
8.4 Measuring . . . .
8.5 Identify features .
8.6 Decorations . . . .
8.7 Annotation Tools .
8.8 Spatial Bookmarks
8.9 Nesting Projects .
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11 QGIS Browser
12 Working with Vector Data
12.1 Supported Data Formats . . .
12.2 The Symbol Library . . . . .
12.3 The Vector Properties Dialog
12.4 Expressions . . . . . . . . . .
12.5 Editing . . . . . . . . . . . .
12.6 Query Builder . . . . . . . .
12.7 Field Calculator . . . . . . .
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18 Print Composer
18.1 First steps . . . . . . . .
18.2 Rendering mode . . . .
18.3 Composer Items . . . .
18.4 Manage items . . . . . .
18.5 Revert and Restore tools
18.6 Atlas generation . . . .
18.7 Hide and show panels .
18.8 Creating Output . . . .
18.9 Manage the Composer .
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19 Plugins
19.1 QGIS Plugins . . . . . . . . . .
19.2 Using QGIS Core Plugins . . .
19.3 Coordinate Capture Plugin . . .
19.4 DB Manager Plugin . . . . . .
19.5 Dxf2Shp Converter Plugin . . .
19.6 eVis Plugin . . . . . . . . . . .
19.7 fTools Plugin . . . . . . . . . .
19.8 GDAL Tools Plugin . . . . . .
19.9 Georeferencer Plugin . . . . . .
19.10 Heatmap Plugin . . . . . . . .
19.11 Interpolation Plugin . . . . . .
19.12 MetaSearch Catalogue Client .
19.13 Offline Editing Plugin . . . . .
19.14 Oracle Spatial GeoRaster Plugin
19.15 Raster Terrain Analysis Plugin .
19.16 Road Graph Plugin . . . . . . .
19.17 Spatial Query Plugin . . . . . .
19.18 SPIT Plugin . . . . . . . . . .
19.19 Topology Checker Plugin . . .
19.20 Zonal Statistics Plugin . . . . .
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319
iii
329
Index
331
iv
.
.
Contents
Contents
CHAPTER 1
Preamble
This document is the original user guide of the described software QGIS. The software and hardware described
in this document are in most cases registered trademarks and are therefore subject to legal requirements. QGIS is
subject to the GNU General Public License. Find more information on the QGIS homepage, http://www.qgis.org.
The details, data, and results in this document have been written and verified to the best of the knowledge and
responsibility of the authors and editors. Nevertheless, mistakes concerning the content are possible.
Therefore, data are not liable to any duties or guarantees. The authors, editors and publishers do not take any
responsibility or liability for failures and their consequences. You are always welcome to report possible mistakes.
This document has been typeset with reStructuredText. It is available as reST source code via github and online
as HTML and PDF via http://www.qgis.org/en/docs/. Translated versions of this document can be downloaded in
several formats via the documentation area of the QGIS project as well. For more information about contributing
to this document and about translating it, please visit http://www.qgis.org/wiki/.
Links in this Document
This document contains internal and external links. Clicking on an internal link moves within the document, while
clicking on an external link opens an internet address. In PDF form, internal and external links are shown in blue
and are handled by the system browser. In HTML form, the browser displays and handles both identically.
User, Installation and Coding Guide Authors and Editors:
Tara Athan
Peter Ersts
Werner Macho
Claudia A. Engel
Larissa Junek
Tim Sutton
Astrid Emde
Radim Blazek
Anne Ghisla
Carson J.Q. Farmer
Brendan Morely
Diethard Jansen
Alex Bruy
Yves Jacolin
Godofredo Contreras
Stephan Holl
Tyler Mitchell
David Willis
Paolo Corti
Raymond Nijssen
Alexandre Neto
Otto Dassau
N. Horning
K. Koy
Jrgen E. Fischer
Gavin Macaulay
Richard Duivenvoorde
Andy Schmid
Martin Dobias
Magnus Homann
Lars Luthman
Marco Hugentobler
Gary E. Sherman
Andreas Neumann
Hien Tran-Quang
Chapter 1. Preamble
CHAPTER 2
Conventions
This section describes the uniform styles that will be used throughout this manual.
Render
Radio Button:
Postgis SRID
EPSG ID
Select a number:
Select a string:
Browse for a file:
Select a color:
Slider:
Input Text:
A shadow indicates a clickable GUI component.
Do this
Do that
Do something else
or as paragraphs:
Do this and this and this. Then do this and this and this, and this and this and this, and this and this and this.
Do that. Then do that and that and that, and that and that and that, and that and that and that, and that and that
and that, and that and that and that.
Screenshots that appear throughout the user guide have been created on different platforms; the platform is indicated by the platform-specific icon at the end of the figure caption.
.
Chapter 2. Conventions
CHAPTER 3
Foreword
Chapter 3. Foreword
CHAPTER 4
Features
QGIS offers many common GIS functionalities provided by core features and plugins. A short summary of six
general categories of features and plugins is presented below, followed by first insights into the integrated Python
console.
10
Chapter 4. Features
11
You can see the current allowed number of opened files per proccess with the following command on a console
user@host:~$ ulimit -Sn
To change the limits for an existing session, you may be able to use something like
user@host:~$ ulimit -Sn #number_of_allowed_open_files
user@host:~$ ulimit -Sn
user@host:~$ qgis
To fix it forever
On most Linux systems, resource limits are set on login by the pam_limits module according to the settings
contained in /etc/security/limits.conf or /etc/security/limits.d/*.conf. You should be
able to edit those files if you have root privilege (also via sudo), but you will need to log in again before any
changes take effect.
More info:
http://www.cyberciti.biz/faq/linux-increase-the-maximum-number-of-open-files/ http://linuxaria.com/article/openfiles-in-linux?lang=en
.
12
Chapter 4. Features
CHAPTER 5
This release contains new features and extends the programmatic interface over previous versions. We recommend
that you use this version over previous releases.
This release includes hundreds of bug fixes and many new features and enhancements
that will be described in this manual.
You may also review the visual changelog at
http://qgis.org/en/site/forusers/visualchangelog28/index.html.
5.1 Application
Map rotation: A map rotation can be set in degrees from the status bar
Bookmarks: You can share and transfer your bookmarks
Expressions:
when editing attributes in the attribute table or forms, you can now enter expressions directly into spin
boxes
the expression widget is extended to include a function editor where you are able to create your own
Python custom functions in a comfortable way
in any spinbox of the style menu you can enter expressions and evaluate them immediately
a get and transform geometry function was added for using expressions
a comment functionality was inserted if for example you want to work with data defined labeling
Joins: You can specify a custom prefix for joins
Layer Legend: Show rule-based renderers legend as a tree
DB Manager: Run only the selected part of a SQL query
Attribute Table: support for calculations on selected rows through a Update Selected button
Measure Tools: change measurement units possible
13
5.3 Digitizing
Advanced Digitizing:
digitise lines exactly parallel or at right angles, lock lines to specific angles and so on with the advanced
digitizing panel (CAD-like features)
simplify tool: specify with exact tolerance, simplify multiple features at once ...
Snapping Options: new snapping mode Snap to all layers
5.5 Plugins
Python Console: You can now drag and drop python scripts into the QGIS window
5.7 Symbology
live heatmap renderer creates dynamic heatmaps from point layers
raster image symbol fill type
more data-defined symbology settings: the data-defined option was moved next to each data definable
property
support for multiple styles per map layer, optionally store layer styles
14
CHAPTER 6
Getting Started
This chapter gives a quick overview of installing QGIS, some sample data from the QGIS web page, and running
a first and simple session visualizing raster and vector layers.
6.1 Installation
Installation of QGIS is very simple. Standard installer packages are available for MS Windows and Mac OS X. For
many flavors of GNU/Linux, binary packages (rpm and deb) or software repositories are provided to add to your installation manager. Get the latest information on binary packages at the QGIS website at http://download.qgis.org.
The Alaska dataset includes all GIS data that are used for examples and screenshots in the user guide; it also
includes a small GRASS database. The projection for the QGIS sample dataset is Alaska Albers Equal Area with
units feet. The EPSG code is 2964.
PROJCS["Albers Equal Area",
GEOGCS["NAD27",
DATUM["North_American_Datum_1927",
SPHEROID["Clarke 1866",6378206.4,294.978698213898,
AUTHORITY["EPSG","7008"]],
TOWGS84[-3,142,183,0,0,0,0],
AUTHORITY["EPSG","6267"]],
PRIMEM["Greenwich",0,
AUTHORITY["EPSG","8901"]],
UNIT["degree",0.0174532925199433,
AUTHORITY["EPSG","9108"]],
AUTHORITY["EPSG","4267"]],
PROJECTION["Albers_Conic_Equal_Area"],
PARAMETER["standard_parallel_1",55],
PARAMETER["standard_parallel_2",65],
PARAMETER["latitude_of_center",50],
PARAMETER["longitude_of_center",-154],
PARAMETER["false_easting",0],
PARAMETER["false_northing",0],
UNIT["us_survey_feet",0.3048006096012192]]
If you intend to use QGIS as a graphical front end for GRASS, you can find a selection of sample locations (e.g.,
Spearfish or South Dakota) at the official GRASS GIS website, http://grass.osgeo.org/download/sample-data/.
Start QGIS by typing QGIS at a command prompt, or if using a precompiled binary, by using the
Applications menu.
Start QGIS using the Start menu or desktop shortcut, or double click on a QGIS project file.
6.3.2 Load raster and vector layers from the sample dataset
1. Click on the
icon.
2. Browse to the folder qgis_sample_data/raster/, select the ERDAS IMG file landcover.img
and click [Open].
3. If the file is not listed, check if the Files of type
combo box at the bottom of the dialog is set on the
right type, in this case Erdas Imagine Images (*.img, *.IMG).
4. Now click on the
5.
16
icon.
File should be selected as Source Type in the new Add vector layer dialog. Now click [Browse] to select
the vector layer.
Chapter 6. Getting Started
6. Browse to the folder qgis_sample_data/gml/, select Geography Markup Language [GML] [OGR]
combo box, then select the GML file lakes.gml and click [Open].
(.gml,.GML) from the Filter
In the Add vector layer dialog, click [OK]. The Coordinate Reference System Selector dialog opens with
NAD27 / Alaska Alberts selected, click [OK].
7. Zoom in a bit to your favorite area with some lakes.
8. Double click the lakes layer in the map legend to open the Properties dialog.
9. Click on the Style tab and select a blue as fill color.
10. Click on the Labels tab and check the
Label this layer with checkbox to enable labeling. Choose the
NAMES field as the field containing labels.
11. To improve readability of labels, you can add a white buffer around them by clicking Buffer in the list on
the left, checking
12. Click [Apply]. Check if the result looks good, and finally click [OK].
You can see how easy it is to visualize raster and vector layers in QGIS. Lets move on to the sections that follow
to learn more about the available functionality, features and settings, and how to use them.
Assuming that QGIS is installed in the PATH, you can start QGIS by typing qgis at a command prompt
or by double clicking on the QGIS application link (or shortcut) on the desktop or in the Applications menu.
Start QGIS using the Start menu or desktop shortcut, or double click on a QGIS project file.
Double click the icon in your Applications folder. If you need to start QGIS in a shell, run
/path-to-installation-executable/Contents/MacOS/Qgis.
File
17
[--defaultui]
[--help]
FILE:
Files specified on the command line can include rasters,
vectors, and QGIS project files (.qgs):
1. Rasters - supported formats include GeoTiff, DEM
and others supported by GDAL
2. Vectors - supported formats include ESRI Shapefiles
and others supported by OGR and PostgreSQL layers using
the PostGIS extension
18
--optionspath /path/to/config/
Assuming you are in the directory where the file load_alaska.py is located, you can start QGIS, load the
raster file landcover.img and give the layer the name Alaska using the following command: qgis --code
load_alaska.py
6.6 Projects
The state of your QGIS session is considered a project. QGIS works on one project at a time. Settings are
considered as being either per-project or as a default for new projects (see section Options). QGIS can save the
state of your workspace into a project file using the menu options Project
As....
Load saved projects into a QGIS session using Project
Open Recent .
Save or Project
Save
If you wish to clear your session and start fresh, choose Project
New. Either of these menu options will
prompt you to save the existing project if changes have been made since it was opened or last saved.
The kinds of information saved in a project file include:
Layers added
Which layers can be queried
Layer properties, including symbolization and styles
Projection for the map view
Last viewed extent
Print Composers
Print Composer elements with settings
Print Composer atlas settings
Digitizing settings
Table Relations
Project Macros
Project default styles
Plugins settings
QGIS Server settings from the OWS settings tab in the Project properties
Queries stored in the DB Manager
6.6. Projects
19
The project file is saved in XML format, so it is possible to edit the file outside QGIS if you know what you are
doing. The file format has been updated several times compared with earlier QGIS versions. Project files from
older QGIS versions may not work properly anymore. To be made aware of this, in the General tab under Settings
Options you can select:
Warn when opening a project file saved with an older version of QGIS
Whenever you save a project in QGIS a backup of the project file is made with the extension ~.
6.7 Output
There are several ways to generate output from your QGIS session. We have discussed one already in section
Projects, saving as a project file. Here is a sampling of other ways to produce output files:
Save as Image
opens a file dialog where you select the name, path and type of
Menu option Project
image (PNG,JPG and many other formats). A world file with extension PNGW or JPGW saved in the same
folder georeferences the image.
Menu option Project DXF Export ... opens a dialog where you can define the Symbology mode, the
Symbology scale and vector layers you want to export to DXF. Through the Symbology mode symbols
from the original QGIS Symbology can be exported with high fidelity.
Menu option Project
New Print Composer opens a dialog where you can layout and print the current
map canvas (see section Print Composer).
.
20
CHAPTER 7
QGIS GUI
When QGIS starts, you are presented with the GUI as shown in the figure (the numbers 1 through 5 in yellow
circles are discussed below).
Note: Your window decorations (title bar, etc.) may appear different depending on your operating system and
window manager.
The QGIS GUI is divided into five areas:
1. Menu Bar
2. Tool Bar
3. Map Legend
4. Map View
5. Status Bar
These five components of the QGIS interface are described in more detail in the following sections. Two more
sections present keyboard shortcuts and context help.
21
7.1.1 Project
Menu Option
Shortcut
Reference
Toolbar
New
Ctrl+N
see Projects
Project
Ctrl+O
see Projects
see Projects
see Projects
Project
Project
Save
Ctrl+S
see Projects
Project
Save As...
Ctrl+Shift+S
see Projects
Project
Open
New from template
Open Recent
see Output
see Output
Save as Image...
DXF Export ...
New Print Composer
Ctrl+P
22
Project
Project
Ctrl+Q
7.1.2 Edit
Menu Option
Shortcut
Reference
Toolbar
Undo
Ctrl+Z
Advanced Digitizing
Redo
Ctrl+Shift+Z
Advanced Digitizing
Cut Features
Ctrl+X
Digitizing
Copy Features
Ctrl+C
Digitizing
Paste Features
Paste features as
Ctrl+V
Digitizing
Add Feature
Ctrl+.
Digitizing
Move Feature(s)
Digitizing
Delete Selected
Digitizing
Rotate Feature(s)
Advanced Digitizing
Simplify Feature
Advanced Digitizing
Add Ring
Advanced Digitizing
Add Part
Advanced Digitizing
Fill Ring
Advanced Digitizing
Delete Ring
Advanced Digitizing
Delete Part
Advanced Digitizing
Reshape Features
Advanced Digitizing
Offset Curve
Advanced Digitizing
Split Features
Advanced Digitizing
Split Parts
Advanced Digitizing
Advanced Digitizing
Advanced Digitizing
Node Tool
Digitizing
Advanced Digitizing
Toggle editing
After activating
mode for a layer, you will find the Add Feature icon in the Edit menu depending on the layer type (point, line or polygon).
Reference
Toolbar
Add Feature
Digitizing
Add Feature
Digitizing
Add Feature
Digitizing
Shortcut
23
7.1.4 View
Menu Option
Shortcut
Reference
Pan Map
Map Navigation
Map Navigation
Zoom In
Ctrl+-
Identify Features
Measure
Ctrl+Shift+I
Zoom Full
Map Navigation
Ctrl++
Zoom Out
Select
Map Navigation
Attributes
see Measuring
Attributes
Attributes
Map Navigation
Ctrl+Shift+F
Zoom To Layer
Zoom To Selection
Map Navigation
Map Navigation
Ctrl+J
Zoom Last
Map Navigation
Zoom Next
Map Navigation
Map Navigation
see Decorations
Map Tips
24
Toolbar
Attributes
New Bookmark
Ctrl+B
Attributes
Show Bookmarks
Ctrl+Shift+B
Attributes
Refresh
F5
Map Navigation
7.1.5 Layer
Menu Option
Create Layer
Add Layer
Embed Layers and Groups ...
Add from Layer Definition File ...
Shortcut
Reference
see Creating new Vector layers
Toolbar
Manage Layers
Manage Layers
Copy style
Paste style
Attributes
Toggle Editing
Digitizing
Digitizing
Digitizing
Current Edits
Save as...
Save as layer definition file...
Remove Layer/Group
Ctrl+D
Ctrl+Shift+C
Labeling
Add to Overview
Ctrl+Shift+O
Manage Layers
Ctrl+Shift+U
Manage Layers
Ctrl+Shift+H
Manage Layers
7.1.6 Settings
Menu Option
Panels
Toolbars
Toggle Full Screen Mode
Project Properties ...
Custom CRS ...
Style Manager...
Configure shortcuts ...
Customization ...
Options ...
Snapping Options ...
Shortcut
Reference
see Panels and Toolbars
see Panels and Toolbars
Toolbar
F 11
Ctrl+Shift+P
see Projects
see Custom Coordinate Reference System
see Presentation
see Customization
see Options
25
7.1.7 Plugins
Menu Option
Shortcut
Reference
Ctrl+Alt+P
Toolbar
When starting QGIS for the first time not all core plugins are loaded.
7.1.8 Vector
Menu Option
Open Street Map
Shortcut
Reference
see Loading OpenStreetMap Vectors
Analysis Tools
Research Tools
Geoprocessing Tools
Geometry Tools
Toolbar
When starting QGIS for the first time not all core plugins are loaded.
7.1.9 Raster
Menu Option
Raster calculator ...
Shortcut
Reference
see Raster Calculator
Toolbar
When starting QGIS for the first time not all core plugins are loaded.
7.1.10 Database
Menu Option
Database
Shortcut
Reference
see DB Manager Plugin
Toolbar
Database
When starting QGIS for the first time not all core plugins are loaded.
7.1.11 Web
Menu Option
Metasearch
Shortcut
Reference
see MetaSearch Catalogue Client
Toolbar
Web
When starting QGIS for the first time not all core plugins are loaded.
26
7.1.12 Processing
Menu Option
Shortcut
Reference
Toolbar
Toolbox
Commander
Ctrl+Alt+M
When starting QGIS for the first time not all core plugins are loaded.
7.1.13 Help
Menu Option
Shortcut
Help Contents
Whats This?
API Documentation
Need commercial support?
QGIS Home Page
Reference
Toolbar
F1
Help
Shift+F1
Help
Ctrl+H
Edit
Edit
Edit
Edit
Edit
Edit
7.2 Toolbar
The toolbar provides access to most of the same functions as the menus, plus additional tools for interacting with
the map. Each toolbar item has pop-up help available. Hold your mouse over the item and a short description of
the tools purpose will be displayed.
Every menu bar can be moved around according to your needs. Additionally, every menu bar can be switched off
using your right mouse button context menu, holding the mouse over the toolbars (read also Panels and Toolbars).
Tip: Restoring toolbars
If you have accidentally hidden all your toolbars, you can get them back by choosing menu option Settings
Toolbars . If a toolbar disappears under Windows, which seems to be a problem in QGIS from time to time, you
have to remove key \HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\QGIS\qgis\UI\state in the registry. When
you restart QGIS, the key is written again with the default state, and all toolbars are visible again.
7.2. Toolbar
27
, choose Add Preset... from the drop down menu and give a name to the preset.
After that you will see a list with all the presets that you can recall pressing on the
button.
All the added presets are also present in the map composer in order to allow you to create a map layout based on
your specific views (see Main properties).
A layer can be selected and dragged up or down in the legend to change the Z-ordering. Z-ordering means that
layers listed nearer the top of the legend are drawn over layers listed lower down in the legend.
Note: This behaviour can be overridden by the Layer order panel.
Layers in the legend window can be organised into groups. There are two ways to do this:
1. Press the
icon to add a new group. Type in a name for the group and press Enter. Now click on an
existing layer and drag it onto the group.
2. Select some layers, right click in the legend window and choose Group Selected. The selected layers will
automatically be placed in a new group.
To bring a layer out of a group, you can drag it out, or right click on it and choose Make to toplevel item. Groups
can also be nested inside other groups.
The checkbox for a group will show or hide all the layers in the group with one click.
The content of the right mouse button context menu depends on whether the selected legend item is a raster or
Toggle editing
a vector layer. For GRASS vector layers,
is not available. See section Digitizing and editing a
GRASS vector layer for information on editing GRASS vector layers.
28
Group Selected
Right mouse button menu for vector layers
Zoom to Layer
Show in overview
Remove
Duplicate
Set Layer Scale Visibility
Set Layer CRS
Set Project CRS from Layer
Styles
Open Attribute Table
Toggle Editing (not available for GRASS layers)
Save As ...
Save As Layer Definition Style
Filter
Show Feature Count
Properties
Rename
Additionally, according to layer position and selection
Move to Top-level
Group Selected
Right mouse button menu for layer groups
Zoom to Group
Remove
Set Group CRS
Rename
Add Group
It is possible to select more than one layer or group at the same time by holding down the Ctrl key while selecting
the layers with the left mouse button. You can then move all selected layers to a new group at the same time.
You may also delete more than one layer or group at once by selecting several layers with the Ctrl key and
pressing Ctrl+D afterwards. This way, all selected layers or groups will be removed from the layers list.
Control
29
30
Next to the coordinate display you will find the scale display. It shows the scale of the map view. If you zoom in or
out, QGIS shows you the current scale. There is a scale selector, which allows you to choose between predefined
scales from 1:500 to 1:1000000.
To the right of the scale display you can define a current clockwise rotation for your map view in degrees.
A progress bar in the status bar shows the progress of rendering as each layer is drawn to the map view. In some
cases, such as the gathering of statistics in raster layers, the progress bar will be used to show the status of lengthy
operations.
If a new plugin or a plugin update is available, you will see a message at the far left of the status bar. On the right
side of the status bar, there is a small checkbox which can be used to temporarily prevent layers being rendered to
the map view (see section Rendering below). The icon
To the right of the render functions, you find the EPSG code of the current project CRS and a projector icon.
Clicking on this opens the projection properties for the current project.
Tip: Calculating the Correct Scale of Your Map Canvas
When you start QGIS, the default units are degrees, and this means that QGIS will interpret any coordinate in your
layer as specified in degrees. To get correct scale values, you can either change this setting to meters manually in
Current CRS:
the General tab under Settings Project Properties, or you can select a project CRS clicking on the
icon in the lower right-hand corner of the status bar. In the last case, the units are set to what the project projection
specifies (e.g., +units=m).
31
32
CHAPTER 8
General Tools
(Gnome)
Configuration is very simple. Just select a feature from the list and click on [Change], [Set none] or [Set default].
Once you have finished your configuration, you can save it as an XML file and load it to another QGIS installation.
8.3 Rendering
By default, QGIS renders all visible layers whenever the map canvas is refreshed. The events that trigger a refresh
of the map canvas include:
Adding a layer
Panning or zooming
33
You can determine the scale values by first zooming to the level you want to use and noting the scale value in the
QGIS status bar.
Render checkbox enables rendering and causes an immediate refresh of the map canvas.
34
Make lines appear less jagged at the expense of some drawing performance
Speed-up rendering
There are two settings that allow you to improve rendering speed. Open the QGIS options dialog using Settings
Options, go to the Rendering tab and select or deselect the following checkboxes:
Enable back buffer. This provides better graphics performance at the cost of losing the possibility to
cancel rendering and incrementally draw features. If it is unchecked, you can set the Number of features to
draw before updating the display, otherwise this option is inactive.
Use render caching where possible to speed up redraws
8.4 Measuring
Measuring works within projected coordinate systems (e.g., UTM) and unprojected data. If the loaded map
is defined with a geographic coordinate system (latitude/longitude), the results from line or area measurements
will be incorrect. To fix this, you need to set an appropriate map coordinate system (see section Working with
Projections). All measuring modules also use the snapping settings from the digitizing module. This is useful, if
you want to measure along lines or areas in vector layers.
To select a measuring tool, click on
: QGIS is able to measure real distances between given points according to a defined ellipsoid.
To configure this, choose menu option Settings Options, click on the Map tools tab and select the appropriate
ellipsoid. There, you can also define a rubberband color and your preferred measurement units (meters or feet) and
angle units (degrees, radians and gon). The tool then allows you to click points on the map. Each segment length,
as well as the total, shows up in the measure window. To stop measuring, click your right mouse button. Note
that you can interactively change the measurement units in the measurement dialog. It overrides the Preferred
measurement units in the options. There is an info section in the dialog that shows which CRS settings are being
used during measurement calculations.
Measure Area
: Areas can also be measured. In the measure window, the accumulated area size appears. In
addition, the measuring tool will snap to the currently selected layer, provided that layer has its snapping tolerance
set (see section Setting the Snapping Tolerance and Search Radius). So, if you want to measure exactly along a
8.4. Measuring
35
(Gnome)
line feature, or around a polygon feature, first set its snapping tolerance, then select the layer. Now, when using
the measuring tools, each mouse click (within the tolerance setting) will snap to that layer.
(Gnome)
Measure Angle
: You can also measure angles. The cursor becomes cross-shaped. Click to draw the first segment
of the angle you wish to measure, then move the cursor to draw the desired angle. The measure is displayed in a
pop-up dialog.
(Gnome)
36
allow user to select feature using expression dialog. See Expressions chapter for
some example.
Users can save features selection into a New Memory Vector Layer or a New Vector Layer using Edit Paste
Feature as ... and choose the mode you want.
Identify features
If you click on several features, the Identify results dialog will list information about all the selected features. The
first item is the number of the layer in the list of results, followed by the layer name. Then, its first child will be the
name of a field with its value. The first field is the one selected in Properties Display. Finally, all information
about the feature is displayed.
This window can be customized to display custom fields, but by default it will display three kinds of information:
Actions: Actions can be added to the identify feature windows. When clicking on the action label, action
will be run. By default, only one action is added, to view feature form for editing.
Derived: This information is calculated or derived from other information. You can find clicked coordinate,
X and Y coordinates, area in map units and perimeter in map units for polygons, length in map units for
lines and feature ids.
Data attributes: This is the list of attribute fields from the data.
(Gnome)
Expand tree
Collapse tree
Default behaviour
Copy attributes
37
At the bottom of the window, you have the Mode and View comboboxes. With the Mode combobox you can define
the identify mode: Current layer, Top down, stop at first, Top down and Layer selection. The View can be
set as Tree, Table and Graph.
The identify tool allows you to auto open a form. In this mode you can change the feautures attributes.
Other functions can be found in the context menu of the identified item. For example, from the context menu you
can:
View the feature form
Zoom to feature
Copy feature: Copy all feature geometry and attributes
Toggle feature selection: adds identified feature to selection
Copy attribute value: Copy only the value of the attribute that you click on
Copy feature attributes: Copy only attributes
Clear result: Remove results in the window
Clear highlights: Remove features highlighted on the map
Highlight all
Highlight layer
Activate layer: Choose a layer to be activated
Layer properties: Open layer properties window
Expand all
Collapse all
8.6 Decorations
The Decorations of QGIS include the Grid, the Copyright Label, the North Arrow and the Scale Bar. They are
used to decorate the map by adding cartographic elements.
8.6.1 Grid
Grid
allows you to add a coordinate grid and coordinate annotations to the map canvas.
1. Select from menu View Decorations Grid. The dialog starts (see figure_decorations_1).
2. Activate the
canvas.
Enable grid checkbox and set grid definitions according to the layers loaded in the map
3. Activate the
Draw annotations checkbox and set annotation definitions according to the layers loaded
in the map canvas.
4. Click [Apply] to verify that it looks as expected.
5. Click [OK] to close the dialog.
adds a copyright label using the text you prefer to the map.
1. Select from menu View Decorations Copyright Label. The dialog starts (see figure_decorations_2).
38
8.6. Decorations
39
2. Enter the text you want to place on the map. You can use HTML as shown in the example.
3. Choose the placement of the label from the Placement
4. Make sure the
combo box.
5. Click [OK].
In the example above, which is the default, QGIS places a copyright symbol followed by the date in the lower
right-hand corner of the map canvas.
places a simple north arrow on the map canvas. At present, there is only one style available. You
can adjust the angle of the arrow or let QGIS set the direction automatically. If you choose to let QGIS determine
the direction, it makes its best guess as to how the arrow should be oriented. For placement of the arrow, you have
four options, corresponding to the four corners of the map canvas.
Scale Bar
adds a simple scale bar to the map canvas. You can control the style and placement, as well as the
labeling of the bar.
40
combo box.
combo box.
7. Optionally, check
8. Click [OK].
Tip: Settings of Decorations
When you save a .qgs project, any changes you have made to Grid, North Arrow, Scale Bar and Copyright will
be saved in the project and restored the next time you load the project.
Move Annotation
41
Note: If you press Ctrl+T while an Annotation tool is active (move annotation, text annotation, form annotation), the visibility states of the items are inverted.
42
2. Select the project file grassland. You can see the content of the project (see figure_embed_dialog).
3. Press Ctrl and click on the layers grassland and regions. Press [OK]. The selected layers are
embedded in the map legend and the map view now.
While the embedded layers are editable, you cant change their properties like style and labeling.
43
Remove
44
CHAPTER 9
QGIS Configuration
QGIS is highly configurable through the Settings menu. Choose between Panels, Toolbars, Project Properties,
Options and Customization.
Note: QGIS follows desktop guidelines for the location of options and project properties item. Consequently
related to the OS you are using, location of some of items described above could be located in the View menu
(Panels and Toolbars) or in Project for Options.
In QGIS, you can use an overview panel that provides a full extent view of layers added to it. It can be selected
Settings Panels or
View Panels. Within the view is a rectangle showing the current
under the menu
map extent. This allows you to quickly determine which area of the map you are currently viewing. Note that
labels are not rendered to the map overview even if the layers in the map overview have been set up for labeling.
If you click and drag the red rectangle in the overview that shows your current extent, the main map view will
update accordingly.
Tip: Show Log Messages
Its possible to track the QGIS messages. You can activate
Log Messages in the menu
Settings Panels
or
View Panels and follow the messages that appear in the different tabs during loading and operation.
Project Project
In the General menu, the project title, selection and background color, layer units, precision, and the option
to save relative paths to layers can be defined. If the CRS transformation is on, you can choose an ellipsoid
for distance calculations. You can define the canvas units (only used when CRS transformation is disabled)
and the precision of decimal places to use. You can also define a project scale list, which overrides the
global predefined scales.
The CRS menu enables you to choose the Coordinate Reference System for this project, and to enable
on-the-fly re-projection of raster and vector layers when displaying layers from a different CRS.
With the third Identify layers menu, you set (or disable) which layers will respond to the identify tool (see
the Map tools paragraph from the Options section to enable identifying of multiple layers).
The Default Styles menu lets you control how new layers will be drawn when they do not have an existing
.qml style defined. You can also set the default transparency level for new layers and whether symbols
should have random colours assigned to them. There is also an additional section where you can define
specific colors for the running project. You can find the added colors in the drop down menu of the color
dialog window present in each renderer.
The tab OWS Server allows you to define information about the QGIS Server WMS and WFS capabilities,
extent and CRS restrictions.
The Macros menu is used to edit Python macros for projects. Currently, only three macros are available:
openProject(), saveProject() and closeProject().
The Relations menu is used to define 1:n relations. The relations are defined in the project properties dialog.
Once relations exist for a layer, a new user interface element in the form view (e.g. when identifying a
feature and opening its form) will list the related entities. This provides a powerful way to express e.g. the
inspection history on a length of pipeline or road segment. You can find out more about 1:n relations support
in Section Creating one to many relations.
9.3 Options
Some basic options for QGIS can be selected using the Options dialog. Select the menu option Settings
Options. The tabs where you can customize your options are described below.
46
Project files
Open project on launch
Specific use the
to define a project.
Create new project from default project. You have the possibility to press on Set current project as
default or on Reset default. You can browse through your files and define a directory where you find your
user-defined project templates. This will be added to Project New From Template. If you first activate
Create new project from default project and then save a project in the project templates folder.
9.3. Options
47
Warn when opening a project file saved with an older version of QGIS
Enable macros
. This option was created to handle macros that are written to perform an action on
project events. You can choose between Never, Ask, For this session only and Always (not recommended).
Use custom variables (restart required - include separators). You can [Add] and [Remove] variables.
Already-defined environment variables are displayed in Current environment variables, and its possible to
filter them by activating
48
Prompt for raster sublayers when opening. Some rasters support sublayers they are called subdatasets
in GDAL. An example is netCDF files if there are many netCDF variables, GDAL sees every variable
as a subdataset. The option allows you to control how to deal with sublayers when a file with sublayers is
opened. You have the following choices:
Always: Always ask (if there are existing sublayers)
If needed: Ask if layer has no bands, but has sublayers
Never: Never prompt, will not load anything
Load all: Never prompt, but load all sublayers
Ignore shapefile encoding declaration. If a shapefile has encoding information, this will be ignored by
QGIS.
Add PostGIS layers with double click and select in extended mode
Add Oracle layers with double click and select in extended mode
Simplification threshold
9.3. Options
49
Rendering quality
Make lines appear less jagged at the expense of some drawing performance
Rasters
With RGB band selection, you can define the number for the Red, Green and Blue band.
Contrast enhancement
Single band gray
. A single band gray can have No stretch, Stretch to MinMax, Stretch and Clip
to MinMax and also Clip to MinMax.
Multi band color (byte/band)
MinMax and Clip to MinMax.
Limits (minimum/maximum)
Mean +/- standard deviation.
. You can either Open layer properties or Open attribute table with
50
for x and y
9.3. Options
51
Validate geometries. Editing complex lines and polygons with many nodes can result in very slow rendering.
This is because the default validation procedures in QGIS can take a lot of time. To speed up rendering, it is
possible to select GEOS geometry validation (starting from GEOS 3.3) or to switch it off. GEOS geometry
validation is much faster, but the disadvantage is that only the first geometry problem will be reported.
Rubberband
Define Rubberband Line width and Line color
Snapping
Join style
Quadrant segments
Miter limit
Select a CRS and Always start new projects with this CRS
CRS for new layers
This area allows you to define the action to take when a new layer is created, or when a layer without a CRS is
loaded.
52
If you have worked with the on-the-fly CRS transformation you can see the result of the transformation in
the window below. You can find information about Source CRS and Destination CRS as well as Source
datum transform and Destination datum transform.
Use proxy for web access and define Host, Port, User, and Password.
Default Proxy: Proxy is determined based on the application proxy set using
Socks5Proxy: Generic proxy for any kind of connection. Supports TCP, UDP, binding to a port (incoming connections) and authentication.
HttpProxy: Implemented using the CONNECT command, supports only outgoing TCP connections;
supports authentication.
HttpCachingProxy: Implemented using normal HTTP commands, it is useful only in the context of
HTTP requests.
FtpCachingProxy: Implemented using an FTP proxy, it is useful only in the context of FTP requests.
Excluding some URLs can be added to the text box below the proxy settings (see Figure_Network_Tab).
If you need more detailed information about the different proxy settings, please refer to the manual of the underlying QT library documentation at http://doc.trolltech.com/4.5/qnetworkproxy.html#ProxyType-enum.
Tip: Using Proxies
Using proxies can sometimes be tricky. It is useful to proceed by trial and error with the above proxy types, to
check to see if they succeed in your case.
You can modify the options according to your needs. Some of the changes may require a restart of QGIS before
they will be effective.
9.3. Options
53
54
9.4 Customization
The customization tool lets you (de)activate almost every element in the QGIS user interface. This can be very
useful if you have a lot of plugins installed that you never use and that are filling your screen.
9.4. Customization
55
56
CHAPTER 10
QGIS allows users to define a global and project-wide CRS (coordinate reference system) for layers without a
pre-defined CRS. It also allows the user to define custom coordinate reference systems and supports on-the-fly
(OTF) projection of vector and raster layers. All of these features allow the user to display layers with different
CRSs and have them overlay properly.
Project
57
58
If you want to define the coordinate reference system for a certain layer without CRS information, you can also do
that in the General tab of the raster and vector properties dialog (see General Menu for rasters and General Menu
for vectors). If your layer already has a CRS defined, it will be displayed as shown in Vector Layer Properties
Dialog .
Tip: CRS in the Map Legend
Right-clicking on a layer in the Map Legend (section Map Legend) provides two CRS shortcuts. Set layer CRS
takes you directly to the Coordinate Reference System Selector dialog (see figure_projection_2). Set project CRS
from Layer redefines the project CRS using the layers CRS.
Enable on the fly CRS transformation checkbox in the CRS tab of the
Project Properties from the Project (Gnome, OSX) or Settings (KDE, Windows) menu.
2. Click on the
CRS status
3. Turn OTF on by default in the CRS tab of the Options dialog by selecting
Enable on the fly reprojection
by default or Automatically enable on the fly reprojection if layers have different CRS.
If you have already loaded a layer and you want to enable OTF projection, the best practice is to open the CRS
tab of the Project Properties dialog, select a CRS, and activate the
CRS status
checkbox. The
icon will no longer be greyed out, and all layers will be OTF projected to the CRS
shown next to the icon.
The CRS tab of the Project Properties dialog contains five important components, as shown in Figure_projection_2
and described below:
1. Enable on the fly CRS transformation This checkbox is used to enable or disable OTF projection.
When off, each layer is drawn using the coordinates as read from the data source, and the components described below are inactive. When on, the coordinates in each layer are projected to the coordinate reference
system defined for the map canvas.
2. Filter If you know the EPSG code, the identifier, or the name for a coordinate reference system, you can
use the search feature to find it. Enter the EPSG code, the identifier or the name.
3. Recently used coordinate reference systems If you have certain CRSs that you frequently use in your
everyday GIS work, these will be displayed in this list. Click on one of these items to select the associated
CRS.
4. Coordinate reference systems of the world This is a list of all CRSs supported by QGIS, including
Geographic, Projected and Custom coordinate reference systems. To define a CRS, select it from the list by
expanding the appropriate node and selecting the CRS. The active CRS is preselected.
5. PROJ.4 text This is the CRS string used by the PROJ.4 projection engine. This text is read-only and
provided for informational purposes.
Tip: Project Properties Dialog
If you open the Project Properties dialog from the Project menu, you must click on the CRS tab to view the CRS
settings.
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CRS status
Note that the Parameters must begin with a +proj= block, to represent the new coordinate reference system.
You can test your CRS parameters to see if they give sane results. To do this, enter known WGS 84 latitude and
longitude values in North and East fields, respectively. Click on [Calculate], and compare the results with the
known values in your coordinate reference system.
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CHAPTER 11
QGIS Browser
The QGIS Browser is a panel in QGIS that lets you easily navigate in your filesystem and manage geodata. You
can have access to common vector files (e.g., ESRI shapefiles or MapInfo files), databases (e.g., PostGIS, Oracle,
SpatiaLite or MS SQL Spatial) and WMS/WFS connections. You can also view your GRASS data (to get the data
into QGIS, see GRASS GIS Integration).
2. Drag the panel into the legend window and release it.
3. Click on the Browser tab.
4. Browse in your filesystem and choose the shapefile folder from qgis_sample_data directory.
5. Press the Shift key and select the airports.shp and alaska.shp files.
6. Press the left mouse button, then drag and drop the files into the map canvas.
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7. Right-click on a layer and choose Set project CRS from layer. For more information see Working with
Projections.
8. Click on
Zoom Full
There is a second browser available under Settings Panels. This is handy when you need to move files or layers
between locations.
1. Activate a second QGIS Browser: Right-click on the toolbar and check
Settings Panels.
QGIS automatically looks for the coordinate reference system (CRS) and zooms to the layer extent if you work
in a blank QGIS project. If there are already files in your project, the file will just be added, and in the case that
it has the same extent and CRS, it will be visualized. If the file has another CRS and layer extent, you must first
right-click on the layer and choose Set Project CRS from Layer. Then choose Zoom to Layer Extent.
Filter files
The
function works on a directory level. Browse to the folder where you want to filter files and enter
a search word or wildcard. The Browser will show only matching filenames other data wont be displayed.
Start the QGIS Browser using the Start menu or desktop shortcut.
In figure_browser_standalone_metadata, you can see the enhanced functionality of the stand-alone QGIS Browser.
The Param tab provides the details of your connection-based datasets, like PostGIS or MSSQL Spatial. The
Metadata tab contains general information about the file (see Metadata Menu). With the Preview tab, you can
have a look at your files without importing them into your QGIS project. Its also possible to preview the attributes
of your files in the Attributes tab.
.
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CHAPTER 12
65
Loading a Shapefile
Add Vector Layer
toolbar button, or simply press Ctrl+Shift+V.
To load a shapefile, start QGIS and click on the
This will bring up a new window (see figure_vector_1).
You can also select the encoding for the shapefile if desired.
Open the Layer Properties dialog by double-clicking on the shapefile name in the legend or by right-clicking
and choosing Properties from the context menu.
In the General tab, click the [Create Spatial Index] button.
Problem loading a shape .prj file
If you load a shapefile with a .prj file and QGIS is not able to read the coordinate reference system from that
file, you will need to define the proper projection manually within the General tab of the Layer Properties dialog
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of the layer by clicking the [Specify...] button. This is due to the fact that .prj files often do not provide the
complete projection parameters as used in QGIS and listed in the CRS dialog.
For the same reason, if you create a new shapefile with QGIS, two different projection files are created: a .prj
file with limited projection parameters, compatible with ESRI software, and a .qpj file, providing the complete
parameters of the used CRS. Whenever QGIS finds a .qpj file, it will be used instead of the .prj.
: to Mapinfo File [OGR] (*.mif *.tab *.MIF *.TAB) and select the MapInfo
to Arc/Info Binary Coverage. Navigate to the directory that contains the coverage file, and select it.
Similarly, you can load directory-based vector files in the UK National Transfer Format, as well as the raw TIGER
Format of the US Census Bureau.
DMS coordinates
Finally, enter a layer name (e.g., elevp), as shown in figure_delimited_text_1. To add the layer to the map, click
[OK]. The delimited text file now behaves as any other map layer in QGIS.
There is also a helper option that allows you to trim leading and trailing spaces from fields
Also, it is possible to
by activating
Trim fields.
Discard empty fields. If necessary, you can force a comma to be the decimal separator
Use spatial index to improve the performance of displaying and spatially selecting features.
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Watch file to watch for changes to the file by other applications while QGIS is running.
Add SpatiaLite Layer... option from the Layer menu (see section
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SSL mode: How the SSL connection will be negotiated with the server. Note that massive speedups in
PostGIS layer rendering can be achieved by disabling SSL in the connection editor. The following options
are available:
Disable: Only try an unencrypted SSL connection.
Allow: Try a non-SSL connection. If that fails, try an SSL connection.
Prefer (the default): Try an SSL connection. If that fails, try a non-SSL connection.
Require: Only try an SSL connection.
Username: User name used to log in to the database.
Password: Password used with Username to connect to the database.
Optionally, you can activate the following checkboxes:
Save Username
Save Password
Once all parameters and options are set, you can test the connection by clicking on the [Test Connect] button.
Loading a PostGIS Layer
Once you have one or more connections defined, you can load layers from the PostgreSQL database. Of
course, this requires having data in PostgreSQL. See section Importing Data into PostgreSQL for a discussion on
importing data into the database.
To load a layer from PostGIS, perform the following steps:
If the Add PostGIS layers dialog is not already open, selecting the
Layer menu or typing Ctrl+Shift+D opens the dialog.
Choose the connection from the drop-down list and click [Connect].
Select or unselect
Search Options to define which features to load from the layer, or use the [Build
Optionally, use some
query] button to start the Query builder dialog.
Find the layer(s) you wish to add in the list of available layers.
Select it by clicking on it. You can select multiple layers by holding down the Shift key while clicking.
See section Query Builder for information on using the PostgreSQL Query Builder to further define the
layer.
Click on the [Add] button to add the layer to the map.
Tip: PostGIS Layers
Normally, a PostGIS layer is defined by an entry in the geometry_columns table. From version 0.9.0 on, QGIS
can load layers that do not have an entry in the geometry_columns table. This includes both tables and views.
Defining a spatial view provides a powerful means to visualize your data. Refer to your PostgreSQL manual for
information on creating views.
12.1. Supported Data Formats
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shp2pgsql
PostGIS includes an utility called shp2pgsql that can be used to import shapefiles into a PostGIS-enabled database.
For example, to import a shapefile named lakes.shp into a PostgreSQL database named gis_data, use the
following command:
shp2pgsql -s 2964 lakes.shp lakes_new | psql gis_data
This creates a new layer named lakes_new in the gis_data database. The new layer will have a spatial reference identifier (SRID) of 2964. See section Working with Projections for more information on spatial reference
systems and projections.
Tip: Exporting datasets from PostGIS
Like the import tool shp2pgsql, there is also a tool to export PostGIS datasets as shapefiles: pgsql2shp. This is
shipped within your PostGIS distribution.
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ogr2ogr
Besides shp2pgsql and DB Manager, there is another tool for feeding geodata in PostGIS: ogr2ogr. This is part
of your GDAL installation.
To import a shapefile into PostGIS, do the following:
ogr2ogr -f "PostgreSQL" PG:"dbname=postgis host=myhost.de user=postgres
password=topsecret" alaska.shp
This will import the shapefile alaska.shp into the PostGIS database postgis using the user postgres with the
password topsecret on host server myhost.de.
Note that OGR must be built with PostgreSQL to support PostGIS. You can verify this by typing (in
If you prefer to use PostgreSQLs COPY command instead of the default INSERT INTO method, you can export
the following environment variable (at least available on
and
):
export PG_USE_COPY=YES
ogr2ogr does not create spatial indexes like shp2pgsl does. You need to create them manually, using the normal SQL command CREATE INDEX afterwards as an extra step (as described in the next section Improving
Performance).
Improving Performance
Retrieving features from a PostgreSQL database can be time-consuming, especially over a network. You can
improve the drawing performance of PostgreSQL layers by ensuring that a PostGIS spatial index exists on
each layer in the database. PostGIS supports creation of a GiST (Generalized Search Tree) index to speed
up spatial searches of the data (GiST index information is taken from the PostGIS documentation available at
http://postgis.refractions.net).
The syntax for creating a GiST index is:
CREATE INDEX [indexname] ON [tablename]
USING GIST ( [geometryfield] GIST_GEOMETRY_OPS );
Note that for large tables, creating the index can take a long time. Once the index is created, you should perform a
VACUUM ANALYZE. See the PostGIS documentation (POSTGIS-PROJECT Literature and Web References) for
more information.
The following is an example of creating a GiST index:
gsherman@madison:~/current$ psql gis_data
Welcome to psql 8.3.0, the PostgreSQL interactive terminal.
Type:
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Usage
Import data into PostGIS (Importing Data into PostgreSQL) using, for example, the DB Manager plugin.
Use the PostGIS command line interface to issue the following command (in this example,
TABLE is the actual name of your PostGIS table): gis_data=# update TABLE set
the_geom=ST_Shift_Longitude(the_geom);
If everything went well, you should receive a confirmation about the number of features that were updated.
Then youll be able to load the map and see the difference (Figure_vector_5).
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Save Username Indicates whether to save the database username in the connection configuration.
Save Password Indicates whether to save the database password in the connection settings.
Only look in meta data table Restricts the displayed tables to those that are in the
all_sdo_geom_metadata view. This can speed up the initial display of spatial tables.
Only look for users tables When searching for spatial tables, restrict the search to tables that are owned
by the user.
Also list tables with no geometry Indicates that tables without geometry should also be listed by default.
Use estimated table statistics for the layer metadata When the layer is set up, various metadata are
required for the Oracle table. This includes information such as the table row count, geometry type and
spatial extents of the data in the geometry column. If the table contains a large number of rows, determining
this metadata can be time-consuming. By activating this option, the following fast table metadata operations
are done: Row count is determined from all_tables.num_rows. Table extents are always determined
with the SDO_TUNE.EXTENTS_OF function, even if a layer filter is applied. Table geometry is determined
from the first 100 non-null geometry rows in the table.
Only existing geometry types Only list the existing geometry types and dont offer to add others.
Once all parameters and options are set, you can test the connection by clicking on the [Test Connect] button.
Tip: QGIS User Settings and Security
Depending on your computing environment, storing passwords in your QGIS settings may be a security risk.
Passwords are saved in clear text in the system configuration and in the project files! Your customized settings for
QGIS are stored based on the operating system:
toolbar
Choose the connection from the drop-down list and click [Connect].
Select or unselect
displays a drop down list to let the user import or export symbols.
add item
button.
To add a symbol into a group, you can either right click on a symbol then choose Apply group and then the group
name added before. There is a second way to add several symbols into group: just select a group and click
and choose Group Symbols. All symbols display a checkbox that allow you to add the symbol into the selected
groups. When finished, you can click on the same button, and choose Finish Grouping.
Create Smart Symbols is similar to creating group, but instead select Smart Groups. The dialog box allow user
to choose the expression to select symbols in order to appear in the smart group (contains some tags, member of
a group, have a string in its name, etc.)
Add, edit, remove symbol
With the Style manager from the [Symbol]
add item
edit item
remove item
share item
,
and
. Marker symbols, Line symbols, Fill patterns and colour ramps
can be used to create the symbols. The symbols are then assigned to All Symbols, Groups or Smart groups.
For each kind of symbols, you will find always the same dialog structure:
at the top left side a symbol representation
under the symbol representation the symbol tree show the symbol layers
at the right you can setup some parameter (unit,transparency, color, size and rotation)
under these parameters you find some symbol from the symbols library
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The symbol tree allow adding, removing or protect new simple symbol. You can move up or down the symbol
layer.
More detailed settings can be made when clicking on the second level in the Symbol layers dialog. You can define
Symbol layers that are combined afterwards. A symbol can consist of several Symbol layers. Settings will be
shown later in this chapter.
Tip: Note that once you have set the size in the lower levels of the Symbol layers dialog, the size of the whole
symbol can be changed with the Size menu in the first level again. The size of the lower levels changes accordingly,
while the size ratio is maintained.
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Join style
Cap style
Draw line
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Figure 12.7: Example of custom gradient color ramp with multiple stops
The cpt-city option opens a new dialog with hundreds of themes included out of the box.
.
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types are available. Depending on the chosen renderer, the Style menu provides different additional sections. On
the bottom right of the symbology dialog, there is a [Symbol] button, which gives access to the Style Manager
(see Presentation). The Style Manager allows you to edit and remove existing symbols and add new ones.
After having made any needed changes, the symbol can be added to the list of current style symbols (using
[Symbol]
Save in symbol library), and then it can easily be used in the future. Furthermore, you can use
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value: red
yellow
value: green
static/user_manual/working_with_vector/symbol_data_defin
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Quantile: each class will have the same number of element inside (the idea of a boxplot);
Natural Breaks (Jenks): the variance within each class is minimal while the variance between classes is
maximal;
Standard Deviation: classes are built depending on the standard deviation of the values;
Pretty Breaks: the same of natural breaks but the extremes number of each class are integers.
The listbox in the center part of the Style menu lists the classes together with their ranges, labels and symbols that
will be rendered.
Click on Classify button to create classes using the choosen mode. Each classes can be disabled unchecking the
checkbox at the left of the class name.
You can change symbol, value and/or label of the clic, just double clicking on the item you want to change.
Right-click shows a contextual menu to Copy/Paste, Change color, Change transparency, Change output unit,
Change symbol width.
The example in figure_symbology_7 shows the graduated rendering dialog for the rivers layer of the QGIS sample
dataset.
Tip: Thematic maps using an expression
Categorized and graduated thematic maps can now be created using the result of an expression. In the properties
dialog for vector layers, the attribute chooser has been augmented with a
Set column expression function. So
now you no longer need to write the classification attribute to a new column in your attribute table if you want the
classification attribute to be a composite of multiple fields, or a formula of some sort.
Rule-based rendering
The Rule-based Renderer is used to render all the features from a layer, using rule based symbols whose color
reflects the assignment of a selected features attribute to a class. The rules are based on SQL statements. The
dialog allows rule grouping by filter or scale, and you can decide if you want to enable symbol levels or use only
the first-matched rule.
The example in figure_symbology_8 shows the rule-based rendering dialog for the rivers layer of the QGIS sample
dataset.
To create a rule, activate an existing row by double-clicking on it, or click on + and click on the new rule. In the
Rule properties dialog, you can define a label for the rule. Press the
button to open the expression string
builder. In the Function List, click on Fields and Values to view all attributes of the attribute table to be searched.
To add an attribute to the field calculator Expression field, double click its name in the Fields and Values list.
Generally, you can use the various fields, values and functions to construct the calculation expression, or you can
just type it into the box (see Expressions). You can create a new rule by copying and pasting an existing rule with
the right mouse button. You can also use the ELSE rule that will be run if none of the other rules on that level
match. Since QGIS 2.8 the rules appear in a tree hierarchy in the map legend. Just double-klick the rules in the
map legend and the Style menu of the layer properties appears showing the rule that is the background for the
symbol in the tree.
Point displacement
The Point Displacement Renderer works to visualize all features of a point layer, even if they have the same
location. To do this, the symbols of the points are placed on a displacement circle around a center symbol.
Tip: Export vector symbology
You have the option to export vector symbology from QGIS into Google *.kml, *.dxf and MapInfo *.tab files. Just
open the right mouse menu of the layer and click on Save selection as to specify the name of the output file and
its format. In the dialog, use the Symbology export menu to save the symbology either as Feature symbology
or as Symbol layer symbology . If you have used symbol layers, it is recommended to use the second setting.
Inverted Polygon
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Inverted polygon renderer allows user to define a symbol to fill in outside of the layers polygons. As before you
can select subrenderers. These subrenderers are the same as for the main renderers.
color swatches
or
color picker
color ramp
Whatever method you use, the selected color is always described through color sliders for HSV (Hue, Saturation,
Value) and RGB (Red, Green, Blue) values. There is also an opacity slider to set transparency level. On the lower
left part of the dialog you can see a comparison between the current and the new color you are presently selecting
and on the lower right part you have the option to add the color you just tweaked into a color slot button.
With
color ramp
or with
color wheel
, you can browse to all possible color combinations. There are other
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color picker
Another option is to use the
which allows you to sample a color from under your mouse pointer at
any part of QGIS or even from another application by pressing the space bar. Please note that the color picker is
OS dependent and is currently not supported by OSX.
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Subtract: This blend mode simply subtracts pixel values of one layer from the other. In case of negative
values, black is displayed.
Text
Formatting
Buffer
Background
Shadow
Placement
Rendering
Let us see how the new menus can be used for various vector layers. Labeling point layers
Start QGIS and load a vector point layer. Activate the layer in the legend and click on the
icon in the QGIS toolbar menu.
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shadow with the Blur radius. The higher the number, the softer the shadows. The appearance of the drop shadow
can also be altered by choosing a blend mode (see blend_modes).
Offset from point
Choose the Placement menu for the label placement and the labeling priority. Using the
setting, you now have the option to use Quadrants to place your label. Additionally, you can alter the angle of
the label placement with the Rotation setting. Thus, a placement in a certain quadrant with a certain rotation is
possible. In the priority section you can define with which priority the labels are rendered. It interacts with labels
of the other vector layers in the map canvas. If there are labels from different layers in the same location then the
label with the higher priority will be displayed and the other will be left out.
In the Rendering menu, you can define label and feature options. Under Label options, you find the scale-based
Show all labels for
visibility setting now. You can prevent QGIS from rendering only selected labels with the
this layer (including colliding labels) checkbox. Under Feature options, you can define whether every part of a
multipart feature is to be labeled. Its possible to define whether the number of features to be labeled is limited
and to
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The Background menu has the same entries as described in section labeling_point_layers.
Also, the Shadow menu has the same entries as described in section labeling_point_layers.
In the Placement menu, you find special settings for line layers. The label can be placed
or
Parallel and
Parallel,
Curved
Above line,
On line and
Below line. Its possible to select several options at once. In that case, QGIS will look for the
optimal position of the label. Remember that here you can also use the line orientation for the position of the label.
Additionally, you can define a Maximum angle between curved characters when selecting the
Curved option
(see Figure_labels_2 ).
You can set up a minimum distance for repeating labels. Distance can be in mm or in map units.
Some Placement setup will display more options, for example, Curved and Parallel Placements will allow the user
to set up the position of the label (above, below or on the line), distance from the line and for Curved, the user can
also setup inside/outside max angle between curved label. As for point vector layers you have the possibility to
define a Priority for the labels.
The Rendering menu has nearly the same entries as for point layers. In the Feature options, you can now Suppress
labeling of features smaller than.
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In the Text menu, define the text style. The entries are the same as for point and line layers.
The Formatting menu allows you to format multiple lines, also similar to the cases of point and line layers.
As with point and line layers, you can create a text buffer in the Buffer menu.
Use the Background menu to create a complex user-defined background for the polygon layer. You can use the
menu also as with the point and line layers.
The entries in the Shadow menu are the same as for point and line layers.
In the Placement menu, you find special settings for polygon layers (see Figure_labels_3).
Horizontal (slow),
Around centroid,
Free and
Using perimeter are possible.
In the
Offset from centroid settings, you can specify if the centroid is of the
visible polygon or
whole
polygon. That means that either the centroid is used for the polygon you can see on the map or the centroid is
determined for the whole polygon, no matter if you can see the whole feature on the map. You can place your
Around centroid setting makes it possible to
label with the quadrants here, and define offset and rotation. The
place the label around the centroid with a certain distance. Again, you can define
visible polygon or
whole
polygon for the centroid. With the
Using perimeter settings, you can define a position and a distance for the
label. For the position,
are possible.
Above line,
On line,
Related to the choice of Label Placement, several options will appear. As for Point Placement you can choose the
distance for the polygon outline, repeat the label around the polygon perimeter.
As for point and line vector layers you have the possibility to define a Priority for the polygon vector layer.
The entries in the Rendering menu are the same as for line layers. You can also use Suppress labeling of features
smaller than in the Feature options. Define labels based on expressions
Labels
QGIS allows to use expressions to label features. Just click the
icon in the
menu of the properties
dialog. In figure_labels_4 you see a sample expression to label the alaska regions with name and area size, based
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on the field NAME_2, some descriptive text and the function $area() in combination with format_number()
to make it look nicer.
As you can see in the expression builder, you have hundreds of functions available to create simple and very
complex expressions to label your data in QGIS. See Expressions chapter for more information and examples on
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expressions.
Using data-defined override for labeling
With the data-defined override functions, the settings for the labeling are overridden by entries in the attribute
table. You can activate and deactivate the function with the right-mouse button. Hover over the symbol and you
see the information about the data-defined override, including the current definition field. We now describe an
example using the data-defined override function for the
Move label
Offset from
and
Delete Column
Editing mode
Edit Widget
Within the Fields menu, you also find an edit widget column. This column can be used to define values or a range
of values that are allowed to be added to the specific attribute table column. If you click on the [edit widget]
12.3. The Vector Properties Dialog
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button, a dialog opens, where you can define different widgets. These widgets are:
Checkbox: Displays a checkbox, and you can define what attribute is added to the column when the checkbox is activated or not.
Classification: Displays a combo box with the values used for classification, if you have chosen unique
value as legend type in the Style menu of the properties dialog.
Color: Displays a color button allowing user to choose a color from the color dialog window.
Date/Time: Displays a line field which can open a calendar widget to enter a date, a time or both. Column
type must be text. You can select a custom format, pop-up a calendar, etc.
Enumeration: Opens a combo box with values that can be used within the columns type. This is currently
only supported by the PostgreSQL provider.
File name: Simplifies the selection by adding a file chooser dialog.
Hidden: A hidden attribute column is invisible. The user is not able to see its contents.
Photo: Field contains a filename for a picture. The width and height of the field can be defined.
Range: Allows you to set numeric values from a specific range. The edit widget can be either a slider or a
spin box.
Relation Reference: This widged lets you embed the feature form of the referenced layer on the feature
form of the actual layer. See Creating one to many relations.
Text edit (default): This opens a text edit field that allows simple text or multiple lines to be used. If you
choose multiple lines you can also choose html content.
Unique values: You can select one of the values already used in the attribute table. If Editable is activated,
a line edit is shown with autocompletion support, otherwise a combo box is used.
UUID Generator: Generates a read-only UUID (Universally Unique Identifiers) field, if empty.
Value map: A combo box with predefined items. The value is stored in the attribute, the description is
shown in the combo box. You can define values manually or load them from a layer or a CSV file.
Value Relation: Offers values from a related table in a combobox. You can select layer, key column and
value column.
Webview: Field contains a URL. The width and height of the field is variable.
Note: QGIS has an advanced hidden option to define your own field widget using python and add it to this
impressive list of widgets. It is tricky but it is very well explained in following excellent blog that explains how
to create a real time validation widget that can be used like described widgets. See http://blog.vitu.ch/101420131847/write-your-own-qgis-form-elements
With the Attribute editor layout, you can now define built-in forms (see figure_fields_2). This is usefull for data
entry jobs or to identify objects using the option auto open form when you have objects with many attributes. You
can create an editor with several tabs and named groups to present the attribute fields.
Choose Drag and drop designer and an attribute column. Use the
icon to create a category to insert a tab or
a named group (see figure_fields_3). When creating a new category, QGIS will insert a new tab or named group
for the category in the built-in form. The next step will be to assign the relevant fields to a selected category with
the
icon. You can create more categories and use the same fields again.
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QGIS dialogs can have a Python function that is called when the dialog is opened. Use this function to add extra
logic to your dialogs. An example is (in module MyForms.py):
def open(dialog,layer,feature):
geom = feature.geometry()
control = dialog.findChild(QWidged,"My line edit")
Figure 12.29: Dialog to create categories with the Attribute editor layout
Figure 12.30: Resulting built-in form with tabs and named groups
View or change the projection of the specific vector layer, clicking on Specify ...
Scale dependent visibility
You can set the Maximum (inclusive) and Minimum (exclusive) scale. The scale can also be set by the
[Current] buttons.
Feature subset
With the [Query Builder] button, you can create a subset of the features in the layer that will be visualized
(also refer to section Query Builder).
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If you are invoking an action that uses the %% notation, right-click on the field value in the Identify Results dialog
or the Attribute Table dialog that you wish to pass to the application or script.
Here is another example that pulls data out of a vector layer and inserts it into a file using bash and the echo command (so it will only work on or perhaps ). The layer in question has fields for a species name taxon_name,
latitude lat and longitude long. We would like to be able to make a spatial selection of localities and export
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these field values to a text file for the selected record (shown in yellow in the QGIS map area). Here is the action
to achieve this:
bash -c "echo \"%taxon_name %lat %long\" >> /tmp/species_localities.txt"
After selecting a few localities and running the action on each one, opening the output file will show something
like this:
Acacia
Acacia
Acacia
Acacia
mearnsii
mearnsii
mearnsii
mearnsii
-34.0800000000
-34.9000000000
-35.2200000000
-32.2700000000
150.0800000000
150.1200000000
149.9300000000
150.4100000000
As an exercise, we can create an action that does a Google search on the lakes layer. First, we need to determine
the URL required to perform a search on a keyword. This is easily done by just going to Google and doing a
simple search, then grabbing the URL from the address bar in your browser. From this little effort, we see that the
format is http://google.com/search?q=qgis, where QGIS is the search term. Armed with this information, we can
proceed:
1. Make sure the lakes layer is loaded.
2. Open the Layer Properties dialog by double-clicking on the layer in the legend, or right-click and choose
Properties from the pop-up menu.
3. Click on the Actions menu.
4. Enter a name for the action, for example Google Search.
5. For the action, we need to provide the name of the external program to run. In this case, we can use Firefox.
If the program is not in your path, you need to provide the full path.
6. Following the name of the external application, add the URL used for doing a Google search, up to but not
including the search term: http://google.com/search?q=
7. The text in the Action field should now look like this: firefox http://google.com/search?q=
8. Click on the drop-down box containing the field names for the lakes layer. Its located just to the left of
the [Insert Field] button.
9. From the drop-down box, select NAMES and click [Insert Field].
10. Your action text now looks like this:
firefox http://google.com/search?q=%NAMES
11. To finalize the action, click the [Add to action list] button.
This completes the action, and it is ready to use. The final text of the action should look like this:
firefox http://google.com/search?q=%NAMES
We can now use the action. Close the Layer Properties dialog and zoom in to an area of interest. Make sure the
lakes layer is active and identify a lake. In the result box youll now see that our action is visible:
When we click on the action,
it brings up Firefox and navigates to the URL
http://www.google.com/search?q=Tustumena. It is also possible to add further attribute fields to the action. Therefore, you can add a + to the end of the action text, select another field and click on [Insert Field]. In
this example, there is just no other field available that would make sense to search for.
You can define multiple actions for a layer, and each will show up in the Identify Results dialog.
There are all kinds of uses for actions. For example, if you have a point layer containing locations of images or
photos along with a file name, you could create an action to launch a viewer to display the image. You could also
use actions to launch web-based reports for an attribute field or combination of fields, specifying them in the same
way we did in our Google search example.
We can also make more complex examples, for instance, using Python actions.
105
We just have to remember that the action is one of type Python and the command and imagerelpath variables must
be changed to fit our needs.
But what about if the relative path needs to be relative to the (saved) project file? The code of the Python action
would be:
command="firefox";
imagerelpath="images/test_image.jpg";
projectpath=qgis.core.QgsProject.instance().fileName();
import os.path; path=os.path.dirname(str(projectpath)) if projectpath != else None;
image=os.path.join(path, imagerelpath);
import subprocess;
subprocess.Popen( [command, image ] );
Another Python action example is the one that allows us to add new layers to the project. For instance, the
following examples will add to the project respectively a vector and a raster. The names of the files to be added to
the project and the names to be given to the layers are data driven (filename and layername are column names of
the table of attributes of the vector where the action was created):
qgis.utils.iface.addVectorLayer(/yourpath/[% "filename" %].shp,[% "layername" %],
ogr)
106
Create a
107
2. Double click the climate layer in the map legend to open the Layer Properties dialog.
3. Click on the Diagrams menu, activate
select Text diagram.
combo box,
4. In the Appearance tab, we choose a light blue as background color, and in the Size tab, we set a fixed size
to 18 mm.
5. In the Position tab, placement could be set to Around Point.
108
6. In the diagram, we want to display the values of the three columns T_F_JAN, T_F_JUL and T_F_MEAN.
First select T_F_JAN as Attributes and click the
7. Now click [Apply] to display the diagram in the QGIS main window.
8. You can adapt the chart size in the Size tab. Deactivate the
Fixed size and set the size of the diagrams on
the basis of an attribute with the [Find maximum value] button and the Size menu. If the diagrams appear
too small on the screen, you can activate the
minimum size of the diagrams.
9. Change the attribute colors by double clicking on the color values in the Assigned attributes field. Figure_diagrams_2 gives an idea of the result.
10. Finally, click [Ok].
109
12.4 Expressions
The Expressions feature are available through the field calculator or the add a new column button in the attribut
table or the Field tab in the Layer properties ; through the graduaded, categorized and rule-based rendering in the
Labeling
Style tab of the Layer properties ; through the expression-based labeling
in the
core application
; through the feature selection and through the diagram tab of the Layer properties as well as the Main properties
of the label item and the Atlas generation tab in the Print Composer.
They are a powerful way to manipulate attribute value in order to dynamically change the final value in order to
change the geometry style, the content of the label, the value for diagram, select some feature or create virtual
column.
110
function.
Operators
This group contains operators (e.g., +, -, *).
a
a
a
a
a
+
*
/
%
b
b
b
b
b
a plus b
a minus b
a multiplied by b
a divided by b
a modulo b (for example, 7 % 2 = 1, or 2 fits into 7 three
times with remainder 1)
a ^ b
a power b (for example, 2^2=4 or 2^3=8)
a = b
a and b are equal
a > b
a is larger than b
a < b
a is smaller than b
a <> b
a and b are not equal
a != b
a and b are not equal
a <= b
a is less than or equal to b
a >= b
a is larger than or equal to b
a ~ b
a matches the regular expression b
+ a
positive sign
- a
negative value of a
||
joins two values together into a string Hello || world
LIKE
returns 1 if the string matches the supplied pattern
ILIKE
returns 1 if the string matches case-insensitive the supplied
pattern (ILIKE can be used instead of LIKE to make the match
case-insensitive)
IS
returns 1 if a is the same as b
OR
returns 1 when condition a or b is true
AND
returns 1 when condition a and b are true
NOT
returns 1 if a is not the same as b
column name "column name"
value of the field column name, take
care to not be confused with simple
quote, see below
string
a string value, take care to not be
confused with double quote, see above
NULL
null value
a IS NULL
a has no value
a IS NOT NULL
a has a value
a IN (value[,value])
a is below the values listed
a NOT IN (value[,value])
a is not below the values listed
Some examples:
Joins a string and a value from a column name:
My features id is: || "gid"
Test if the description attribute field starts with the Hello string in the value (note the position of the %
character):
"description" LIKE Hello%
Conditionals
This group contains functions to handle conditional checks in expressions.
CASE
CASE ELSE
12.4. Expressions
111
coalesce
regexp_match
Some example:
Send back a value if the first condition is true, else another value:
CASE WHEN "software" LIKE %QGIS% THEN QGIS ELSE Other
Mathematical Functions
This group contains math functions (e.g., square root, sin and cos).
sqrt(a)
abs
sin(a)
cos(a)
tan(a)
asin(a)
acos(a)
atan(a)
atan2(y,x)
exp
ln
log10
log
round
rand
randf
max
min
clamp
scale_linear
scale_exp
floor
ceil
$pi
square root of a
returns the absolute value of a number
sine of a
cosine of a
tangent of a
arcsin of a
arccos of a
arctan of a
arctan of y/x using the signs of the two
arguments to determine the quadrant of the
result
exponential of a value
value of the natural logarithm of the passed
expression
value of the base 10 logarithm of the passed
expression
value of the logarithm of the passed value
and base
round to number of decimal places
random integer within the range specified by
the minimum
and maximum argument (inclusive)
random float within the range specified by
the minimum
and maximum argument (inclusive)
largest value in a set of values
smallest value in a set of values
restricts an input value to a specified
range
transforms a given value from an input
domain to an output
range using linear interpolation
transforms a given value from an input
domain to an output
range using an exponential curve
rounds a number downwards
rounds a number upwards
pi as value for calculations
Conversions
This group contains functions to convert one data type to another (e.g., string to integer, integer to string).
toint
toreal
tostring
112
todatetime
todate
totime
tointerval
Some example:
Get the month and the year of today in the format 10/2014
month($now) || / || year($now)
String Functions
This group contains functions that operate on strings (e.g., that replace, convert to upper case).
lower
upper
title
trim
wordwrap
length
replace
regexp_replace(a,this,that)
regexp_substr
substr(*a*,from,len)
concat
strpos
left
right
12.4. Expressions
113
rpad
lpad
format
format_number
format_date
Color Functions
This group contains functions for manipulating colors.
color_rgb
color_rgba
ramp_color
color_hsl
color_hsla
color_hsv
color_hsva
color_cmyk
color_cmyka
Geometry Functions
This group contains functions that operate on geometry objects (e.g., length, area).
$geometry
$area
$length
$perimeter
$x
$y
xat
yat
xmin
xmax
ymin
114
ymax
geomFromWKT
geomFromGML
bbox
disjoint
intersects
touches
crosses
contains
overlaps
within
buffer
centroid
bounds
bounds_width
bounds_height
convexHull
difference
distance
intersection
symDifference
combine
union
geomToWKT
geometry
transform
Record Functions
This group contains functions that operate on record identifiers.
$rownum
$id
$currentfeature
12.4. Expressions
115
$scale
$uuid
getFeature
attribute
$map
12.5 Editing
QGIS supports various capabilities for editing OGR, SpatiaLite, PostGIS, MSSQL Spatial and Oracle Spatial
vector layers and tables.
Note: The procedure for editing GRASS layers is different - see section Digitizing and editing a GRASS vector
layer for details.
Tip: Concurrent Edits
This version of QGIS does not track if somebody else is editing a feature at the same time as you are. The last
person to save their edits wins.
zoom operations. In our small digitizing project (working with the Alaska dataset), we define the snapping
units in feet. Your results may vary, but something on the order of 300 ft at a scale of 1:10000 should be a
reasonable setting.
2. A layer-based snapping tolerance can be defined by choosing Settings (or File ) Snapping options... to
enable and adjust snapping mode and tolerance on a layer basis (see figure_edit_1 ).
Note that this layer-based snapping overrides the global snapping option set in the Digitizing tab. So, if you need
to edit one layer and snap its vertices to another layer, then enable snapping only on the snap to layer, then
decrease the global snapping tolerance to a smaller value. Furthermore, snapping will never occur to a layer that
is not checked in the snapping options dialog, regardless of the global snapping tolerance. So be sure to mark the
checkbox for those layers that you need to snap to.
Options.
12.5. Editing
117
118
Toolbars .
Icon
Purpose
Using the basic digitizing tools, you can perform the following functions:
Icon
Purpose
Current edits
Toggle editing
Move Feature
Node Tool
Delete Selected
Cut Features
Copy Features
Paste Features
Remember to
regularly. This will also check that your data source can accept all the changes.
Adding Features
You can use the
digitizing mode.
Add Feature
Add Feature
or
Add Feature
For each feature, you first digitize the geometry, then enter its attributes. To digitize the geometry, left-click on
the map area to create the first point of your new feature.
For lines and polygons, keep on left-clicking for each additional point you wish to capture. When you have
finished adding points, right-click anywhere on the map area to confirm you have finished entering the geometry
of that feature.
The attribute window will appear, allowing you to enter the information for the new feature. Figure_edit_2 shows
setting attributes for a fictitious new river in Alaska. In the Digitizing menu under the Settings Options menu,
you can also activate
attribute values.
Figure 12.41: Enter Attribute Values Dialog after digitizing a new vector feature
With the
Move Feature(s)
12.5. Editing
119
Current Edits
This feature allows the digitization of multiple layers. Choose
digitization may be withdrawn for all selected layers. If you want to stop editing the selected layers,
for Selected Layer(s) is an easy way.
Cancel
The same functions are available for editing all layers of the project.
Node Tool
For shapefile-based layers as well as SpatialLite, PostgreSQL/PostGIS, MSSQL Spatial, and Oracle Spatial tables,
Node Tool
the
provides manipulation capabilities of feature vertices similar to CAD programs. It is possible to
simply select multiple vertices at once and to move, add or delete them altogether. The node tool also works with
on the fly projection turned on, and it supports the topological editing feature. This tool is, unlike other tools in
QGIS, persistent, so when some operation is done, selection stays active for this feature and tool. If the node tool
is unable to find any features, a warning will be displayed.
to a number
Basic operations
Start by activating the
of this feature.
Node Tool
and selecting a feature by clicking on it. Red boxes will appear at each vertex
Selecting vertices: You can select vertices by clicking on them one at a time, by clicking on an edge to
select the vertices at both ends, or by clicking and dragging a rectangle around some vertices. When a
vertex is selected, its color changes to blue. To add more vertices to the current selection, hold down the
Ctrl key while clicking. Hold down Ctrl or Shift when clicking to toggle the selection state of vertices
(vertices that are currently unselected will be selected as usual, but also vertices that are already selected
will become unselected).
Adding vertices: To add a vertex, simply double click near an edge and a new vertex will appear on the
edge near to the cursor. Note that the vertex will appear on the edge, not at the cursor position; therefore, it
should be moved if necessary.
Deleting vertices: After selecting vertices for deletion, click the Delete key. Note that you cannot use the
Node Tool
to delete a complete feature; QGIS will ensure it retains the minimum number of vertices for
the feature type you are working on. To delete a complete feature use the
120
Delete Selected
tool.
Moving vertices: Select all the vertices you want to move. Click on a selected vertex or edge and drag in
the direction you wish to move. All the selected vertices will move together. If snapping is enabled, the
whole selection can jump to the nearest vertex or line.
Each change made with the node tool is stored as a separate entry in the Undo dialog. Remember that all operations
support topological editing when this is turned on. On-the-fly projection is also supported, and the node tool
provides tooltips to identify a vertex by hovering the pointer over it.
Cutting, Copying and Pasting Features
Selected features can be cut, copied and pasted between layers in the same QGIS project, as long as destination
layers are set to
Toggle editing
beforehand.
Features can also be pasted to external applications as text. That is, the features are represented in CSV format,
with the geometry data appearing in the OGC Well-Known Text (WKT) format.
However, in this version of QGIS, text features from outside QGIS cannot be pasted to a layer within QGIS. When
would the copy and paste function come in handy? Well, it turns out that you can edit more than one layer at a
time and copy/paste features between layers. Why would we want to do this? Say we need to do some work on a
new layer but only need one or two lakes, not the 5,000 on our big_lakes layer. We can create a new layer and
use copy/paste to plop the needed lakes into it.
As an example, we will copy some lakes to a new layer:
1. Load the layer you want to copy from (source layer)
2. Load or create the layer you want to copy to (target layer)
3. Start editing for target layer
4. Make the source layer active by clicking on it in the legend
5. Use the
6. Click on the
Copy Features
Paste Features
tool
12.5. Editing
121
The
Cut Features
tool on the digitizing toolbar can also be used to delete features. This effectively deletes the
feature but also places it on a spatial clipboard. So, we cut the feature to delete. We could then use the
Paste Features
tool to put it back, giving us a one-level undo capability. Cut, copy, and paste work on the currently
selected features, meaning we can operate on more than one at a time.
Saving Edited Layers
When a layer is in editing mode, any changes remain in the memory of QGIS. Therefore, they are not committed/saved immediately to the data source or disk. If you want to save edits to the current layer but want to continue
Save Layer Edits
editing without leaving the editing mode, you can click the
Toggle editing
off with
(or quit QGIS for that matter), you are also asked if you want to save your changes or
discard them.
If the changes cannot be saved (e.g., disk full, or the attributes have values that are out of range), the QGIS
in-memory state is preserved. This allows you to adjust your edits and try again.
Tip: Data Integrity
It is always a good idea to back up your data source before you start editing. While the authors of QGIS have
made every effort to preserve the integrity of your data, we offer no warranty in this regard.
Purpose
Icon
Purpose
Undo
Redo
Rotate Feature(s)
Simplify Feature
Add Ring
Add Part
Fill Ring
Delete Ring
Delete Part
Reshape Features
Offset Curve
Split Features
Split Parts
122
If you enable the map tool with feature(s) selected, its (their) centroid appears and will be the rotation anchor
point. If you want to move the anchor point, hold the Ctrl button and click on the map to place it.
If you hold Shift before clicking on the map, the rotation will be done in 45 degree steps, which can be modified
afterwards in the user input widget.
Simplify Feature
Simplify Feature
The
tool allows you to reduce the number of vertices of a feature, as long as the geometry
doesnt change. With the tool you can also simplify multi-part features. First, drag a rectangle over the feature.
The vertices will be highlighted in red while the color of the feature will change and a dialog where you can define
a tolerance in map units or pixels will appear. QGIS calculates the amount of vertices that can be deleted while
maintaining the geometry using the given tolerance. The higher the tolerance is the more vertices can be deleted.
After gaining the statistics about the simplification just klick the OK button. The tolerance you used will be saved
when leaving a project or when leaving an edit session. So you can go back to the same tolerance the next time
when simplifying a feature.
Add Ring
Add Ring
You can create ring polygons using the
icon in the toolbar. This means that inside an existing area, it
is possible to digitize further polygons that will occur as a hole, so only the area between the boundaries of the
outer and inner polygons remains as a ring polygon.
Add Part
add part
polygons to a selected multipolygon. The new part polygon must be digitized outside the
You can
selected multi-polygon.
12.5. Editing
123
Fill Ring
You can use the
Fill Ring
function to add a ring to a polygon and add a new feature to the layer at the same time.
Add Ring
Add feature
function anymore.
Delete Ring
Delete Ring
The
tool allows you to delete ring polygons inside an existing area. This tool only works with
polygon layers. It doesnt change anything when it is used on the outer ring of the polygon. This tool can be used
on polygon and multi-polygon features. Before you select the vertices of a ring, adjust the vertex edit tolerance.
Delete Part
Delete Part
The
tool allows you to delete parts from multifeatures (e.g., to delete polygons from a multi-polygon
feature). It wont delete the last part of the feature; this last part will stay untouched. This tool works with all
multi-part geometries: point, line and polygon. Before you select the vertices of a part, adjust the vertex edit
tolerance.
Reshape Features
Reshape Features
icon on the toolbar. It replaces the line or
You can reshape line and polygon features using the
polygon part from the first to the last intersection with the original line. With polygons, this can sometimes lead
to unintended results. It is mainly useful to replace smaller parts of a polygon, not for major overhauls, and the
reshape line is not allowed to cross several polygon rings, as this would generate an invalid polygon.
For example, you can edit the boundary of a polygon with this tool. First, click in the inner area of the polygon
next to the point where you want to add a new vertex. Then, cross the boundary and add the vertices outside the
polygon. To finish, right-click in the inner area of the polygon. The tool will automatically add a node where the
new line crosses the border. It is also possible to remove part of the area from the polygon, starting the new line
outside the polygon, adding vertices inside, and ending the line outside the polygon with a right click.
Note: The reshape tool may alter the starting position of a polygon ring or a closed line. So, the point that is
represented twice will not be the same any more. This may not be a problem for most applications, but it is
something to consider.
Offset Curves
Offset Curve
The
tool creates parallel shifts of line layers. The tool can be applied to the edited layer (the
geometries are modified) or also to background layers (in which case it creates copies of the lines / rings and adds
them to the the edited layer). It is thus ideally suited for the creation of distance line layers. The displacement is
shown at the bottom left of the taskbar.
Offset Curve
tool. Then click
To create a shift of a line layer, you must first go into editing mode and activate the
on a feature to shift it. Move the mouse and click where wanted or enter the desired distance in the user input
widget. Your changes may then be saved with the|mActionSaveEdits|:sup:Save Layer Edits tool.
QGIS options dialog (Digitizing tab then Curve offset tools section) allows you to configure some parameters
like Join style, Quadrant segments, Miter limit.
124
Split Features
You can split features using the
split.
Split Features
icon on the toolbar. Just draw a line across the feature you want to
Split parts
In QGIS 2.0 it is now possible to split the parts of a multi part feature so that the number of parts is increased. Just
draw a line across the part you want to split using the
Split Parts
icon.
and attributes without merging their boundaries. First, select several features at once. Then press the
Merge Attributes of Selected Features
button. Now QGIS asks you which attributes are to be applied to all selected objects.
As a result, all selected objects have the same attribute entries.
Rotate Point Symbols
Rotate Point Symbols
allows you to change the rotation of point symbols in the map canvas. You must first define
a rotation column from the attribute table of the point layer in the Advanced menu of the Style menu of the Layer
Properties. Also, you will need to go into the SVG marker and choose Data defined properties .... Activate
Angle and choose rotation as field. Without these settings, the tool is inactive.
12.5. Editing
125
to the right of the database field. Then, add a name for the new layer, define the
layer type, and specify the coordinate reference system with [Specify CRS]. If desired, you can select
an autoincrementing primary key.
126
Create
127
To define an attribute table for the new SpatiaLite layer, add the names of the attribute columns you want to create
with the corresponding column type, and click on the [Add to attribute list] button. Once you are happy with the
attributes, click [OK]. QGIS will automatically add the new layer to the legend, and you can edit it in the same
way as described in section Digitizing an existing layer above.
Further management of SpatiaLite layers can be done with the DB Manager. See DB Manager Plugin.
Creating a new GPX layer
To create a new GPX file, you need to load the GPS plugin first. Plugins
Plugin Manager Dialog. Activate the
Open Attribute Table. It is also possible to right click on the layer and
Open Attribute Table from the drop-down menu, and to click on the
choose
in the Attributes toolbar.
This will open a new window that displays the feature attributes for the layer (figure_attributes_1). The number
of features and the number of selected features are shown in the attribute table title.
128
Field Calculator
allows you to define a subset of a table using a Function List like in the
(see Field Calculator). The query result can then be saved as a new vector layer. For example, if you want to find
regions that are boroughs from regions.shp of the QGIS sample data, you have to open the Fields and Values
menu and choose the field that you want to query. Double-click the field TYPE_2 and also [Load all unique
values] . From the list, choose and double-click Borough. In the Expression field, the following query appears:
"TYPE_2"
Borough
Here you can also use the Function list Recent (Selection) to make a selection that you used before. The
expression builder remembers the last 20 used expressions.
The matching rows will be selected, and the total number of matching rows will appear in the title bar of the
attribute table, as well as in the status bar of the main window. For searches that display only selected features on
the map, use the Query Builder described in section Query Builder.
To show selected records only, use Show Selected Features from the menu at the bottom left.
The field calculator bar allows you to make calculations on the selected rows only. For example, you can alter the
number of the ID field of the file:regions.shp with the expression
ID+5
as shown in figure_attributes_1 .
The other buttons at the top of the attribute table window provide the following functionality:
Save Edits
Unselect all
Invert selection
12.5. Editing
to edit single values and to enable functionalities described below (also with Ctrl+E)
129
New Column
Delete Column
for PostGIS layers and for OGR layers with GDAL version >= 1.6 (also with Ctrl+W)
for PostGIS layers and for OGR layers with GDAL version >= 1.9 (also with Ctrl+L)
(also with Ctrl+I)
Below these buttons is the Field Calculator bar, which allows calculations to be quickly applied attributes visible
in the table. This bar uses the same expressions as the
Field Calculator
menu
Save
tool and is then editable like any other layer attribute table.
As an example, you can use columns of the non-spatial table to define attribute values, or a range of values that are
allowed, to be added to a specific vector layer during digitizing. Have a closer look at the edit widget in section
Fields Menu to find out more.
130
Foreign keys
Then you get another point layer or table with information about airports that are located in the regions and you
also want to keep track of these. If you want to add them to the region layer, you need to create a one to many
relation using foreign keys, because there are several airports in most regions.
131
The
symbol will open a new dialog where you can select any existing airport which will then be assigned
The
to the current region. This may be handy if you created the airport on the wrong region by accident.
The
symbol will unlink the selected airport from the current region, leaving them unassigned (the
foreign key is set to NULL) effectively.
The two buttons to the right switch between table view and form view where the later lets you view all the
airports in their respective form.
If you work on the airport table, a new widget type is available which lets you embed the feature form of the
referenced region on the feature form of the airports. It can be used when you open the layer properties of the
airports table, switch to the Fields menu and change the widget type of the foreign key field fk_region to Relation
Reference.
If you look at the feature dialog now, you will see, that the form of the region is embedded inside the airports form
and will even have a combobox, which allows you to assign the current airport to another region.
12.6.1 Query
Open the Query Builder by opening the Layer Properties and going to the General menu. Under Feature subset,
click on the [Query Builder] button to open the Query builder. For example, if you have a regions layer with a
TYPE_2 field, you could select only regions that are borough in the Provider specific filter expression box of the
Query Builder. Figure_attributes_2 shows an example of the Query Builder populated with the regions.shp
layer from the QGIS sample data. The Fields, Values and Operators sections help you to construct the SQL-like
query.
The Fields list contains all attribute columns of the attribute table to be searched. To add an attribute column to
the SQL WHERE clause field, double click its name in the Fields list. Generally, you can use the various fields,
values and operators to construct the query, or you can just type it into the SQL box.
The Values list lists the values of an attribute table. To list all possible values of an attribute, select the attribute in
the Fields list and click the [all] button. To list the first 25 unique values of an attribute column, select the attribute
column in the Fields list and click the [Sample] button. To add a value to the SQL WHERE clause field, double
click its name in the Values list.
12.6. Query Builder
133
field calculator will cause the layer to be put in edit mode before the calculation is made.
The quick field calculation bar on top of the attribute table is only visible if the layer is editable.
In quick field calculation bar, you first select the existing field name then open the expression dialog to create your
expression or write it directly in the field then click on Update All button.
Field Calculator
dialog.
Create a new field checkbox to save the calculations into a new field.
4. Add length as Output field name and real as Output field type, and define Output field width to be 10
and Precision, 3.
135
5. Now double click on function $length in the Geometry group to add it into the Field calculator expression
box.
6. Complete the expression by typing / 1000 in the Field calculator expression box and click [Ok].
7. You can now find a new field length in the attribute table.
The available functions are listed in Expressions chapter.
The short example creates a function myfunc that will give you a function with two values. When using the
args=auto function argument the number of function arguments required will be calculated by the number of
arguments the function has been defined with in Python (minus 2 - feature, and parent).
This function then can be used with the following expression:
myfunc(test1, test2)
Your function will be implemented in the Custom Functions of the Expression tab after using the Run Script
button.
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CHAPTER 13
137
Once a raster layer is loaded in the map legend, you can click on the layer name with the right mouse button to
select and activate layer-specific features or to open a dialog to set raster properties for the layer.
Right mouse button menu for raster layers
Zoom to Layer Extent
Zoom to Best Scale (100%)
Stretch Using Current Extend
Show in Overview
Remove
Duplicate
Set Layer CRS
Set Project CRS from Layer
Save as ...
Properties
Rename
Copy Style
Add New Group
Expand all
Collapse all
Update Drawing Order
.
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139
Multiband color
With the multiband color renderer, three selected bands from the image will be rendered, each band representing
the red, green or blue component that will be used to create a color image. You can choose several Contrast
enhancement methods: No enhancement, Stretch to MinMax, Stretch and clip to MinMax and Clip to min
max.
Current extent.
140
Singleband gray
This renderer allows you to render a single band layer with a Color gradient: Black to white or White to black.
You can define a Min and a Max value by choosing the Extent first and then pressing [Load]. QGIS can
Estimate (faster) the Min and Max values of the bands or use the
Actual (slower) Accuracy.
141
This is a render option for single-band files, including a continous palette. You can also create individual color
maps for the single bands here. Three types of color interpolation are available:
use the identify feature tool. You can also click on the button
to load
In the right block, Generate new color map allows you to create newly categorized color maps. For the Classification mode
Classify. You can invert the colors of the color map by clicking the
Continous, QGIS creates classes automatically depending on the Min and Max. Defining Min/Max values
can be done with the help of the Load min/max values section. A lot of images have a few very low and high data.
These outliers can be eliminated using the
Cumulative count cut setting. The standard data range is set from
2% to 98% of the data values and can be adapted manually. With this setting, the gray character of the image can
disappear. With the scaling option
Min/max, QGIS creates a color table with all of the data included in the
142
original image (e.g., QGIS creates a color table with 256 values, given the fact that you have 8 bit bands). You can
Mean +/- standard deviation x
. Then, only the values within
also calculate your color table using the
the standard deviation or within multiple standard deviations are considered for the color table.
Color rendering
For every Band rendering, a Color rendering is possible.
You can also achieve special rendering effects for your raster file(s) using one of the blending modes (see The
Vector Properties Dialog).
Further settings can be made in modifiying the Brightness, the Saturation and the Contrast. You can also use a
Grayscale option, where you can choose between By lightness, By luminosity and By average. For one hue
in the color table, you can modify the Strength.
Resampling
The Resampling option makes its appearance when you zoom in and out of an image. Resampling modes can
optimize the appearance of the map. They calculate a new gray value matrix through a geometric transformation.
143
6. Enter the raster value in the From and To column (we use 0 here), and adjust the transparency to 20%.
7. Press the [Apply] button and have a look at the map.
You can repeat steps 5 and 6 to adjust more values with custom transparency.
As you can see, it is quite easy to set custom transparency, but it can be quite a lot of work. Therefore, you
Export to file
can use the button
to save your transparency list to a file. The button
transparency settings and applies them to the current raster layer.
loads your
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145
13.3.1 Examples
Convert elevation values from meters to feet
146
Using a mask
If you want to mask out parts of a raster say, for instance, because you are only interested in elevations above 0
meters you can use the following expression to create a mask and apply the result to a raster in one step.
("elevation@1" >= 0) * "elevation@1"
In other words, for every cell greater than or equal to 0, set its value to 1. Otherwise set it to 0. This creates the
mask on the fly.
If you want to classify a raster say, for instance into two elevation classes, you can use the following expression
to create a raster with two values 1 and 2 in one step.
("elevation@1" < 50) * 1 + ("elevation@1" >= 50) * 2
In other words, for every cell less than 50 set its value to 1. For every cell greater than or equal 50 set its value to
2.
.
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CHAPTER 14
WMS layers can be added quite simply, as long as you know the URL to access the WMS server, you have a
serviceable connection to that server, and the server understands HTTP as the data transport mechanism.
Overview of WMTS Support
QGIS can also act as a WMTS client. WMTS is an OGC standard for distributing tile sets of geospatial data.
This is a faster and more efficient way of distributing data than WMS because with WMTS, the tile sets are pregenerated, and the client only requests the transmission of the tiles, not their production. A WMS request typically
involves both the generation and transmission of the data. A well-known example of a non-OGC standard for
viewing tiled geospatial data is Google Maps.
In order to display the data at a variety of scales close to what the user might want, the WMTS tile sets are
produced at several different scale levels and are made available for the GIS client to request them.
This diagram illustrates the concept of tile sets:
For testing the topo2 layer in this WMTS works nicely. Adding this string indicates that a WMTS web service is
to be used instead of a WMS service.
2. The RESTful WMTS service takes a different form, a straightforward URL. The format recommended by
the OGC is:
{WMTSBaseURL}/1.0.0/WMTSCapabilities.xml
This format helps you to recognize that it is a RESTful address. A RESTful WMTS is accessed in QGIS by simply
adding its address in the WMS setup in the URL field of the form. An example of this type of address for the case
of an Austrian basemap is http://maps.wien.gv.at/basemap/1.0.0/WMTSCapabilities.xml.
Note: You can still find some old services called WMS-C. These services are quite similar to WMTS (i.e., same
purpose but working a little bit differently). You can manage them the same as you do WMTS services. Just
add ?tiled=true at the end of the url. See http://wiki.osgeo.org/wiki/Tile_Map_Service_Specification for more
information about this specification.
150
When you read WMTS, you can often think WMS-C also.
The dialog Add Layer(s) from a Server for adding layers from the WMS server appears. You can add some servers
to play with by clicking the [Add default servers] button. This will add two WMS demo servers for you to use:
the WMS servers of the DM Solutions Group and Lizardtech. To define a new WMS server in the Layers tab, select
the [New] button. Then enter the parameters to connect to your desired WMS server, as listed in table_OGC_1:
Name
A name for this connection. This name will be used in the Server Connections drop-down
box so that you can distinguish it from other WMS servers.
URL
URL of the server providing the data. This must be a resolvable host name the same
format as you would use to open a telnet connection or ping a host.
Username
Username to access a secured WMS server. This parameter is optional.
Password
Password for a basic authenticated WMS server. This parameter is optional.
Ignore GetMap
URI
Ignore GetMap URI reported in capabilities. Use given URI from URL field above.
Ignore
GetFeatureInfo
URI
Ignore GetFeatureInfo URI reported in capabilities. Use given URI from URL field
above.
Use proxy for web access. Make sure that you select the correct
drop-down menu.
Once the new WMS server connection has been created, it will be preserved for future QGIS sessions.
Tip: On WMS Server URLs
Be sure, when entering the WMS server URL, that you have the base URL only. For example, you shouldnt have
fragments such as request=GetCapabilities or version=1.0.0 in your URL.
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Figure 14.2: Dialog for adding a WMS server, showing its available layers
152
Use JPEG if you expect the WMS data to be photographic in nature and/or you dont mind some loss in picture
quality. This trade-off typically reduces by five times the data transfer requirement compared with PNG.
Use PNG if you want precise representations of the original data and you dont mind the increased data transfer
requirements.
Options
The Options area of the dialog provides a text field where you can add a Layer name for the WMS layer. This
name will appear in the legend after loading the layer.
Below the layer name, you can define Tile size if you want to set tile sizes (e.g., 256x256) to split up the WMS
request into multiple requests.
The Feature limit for GetFeatureInfo defines what features from the server to query.
If you select a WMS from the list, a field with the default projection provided by the mapserver appears. If the
[Change...] button is active, you can click on it and change the default projection of the WMS to another CRS
provided by the WMS server.
Use contextual WMS-Legend if the WMS Server supports this feature. Then only the
Finally you can activate
relevant legend for your current map view extent will be shown and thus will not include legend items for things
you cant see in the current map.
Layer Order
The Layer Order tab lists the selected layers available from the current connected WMS server. You may notice
that some layers are expandable; this means that the layer can be displayed in a choice of image styles.
You can select several layers at once, but only one image style per layer. When several layers are selected, they
will be combined at the WMS server and transmitted to QGIS in one go.
Tip: WMS Layer Ordering
WMS layers rendered by a server are overlaid in the order listed in the Layers section, from top to bottom of the
list. If you want to change the overlay order, you can use the Layer Order tab.
Transparency
In this version of QGIS, the Global transparency setting from the Layer Properties is hard coded to be always on,
where available.
Tip: WMS Layer Transparency
The availability of WMS image transparency depends on the image encoding used: PNG and GIF support transparency, whilst JPEG leaves it unsupported.
Coordinate Reference System
A coordinate reference system (CRS) is the OGC terminology for a QGIS projection.
Each WMS layer can be presented in multiple CRSs, depending on the capability of the WMS server.
To choose a CRS, select [Change...] and a dialog similar to Figure Projection 3 in Working with Projections will
appear. The main difference with the WMS version of the dialog is that only those CRSs supported by the WMS
server will be shown.
Server search
Within QGIS, you can search for WMS servers. Figure_OGC_2 shows the Server Search tab with the Add Layer(s)
from a Server dialog.
As you can see, it is possible to enter a search string in the text field and hit the [Search] button. After a short
while, the search result will be populated into the list below the text field. Browse the result list and inspect your
153
Figure 14.3: Dialog for searching WMS servers after some keywords
search results within the table. To visualize the results, select a table entry, press the [Add selected row to WMS
list] button and change back to the Layers tab. QGIS has automatically updated your server list, and the selected
search result is already enabled in the list of saved WMS servers in the Layers tab. You only need to request the list
of layers by clicking the [Connect] button. This option is quite handy when you want to search maps by specific
keywords.
Basically, this option is a front end to the API of http://geopole.org.
Tilesets
When using WMTS (Cached WMS) services like
http://opencache.statkart.no/gatekeeper/gk/gk.open_wmts?\
service=WMTS&request=GetCapabilities
you are able to browse through the Tilesets tab given by the server. Additional information like tile size, formats
and supported CRS are listed in this table. In combination with this feature, you can use the tile scale slider by
selecting Settings Panels (KDE and Windows) or View Panels (Gnome and MacOSX), then choosing Tile
scale. This gives you the available scales from the tile server with a nice slider docked in.
Using the Identify Tool
Once you have added a WMS server, and if any layer from a WMS server is queryable, you can then use the
Identify
tool to select a pixel on the map canvas. A query is made to the WMS server for each selection made. The
results of the query are returned in plain text. The formatting of this text is dependent on the particular WMS
server used. Format selection
If multiple output formats are supported by the server, a combo box with supported formats is automatically added
to the identify results dialog and the selected format may be stored in the project for the layer. GML format
support
154
Identify
The
tool supports WMS server response (GetFeatureInfo) in GML format (it is called Feature in the
QGIS GUI in this context). If Feature format is supported by the server and selected, results of the Identify tool
are vector features, as from a regular vector layer. When a single feature is selected in the tree, it is highlighted
in the map and it can be copied to the clipboard and pasted to another vector layer. See the example setup of the
UMN Mapserver below to support GetFeatureInfo in GML format.
# in layer METADATA add which fields should be included and define geometry (example):
"gml_include_items"
"ows_geometries"
"ows_mygeom_type"
"all"
"mygeom"
"polygon"
Viewing Properties
Once you have added a WMS server, you can view its properties by right-clicking on it in the legend and selecting
Properties. Metadata Tab
The tab Metadata displays a wealth of information about the WMS server, generally collected from the capabilities
statement returned from that server. Many definitions can be gleaned by reading the WMS standards (see OPENGEOSPATIAL-CONSORTIUM in Literature and Web References), but here are a few handy definitions:
Server Properties
WMS Version The WMS version supported by the server.
Image Formats The list of MIME-types the server can respond with when drawing the map.
QGIS supports whatever formats the underlying Qt libraries were built with, which is typically at least
image/png and image/jpeg.
Identity Formats The list of MIME-types the server can respond with when you use the Identify
tool. Currently, QGIS supports the text-plain type.
Layer Properties
Selected Whether or not this layer was selected when its server was added to this project.
Visible Whether or not this layer is selected as visible in the legend (not yet used in this version of
QGIS).
Can Identify Whether or not this layer will return any results when the Identify tool is used on it.
Can be Transparent Whether or not this layer can be rendered with transparency. This version of
QGIS will always use transparency if this is Yes and the image encoding supports transparency.
Can Zoom In Whether or not this layer can be zoomed in by the server. This version of QGIS
assumes all WMS layers have this set to Yes. Deficient layers may be rendered strangely.
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Cascade Count WMS servers can act as a proxy to other WMS servers to get the raster data for a
layer. This entry shows how many times the request for this layer is forwarded to peer WMS servers
for a result.
Fixed Width, Fixed Height Whether or not this layer has fixed source pixel dimensions. This
version of QGIS assumes all WMS layers have this set to nothing. Deficient layers may be rendered
strangely.
WGS 84 Bounding Box The bounding box of the layer, in WGS 84 coordinates. Some WMS
servers do not set this correctly (e.g., UTM coordinates are used instead). If this is the case, then
the initial view of this layer may be rendered with a very zoomed-out appearance by QGIS. The
WMS webmaster should be informed of this error, which they may know as the WMS XML elements
LatLonBoundingBox, EX_GeographicBoundingBox or the CRS:84 BoundingBox.
Available in CRS The projections that this layer can be rendered in by the WMS server. These are
listed in the WMS-native format.
Available in style The image styles that this layer can be rendered in by the WMS server.
Show WMS legend graphic in table of contents and composer
The QGIS WMS data provider is able to display a legend graphic in the table of contents layer list and in the
map composer. The WMS legend will be shown only if the WMS server has GetLegendGraphic capability and
the layer has getCapability url specified, so you additionally have to select a styling for the layer.
If a legendGraphic is available, it is shown below the layer. It is little and you have to click on it to open it in real
dimension (due to QgsLegendInterface architectural limitation). Clicking on the layers legend will open a frame
with the legend at full resolution.
In the print composer, the legend will be integrated at its original (dowloaded) dimension. Resolution of the
legend graphic can be set in the item properties under Legend -> WMS LegendGraphic to match your printing
requirements
The legend will display contextual information based on your current scale. The WMS legend will be shown only
if the WMS server has GetLegendGraphic capability and the layer has getCapability url specified, so you have to
select a styling.
WMS Client Limitations
Not all possible WMS client functionality had been included in this version of QGIS. Some of the more noteworthy
exceptions follow.
Editing WMS Layer Settings
Add WMS layer
procedure, there is no way to change the settings. A work-around is
Once youve completed the
to delete the layer completely and start again.
156
Since Version 1.7.0, QGIS has its own implementation of a WMS 1.3.0 Mapserver. Read more about this in
chapter QGIS as OGC Data Server.
tool on the Layers toolbar. The Add WFS Layer from a Server dialog appears.
2. Click on [New].
3. Enter DM Solutions as name.
4. Enter the URL (see above).
5. Click [OK].
6. Choose DM Solutions from the Server Connections
drop-down list.
7. Click [Connect].
8. Wait for the list of layers to be populated.
9. Select the Parks layer in the list.
10. Click [Apply] to add the layer to the map.
Note that any proxy settings you may have set in your preferences are also recognized.
Youll notice the download progress is visualized in the lower left of the QGIS main window. Once the layer is
loaded, you can identify and select a province or two and view the attribute table.
Only WFS 1.0.0 is supported. At this time, there have not been many tests against WFS versions implemented in
other WFS servers. If you encounter problems with any other WFS server, please do not hesitate to contact the
development team. Please refer to section Help and Support for further information about the mailing lists.
Tip: Finding WFS Servers
You can find additional WFS servers by using Google or your favorite search engine. There are a number of lists
with public URLs, some of them maintained and some not.
14.1. QGIS as OGC Data Client
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158
$ cat /etc/apt/sources.list.d/debian-gis.list
deb http://qgis.org/debian trusty main
deb-src http://qgis.org/debian trusty main
$ # Add keys
$ sudo gpg --recv-key DD45F6C3
$ sudo gpg --export --armor DD45F6C3 | sudo apt-key add $ # Update package list
$ sudo apt-get update && sudo apt-get upgrade
Installation of a HelloWorld example plugin for testing the servers. You create a directory to hold server plugins.
This will be specified in the virtual host configuration and passed on to the server through an environment variable:
$
$
$
$
$
$
$
Install the Apache server in a separate virtual host listening on port 80. Enable the rewrite module to pass HTTP
BASIC auth headers:
$ sudo a2enmod rewrite
$ cat /etc/apache2/conf-available/qgis-server-port.conf
Listen 80
$ sudo a2enconf qgis-server-port
159
You
can
have
a
look
at
the
default
GetCpabilities
of
the
QGIS
server
at:
http://localhost/cgi-bin/qgis_mapserv.fcgi?SERVICE=WMS&VERSION=1.3.0&REQUEST=GetCapabili
Tip: If you work with a feature that has many nodes then modyfying and adding a new feature will fail. In this
case it is possible to insert the following code into the 001-qgis-server.conf file:
<IfModule mod_fcgid.c>
FcgidMaxRequestLen 26214400
FcgidConnectTimeout 60
</IfModule>
click the
button below. This opens the Select restricted layers and groups dialog, which allows you to choose
the layers and groups that you dont want to be published. Use the Shift or Ctrl key if you want to select
multiple entries at once.
160
161
You can receive requested GetFeatureInfo as plain text, XML and GML. Default is XML, text or GML format
depends the output format choosen for the GetFeatureInfo request.
Add geometry to feature response. This will include in the GetFeatureInfo response
If you wish, you can check
the geometries of the features in a text format. If you want QGIS Server to advertise specific request URLs in the
WMS GetCapabilities response, enter the corresponding URL in the Advertised URL field. Furthermore, you can
restrict the maximum size of the maps returned by the GetMap request by entering the maximum width and height
into the respective fields under Maximums for GetMap request.
If one of your layers uses the Map Tip display (i.e. to show text using expressions) this will be listed inside the
GetFeatureInfo output. If the layer uses a Value Map for one of his attributes, also this information will be shown
in the GetFeatureInfo output.
QGIS support the following request for WMS service:
GetCapabilities
GetMap
GetFeatureInfo
GetLegendGraphic (SLD profile)
DescribeLayer (SLD profile)
GetStyles (custom QGIS profile)
WFS capabilities
In the WFS capabilities area, you can select the layers that you want to publish as WFS, and specify if they
will allow the update, insert and delete operations. If you enter a URL in the Advertised URL field of the WFS
capabilities section, QGIS Server will advertise this specific URL in the WFS GetCapabilities response.
QGIS support the following request for WFS service:
GetCapabilities
DescribeFeatureType
GetFeature
Transaction
WCS capabilities
In the WCS capabilities area, you can select the layers that you want to publish as WCS. If you enter a URL in the
Advertised URL field of the WCS capabilities section, QGIS Server will advertise this specific URL in the WCS
GetCapabilities response.
Now, save the session in a project file alaska.qgs. To provide the project as a WMS/WFS, we create a new
folder /usr/lib/cgi-bin/project with admin privileges and add the project file alaska.qgs and a
copy of the qgis_mapserv.fcgi file - thats all.
Now we test our project WMS, WFS and WCS. Add the WMS, WFS and WCS as described in Loading
WMS/WMTS Layers, WFS and WFS-T Client and WCS Client to QGIS and load the data. The URL is:
http://localhost/cgi-bin/project/qgis_mapserv.fcgi
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DPI parameter: The DPI parameter can be used to specify the requested output resolution.
Example:
http://localhost/cgi-bin/qgis_mapserv.fcgi?REQUEST=GetMap&DPI=300&...
OPACITIES parameter: Opacity can be set on layer or group level. Allowed values range from 0 (fully
transparent) to 255 (fully opaque).
Example:
http://localhost/cgi-bin/qgis_mapserv.fcgi?\
REQUEST=GetMap&LAYERS=mylayer1,mylayer2&OPACITIES=125,200&...
163
Note
When using Fcgid module use FcgidInitialEnv instead of SetEnv!
Server logging is enabled also if executable is compiled in release mode.
Environment variables
QGIS_OPTIONS_PATH: The variable specifies path to directory with settings.
It works
the same ways as QGIS application optionspath option.
It is looking for settings file in
<QGIS_OPTIONS_PATH>/QGIS/QGIS2.ini. For exaple, to set QGIS server on Apache to use
/path/to/config/QGIS/QGIS2.ini settings file, add to Apache config:
SetEnv QGIS_OPTIONS_PATH "/path/to/config/"
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CHAPTER 15
GPS Tools checkbox. When this plugin is loaded, a button with a small handheld GPS
Dialog. Activate the
device will show up in the toolbar and in Layer Create Layer :
GPS Tools
For working with GPS data, we provide an example GPX file available in the QGIS sample dataset:
qgis_sample_data/gps/national_monuments.gpx. See section Sample Data for more information
about the sample data.
1. Select Vector GPS GPS Tools or click the
tab (see figure_GPS_1).
GPS Tools
165
15.1.3 GPSBabel
Since QGIS uses GPX files, you need a way to convert other GPS file formats to GPX. This can be done for many
formats using the free program GPSBabel, which is available at http://www.gpsbabel.org. This program can also
transfer GPS data between your computer and a GPS device. QGIS uses GPSBabel to do these things, so it is
recommended that you install it. However, if you just want to load GPS data from GPX files you will not need it.
Version 1.2.3 of GPSBabel is known to work with QGIS, but you should be able to use later versions without any
problems.
166
167
as described at
to create a file
After that is necessary to be sure that the garmin_gps kernel module is not loaded
rmmod garmin_gps
and then you can use the GPS Tools. Unfortunately there seems to be a bug #7182 and usually QGIS freezes
several times before the operation work fine.
BTGP-38KM datalogger (only Bluetooth)
MS Windows
The already referred bug does not allow to download the data from within QGIS, so it is needed to use GPSBabel
from the command line or using its interface. The working command is
gpsbabel -t -i skytraq,baud=9600,initbaud=9600 -f COM9 -o gpx -F C:/GPX/aaa.gpx
Ubuntu/Mint GNU/Linux
Use same command (or settings if you use GPSBabel GUI) as in Windows. On Linux it maybe somehow common
to get a message like
skytraq: Too many read errors on serial port
it is just a matter to turn off and on the datalogger and try again.
BlueMax GPS-4044 datalogger (both BT and USB)
MS Windows
Note: It needs to install its drivers before using it on Windows 7. See in the manufacturer site for the proper
download.
Downloading with GPSBabel, both with USB and BT returns always an error like
gpsbabel -t -i mtk -f COM12 -o gpx -F C:/temp/test.gpx
mtk_logger: Cant create temporary file data.bin
Error running gpsbabel: Process exited unsucessfully with code 1
168
Ubuntu/Mint GNU/Linux
With USB
After having connected the cable use the dmesg command to understand what port is being used, for example
/dev/ttyACM3. Then as usual use GPSBabel from the CLI or GUI
gpsbabel -t -i mtk -f /dev/ttyACM3 -o gpx -F /home/user/bluemax.gpx
With Bluetooth
Use Blueman Device Manager to pair the device and make it available through a system port, then run GPSBabel
gpsbabel -t -i mtk -f /dev/rfcomm0 -o gpx -F /home/user/bluemax_bt.gpx
GPS position coordinates and an interface for manually entering vertices and features
With a plugged-in GPS receiver (has to be supported by your operating system), a simple click on [Connect] connects the GPS to QGIS. A second click (now on [Disconnect]) disconnects the GPS receiver from your computer.
For GNU/Linux, gpsd support is integrated to support connection to most GPS receivers. Therefore, you first have
to configure gpsd properly to connect QGIS to it.
Warning: If you want to record your position to the canvas, you have to create a new vector layer first and
switch it to editable status to be able to record your track.
169
170
Autodetect
Internal
Serial device
gpsd (selecting the Host, Port and Device your GPS is connected to)
Activating
Map centering allows you to decide in which way the canvas will be updated. This includes
always, when leaving, if your recorded coordinates start to move out of the canvas, or never, to keep map
extent.
Finally, you can activate
logged.
Log file and define a path and a file where log messages about the GPS tracking are
Position
171
172
Now open GPS information panel and switch to GPS options screen. Select the COM port assigned to the GPS
connection and click the [Connect]. After a while a cursor indicating your position should appear.
If QGIS cant receive GPS data, then you should restart your GPS device, wait 5-10 seconds then try to connect
again. Usually this solution work. If you receive again a connection error make sure you dont have another
Bluetooth receiver near you, paired with the same GPS unit.
And then connect the unit. Then check with dmesg the actual device being used bu the unit, for example
/dev/ttyUSB0. Now you can launch gpsd
gpsd /dev/ttyUSB0
or without it, by connecting the QGIS live tracking tool directly to the device (for example /dev/ttyACM3).
For Bluetooth
The live tracking works both with GPSD
173
gpsd /dev/rfcomm0
or without it, by connecting the QGIS live tracking tool directly to the device (for example /dev/rfcomm0).
.
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CHAPTER 16
The GRASS plugin provides access to GRASS GIS databases and functionalities (see GRASS-PROJECT in Literature and Web References). This includes visualizing GRASS raster and vector layers, digitizing vector layers,
editing vector attributes, creating new vector layers and analysing GRASS 2-D and 3-D data with more than 400
GRASS modules.
In this section, well introduce the plugin functionalities and give some examples of managing and working with
GRASS data. The following main features are provided with the toolbar menu when you start the GRASS plugin,
as described in section sec_starting_grass:
Open mapset
New mapset
Close mapset
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Manage
Open mapset
5. For Gisdbase, browse and select or enter the path to the newly created folder grassdata.
6. You should now be able to select the LOCATION
demo.
7. Click [OK]. Notice that some previously disabled tools in the GRASS toolbar are now enabled.
Add GRASS raster layer
8. Click on
, choose the map name gtopo30 and click [OK]. The elevation layer will
be visualized.
Add GRASS vector layer
9. Click on
, choose the map name alaska and click [OK]. The Alaska boundary
vector layer will be overlayed on top of the gtopo30 map. You can now adapt the layer properties as
described in chapter The Vector Properties Dialog (e.g., change opacity, fill and outline color).
10. Also load the other two vector layers, rivers and airports, and adapt their properties.
As you see, it is very simple to load GRASS raster and vector layers in QGIS. See the following sections for
editing GRASS data and creating a new LOCATION. More sample GRASS LOCATIONs are available at the
GRASS website at http://grass.osgeo.org/download/sample-data/.
Tip: GRASS Data Loading
If you have problems loading data or QGIS terminates abnormally, check to make sure you have loaded the
GRASS plugin properly as described in section Starting the GRASS plugin.
New mapset
4. Select an existing GRASS database (GISDBASE) folder grassdata, or create one for the new
LOCATION using a file manager on your computer. Then click [Next].
5. We can use this wizard to create a new MAPSET within an existing LOCATION (see section Adding
a new MAPSET) or to create a new LOCATION altogether. Select
Create new location (see figure_grass_location_2).
6. Enter a name for the LOCATION we used alaska and click [Next].
7. Define the projection by clicking on the radio button
8. We are using Albers Equal Area Alaska (feet) projection. Since we happen to know that it is represented
by the EPSG ID 2964, we enter it in the search box. (Note: If you want to repeat this process for another
LOCATION and projection and havent memorized the EPSG ID, click on the
right-hand corner of the status bar (see section Working with Projections)).
CRS Status
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16. Notice that some of the tools in the GRASS toolbar that were disabled are now enabled.
New mapset
3. Select the GRASS database (GISDBASE) folder grassdata with the LOCATION alaska, where we
want to add a further MAPSET called test.
4. Click [Next].
5. We can use this wizard to create a new MAPSET within an existing LOCATION or to create a new
LOCATION altogether. Click on the radio button
Select location (see figure_grass_location_2) and
click [Next].
6. Enter the name text for the new MAPSET. Below in the wizard, you see a list of existing MAPSETs and
corresponding owners.
7. Click [Next], check out the summary to make sure its all correct and click [Finish].
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Open MAPSET
3. Select as GRASS database the folder grassdata in the QGIS Alaska dataset, as LOCATION alaska, as
MAPSET demo and click [OK].
4. Now click the
appears.
icon. The GRASS Toolbox (see section The GRASS Toolbox) dialog
5. To import the raster map landcover.img, click the module r.in.gdal in the Modules Tree tab. This
GRASS module allows you to import GDAL-supported raster files into a GRASS LOCATION. The module
dialog for r.in.gdal appears.
6. Browse to the folder raster in the QGIS Alaska dataset and select the file landcover.img.
7. As raster output name, define landcover_grass and click [Run]. In the Output tab, you
see the currently running GRASS command r.in.gdal -o input=/path/to/landcover.img
output=landcover_grass.
8. When it says Succesfully finished, click [View output]. The landcover_grass raster layer is now
imported into GRASS and will be visualized in the QGIS canvas.
9. To import the vector GML file lakes.gml, click the module v.in.ogr in the Modules Tree tab. This
GRASS module allows you to import OGR-supported vector files into a GRASS LOCATION. The module
dialog for v.in.ogr appears.
10. Browse to the folder gml in the QGIS Alaska dataset and select the file lakes.gml as OGR file.
11. As vector output name, define lakes_grass and click [Run]. You dont have to care about the other
options in this example. In the Output tab you see the currently running GRASS command v.in.ogr -o
dsn=/path/to/lakes.gml output=lakes\_grass.
12. When it says Succesfully finished, click [View output]. The lakes_grass vector layer is now imported
into GRASS and will be visualized in the QGIS canvas.
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Attributes in database tables are linked to geometry elements using a category value.
Category (key, ID) is an integer attached to geometry primitives, and it is used as the link to one key column in
the database table.
Tip: Learning the GRASS Vector Model
The best way to learn the GRASS vector model and its capabilities is to download one of the many GRASS
tutorials where the vector model is described more deeply. See http://grass.osgeo.org/documentation/manuals/ for
more information, books and tutorials in several languages.
In GRASS, it is possible to organize all sorts of geometry types (point, line and area) in one layer, because GRASS
uses a topological vector model, so you dont need to select the geometry type when creating a new GRASS vector.
This is different from shapefile creation with QGIS, because shapefiles use the Simple Feature vector model (see
section Creating new Vector layers).
Tip: Creating an attribute table for a new GRASS vector layer
If you want to assign attributes to your digitized geometry features, make sure to create an attribute table with
columns before you start digitizing (see figure_grass_digitizing_5).
by
the
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Icon
Tool
Purpose
New Point
New Line
New
Boundary
New
Centroid
Move vertex
Move one vertex of existing line or boundary and identify new position
Add vertex
Delete vertex
Delete vertex from existing line (confirm selected vertex by another click)
Move
element
Move selected boundary, line, point or centroid and click on new position
Split line
Delete
element
Delete existing boundary, line, point or centroid (confirm selected element by another
click)
Edit
attributes
Edit attributes of selected element (note that one element can represent more features,
see above)
Close
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Field (layer) - Each geometry element can be connected with several attribute tables using different GRASS
geometry layers. The default layer number is 1.
Tip: Creating an additional GRASS layer with |qg|
If you would like to add more layers to your dataset, just add a new number in the Field (layer) entry box and
press return. In the Table tab, you can create your new table connected to your new layer.
Settings Tab
The Settings tab allows you to set the snapping in screen pixels. The threshold defines at what distance new points
or line ends are snapped to existing nodes. This helps to prevent gaps or dangles between boundaries. The default
is set to 10 pixels.
The GRASS module g.region provides a lot more parameters to define an appropriate region extent and resolution for your raster analysis. You can use these parameters with the GRASS Toolbox, described in section The
GRASS Toolbox.
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Open mapset
button.
In the list of tool categories, double-click Raster Surface Management Generate vector contour lines.
Now a single click on the tool r.contour will open the tool dialog as explained above (see Working with
GRASS modules). The gtopo30 raster should appear as the Name of input raster.
Type into the Increment between Contour levels
intervals of 100 meters.)
Type into the Name for output vector map the name ctour_100.
Click [Run] to start the process. Wait for several moments until the message Successfully finished
appears in the output window. Then click [View Output] and [Close].
Since this is a large region, it will take a while to display. After it finishes rendering, you can open the layer
properties window to change the line color so that the contours appear clearly over the elevation raster, as in The
Vector Properties Dialog.
Next, zoom in to a small, mountainous area in the center of Alaska. Zooming in close, you will notice that the
contours have sharp corners. GRASS offers the v.generalize tool to slightly alter vector maps while keeping
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their overall shape. The tool uses several different algorithms with different purposes. Some of the algorithms
(i.e., Douglas Peuker and Vertex Reduction) simplify the line by removing some of the vertices. The resulting
vector will load faster. This process is useful when you have a highly detailed vector, but you are creating a very
small-scale map, so the detail is unnecessary.
Tip: The simplify tool
Note that the QGIS fTools plugin has a Simplify geometries tool that works just like the GRASS v.generalize
Douglas-Peuker algorithm.
However, the purpose of this example is different. The contour lines created by r.contour have sharp angles
that should be smoothed. Among the v.generalize algorithms, there is Chaikens, which does just that (also
Hermite splines). Be aware that these algorithms can add additional vertices to the vector, causing it to load even
more slowly.
Open the GRASS Toolbox and double-click the categories Vector Develop map Generalization, then
click on the v.generalize module to open its options window.
Check that the ctour_100 vector appears as the Name of input vector.
From the list of algorithms, choose Chaikens. Leave all other options at their default, and scroll down to
the last row to enter in the field Name for output vector map ctour_100_smooth, and click [Run].
The process takes several moments. Once Successfully finished appears in the output windows,
click [View output] and then [Close].
You may change the color of the vector to display it clearly on the raster background and to contrast with
the original contour lines. You will notice that the new contour lines have smoother corners than the original
while staying faithful to the original overall shape.
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270 to 315.
Enter gtopo30_shade for the new hillshade raster, and click [Run].
When the process completes, add the hillshade raster to the map. You should see it displayed in grayscale.
To view both the hillshading and the colors of the gtopo30 together, move the hillshade map below the
gtopo30 map in the table of contents, then open the Properties window of gtopo30, switch to the
Transparency tab and set its transparency level to about 25%.
You should now have the gtopo30 elevation with its colormap and transparency setting displayed above the
grayscale hillshade map. In order to see the visual effects of the hillshading, turn off the gtopo30_shade map,
then turn it back on.
Using the GRASS shell
The GRASS plugin in QGIS is designed for users who are new to GRASS and not familiar with all the modules
and options. As such, some modules in the Toolbox do not show all the options available, and some modules do
not appear at all. The GRASS shell (or console) gives the user access to those additional GRASS modules that
do not appear in the Toolbox tree, and also to some additional options to the modules that are in the Toolbox with
the simplest default parameters. This example demonstrates the use of an additional option in the r.shaded.relief
module that was shown above.
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The module r.shaded.relief can take a parameter zmult, which multiplies the elevation values relative to the X-Y
coordinate units so that the hillshade effect is even more pronounced.
Load the gtopo30 elevation raster as above, then start the GRASS Toolbox and click on the
GRASS shell.
In the shell window, type the command r.shaded.relief map=gtopo30
shade=gtopo30_shade2 azimuth=315 zmult=3 and press [Enter].
After the process finishes, shift to the Browse tab and double-click on the new gtopo30_shade2 raster
to display it in QGIS.
As explained above, move the shaded relief raster below the gtopo30 raster in the table of contents, then
check the transparency of the colored gtopo30 layer. You should see that the 3-D effect stands out more
strongly compared with the first shaded relief map.
Figure 16.14: Displaying shaded relief created with the GRASS module r.shaded.relief
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The
Rename selected map and
Delete selected map only work with maps inside your currently selected
MAPSET. All other tools also work with raster and vector layers in another MAPSET.
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The parser reads this definition and creates a new tab inside the Toolbox when you select the module. A more
detailed description for adding new modules, changing a modules group, etc., can be found on the QGIS wiki at
http://hub.qgis.org/projects/quantum-gis/wiki/Adding_New_Tools_to_the_GRASS_Toolbox.
.
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CHAPTER 17
17.1 Introduction
This chapter introduces the QGIS processing framework, a geoprocessing environment that can be used to call
native and third-party algorithms from QGIS, making your spatial analysis tasks more productive and easy to
accomplish.
In the following sections, we will review how to use the graphical elements of this framework and make the most
out of each one of them.
There are four basic elements in the framework GUI, which are used to run algorithms for different purposes.
Choosing one tool or another will depend on the kind of analysis that is to be performed and the particular
characteristics of each user and project. All of them (except for the batch processing interface, which is called
from the toolbox, as we will see) can be accessed from the Processing menu item. (You will see more than four
entries. The remaining ones are not used to execute algorithms and will be explained later in this chapter.)
The toolbox. The main element of the GUI, it is used to execute a single algorithm or run a batch process
based on that algorithm.
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The graphical modeler. Several algorithms can be combined graphically using the modeler to define a
workflow, creating a single process that involves several subprocesses.
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In the advanced view, each group represents a so-called algorithm provider, which is a set of algorithms coming
from the same source, for instance, from a third-party application with geoprocessing capabilities. Some of
these groups represent algorithms from third-party applications like SAGA, GRASS or R, while others contain
algorithms directly coded as part of the processing plugin, not relying on any additional software.
This view is recommended to those users who have a certain knowledge of the applications that are backing the
algorithms, since they will be shown with their original names and groups.
Also, some additional algorithms are available only in the advanced view, such as LiDAR tools and scripts based
on the R statistical computing software, among others. Independent QGIS plugins that add new algorithms to the
toolbox will only be shown in the advanced view.
In particular, the simplified view contains algorithms from the following providers:
GRASS
SAGA
OTB
Native QGIS algorithms
In the case of running QGIS under Windows, these algorithms are fully-functional in a fresh installation of QGIS,
and they can be run without requiring any additional installation. Also, running them requires no prior knowledge
of the external applications they use, making them more accesible for first-time users.
If you want to use an algorithm not provided by any of the above providers, switch to the advanced mode by
selecting the corresponding option at the bottom of the toolbox.
To execute an algorithm, just double-click on its name in the toolbox.
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ments of the algorithm to be executed, and is created automatically based on those requirements. On the left side,
the name of the parameter is shown. On the right side, the value of the parameter can be set.
Although the number and type of parameters depend on the characteristics of the algorithm, the structure is similar
for all of them. The parameters found in the table can be of one of the following types.
A raster layer, to select from a list of all such layers available (currently opened) in QGIS. The selector
contains as well a button on its right-hand side, to let you select filenames that represent layers currently not
loaded in QGIS.
A vector layer, to select from a list of all vector layers available in QGIS. Layers not loaded in QGIS can
be selected as well, as in the case of raster layers, but only if the algorithm does not require a table field
selected from the attributes table of the layer. In that case, only opened layers can be selected, since they
need to be open so as to retrieve the list of field names available.
You will see a button by each vector layer selector, as shown in the figure below.
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Depending on the algorithm, the number of rows can be modified or not by using the buttons on the right
side of the window.
You will find a [Help] tab in the the parameters dialog. If a help file is available, it will be shown, giving you
more information about the algorithm and detailed descriptions of what each parameter does. Unfortunately, most
algorithms lack good documentation, but if you feel like contributing to the project, this would be a good place to
start.
A note on projections
Algorithms run from the processing framework this is also true of most of the external applications whose
algorithms are exposed through it. Do not perform any reprojection on input layers and assume that all of them
are already in a common coordinate system and ready to be analized. Whenever you use more than one layer as
input to an algorithm, whether vector or raster, it is up to you to make sure that they are all in the same coordinate
system.
Note that, due to QGISs on-the-fly reprojecting capabilities, although two layers might seem to overlap and
match, that might not be true if their original coordinates are used without reprojecting them onto a common
coordinate system. That reprojection should be done manually, and then the resulting files should be used as input
to the algorithm. Also, note that the reprojection process can be performed with the algorithms that are available
in the processing framework itself.
By default, the parameters dialog will show a description of the CRS of each layer along with its name, making it
easy to select layers that share the same CRS to be used as input layers. If you do not want to see this additional
information, you can disable this functionality in the processing configuration dialog, unchecking the Show CRS
option.
If you try to execute an algorithm using as input two or more layers with unmatching CRSs, a warning dialog will
be shown.
You still can execute the algorithm, but be aware that in most cases that will produce wrong results, such as empty
layers due to input layers not overlapping.
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If you do not enter any filename, the result will be saved as a temporary file in the corresponding default file
format, and it will be deleted once you exit QGIS (take care with that, in case you save your project and it contains
temporary layers).
You can set a default folder for output data objects. Go to the configuration dialog (you can open it from the
Processing menu), and in the General group, you will find a parameter named Output folder. This output folder
is used as the default path in case you type just a filename with no path (i.e., myfile.shp) when executing an
algorithm.
When running an algorithm that uses a vector layer in iterative mode, the entered file path is used as the base path
for all generated files, which are named using the base name and appending a number representing the index of
the iteration. The file extension (and format) is used for all such generated files.
Apart from raster layers and tables, algorithms also generate graphics and text as HTML files. These results are
shown at the end of the algorithm execution in a new dialog. This dialog will keep the results produced by any
algorithm during the current session, and can be shown at any time by selecting Processing Results viewer from
the QGIS main menu.
Some external applications might have files (with no particular extension restrictions) as output, but they do not
belong to any of the categories above. Those output files will not be processed by QGIS (opened or included into
the current QGIS project), since most of the time they correspond to file formats or elements not supported by
QGIS. This is, for instance, the case with LAS files used for LiDAR data. The files get created, but you wont see
anything new in your QGIS working session.
For all the other types of output, you will find a checkbox that you can use to tell the algorithm whether to load
the file once it is generated by the algorithm or not. By default, all files are opened.
Optional outputs are not supported. That is, all outputs are created. However, you can uncheck the corresponding
checkbox if you are not interested in a given output, which essentially makes it behave like an optional output (in
other words, the layer is created anyway, but if you leave the text box empty, it will be saved to a temporary file
and deleted once you exit QGIS).
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is the one that will be used for the list of algorithms in the modeler.
To add an algorithm to a model, double-click on its name or drag and drop it, just like it was done when adding
inputs. An execution dialog will appear, with a content similar to the one found in the execution panel that is shown
when executing the algorithm from the toolbox. The one shown next corresponds to the SAGA Convergence
index algorithm, the same example we saw in the section dedicated to the toolbox.
in some cases an algorithm might depend on another one even if it does not use any output object from it (for
instance, an algorithm that executes an SQL sentence on a PostGIS database and another one that imports a layer
into that same database). In that case, just select the previous algorithm in the Parent algorithms parameter and
the two steps will be executed in the correct order.
Once all the parameters have been assigned valid values, click on [OK] and the algorithm will be added to the
canvas. It will be linked to all the other elements in the canvas, whether algorithms or inputs, that provide objects
that are used as inputs for that algorithm.
Elements can be dragged to a different position within the canvas, to change the way the module structure is
displayed and make it more clear and intuitive. Links between elements are updated automatically. You can zoom
in and out by using the mouse wheel.
You can run your algorithm anytime by clicking on the [Run] button. However, in order to use the algorithm from
the toolbox, it has to be saved and the modeler dialog closed, to allow the toolbox to refresh its contents.
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Selecting the Remove option will cause the selected algorithm to be removed. An algorithm can be removed only
if there are no other algorithms depending on it. That is, if no output from the algorithm is used in a different one
as input. If you try to remove an algorithm that has others depending on it, a warning message like the one you
can see below will be shown:
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ones.
Now, there is basically just one (interesting) thing you can do with that from the console: execute an algorithm.
That is done using the runalg() method, which takes the name of the algorithm to execute as its first parameter,
and then a variable number of additional parameters depending on the requirements of the algorithm. So the first
thing you need to know is the name of the algorithm to execute. That is not the name you see in the toolbox, but
rather a unique commandline name. To find the right name for your algorithm, you can use the algslist()
method. Type the following line in your console:
>>> processing.alglist()
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Aggregate------------------------------------->saga:aggregate
Aggregate Point Observations------------------>saga:aggregatepointobservations
Aggregation Index----------------------------->saga:aggregationindex
Analytical Hierarchy Process------------------>saga:analyticalhierarchyprocess
Analytical Hillshading------------------------>saga:analyticalhillshading
Average With Mask 1--------------------------->saga:averagewithmask1
Average With Mask 2--------------------------->saga:averagewithmask2
Average With Thereshold 1--------------------->saga:averagewiththereshold1
Average With Thereshold 2--------------------->saga:averagewiththereshold2
Average With Thereshold 3--------------------->saga:averagewiththereshold3
B-Spline Approximation------------------------>saga:b-splineapproximation
...
Thats a list of all the available algorithms, alphabetically ordered, along with their corresponding command-line
names.
You can use a string as a parameter for this method. Instead of returning the full list of algorithms, it will only
display those that include that string. If, for instance, you are looking for an algorithm to calculate slope from a
DEM, type alglist("slope") to get the following result:
DTM Filter (slope-based)---------------------->saga:dtmfilter(slope-based)
Downslope Distance Gradient------------------->saga:downslopedistancegradient
Relative Heights and Slope Positions---------->saga:relativeheightsandslopepositions
Slope Length---------------------------------->saga:slopelength
Slope, Aspect, Curvature---------------------->saga:slopeaspectcurvature
Upslope Area---------------------------------->saga:upslopearea
Vegetation Index[slope based]----------------->saga:vegetationindex[slopebased]
This result might change depending on the algorithms you have available.
It is easier now to find the algorithm you are looking for and its command-line name, in this case
saga:slopeaspectcurvature.
Once you know the command-line name of the algorithm, the next thing to do is to determine the right syntax to
execute it. That means knowing which parameters are needed and the order in which they have to be passed when
calling the runalg() method. There is a method to describe an algorithm in detail, which can be used to get a
list of the parameters that an algorithm requires and the outputs that it will generate. To get this information, you
can use the alghelp(name_of_the_algorithm) method. Use the command-line name of the algorithm,
not the full descriptive name.
Calling the method with saga:slopeaspectcurvature as parameter, you get the following description:
>>> processing.alghelp("saga:slopeaspectcurvature")
ALGORITHM: Slope, Aspect, Curvature
ELEVATION <ParameterRaster>
METHOD <ParameterSelection>
SLOPE <OutputRaster>
ASPECT <OutputRaster>
CURV <OutputRaster>
HCURV <OutputRaster>
VCURV <OutputRaster>
Now you have everything you need to run any algorithm. As we have already mentioned, there is only one single
command to execute algorithms: runalg(). Its syntax is as follows:
>>> processing.runalg(name_of_the_algorithm, param1, param2, ..., paramN,
Output1, Output2, ..., OutputN)
The list of parameters and outputs to add depends on the algorithm you want to run, and is exactly the list that the
alghelp() method gives you, in the same order as shown.
Depending on the type of parameter, values are introduced differently. The next list gives a quick review of how
to introduce values for each type of input parameter:
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Raster Layer, Vector Layer or Table. Simply use a string with the name that identifies the data object to use
(the name it has in the QGIS Table of Contents) or a filename (if the corresponding layer is not opened, it
will be opened but not added to the map canvas). If you have an instance of a QGIS object representing the
layer, you can also pass it as parameter. If the input is optional and you do not want to use any data object,
use None.
Selection. If an algorithm has a selection parameter, the value of that parameter should be entered using an
integer value. To know the available options, you can use the algoptions() command, as shown in the
following example:
>>> processing.algoptions("saga:slopeaspectcurvature")
METHOD(Method)
0 - [0] Maximum Slope (Travis et al. 1975)
1 - [1] Maximum Triangle Slope (Tarboton 1997)
2 - [2] Least Squares Fitted Plane (Horn 1981, Costa-Cabral & Burgess 1996)
3 - [3] Fit 2.Degree Polynom (Bauer, Rohdenburg, Bork 1985)
4 - [4] Fit 2.Degree Polynom (Heerdegen & Beran 1982)
5 - [5] Fit 2.Degree Polynom (Zevenbergen & Thorne 1987)
6 - [6] Fit 3.Degree Polynom (Haralick 1983)
In this case, the algorithm has one such parameter, with seven options. Notice that ordering is zero-based.
Multiple input. The value is a string with input descriptors separated by semicolons (;). As in the case of
single layers or tables, each input descriptor can be the data object name, or its file path.
Table Field from XXX. Use a string with the name of the field to use. This parameter is case-sensitive.
Fixed Table. Type the list of all table values separated by commas (,) and enclosed between quotes (").
Values start on the upper row and go from left to right. You can also use a 2-D array of values representing
the table.
CRS. Enter the EPSG code number of the desired CRS.
Extent. You must use a string with xmin, xmax, ymin and ymax values separated by commas (,).
Boolean, file, string and numerical parameters do not need any additional explanations.
Input parameters such as strings, booleans, or numerical values have default values. To use them, specify None
in the corresponding parameter entry.
For output data objects, type the file path to be used to save it, just as it is done from the toolbox. If you want to
save the result to a temporary file, use None. The extension of the file determines the file format. If you enter
a file extension not supported by the algorithm, the default file format for that output type will be used, and its
corresponding extension appended to the given file path.
Unlike when an algorithm is executed from the toolbox, outputs are not added to the map canvas if you execute
that same algorithm from the Python console. If you want to add an output to the map canvas, you have to do it
yourself after running the algorithm. To do so, you can use QGIS API commands, or, even easier, use one of the
handy methods provided for such tasks.
The runalg method returns a dictionary with the output names (the ones shown in the algorithm description)
as keys and the file paths of those outputs as values. You can load those layers by passing the corresponding file
paths to the load() method.
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getObject(obj): Returns a QGIS object (a layer or table) from the passed object, which can be a
filename or the name of the object in the QGIS Table of Contents.
values(layer, fields): Returns the values in the attributes table of a vector layer, for the passed
fields. Fields can be passed as field names or as zero-based field indices. Returns a dict of lists, with the
passed field identifiers as keys. It considers the existing selection.
features(layer): Returns an iterator over the features of a vector layer, considering the existing
selection.
uniqueValues(layer, field): Returns a list of unique values for a given attribute. Attributes can
be passed as a field name or a zero-based field index. It considers the existing selection.
As you can see, the calculation involves three algorithms, all of them coming from SAGA. The last one calculates
the TWI, but it needs a slope layer and a flow accumulation layer. We do not have these layers, but since we have
the DEM, we can calculate them by calling the corresponding SAGA algorithms.
The part of the code where this processing takes place is not difficult to understand if you have read the previous
sections in this chapter. The first lines, however, need some additional explanation. They provide the information
that is needed to turn your code into an algorithm that can be run from any of the GUI components, like the toolbox
or the graphical modeler.
These lines start with a double Python comment symbol (##) and have the following structure:
[parameter_name]=[parameter_type] [optional_values]
Here is a list of all the parameter types that are supported in processing scripts, their syntax and some examples.
raster. A raster layer.
vector. A vector layer.
table. A table.
number. A numerical value. A default value must be provided. For instance, depth=number 2.4.
string. A text string. As in the case of numerical values, a default value must be added. For instance,
name=string Victor.
boolean. A boolean value. Add True or False after it to set the default value. For example,
verbose=boolean True.
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In addition to the tags for parameters and outputs, you can also define the group under which the algorithm will
be shown, using the group tag.
If your algorithm takes a long time to process, it is a good idea to inform the user. You have a global named
progress available, with two possible methods: setText(text) and setPercentage(percent) to
modify the progress text and the progress bar.
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Several examples are provided. Please check them to see real examples of how to create algorithms using the
processing framework classes. You can right-click on any script algorithm and select Edit script to edit its code or
just to see it.
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As you can see, it involves 3 algorithms, all of them coming from SAGA. The last one of them calculates the TWI,
but it needs a slope layer and a flow accumulation layer. We do not have these ones, but since we have the DEM,
17.7. Writing new Processing algorithms as python scripts
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Here is a list of all the parameter types that are supported in processign scripts, their syntax and some examples.
raster. A raster layer
vector. A vector layer
table. A table
number. A numerical value. A default value must be provided. For instance, depth=number 2.4
string. A text string. As in the case of numerical values, a default value must be added. For instance,
name=string Victor
longstring. Same as string, but a larger text box will be shown, so it is better suited for long strings,
such as for a script expecting a small code snippet.
boolean. A boolean value. Add True or False after it to set the default value. For example,
verbose=boolean True.
multiple raster. A set of input raster layers.
multiple vector. A set of input vector layers.
field. A field in the attributes table of a vector layer. The name of the layer has to be added after the
field tag. For instance, if you have declared a vector input with mylayer=vector, you could use
myfield=field mylayer to add a field from that layer as parameter.
folder. A folder
file. A filename
crs. A Coordinate Reference System
The parameter name is the name that will be shown to the user when executing the algorithm, and also the variable
name to use in the script code. The value entered by the user for that parameter will be assigned to a variable with
that name.
When showing the name of the parameter to the user, the name will be edited it to improve its appearance, replacing
low hyphens with spaces. So, for instance, if you want the user to see a parameter named A numerical
value, you can use the variable name A_numerical_value.
Layers and tables values are strings containing the filepath of the corresponding object. To turn them into a QGIS
object, you can use the processing.getObjectFromUri() function. Multiple inputs also have a string
value, which contains the filepaths to all selected objects, separated by semicolons (;).
Outputs are defined in a similar manner, using the following tags:
output raster
output vector
output table
output html
output file
output number
output string
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output extent
The value assigned to the output variables is always a string with a filepath. It will correspond to a temporary
filepath in case the user has not entered any output filename.
In addition to the tags for parameters and outputs, you can also define the group under which the algorithm will
be shown, using the group tag.
The last tag that you can use in your script header is ##nomodeler. Use that when you do not want your
algorithm to be shown in the modeler window. This should be used for algorithms that do not have a clear syntax
(for instance, if the number of layers to be created is not known in advance, at design time), which make them
unsuitable for the graphical modeler
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saving the script (i.e. you discard it), the help content you wrote will be lost. If your script was already saved and
is associated to a filename, saving is done automatically.
Please, check them to see real examples of how to create algorithms using the processing framework classes. You
can right-click on any script algorithm and select Edit script to edit its code or just to see it.
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This section will show you how to configure the processing framework to include these additional applications,
and it will explain some particular features of the algorithms based on them. Once you have correctly configured
the system, you will be able to execute external algorithms from any component like the toolbox or the graphical
modeler, just like you do with any other geoalgorithm.
By default, all algorithms that rely on an external appplication not shipped with QGIS are not enabled. You can
enable them in the configuration dialog. Make sure that the corresponding application is already installed in your
system. Enabling an algorithm provider without installing the application it needs will cause the algorithms to
appear in the toolbox, but an error will be thrown when you try to execute them.
This is because the algorithm descriptions (needed to create the parameters dialog and provide the information
needed about the algorithm) are not included with each application, but with QGIS instead. That is, they are part
of QGIS, so you have them in your installation even if you have not installed any other software. Running the
algorithm, however, needs the application binaries to be installed in your system.
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external application. Only when no selection exists, or the Use only selected features option is not enabled in the
processing general configuration, can a layer be directly passed to an external application.
In other cases, exporting only selected features is needed, which causes execution times to be longer.
SAGA
SAGA algorithms can be run from QGIS if you have SAGA installed in your system and you configure the processing framework properly so it can find SAGA executables. In particular, the SAGA command-line executable
is needed to run SAGA algorithms.
If you are running Windows, both the stand-alone installer and the OSGeo4W installer include SAGA along with
QGIS, and the path is automatically configured, so there is no need to do anything else.
If you have installed SAGA yourself (remember, you need version 2.1), the path to the SAGA executable must be
configured. To do this, open the configuration dialog. In the SAGA block, you will find a setting named SAGA
Folder. Enter the path to the folder where SAGA is installed. Close the configuration dialog, and now you are
ready to run SAGA algorithms from QGIS.
If you are running Linux, SAGA binaries are not included with SEXTANTE, so you have to download and install
the software yourself. Please check the SAGA website for more information. SAGA 2.1 is needed.
In this case, there is no need to configure the path to the SAGA executable, and you will not see those folders.
Instead, you must make sure that SAGA is properly installed and its folder is added to the PATH environment
variable. Just open a console and type saga_cmd to check that the system can find where the SAGA binaries are
located.
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- Tools/Split RGB image algorithm (which creates three images from an RGB image) or the SAGA/Grid Tools/Extract band algorithm (to extract a single band).
17.14.7 Logging
When QGIS calls SAGA, it does so using its command-line interface, thus passing a set of commands to perform
all the required operations. SAGA shows its progress by writing information to the console, which includes the
percentage of processing already done, along with additional content. This output is filtered and used to update
the progress bar while the algorithm is running.
Both the commands sent by QGIS and the additional information printed by SAGA can be logged along with other
processing log messages, and you might find them useful to track in detail what is going on when QGIS runs a
SAGA algorithm. You will find two settings, namely Log console output and Log execution commands, to activate
that logging mechanism.
Most other providers that use an external application and call it through the command-line have similar options,
so you will find them as well in other places in the processing settings list.
R. Creating R scripts
R integration in QGIS is different from that of SAGA in that there is not a predefined set of algorithms you can run
(except for a few examples). Instead, you should write your scripts and call R commands, much like you would do
from R, and in a very similar manner to what we saw in the section dedicated to processing scripts. This section
shows you the syntax to use to call those R commands from QGIS and how to use QGIS objects (layers, tables)
in them.
The first thing you have to do, as we saw in the case of SAGA, is to tell QGIS where your R binaries are located.
You can do this using the R folder entry in the processing configuration dialog. Once you have set that parameter,
you can start creating and executing your own R scripts.
Once again, this is different in Linux, and you just have to make sure that the R folder is included in the PATH
environment variable. If you can start R just typing R in a console, then you are ready to go.
To add a new algorithm that calls an R function (or a more complex R script that you have developed and you
would like to have available from QGIS), you have to create a script file that tells the processing framework how
to perform that operation and the corresponding R commands to do so.
R script files have the extension .rsx, and creating them is pretty easy if you just have a basic knowledge of R
syntax and R scripting. They should be stored in the R scripts folder. You can set this folder in the R settings group
(available from the processing settings dialog), just like you do with the folder for regular processing scripts.
Lets have a look at a very simple script file, which calls the R method spsample to create a random grid within
the boundary of the polygons in a given polygon layer. This method belongs to the maptools package. Since
almost all the algorithms that you might like to incorporate into QGIS will use or generate spatial data, knowledge
of spatial packages like maptools and, especially, sp, is mandatory.
##polyg=vector
##numpoints=number 10
##output=output vector
##sp=group
pts=spsample(polyg,numpoints,type="random")
output=SpatialPointsDataFrame(pts, as.data.frame(pts))
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The first lines, which start with a double Python comment sign (##), tell QGIS the inputs of the algorithm described in the file and the outputs that it will generate. They work with exactly the same syntax as the SEXTANTE
scripts that we have already seen, so they will not be described here again.
When you declare an input parameter, QGIS uses that information for two things: creating the user interface to
ask the user for the value of that parameter and creating a corresponding R variable that can later be used as input
for R commands.
In the above example, we are declaring an input of type vector named polyg. When executing the algorithm,
QGIS will open in R the layer selected by the user and store it in a variable also named polyg. So, the name of a
parameter is also the name of the variable that we can use in R for accesing the value of that parameter (thus, you
should avoid using reserved R words as parameter names).
Spatial elements such as vector and raster layers are read using the readOGR() and brick() commands (you
do not have to worry about adding those commands to your description file QGIS will do it), and they are stored
as Spatial*DataFrame objects. Table fields are stored as strings containing the name of the selected field.
Tables are opened using the read.csv() command. If a table entered by the user is not in CSV format, it will
be converted prior to importing it into R.
Additionally, raster files can be read using the readGDAL() command instead of brick() by using the
##usereadgdal.
If you are an advanced user and do not want QGIS to create the object representing the layer, you can use the
##passfilename tag to indicate that you prefer a string with the filename instead. In this case, it is up to you
to open the file before performing any operation on the data it contains.
With the above information, we can now understand the first line of our first example script (the first line not
starting with a Python comment).
pts=spsample(polyg,numpoints,type="random")
The variable polygon already contains a SpatialPolygonsDataFrame object, so it can be used to call the
spsample method, just like the numpoints one, which indicates the number of points to add to the created
sample grid.
Since we have declared an output of type vector named out, we have to create a variable named out and store a
Spatial*DataFrame object in it (in this case, a SpatialPointsDataFrame). You can use any name for
your intermediate variables. Just make sure that the variable storing your final result has the same name that you
used to declare it, and that it contains a suitable value.
In this case, the result obtained from the spsample method has to be converted explicitly into a
SpatialPointsDataFrame object, since it is itself an object of class ppp, which is not a suitable class
to be returned to QGIS.
If your algorithm generates raster layers, the way they are saved will depend on whether or not you have used the
#dontuserasterpackage option. In you have used it, layers are saved using the writeGDAL() method.
If not, the writeRaster() method from the raster package will be used.
If you have used the #passfilename option, outputs are generated using the raster package (with
writeRaster()), even though it is not used for the inputs.
If your algorithm does not generate any layer, but rather a text result in the console instead, you have to indicate
that you want the console to be shown once the execution is finished. To do so, just start the command lines that
produce the results you want to print with the > (greater) sign. The output of all other lines will not be shown.
For instance, here is the description file of an algorithm that performs a normality test on a given field (column) of
the attributes of a vector layer:
##layer=vector
##field=field layer
##nortest=group
library(nortest)
>lillie.test(layer[[field]])
The output of the last line is printed, but the output of the first is not (and neither are the outputs from other
command lines added automatically by QGIS).
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If your algorithm creates any kind of graphics (using the plot() method), add the following line:
##showplots
This will cause QGIS to redirect all R graphical outputs to a temporary file, which will be opened once R execution
has finished.
Both graphics and console results will be shown in the processing results manager.
For more information, please check the script files provided with SEXTANTE. Most of them are rather simple and
will greatly help you understand how to create your own scripts.
Note: rgdal and maptools libraries are loaded by default, so you do not have to add the corresponding
library() commands (you just have to make sure that those two packages are installed in your R distribution).
However, other additional libraries that you might need have to be explicitly loaded. Just add the necessary commands at the beginning of your script. You also have to make sure that the corresponding packages are installed in
the R distribution used by QGIS. The processing framework will not take care of any package installation. If you
run a script that requires a package that is not installed, the execution will fail, and Processing will try to detect
which packages are missing. You must install those missing libraries manually before you can run the algorithm.
GRASS
Configuring GRASS is not much different from configuring SAGA. First, the path to the GRASS folder has to be
defined, but only if you are running Windows. Additionaly, a shell interpreter (usually msys.exe, which can be
found in most GRASS for Windows distributions) has to be defined and its path set up as well.
By default, the processing framework tries to configure its GRASS connector to use the GRASS distribution that
ships along with QGIS. This should work without problems in most systems, but if you experience problems, you
might have to configure the GRASS connector manually. Also, if you want to use a different GRASS installation,
you can change that setting and point to the folder where the other version is installed. GRASS 6.4 is needed for
algorithms to work correctly.
If you are running Linux, you just have to make sure that GRASS is correctly installed, and that it can be run
without problem from a console.
GRASS algorithms use a region for calculations. This region can be defined manually using values similar to
the ones found in the SAGA configuration, or automatically, taking the minimum extent that covers all the input
layers used to execute the algorithm each time. If the latter approach is the behaviour you prefer, just check the
Use min covering region option in the GRASS configuration parameters.
The last parameter that has to be configured is related to the mapset. A mapset is needed to run GRASS, and the
processing framework creates a temporary one for each execution. You have to specify if the data you are working
with uses geographical (lat/lon) coordinates or projected ones.
GDAL
No additional configuration is needed to run GDAL algorithms. Since they are already incorporated into QGIS,
the algorithms can infer their configuration from it.
Orfeo Toolbox
Orfeo Toolbox (OTB) algorithms can be run from QGIS if you have OTB installed in your system and you have
configured QGIS properly, so it can find all necessary files (command-line tools and libraries).
As in the case of SAGA, OTB binaries are included in the stand-alone installer for Windows, but they are not
included if you are runing Linux, so you have to download and install the software yourself. Please check the
OTB website for more information.
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Once OTB is installed, start QGIS, open the processing configuration dialog and configure the OTB algorithm
provider. In the Orfeo Toolbox (image analysis) block, you will find all settings related to OTB. First, ensure that
algorithms are enabled.
Then, configure the path to the folder where OTB command-line tools and libraries are installed:
Usually OTB applications folder points to /usr/lib/otb/applications and OTB command line
tools folder is /usr/bin.
If you use the OSGeo4W installer, then install otb-bin package and enter
C:\OSGeo4W\apps\orfeotoolbox\applications as OTB applications folder and
C:\OSGeo4W\bin as OTB command line tools folder. These values should be configured by default, but if you have a different OTB installation, configure them to the corresponding values in your
system.
TauDEM
To use this provider, you need to install TauDEM command line tools.
17.14.8 Windows
Please visit the TauDEM homepage for installation instructions and precompiled binaries for 32-bit and 64-bit
systems. IMPORTANT: You need TauDEM 5.0.6 executables. Version 5.2 is currently not supported.
17.14.9 Linux
There are no packages for most Linux distributions, so you should compile TauDEM by yourself. As TauDEM
uses MPICH2, first install it using your favorite package manager. Alternatively, TauDEM works fine with Open
MPI, so you can use it instead of MPICH2.
Download TauDEM 5.0.6 source code and extract the files in some folder.
Open the linearpart.h file, and after line
#include "mpi.h"
so youll get
#include "mpi.h"
#include <stdint.h>
Save the changes and close the file. Now open tiffIO.h, find line #include "stdint.h" and replace
quotes ("") with <>, so youll get
#include <stdint.h>
Save the changes and close the file. Create a build directory and cd into it
mkdir build
cd build
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make
<name of the
Menu items. These are shown as Menu item: <menu entry text>. All menus items available
from the QGIS interface are available, even if they are included in a submenu.
Python functions. You can create short Python functions that will be then included in the list of available
commands. They are shown as Function: <function name>.
To run any of the above, just start typing and then select the corresponding element from the list of available
commands that appears after filtering the whole list of commands with the text you have entered.
In the case of calling a Python function, you can select the entry in the list, which is prefixed by Function: (for instance, Function: removeall), or just directly type the
function name (removeall in the previous example). There is no need to add brackets after the function name.
17.15. The QGIS Commander
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Once you have added the function, it will be available in the Commander, and you can invoke it by typing
removeall. There is no need to do anything apart from writing the function itself.
Functions can receive parameters. Add *args to your function definition to receive arguments. When calling the
function from the Commander, parameters have to be passed separated by spaces.
Here is an example of a function that loads a layer and takes a parameter with the filename of the layer to load.
import processing
def load(*args):
processing.load(args[0])
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CHAPTER 18
Print Composer
With the Print Composer you can create nice maps and atlasses that can be printed or saved as PDF-file, an
image or an SVG-file. This is a powerfull way to share geographical information produced with QGIS that can be
included in reports or published.
The Print Composer provides growing layout and printing capabilities. It allows you to add elements such as
the QGIS map canvas, text labels, images, legends, scale bars, basic shapes, arrows, attribute tables and HTML
frames. You can size, group, align, position and rotate each element and adjust the properties to create your layout.
The layout can be printed or exported to image formats, PostScript, PDF or to SVG (export to SVG is not working
properly with some recent Qt4 versions; you should try and check individually on your system). You can save the
layout as a template and load it again in another session. Finally, generating several maps based on a template can
be done through the atlas generator. See a list of tools in table_composer_1:
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Icon
Purpose
Icon
Purpose
Save Project
New Composer
Duplicate Composer
Composer Manager
Save as template
Export as PDF
Zoom to 100%
Zoom in
Zoom out
Refresh View
Pan
Preview Atlas
First Feature
Previous Feature
Next Feature
Last feature
Print Atlas
Atlas Settings
icon in the toolbar or choose File New Print Composer. You will
Chapter 18. Print Composer
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Select/Move item
The Item Properties tab displays the properties for the selected item. Click the
icon to
select an item (e.g., legend, scale bar or label) on the canvas. Then click the Item Properties tab and
customize the settings for the selected item.
The Atlas generation tab allows you to enable the generation of an atlas for the current Composer and gives
access to its parameters.
Finally, you can save your print composition with the
Save Project
button.
In the bottom part of the Print Composer window, you can find a status bar with mouse position, current page
number and a combo box to set the zoom level.
You can add multiple elements to the Composer. It is also possible to have more than one map view or legend or
scale bar in the Print Composer canvas, on one or several pages. Each element has its own properties and, in the
case of the map, its own extent. If you want to remove any elements from the Composer canvas you can do that
with the Delete or the Backspace key.
Navigation tools
To navigate in the canvas layout, the Print Composer provides some general tools:
Zoom in
Zoom out
Zoom full
Zoom to 100%
Refresh view
Pan composer
Zoom
You can change the zoom level also using the mouse wheel or the combo box in the status bar. If you need to
switch to pan mode while working in the Composer area, you can hold the Spacebar or the the mouse wheel.
With Ctrl+Spacebar, you can temporarily switch to zoom mode, and with Ctrl+Shift+Spacebar, to
zoom out mode.
4. Select the
Select/Move item
5. While the map item is still selected you can also change the size of the map item. Click while holding down
the left mouse button, in a white little rectangle in one of the corners of the map item and drag it to a new
location to change its size.
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6. Click the Item Properties tab on the left lower panel and find the setting for the orientation. Change the
value of the setting Map orientation to 15.00 . You should see the orientation of the map item change.
7. Finally, you can save your print composition with the
Save Project
button.
Grid and guides lets you customize grid settings like spacings, offsets and tolerance to your need. The
tolerance is the maximum distance below which an item is snapped to smart guides.
Snap to grid and/or to smart guides can be enabled from the View menu. In this menu, you can also hide or show
the grid and smart guides.
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Exclude item from exports: You can decide to make an item not visible in all exports. After activating
this checkbox, the item will not be included in PDFs, prints etc..
Blending mode: You can achieve special rendering effects with these tools that you previously only may
know from graphics programs. The pixels of your overlaying and underlaying items are mixed through the
settings described below.
Normal: This is the standard blend mode, which uses the alpha channel of the top pixel to blend with
the pixel beneath it; the colors arent mixed.
Lighten: This selects the maximum of each component from the foreground and background pixels.
Be aware that the results tend to be jagged and harsh.
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Screen: Light pixels from the source are painted over the destination, while dark pixels are not. This
mode is most useful for mixing the texture of one layer with another layer (e.g., you can use a hillshade
to texture another layer).
Dodge: Dodge will brighten and saturate underlying pixels based on the lightness of the top pixel. So,
brighter top pixels cause the saturation and brightness of the underlying pixels to increase. This works
best if the top pixels arent too bright; otherwise the effect is too extreme.
Addition: This blend mode simply adds pixel values of one layer with pixel values of the other. In case
of values above 1 (as in the case of RGB), white is displayed. This mode is suitable for highlighting
features.
Darken: This creates a resultant pixel that retains the smallest components of the foreground and
background pixels. Like lighten, the results tend to be jagged and harsh.
Multiply: Here, the numbers for each pixel of the top layer are multiplied with the numbers for the
corresponding pixel of the bottom layer. The results are darker pictures.
Burn: Darker colors in the top layer cause the underlying layers to darken. Burn can be used to tweak
and colorise underlying layers.
Overlay: This mode combines the multiply and screen blending modes. In the resulting picture, light
parts become lighter and dark parts become darker.
Soft light: This is very similar to overlay, but instead of using multiply/screen it uses color burn/dodge.
This mode is supposed to emulate shining a soft light onto an image.
Hard light: Hard light is very similar to the overlay mode. Its supposed to emulate projecting a very
intense light onto an image.
Difference: Difference subtracts the top pixel from the bottom pixel, or the other way around, to
always get a positive value. Blending with black produces no change, as the difference with all colors
is zero.
Subtract: This blend mode simply subtracts pixel values of one layer with pixel values of the other. In
case of negative values, black is displayed.
Rectangle is the default setting. It only displays an empty box with a message Map will be printed here.
Cache renders the map in the current screen resolution. If you zoom the Composer window in or out, the
map is not rendered again but the image will be scaled.
Render means that if you zoom the Composer window in or out, the map will be rendered again, but for
space reasons, only up to a maximum resolution.
Cache is the default preview mode for newly added Print Composer maps.
Select/Move item
You can resize the map element by clicking on the
button, selecting the element, and dragging
one of the blue handles in the corner of the map. With the map selected, you can now adapt more properties in the
map Item Properties tab.
Move item content
To move layers within the map element, select the map element, click the
icon and move the
layers within the map item frame with the left mouse button. After you have found the right place for an item,
you can lock the item position within the Print Composer canvas. Select the map item and use the toolbar
18.3. Composer Items
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or the Items tab to Lock the item. A locked item can only be selected using the Items tab. Once
selected you can use the Items tab to unlock individual items. The
composer items.
Main properties
The Main properties dialog of the map Item Properties tab provides the following functionalities (see figure_composer_map_1):
Draw map canvas items lets you show annotations that may be placed on the map canvas in the main
QGIS window.
You can choose to lock the layers shown on a map item. Check
Lock layers for map item. After this
is checked, any layer that would be displayed or hidden in the main QGIS window will not appear or be
hidden in the map item of the Composer. But style and labels of a locked layer are still refreshed according
to the main QGIS interface. You can prevent this by using Lock layer styles for map item.
The
button allows you to add quickly all the presets views you have prepared in QGIS. Clicking on
the
button you will see the list of all the preset views: just select the preset you want to display. The
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map canvas will automatically lock the preset layers by enabling the
want to unselect the preset, just uncheck the
how to create presets views.
Extents
The Extents dialog of the map item tab provides the following functionalities (see figure_composer_map_2):
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font, the annotation font color, the annotation distance from the map frame and the precision of the drawn
coordinates.
Overviews
The Overviews dialog of the map Item Properties tab provides the following functionalities:
You can choose to create an overview map, which shows the extents of the other map(s) that are available in the
composer. First you need to create the map(s) you want to include in the overview map. Next you create the map
you want to use as the overview map, just like a normal map.
With the plus and minus button you can add or remove an overview.
With the up and down button you can move an overview in the list and set the drawing priority.
Open Overviews and press the green plus icon-button to add an overview. Initially this overview is named
Overview 1 (see Figure_composer_map_7). You can change the name when you double-click on the overview
item in the list named Overview 1 and change it to another name.
When you select the overview item in the list you can customize it.
The
frame.
Draw <name_overview> overview needs to be activated to draw the extent of selected map
The Map frame combo list can be used to select the map item whose extents will be drawn on the present
map item.
The Frame Style allows you to change the style of the overview frame.
The Blending mode allows you to set different transparency blend modes. See Rendering_Mode.
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The
Invert overview creates a mask around the extents when activated: the referenced map extents are
shown clearly, whereas everything else is blended with the frame color.
The
Center on overview puts the extent of the overview frame in the center of the overview map. You
can only activate one overview item to center, when you have added several overviews.
The Item Properties tab of a label item provides the following functionality for the label item (see Figure_composer_label):
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Main properties
The main properties dialog is where the text (HTML or not) or the expression needed to fill the label is
added to the Composer canvas.
Render as HTML. You can now insert a URL, a
Labels can be interpreted as HTML code: check
clickable image that links to a web page or something more complex.
You can also insert an expression. Click on [Insert an expression] to open a new dialog. Build an expression by clicking the functions available in the left side of the panel. Two special categories can be
useful, particularly associated with the atlas functionality: geometry functions and records functions. At the
bottom, a preview of the expression is shown.
Appearance
Define Font by clicking on the [Font...] button or a Font color selecting a color using the color selection
tool.
You can specify different horizontal and vertical margins in mm. This is the margin from the edge of the
composer item. The label can be positioned outside the bounds of the label e.g. to align label items with
other items. In this case you have to use negative values for the margin.
Using the Alignment is another way to position your label. Note that when e.g. using the Horizontal
alignment in Center Position the Horizontal margin feature is disabled.
The picture Item Properties tab provides the following functionalities (see figure_composer_image_1):
You first have to select the image you want to display. There are several ways to set the image source in the Main
properties area.
1. Use the browse button
of image source to select a file on your computer using the browse dialog. The
browser will start in the SVG-libraries provided with QGIS. Besides SVG, you can also select other image
formats like .png or .jpg.
2. You can enter the source directly in the image source text field. You can even provide a remote URL-address
to an image.
3. From the Search directories area you can also select an image from loading previews ... to set the image
source.
4. Use the data defined button
With the Resize mode option, you can set how the image is displayed when the frame is changed, or choose to
resize the frame of the image item so it matches the original size of the image.
You can select one of the following modes:
Zoom: Enlarges the image to the frame while maintaining aspect ratio of picture.
Stretch: Stretches image to fit inside the frame, ignores aspect ratio.
Clip: Use this mode for raster images only, it sets the size of the image to original image size without scaling
and the frame is used to clip the image, so only the part of the image inside the frame is visible.
Zoom and resize frame: Enlarges image to fit frame, then resizes frame to fit resultant image.
Resize frame to image size: Sets size of frame to match original size of image without scaling.
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The Item properties of a legend item tab provides the following functionalities (see figure_composer_legend_1):
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Figure 18.13: North arrows available for selection in provided SVG library
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Main properties
The Main properties dialog of the legend Item Properties tab provides the following functionalities (see figure_composer_legend_2):
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After changing the symbology in the QGIS main window, you can click on [Update All] to adapt the
changes in the legend element of the Print Composer.
Fonts, Columns, Symbol
The Fonts, Columns and Symbol dialogs of the legend Item Properties tab provide the following functionalities
(see figure_composer_legend_4):
field.
The
Split layers option allows a categorized or a graduated layer legend to be divided between
columns.
You can change the width and height of the legend symbol in this dialog.
WMS LegendGraphic and Spacing
The WMS LegendGraphic and Spacing dialogs of the legend Item Properties tab provide the following functionalities (see figure_composer_legend_5):
When you have added a WMS layer and you insert a legend composer item, a request will be send to the WMS
server to provide a WMS legend. This Legend will only be shown if the WMS server provides the GetLegendGraphic capability. The WMS legend content will be provided as a raster image.
WMS LegendGraphic is used to be able to adjust the Legend width and the Legend height of the WMS legend
raster image.
Spacing around title, group, subgroup, symbol, icon label, box space or column space can be customized through
this dialog.
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The Item properties of a scale bar item tab provides the following functionalities (see figure_composer_scalebar_1):
Main properties
The Main properties dialog of the scale bar Item Properties tab provides the following functionalities (see figure_composer_scalebar_2):
First, choose the map the scale bar will be attached to.
Then, choose the style of the scale bar. Six styles are available:
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When you also hold down the Shift key while placing the basic shape you can create a perfect square, circle or
triangle.
When you also hold down the Shift key while placing the arrow, it is placed in an angle of exactly 45 .
The arrow item can be used to add a line or a simple arrow that can be used, for example, to show the relation
between other print composer items. To create a north arrow, the image item should be considered first. QGIS
has a set of North arrows in SVG format. Furthermore you can connect an image item with a map so it can rotate
automatically with the map (see the_image_item).
Item Properties
The Arrow item properties tab allows you to configure an arrow item.
The [Line style ...] button can be used to set the line style using the line style symbol editor.
In Arrows markers you can select one of three radio buttons.
Default : To draw a regular arrow, gives you options to style the arrow head
None : To draw a line without arrow head
SVG Marker : To draw a line with an SVG Start marker and/or End marker
For Default Arrow marker you can use following options to style the arrow head.
Arrow outline color : Set the outline color of the arrow head
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The Item properties of an attribute table item tab provides the following functionalities (see figure_composer_table_1):
Main properties
The Main properties dialogs of the attribute table Item Properties tab provide the following functionalities (see
figure_composer_table_2):
For Source you can normally select only Layer features.
With Layer you can choose from the vector layers loaded in the project.
The button [Refresh table data] can be used to refresh the table when the actual contents of the table has
changed.
In case you activated the
Generate an atlas option in the Atlas generation tab, there are two additional
Source possible: Current atlas feature (see figure_composer_table_2b) and Relation children (see figure_composer_table_2c). Choosing the Current atlas feature you wont see any option to choose the layer,
and the table item will only show a row with the attributes from the current feature of the atlas coverage
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layer. Choosing Relation children, an option with the relation name will show up. The Relation children
option can only be used if you have defined a relation using your atlas coverage layer as parent, and it will
show the children rows of the atlas coverage layers current feature (for further information about the atlas
generation see atlasgeneration).
Figure 18.28: Attribute table Main properties for Current atlas feature
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You can:
Define the Maximum rows to be displayed.
Activate
Activate
Show only visible features within a map and select the corresponding Composer map to display
the attributes of features only visible on selected map.
Show only features intersecting Atlas feature is only available when
Generate an atlas is
Activate
activated. When activated it will show a table with only the features shown on the map of that particular
page of the atlas.
Activate
Filter with and provide a filter by typing in the input line or insert a regular expression using
the given
expression button. A few examples of filtering statements you can use when you have loaded
the airports layer from the Sample dataset:
ELEV > 500
NAME = ANIAK
NAME NOT LIKE AN%
regexp_match( attribute( $currentfeature, USE ) , [i])
The last regular expression will include only the arpoirts that have a letter i in the attribute field USE.
Appearance
The Appearance dialogs of the attribute table Item Properties tab provide the following functionalities (see figure_composer_table_5):
Click
Show empty rows to make empty entries in the attribute table visible.
With Cell margins you can define the margin around text in each cell of the table.
With Display header you can select from a list one of On first frame, On all frames default option, or
No header.
The option Empty table controls what will be displayed when the result selection is empty.
Draw headers only, will only draw the header except if you have choosen No header for Display
header.
Hide entire table, will only draw the background of the table. You can activate
background if frame is empty in Frames to completely hide the table.
Dont draw
Draw empty cells, will fill the attribute table with empty cells, this option can also be used to provide
additional empty cells when you have a result to show!
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Show set message, will draw the header and adds a cell spanning all columns and display a message
like No result that can be provided in the option Message to display
The option Message to display is only activated when you have selected Show set message for Empty table.
The message provided will be shown in the table in the first row, when the result is an empty table.
With Background color you can set the background color of the table.
Show grid
The Show grid dialog of the attribute table Item Properties tab provide the following functionalities (see figure_composer_table_6):
Show grid when you want to display the grid, the outlines of the table cells.
With Stroke width you can set the thickness of the lines used in the grid.
The Color of the grid can be set using the color selection dialog.
Fonts and text styling
The Fonts and text styling dialog of the attribute table Item Properties tab provide the following functionalities
(see figure_composer_table_7):
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HTML Source
As an HTML source, you can either set a URL and activate the URL radiobutton or enter the HTML source
directly in the textbox provided and activate the Source radiobutton.
The HTML Source dialog of the HTML frame Item Properties tab provides the following functionalities (see
figure_composer_html_2):
In URL you can enter the URL of a webpage you copied from your internet browser or select an HTML file
using the browse button
. There is also the option to use the Data defined override button, to provide
an URL from the contents of an attribute field of a table or using a regular expression.
In Source you can enter text in the textbox with some HTML tags or provide a full HTML page.
The [insert an expression] button can be used to insert an expression like [%Year($now)%] in the
Source textbox to display the current year. This button is only activated when radiobutton Source is selected.
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After inserting the expression click somewhere in the textbox before refreshing the HTML frame, otherwise
you will lose the expression.
Evaluate QGIS expressions in HTML code to see the result of the expression you have included,
Activate
otherwise you will see the expression instead.
Use the [Refresh HTML] button to refresh the HTML frame(s) to see the result of changes.
Frames
The Frames dialog of the HTML frame Item Properties tab provides the following functionalities (see figure_composer_html_3):
Dont draw background if frame is empty prevents the HTML frame being drawn if the frame
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Figure 18.39: HTML frame, Use smart page breaks and User stylesheet properties
Activate
User stylesheet to apply HTML styles that often is provided in cascading style sheets. An
example of style code is provide below to set the color of <h1> header tag to green and set the font and
fontsize of text included in paragraph tags <p>.
h1 {color: #00ff00;
}
p {font-family: "Times New Roman", Times, serif;
font-size: 20px;
}
Use the [Update HTML] button to see the result of the stylesheet settings.
A selected item will show squares on its boundaries; moving one of them with the mouse, will resize the item
in the corresponding direction. While resizing, holding Shift will maintain the aspect ratio. Holding Alt will
resize from the item center.
The correct position for an item can be obtained using snapping to grid or smart guides. Guides are set by clicking
and dragging in the rulers. Guides are moved by clicking in the ruler, level with the guide and dragging to a new
place. To delete a guide move it off the canvas. If you need to disable the snap on the fly just hold Ctrl while
moving the mouse.
Select/Move item
You can choose multiple items with the
button. Just hold the Shift button and click on all the
items you need. You can then resize/move this group just like a single item.
Once you have found the correct position for an item, you can lock it by using the items on the toolbar or ticking
the box next to the item in the Items tab. Locked items are not selectable on the canvas.
Locked items can be unlocked by selecting the item in the Items tab and unchecking the tickbox or you can use
the icons on the toolbar.
To unselect an item, just click on it holding the Shift button.
Inside the Edit menu, you can find actions to select all the items, to clear all selections or to invert the current
selection.
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18.4.2 Alignment
Raise selected items
Raising or lowering functionalities for elements are inside the
pull-down menu. Choose an
element on the Print Composer canvas and select the matching functionality to raise or lower the selected element
compared to the other elements (see table_composer_1). This order is shown in the Items tab. You can also raise
or lower objects in the Items tab by clicking and dragging an objects label in this list.
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This can also be done by mouse click within the Command history tab (see figure_composer_29).
A Coverage layer
combo box that allows you to choose the (vector) layer containing the geometries
on which to iterate over.
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An optional
Hidden coverage layer that, if checked, will hide the coverage layer (but not the other ones)
during the generation.
An optional Filter with text area that allows you to specify an expression for filtering features from the
coverage layer. If the expression is not empty, only features that evaluate to True will be selected. The
button on the right allows you to display the expression builder.
An Output filename expression textbox that is used to generate a filename for each geometry if needed. It is
based on expressions. This field is meaningful only for rendering to multiple files.
Single file export when possible that allows you to force the generation of a single file if this is possible
A
with the chosen output format (PDF, for instance). If this field is checked, the value of the Output filename
expression field is meaningless.
An optional
Sort by that, if checked, allows you to sort features of the coverage layer. The associated
combo box allows you to choose which column will be used as the sorting key. Sort order (either ascending
or descending) is set by a two-state button that displays an up or a down arrow.
You can use multiple map items with the atlas generation; each map will be rendered according to the coverage
features. To enable atlas generation for a specific map item, you need to check
item properties of the map item. Once checked, you can set:
A radiobutton
Margin around feature that allows you to select the amount of space added around each
geometry within the allocated map. Its value is meaningful only when using the auto-scaling mode.
A
Predefined scale (best fit). It will use the best fitting option from the list of predefined scales in your
project properties settings (see Project > Project Properties > General > Project Scales to configure
these predefined scales).
A
Fixed scale that allows you to toggle between auto-scale and fixed-scale mode. In fixed-scale mode,
the map will only be translated for each geometry to be centered. In auto-scale mode, the maps extents are
computed in such a way that each geometry will appear in its entirety.
18.6.1 Labels
In order to adapt labels to the feature the atlas plugin iterates over, you can include expressions. For example, for
a city layer with fields CITY_NAME and ZIPCODE, you could insert this:
The area of [% upper(CITY_NAME) || , || ZIPCODE || is format_number($area/1000000,2) %] km2
For the following examples the Regions layer of the QGIS sample dataset is used and selected for Atlas Generation.
We also assume the paper format A4 (210X297) is selected in the Composition tab for field Presets.
With a Data Defined Override button you can dynamically set the paper orientation. When the height (northsouth) of the extents of a region is greater than its width (east-west), you rather want to use portrait instead of
landscape orientation to optimize the use of paper.
In the Composition you can set the field Orientation and select Landscape or Portrait. We want to set the orientation dynamically using an expression depending on the region geometry. press the
button of field Orientation,
select Edit ... so the Expression string builder dialog opens. Give following expression:
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Now the paper orients itself automatically for each Region you need to reposition the location of the composer
item as well. For the map item you can use the
expression:
(CASE WHEN bounds_width($atlasgeometry) > bounds_height($atlasgeometry) THEN 297 ELSE 210 END) - 2
Use the
(CASE WHEN bounds_width($atlasgeometry) > bounds_height($atlasgeometry) THEN 210 ELSE 297 END) - 2
When you want to give a title above map in the center of the page, insert a label item above the map. First use the
item properties of the label item to set the horizontal alignment to
Center. Next activate from Reference point
the upper middle checkbox. You can provide following expression for field X :
(CASE WHEN bounds_width($atlasgeometry) > bounds_height($atlasgeometry) THEN 297 ELSE 210 END) / 2
For all other composer items you can set the position in a similar way so they are correctly positioned when page
is automatically rotated in portrait or landscape.
Information provided is derived from the excellent blog (in english and portugese) on the Data Defined Override
options Multiple_format_map_series_using_QGIS_2.6 .
This is just one example of how you can use Data Defined Overrides.
18.6.3 Preview
Once the atlas settings have been configured and map items selected, you can create a preview of all the pages by
clicking on Atlas Preview Atlas and using the arrows, in the same menu, to navigate through all the features.
18.6.4 Generation
The atlas generation can be done in different ways. For example, with Atlas Print Atlas, you can directly print
it. You can also create a PDF using Atlas Export Atlas as PDF: The user will be asked for a directory for saving
Single file export when possible has been selected). If you need to
all the generated PDF files (except if the
print just a page of the atlas, simply start the preview function, select the page you need and click on Composer
Print (or create a PDF).
:: note:
Its also possible to switch to a full screen mode to have more space to interact by pressing
:kbd:F11 or using :guilabel:View --> |checkbox| :guilabel:Toggle full screen.
Figure 18.43: Print Composer with map view, legend, image, scale bar, coordinates, text and HTML frame added
The Print Composer allows you to create several output formats, and it is possible to define the resolution (print
quality) and paper size:
Print
The
icon allows you to print the layout to a connected printer or a PostScript file, depending on
installed printer drivers.
The
JPG,...
The
Export as image
Export as PDF
icon exports the Composer canvas in several image formats, such as PNG, BPM, TIF,
Export as SVG
icon saves the Print Composer canvas as an SVG (Scalable Vector Graphic).
If you need to export your layout as a georeferenced image (i.e., to load back inside QGIS), you need to enable
World file on and choose the map item to use. With this option,
this feature under the Composition tab. Check
the Export as image action will also create a world file.
Note:
Currently, the SVG output is very basic. This is not a QGIS problem, but a problem with the underlying Qt
library. This will hopefully be sorted out in future versions.
Exporting big rasters can sometimes fail, even if there seems to be enough memory. This is also a problem
with the underlying Qt management of rasters.
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CHAPTER 19
Plugins
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All menu
Installed menu
This menu lists all plugins available that are not installed. You can use the [Install plugin] button to implement a
plugin into QGIS.
Upgradeable
Show also experimental plugins in the
Settings menu, you can use this menu to look for
If you activated
more recent plugin versions. This can be done with the [Upgrade plugin] or [Upgrade all] buttons.
Settings
In this menu, you can use the following options:
Check for updates on startup. Whenever a new plugin or a plugin update is available, QGIS will inform
you every time QGIS starts, once a day, every 3 days, every week, every 2 weeks or every month.
Show also experimental plugins. QGIS will show you plugins in early stages of development, which are
generally unsuitable for production use.
Show also deprecated plugins. These plugins are deprecated and generally unsuitable for production
use.
To add external author repositories, click [Add...] in the Plugin repositories section. If you do not want one or
more of the added repositories, they can be disabled via the [Edit...] button, or completely removed with the
[Delete] button.
The Search function is available in nearly every menu (except
plugins.
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Upgradeable menu
Settings menu
Detailed documentation about the usage, minimum QGIS version, home page, authors, and other important information are provided for the Official QGIS Repository at http://plugins.qgis.org/plugins/. For other external
repositories, documentation might be available with the external plugins themselves. In general, it is not included
in this manual.
.
Plugin
Accuracy Assessment
CadTools
Description
Generate an error matrix
Perform CAD-like functions in QGIS
Manual Reference
accuracy
cadtools
Coordinate Capture
DB Manager
DB Manager Plugin
DXF2Shape Converter
eVis
eVis Plugin
fTools
fTools Plugin
GPS Tools
GPS Plugin
GRASS
GRASS functionality
GDAL Tools
Georeferencer GDAL
Georeferencer Plugin
Heatmap
Heatmap Plugin
Interpolation plugin
Interpolation Plugin
Offline Editing
Plugin Manager
sqlanywhere
Spatial Query
SPIT
SPIT Plugin
Zonal Statistics
MetaSearch
Project Properties from the Settings (KDE, Windows) or File (Gnome, OSX) menu
and click on the Projection tab. As an alternative, you can also click on the
right-hand corner of the status bar.
19.2. Using QGIS Core Plugins
CRS status
271
2. Click on the
Enable on the fly projection checkbox and select a projected coordinate system of your
choice (see also Working with Projections).
3. Activate the coordinate capture plugin in the Plugin Manager (see The Plugins Dialog) and ensure that the
dialog is visible by going to View Panels and ensuring that
Coordinate Capture is enabled. The
coordinate capture dialog appears as shown in Figure figure_coordinate_capture_1. Alternatively, you can
also go to Vector Coordinate Capture and see if
4. Click on the
selected above.
5. To start capturing coordinates, click on [Start capture]. You can now click anywhere on the map canvas
and the plugin will show the coordinates for both of your selected CRS.
6. To enable mouse coordinate tracking, click the
mouse tracking
icon.
The Database menu allows you to connect to an existing database, to start the SQL window and to exit the DB
Manager Plugin. Once you are connected to an existing database, the menus Schema and Table additionally
appear.
The Schema menu includes tools to create and delete (empty) schemas and, if topology is available (e.g., PostGIS
2), to start a TopoViewer.
The Table menu allows you to create and edit tables and to delete tables and views. It is also possible to empty
tables and to move tables from one schema to another. As further functionality, you can perform a VACUUM
and then an ANALYZE for each selected table. Plain VACUUM simply reclaims space and makes it available
for reuse. ANALYZE updates statistics to determine the most efficient way to execute a query. Finally, you can
import layers/files, if they are loaded in QGIS or exist in the file system. And you can export database tables to
shape with the Export File feature.
The Tree window lists all existing databases supported by QGIS. With a double-click, you can connect to the
database. With the right mouse button, you can rename and delete existing schemas and tables. Tables can also be
added to the QGIS canvas with the context menu.
If connected to a database, the main window of the DB Manager offers three tabs. The Info tab provides information about the table and its geometry, as well as about existing fields, constraints and indexes. It also allows you
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icon, which appears in the QGIS toolbar menu. The Dxf2Shape plugin dialog appears,
as shown in Figure_dxf2shape_1.
2. Enter the input DXF file, a name for the output shapefile and the shapefile type.
3. Enable the
Export text labels checkbox if you want to create an extra point layer with labels.
4. Click [OK].
.
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2. Zoom in button: Zoom in to see more detail. If the entire image cannot be displayed in the display window,
scroll bars will appear on the left and bottom sides of the window to allow you to pan around the image.
3. Zoom out button: Zoom out to see more area.
4. Zoom to full extent button: Displays the full extent of the photograph.
5. Attribute information window: All of the attribute information for the point associated with the photograph being viewed is displayed here. If the file type being referenced in the displayed record is not an
image but is of a file type defined in the Configure External Applications tab, then when you double-click
on the value of the field containing the path to the file, the application to open the file will be launched to
view or hear the contents of the file. If the file extension is recognized, the attribute data will be displayed
in green.
6. Navigation buttons: Use the Previous and Next buttons to load the previous or next feature when more
than one feature is selected.
Understanding the Options window
277
3. Compass offset: Compass offsets can be used to compensate for declination (to adjust bearings collected
Manual radio button to enter the offset in
using magnetic bearings to true north bearings). Click the
the text box or click the
From Attribute radio button to select the attribute field containing the offsets.
For both of these options, east declinations should be entered using positive values, and west declinations
should use negative values.
4. Directory base path: The base path onto which the relative path defined in Figure_eVis_2 (A) will be
appended.
5. Replace path: If this checkbox is checked, only the file name from A will be appended to the base path.
6. Apply rule to all documents: If checked, the same path rules that are defined for photographs will be used
for non-image documents such as movies, text documents, and sound files. If not checked, the path rules
will only apply to photographs, and other documents will ignore the base path parameter.
7. Remember settings: If the checkbox is checked, the values for the associated parameters will be saved for
the next session when the window is closed or when the [Save] button below is pressed.
8. Reset values: Resets the values on this line to the default setting.
9. Restore defaults: This will reset all of the fields to their default settings. It has the same effect as clicking
all of the [Reset] buttons.
10. Save: This will save the settings without closing the Options pane.
Understanding the Configure External Applications window
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X
780596
780596
780819
Y
1784017
1784017
1784015
780596
1784017
FILE
C:\Workshop\eVis_Data\groundphotos\DSC_0168.JPG
/groundphotos/DSC_0169.JPG
http://biodiversityinformatics.amnh.org/\
evis_testdata/DSC_0170.JPG
pdf:http://www.testsite.com/attachments.php?\
attachment_id-12
BEARING
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80
10
76
To view the photographs linked to vector features in the active vector layer displayed in the QGIS map window,
move the Event ID cursor over the feature and then click the mouse. After clicking on the feature, the Event
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Browser window is opened and the photographs on or near the clicked locality are available for display in the
browser. If more than one photograph is available, you can cycle through the different features using the [Previous] and [Next] buttons. The other controls are described in the ref:evis_browser section of this guide.
Connect to a database
Click on the Database Connection tab to open the database connection interface. Next, use the Database Type
combo box to select the type of database that you want to connect to. If a password or username is required,
that information can be entered in the Username and Password textboxes.
Enter the database host in the Database Host textbox. This option is not available if you selected MS Access as
the database type. If the database resides on your desktop, you should enter localhost.
Enter the name of the database in the Database Name textbox. If you selected ODBC as the database type, you
need to enter the data source name.
When all of the parameters are filled in, click on the [Connect] button. If the connection is successful, a message
will be written in the Output Console window stating that the connection was established. If a connection was not
established, you will need to check that the correct parameters were entered above.
1. Database Type: A drop-down list to specify the type of database that will be used.
2. Database Host: The name of the database host.
3. Port: The port number if a MySQL or PostgreSQL database type is selected.
4. Database Name: The name of the database.
5. Connect: A button to connect to the database using the parameters defined above.
6. Output Console: The console window where messages related to processing are displayed.
7. Username: Username for use when a database is password protected.
8. Password: Password for use when a database is password protected.
9. Predefined Queries: Tab to open the Predefined Queries window.
10. Database Connection: Tab to open the Database Connection window.
11. SQL Query: Tab to open the SQL Query window.
12. Help: Displays the online help.
13. OK: Closes the main Database Connection window.
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Open File
Select the query you want to run from the drop-down menu and then click on the SQL Query tab to see that the
query has been loaded into the query window. If it is the first time you are running a predefined query or are
switching databases, you need to be sure to connect to the database.
Click on the [Run Query] button in the SQL Query tab to execute the command. If the query is successful, a
Database File Selection window will be displayed. If the query is not successful, an error message will appear in
the Output Console window.
1. Open File: Launches the Open File file browser to search for the XML file holding the predefined queries.
2. Predefined Queries: A drop-down list with all of the queries defined by the predefined queries XML file.
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Tag
Description
query
Defines the beginning and end of a query statement.
shortdeA short description of the query that appears in the eVis drop-down menu.
scription
descripA more detailed description of the query displayed in the Predefined Query text window.
tion
databaseThe database type, defined in the Database Type drop-down menu in the Database Connection
type
tab.
databaseThe port as defined in the Port text box in the Database Connection tab.
port
databaseThe database name as defined in the Database Name text box in the Database Connection tab.
name
databaseuser-The database username as defined in the Username text box in the Database Connection tab.
name
databasep- The database password as defined in the Password text box in the Database Connection tab.
assword
sqlstateThe SQL command.
ment
autoconA flag (true or false) to specify if the above tags should be used to automatically connect to
nect
the database without running the database connection routine in the Database Connection tab.
A complete sample XML file with three queries is displayed below:
<?xml version="1.0"?>
<doc>
<query>
<shortdescription>Import all photograph points</shortdescription>
<description>This command will import all of the data in the SQLite database to QGIS
</description>
<databasetype>SQLITE</databasetype>
<databasehost />
<databaseport />
<databasename>C:\textbackslash Workshop/textbackslash
eVis\_Data\textbackslash PhotoPoints.db</databasename>
<databaseusername />
<databasepassword />
<sqlstatement>SELECT Attributes.*, Points.x, Points.y FROM Attributes LEFT JOIN
Points ON Points.rec_id=Attributes.point_ID</sqlstatement>
<autoconnect>false</autoconnect>
</query>
<query>
<shortdescription>Import photograph points "looking across Valley"</shortdescription>
<description>This command will import only points that have photographs "looking across
a valley" to QGIS</description>
<databasetype>SQLITE</databasetype>
<databasehost />
<databaseport />
<databasename>C:\Workshop\eVis_Data\PhotoPoints.db</databasename>
<databaseusername />
<databasepassword />
<sqlstatement>SELECT Attributes.*, Points.x, Points.y FROM Attributes LEFT JOIN
Points ON Points.rec_id=Attributes.point_ID where COMMENTS=Looking across
valley</sqlstatement>
<autoconnect>false</autoconnect>
</query>
<query>
<shortdescription>Import photograph points that mention "limestone"</shortdescription>
<description>This command will import only points that have photographs that mention
"limestone" to QGIS</description>
<databasetype>SQLITE</databasetype>
<databasehost />
<databaseport />
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<databasename>C:\Workshop\eVis_Data\PhotoPoints.db</databasename>
<databaseusername />
<databasepassword />
<sqlstatement>SELECT Attributes.*, Points.x, Points.y FROM Attributes LEFT JOIN
Points ON Points.rec_id=Attributes.point_ID where COMMENTS like %limestone%
</sqlstatement>
<autoconnect>false</autoconnect>
</query>
</doc>
Purpose
Distance
matrix
Measure distances between two point layers, and output results as a) Square distance
matrix, b) Linear distance matrix, or c) Summary of distances. Can limit distances to
the k nearest features.
Sum line
length
Calculate the total sum of line lengths for each polygon of a polygon vector layer.
Points in
polygon
Count the number of points that occur in each polygon of an input polygon vector layer.
List unique
values
Basic
statistics
Compute basic statistics (mean, std dev, N, sum, CV) on an input field.
Nearest
neighbor
analysis
Compute nearest neighbor statistics to assess the level of clustering in a point vector
layer.
Mean
coordinate(s)
Compute either the normal or weighted mean center of an entire vector layer, or
multiple features based on a unique ID field.
Line
intersections
Locate intersections between lines, and output results as a point shapefile. Useful for
locating road or stream intersections, ignores line intersections with length > 0.
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Purpose
Random selection
Random selection
within subsets
Random points
Regular points
Generate a regular grid of points over a specified region and export them as a
point shapefile.
Vector grid
Select by location
Select features based on their location relative to another layer to form a new
selection, or add or subtract from the current selection.
Create a single rectangular polygon layer from the extent of an input raster or
vector layer.
Purpose
Convex hull(s)
Buffer(s)
Intersect
Overlay layers such that output contains areas where both layers intersect.
Union
Overlay layers such that output contains intersecting and non-intersecting areas.
Symmetrical
difference
Overlay layers such that output contains those areas of the input and difference
layers that do not intersect.
Clip
Overlay layers such that output contains areas that intersect the clip layer.
Difference
Overlay layers such that output contains areas not intersecting the clip layer.
Dissolve
Merge features based on input field. All features with identical input values are
combined to form one single feature.
Eliminate sliver
polygons
Merges selected features with the neighbouring polygon with the largest area or
largest common boundary.
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Purpose
Check
geometry
validity
Check polygons for intersections, closed holes, and fix node ordering. You can
choose the engine used by the in the options dialog, digitizing tab Change the
Validate geometries value. There is two engines: QGIS and GEOS which have pretty
different behaviour. Another tools exists which shows different result as well:
Topology Checker plugin and must not have invalid geometries rule.
Export/Add
geometry
columns
Add vector layer geometry info to point (XCOORD, YCOORD), line (LENGTH), or
polygon (AREA, PERIMETER) layer.
Polygon
centroids
Calculate the true centroids for each polygon in an input polygon layer.
Delaunay
triangulation
Voronoi
polygons
Calculate and output (as polygons) the Delaunay triangulation of an input point
vector layer.
Calculate Voronoi polygons of an input point vector layer.
Simplify
geometry
Densify
geometry
Multipart to
singleparts
Singleparts to
multipart
Polygons to
lines
Lines to
polygons
Extract nodes
Extract nodes from line and polygon layers and output them as points.
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Purpose
Define
current
projection
Specify the CRS for shapefiles whose CRS has not been defined.
Join
attributes by
location
Join additional attributes to vector layer based on spatial relationship. Attributes from
one vector layer are appended to the attribute table of another layer and exported as a
shapefile.
Split vector
layer
Split input layer into multiple separate layers based on input field.
Merge
shapefiles to
one
Create
spatial index
Merge several shapefiles within a folder into a new shapefile based on the layer type
(point, line, area).
Create a spatial index for OGR- supported formats.
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Projections
Warp
(Reproject)
This utility is an image mosaicing, reprojection and warping utility. The program can
reproject to any supported projection, and can also apply GCPs stored with the image if the
image is raw with control information. For more information, you can read on the GDAL
website http://www.gdal.org/gdalwarp.html.
Assign
projection
This tool allows you to assign projection to rasters that are already georeferenced but miss
projection information. Also with its help, it is possible to alter existing projection definitions.
Both single file and batch mode are supported. For more information, please visit the utility
page at the GDAL site, http://www.gdal.org/gdalwarp.html.
Extract
projection
This utility helps you to extract projection information from an input file. If you want to
extract projection information from a whole directory, you can use the batch mode. It creates
both .prj and .wld files.
Conversion
Rasterize
Polygonize
Translate
This program burns vector geometries (points, lines and polygons) into the raster band(s) of a
raster image. Vectors are read from OGR-supported vector formats. Note that the vector data
must in the same coordinate system as the raster data; on the fly reprojection is not provided. For
more information see http://www.gdal.org/gdal_rasterize.html.
This utility creates vector polygons for all connected regions of pixels in the raster sharing a
common pixel value. Each polygon is created with an attribute indicating the pixel value of that
polygon. The utility will create the output vector datasource if it does not already exist,
defaulting to ESRI shapefile format. See also http://www.gdal.org/gdal_polygonize.html.
This utility can be used to convert raster data between different formats, potentially performing
some operations like subsetting, resampling, and rescaling pixels in the process. For more
information you can read on http://www.gdal.org/gdal_translate.html.
RGB
to PCT
This utility will compute an optimal pseudocolor table for a given RGB image using a median
cut algorithm on a downsampled RGB histogram. Then it converts the image into a
pseudocolored image using the color table. This conversion utilizes Floyd-Steinberg dithering
(error diffusion) to maximize output image visual quality. The utility is also described at
http://www.gdal.org/rgb2pct.html.
PCT
to RGB
This utility will convert a pseudocolor band on the input file into an output RGB file of the
desired format. For more information, see http://www.gdal.org/pct2rgb.html.
Extraction
Contour
Clipper
This program generates a vector contour file from the input raster elevation model (DEM). On
http://www.gdal.org/gdal_contour.html, you can find more information.
This utility allows you to clip (extract subset) rasters using selected extent or based on mask layer
bounds. More information can be found at http://www.gdal.org/gdal_translate.html.
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Analysis
Sieve
This utility removes raster polygons smaller than a provided threshold size (in pixels) and
replaces them with the pixel value of the largest neighbor polygon. The result can be written
back to the existing raster band, or copied into a new file. For more information, see
http://www.gdal.org/gdal_sieve.html.
Near
Black
This utility will scan an image and try to set all pixels that are nearly black (or nearly white)
around the edge to exactly black (or white). This is often used to fix up lossy compressed
aerial photos so that color pixels can be treated as transparent when mosaicing. See also
http://www.gdal.org/nearblack.html.
Fill
nodata
This utility fills selected raster regions (usually nodata areas) by interpolation from valid
pixels around the edges of the areas. On http://www.gdal.org/gdal_fillnodata.html, you can
find more information.
Proximity
This utility generates a raster proximity map indicating the distance from the center of each
pixel to the center of the nearest pixel identified as a target pixel. Target pixels are those in
the source raster for which the raster pixel value is in the set of target pixel values. For more
information see http://www.gdal.org/gdal_proximity.html.
Grid (Interpolation)
This utility creates a regular grid (raster) from the scattered data read from the OGR
datasource. Input data will be interpolated to fill grid nodes with values, and you can choose
from various interpolation methods. The utility is also described on the GDAL website,
http://www.gdal.org/gdal_grid.html.
DEM
(Terrain
models)
Tools to analyze and visualize DEMs. It can create a shaded relief, a slope, an aspect, a
color relief, a Terrain Ruggedness Index, a Topographic Position Index and a roughness
map from any GDAL-supported elevation raster. For more information, see
http://www.gdal.org/gdaldem.html.
Miscellaneous
Build Virtual
Raster (Catalog)
Merge
This utility will automatically mosaic a set of images. All the images must be in the
same coordinate system and have a matching number of bands, but they may be
overlapping, and at different resolutions. In areas of overlap, the last image will be
copied over earlier ones. The utility is also described at
http://www.gdal.org/gdal_merge.html.
Information
Build
Overviews
Tile Index
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This program builds a VRT (Virtual Dataset) that is a mosaic of the list of input GDAL
datasets. See also http://www.gdal.org/gdalbuildvrt.html.
The gdaladdo utility can be used to build or rebuild overview images for most supported
file formats with one of several downsampling algorithms. For more information, see
http://www.gdal.org/gdaladdo.html.
This utility builds a shapefile with a record for each input raster file, an attribute
containing the filename, and a polygon geometry outlining the raster. See also
http://www.gdal.org/gdaltindex.html.
Purpose
Icon
Purpose
Open raster
Start georeferencing
Transformation settings
Add Point
Delete Point
Pan
Zoom In
Zoom Out
Zoom To Layer
Zoom Last
Zoom Next
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Click on a point in the raster image and enter the X and Y coordinates manually.
From map canvas
button to add the X and Y
Click on a point in the raster image and choose the
coordinates with the help of a georeferenced map already loaded in the QGIS map canvas.
With the
button, you can move the GCPs in both windows, if they are at the wrong place.
3. Continue entering points. You should have at least four points, and the more coordinates you can provide,
the better the result will be. There are additional tools on the plugin dialog to zoom and pan the working
area in order to locate a relevant set of GCP points.
The points that are added to the map will be stored in a separate text file ([filename].points) usually
together with the raster image. This allows us to reopen the Georeferencer plugin at a later date and add new
points or delete existing ones to optimize the result. The points file contains values of the form: mapX, mapY,
pixelX, pixelY. You can use the
and
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Finally,
Load in QGIS when done loads the output raster automatically into the QGIS map canvas when
the transformation is done.
Show and adapt raster properties
Clicking on the Raster properties dialog in the Settings menu opens the raster properties of the layer that you want
to georeference.
Configure the georeferencer
You can define whether you want to show GCP coordiniates and/or IDs.
As residual units, pixels and map units can be chosen.
For the PDF report, a left and right margin can be defined and you can also set the paper size for the PDF
map.
Finally, you can activate to
Start georeferencing
can be found in the Raster Toolbar, and under the Raster Heatmap menu.
Select the menu View Toolbars Raster to show the Raster Toolbar if it is not visible.
Heatmap tool button opens the Heatmap plugin dialog (see figure_heatmap_2).
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Radius: Is used to specify the heatmap search radius (or kernel bandwidth) in meters or map units. The
radius specifies the distance around a point at which the influence of the point will be felt. Larger values
result in greater smoothing, but smaller values may show finer details and variation in point density.
When the
Rows and Columns: Used to change the dimensions of the output raster. These values are also linked to
the Cell size X and Cell size Y values. Increasing the number of rows or columns will decrease the cell size
and increase the file size of the output file. The values in Rows and Columns are also linked, so doubling
the number of rows will automatically double the number of columns and the cell sizes will also be halved.
The geographical area of the output raster will remain the same!
Cell size X and Cell size Y: Control the geographic size of each pixel in the output raster. Changing these
values will also change the number of Rows and Columns in the output raster.
Kernel shape: The kernel shape controls the rate at which the influence of a point decreases as the distance
from the point increases. Different kernels decay at different rates, so a triweight kernel gives features
greater weight for distances closer to the point then the Epanechnikov kernel does. Consequently, triweight
results in sharper hotspots, and Epanechnikov results in smoother hotspots. A number of standard
kernel functions are available in QGIS, which are described and illustrated on Wikipedia.
Decay ratio: Can be used with Triangular kernels to further control how heat from a feature decreases with
distance from the feature.
A value of 0 (=minimum) indicates that the heat will be concentrated in the centre of the given radius
and completely extinguished at the edge.
A value of 0.5 indicates that pixels at the edge of the radius will be given half the heat as pixels at the
centre of the search radius.
A value of 1 means the heat is spread evenly over the whole search radius circle. (This is equivalent
to the Uniform kernel.)
A value greater than 1 indicates that the heat is higher towards the edge of the search radius than at the
centre.
The input point layer may also have attribute fields which can affect how they influence the heatmap:
Use radius from field: Sets the search radius for each feature from an attribute field in the input layer.
Use weight from field: Allows input features to be weighted by an attribute field. This can be used to
increase the influence certain features have on the resultant heatmap.
When an output raster file name is specified, the [OK] button can be used to create the heatmap.
field, select airports from the list of point layers loaded in the current
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QGIS will generate the heatmap and add the results to your map window. By default, the heatmap is shaded in
greyscale, with lighter areas showing higher concentrations of airports. The heatmap can now be styled in QGIS
to improve its appearance.
Figure 19.22: The heatmap after loading looks like a grey surface
1. Open the properties dialog of the heatmap_airports layer (select the layer heatmap_airports,
open the context menu with the right mouse button and select Properties).
2. Select the Style tab.
3. Change the Render type
4. Select a suitable Color map
to Singleband pseudocolor.
, for instance YlOrRed.
5. Click the [Load] button to fetch the minimum and maximum values from the raster, then click the [Classify]
button.
6. Press [OK] to update the layer.
The final result is shown in Figure_Heatmap_4.
.
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combo box.
Interpolation attribute: Select the attribute column to be used for interpolation or enable the
Z-Coordinate checkbox to use the layers stored Z values.
Use
Interpolation Method: Select the interpolation method. This can be either Triangulated Irregular Network
(TIN) or Inverse Distance Weighted (IDW). With the TIN method you can create a surface formed by
triangles of nearest neighbour points. To do this, circumcircles around selected sample points are created
and their intersections are connected to a network of non overlapping and as compact as possible triangles.
The resulting surfaces are not smooth. When using the IDW method the sample points are weighted during
interpolation such that the influence of one point relative to another declines with distance from the unknown
point you want to create. The IDW interpolation method also has some disadvantages: the quality of the
interpolation result can decrease, if the distribution of sample data points is uneven. Furthermore, maximum
and minimum values in the interpolated surface can only occur at sample data points. This often results in
small peaks and pits around the sample data points.
Number of columns/rows: Specify the number of rows and columns for the output raster file.
Output file: Specify a name for the output raster file.
Add result to project to load the result into the map canvas.
Note that using lines as constraints for the interpolation the triangulation (TIN method) you can either use structure lines or break lines. When using break lines you produce sharp breaks in the surface while using structure
lines you produce continous breaks. The triangulation is modified by both methods such that no edge crosses a
breakline or structure line.
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4. Select an interpolation method (e.g., Triangulated Irregular Network (TIN)), and specify a cell size of
5000 as well as the raster output filename (e.g., elevation_tin).
5. Click [OK].
.
19.12.1 Introduction
MetaSearch is a QGIS plugin to interact with metadata catalogue services, supporting the OGC Catalogue Service
for the Web (CSW) standard.
MetaSearch provides an easy and intuitive approach and user-friendly interface to searching metadata catalogues
within QGIS.
19.12.2 Installation
MetaSearch is included by default with QGIS 2.0 and higher. All dependencies are included within MetaSearch.
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Install MetaSearch from the QGIS plugin manager, or manually from http://plugins.qgis.org/plugins/MetaSearch.
The Services tab allows the user to manage all available catalogue services. MetaSearch provides a default list
of Catalogue Services, which can be added by pressing Add default services button.
To all listed Catalogue Service entries, click the dropdown select box.
To add a Catalogue Service entry, click the New button, and enter a Name for the service, as well as the
URL/endpoint. Note that only the base URL is required (not a full GetCapabilities URL). Clicking ok will add
the service to the list of entries.
To edit an existing Catalogue Service entry, select the entry you would like to edit and click the Edit button, and
modify the Name or URL values, then click ok.
To delete a Catalogue Service entry, select the entry you would like to delete and click the Delete button. You
will be asked to confirm deleting the entry.
MetaSearch allows for loading and saving connections to an XML file. This is useful when you need to share
settings between applications. Below is an example of the XML file format.
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To load a list of entries, click the Load button. A new window will appear; click the Browse button and
navigate to the XML file of entries you wish to load and click Open. The list of entries will be displayed. Select
the entries you wish to add from the list and click Load.
The Service info button displays information about the selected Catalogue Service such as service identification,
service provider and contact information. If you would like to view the raw XML response, click the GetCapabilities response button. A separate window will open displaying Capabilities XML.
Searching Catalogue Services
The Search tab allows the user to query Catalogue Services for data and services, set various search parameters
and view results.
The following search parameters are available:
Keywords: free text search keywords
From: the Catalogue Service to perform the query against
Bounding box: the spatial area of interest to filter on. The default bounding box is the map view / canvas.
Click Set global to do a global search, or enter custom values as desired
Records: the number of records to return when searching. Default is 10 records
Clicking the Search button will search the selected Metadata Catalogue. Search results are displayed in a list and
are sortable by clicking on the column title. You can navigate through search results with the directional buttons
below the search results. Clicking the View search results as XML button opens a window with the service
response in raw XML format.
Clicking a result will show the records abstract in the Abstract window and provides the following options:
if the metadata record has an associated bounding box, a footprint of the bounding box will be displayed on
the map
double-clicking the record displays the record metadata with any associated access links. Clicking the links
opens the link in the users web browser
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if the record is an OGC web service (WMS/WMTS, WFS, WCS), the appropriate Add to
WMS/WMTS|WFS|WCS buttons will be enabled for the user to add to QGIS. When clicking this button, MetaSearch will verify if this is a valid OWS. The OWS will then be added to the appropriate QGIS
connection list, and the appropriate WMS/WMTS|WFS|WCS connection dialogue will then appear
Settings
You can fine tune MetaSearch with the following settings:
Connection naming: when adding an OWS connection (WMS/WMTS|WFS|WCS), the connection is
stored with the various QGIS layer provider. Use this setting to set whether to use the name provided
from MetaSearch, whether to overwrite or to use a temporary name
Results paging: when searching metadata catalogues, the number of results to show per page
Timeout: when searching metadata catalogues, the number of seconds for blocking connection attempt.
Default value is 10
.
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Synchronize.
This will load the raster into the default GDAL_IMPORT table, as a column named RASTER.
Database instance: Enter the name of the database that you will connect to.
Username: Specify your own username that you will use to access the database.
Password: Provide the password associated with your username that is required to access the database.
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gdaladdo georaster:scott/tiger@orcl,georaster\_table,georaster,georid=6 -r
nearest 2 4 6 8 16 32
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Relief: Creates a shaded relief map from digital elevation data. Implemented is a method to choose the
elevation colors by analysing the frequency distribution. The output map is a multiband color with three
bands reflecting the RGB values of the shaded relief.
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308
Select Remove from current selection in the field And use the result to
You can
Log messages.
Additionally in Result Feature IDs with the options Invalid source and Invalid reference you can have a
look at features with geometries errors. These features arent used for the query.
.
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To import a shapefile, use Database Spit Import Shapefiles to PostgreSQL from the menu bar to open the
SPIT - Shapefile to PostGIS Import Tool dialog. Select the PostGIS database you want to connect to and click on
[Connect]. If you want, you can define or change some import options. Now you can add one or more files to the
queue by clicking on the [Add] button. To process the files, click on the [OK] button. The progress of the import
as well as any errors/warnings will be displayed as each shapefile is processed. .
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Must be covered by: Here you can choose a vector layer from your project. Points that arent covered by
the given vector layer occur in the Error field.
Must be covered by endpoints of: Here you can choose a line layer from your project.
Must be inside: Here you can choose a polygon layer from your project. The points must be inside a
polygon. Otherwise, QGIS writes an Error for the point.
Must not have duplicates: Whenever a point is represented twice or more, it will occur in the Error field.
Must not have invalid geometries: Checks whether the geometries are valid.
Must not have multi-part-geometries: All multi-part points are written into the Error field.
On line layers, the following rules are available:
End points must be covered by: Here you can select a point layer from your project.
Must not have dangles: This will show the overshoots in the line layer.
Must not have duplicates: Whenever a line feature is represented twice or more, it will occur in the Error
field.
Must not have invalid geometries: Checks whether the geometries are valid.
Must not have multi-part geometries: Sometimes, a geometry is actually a collection of simple (singlepart) geometries. Such a geometry is called multi-part geometry. If it contains just one type of simple
geometry, we call it multi-point, multi-linestring or multi-polygon. All multi-part lines are written into the
Error field.
Must not have pseudos: A line geometrys endpoint should be connected to the endpoints of two other
geometries. If the endpoint is connected to only one other geometrys endpoint, the endpoint is called a
psuedo node.
On polygon layers, the following rules are available:
Must contain: Polygon layer must contain at least one point geometry from the second layer.
Must not have duplicates: Polygons from the same layer must not have identical geometries. Whenever a
polygon feature is represented twice or more it will occur in the Error field.
Must not have gaps: Adjacent polygons should not form gaps between them. Administrative boundaries
could be mentioned as an example (US state polygons do not have any gaps between them...).
Must not have invalid geometries: Checks whether the geometries are valid. Some of the rules that define
a valid geometry are:
Polygon rings must close.
Rings that define holes should be inside rings that define exterior boundaries.
Rings may not self-intersect (they may neither touch nor cross one another).
Rings may not touch other rings, except at a point.
Must not have multi-part geometries: Sometimes, a geometry is actually a collection of simple (singlepart) geometries. Such a geometry is called multi-part geometry. If it contains just one type of simple
geometry, we call it multi-point, multi-linestring or multi-polygon. For example, a country consisting of
multiple islands can be represented as a multi-polygon.
Must not overlap: Adjacent polygons should not share common area.
Must not overlap with: Adjacent polygons from one layer should not share common area with polygons
from another layer.
.
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CHAPTER 20
20.1.1 qgis-users
This mailing list is used for discussion of QGIS in general, as well as specific questions regarding its
installation and use. You can subscribe to the qgis-users mailing list by visiting the following URL:
http://lists.osgeo.org/mailman/listinfo/qgis-user
20.1.2 fossgis-talk-liste
For the German-speaking audience, the German FOSSGIS e.V. provides the fossgis-talk-liste mailing list. This
mailing list is used for discussion of open-source GIS in general, including QGIS. You can subscribe to the fossgistalk-liste mailing list by visiting the following URL: https://lists.fossgis.de/mailman/listinfo/fossgis-talk-liste
20.1.3 qgis-developer
If you are a developer facing problems of a more technical nature, you may want to join the qgis-developer mailing
list here: http://lists.osgeo.org/mailman/listinfo/qgis-developer
20.1.4 qgis-commit
Each time a commit is made to the QGIS code repository, an email is posted to this list. If you
want to be up-to-date with every change to the current code base, you can subscribe to this list at:
http://lists.osgeo.org/mailman/listinfo/qgis-commit
20.1.5 qgis-trac
This list provides email notification related to project management, including bug reports, tasks, and feature
requests. You can subscribe to this list at: http://lists.osgeo.org/mailman/listinfo/qgis-trac
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20.1.6 qgis-community-team
This list deals with topics like documentation, context help, user guide, web sites, blog, mailing lists, forums, and
translation efforts. If you would like to work on the user guide as well, this list is a good starting point to ask your
questions. You can subscribe to this list at: http://lists.osgeo.org/mailman/listinfo/qgis-community-team
20.1.7 qgis-release-team
This list deals with topics like the release process, packaging binaries for various OSs and announcing new releases
to the world at large. You can subscribe to this list at: http://lists.osgeo.org/mailman/listinfo/qgis-release-team
20.1.8 qgis-tr
This list deals with the translation efforts. If you like to work on the translation of the manuals or the graphical
user interface (GUI), this list is a good starting point to ask your questions. You can subscribe to this list at:
http://lists.osgeo.org/mailman/listinfo/qgis-tr
20.1.9 qgis-edu
This list deals with QGIS education efforts.
If you would like to work on QGIS education materials, this list is a good starting point to ask your questions. You can subscribe to this list at:
http://lists.osgeo.org/mailman/listinfo/qgis-edu
20.1.10 qgis-psc
This list is used to discuss Steering Committee issues related to overall management and direction of QGIS. You
can subscribe to this list at: http://lists.osgeo.org/mailman/listinfo/qgis-psc
You are welcome to subscribe to any of the lists. Please remember to contribute to the list by answering questions
and sharing your experiences. Note that the qgis-commit and qgis-trac lists are designed for notification only and
are not meant for user postings.
20.2 IRC
We also maintain a presence on IRC - visit us by joining the #qgis channel on irc.freenode.net. Please wait for a
response to your question, as many folks on the channel are doing other things and it may take a while for them to
notice your question. If you missed a discussion on IRC, not a problem! We log all discussion, so you can easily
catch up. Just go to http://qgis.org/irclogs and read the IRC-logs.
Commercial support for QGIS is also available. Check the website http://qgis.org/en/commercial-support.html for
more information.
20.3 BugTracker
While the qgis-users mailing list is useful for general How do I do XYZ in QGIS?-type questions, you
may wish to notify us about bugs in QGIS. You can submit bug reports using the QGIS bug tracker at
http://hub.qgis.org/projects/quantum-gis/issues. When creating a new ticket for a bug, please provide an email
address where we can contact you for additional information.
Please bear in mind that your bug may not always enjoy the priority you might hope for (depending on its severity).
Some bugs may require significant developer effort to remedy, and the manpower is not always available for this.
316
Feature requests can be submitted as well using the same ticket system as for bugs. Please make sure to select the
type Feature.
If you have found a bug and fixed it yourself, you can submit this patch also. Again, the lovely redmine ticketsystem at http://hub.qgis.org/wiki/quantum-gis/issues has this type as well. Check the Patch supplied checkbox
and attach your patch before submitting your bug. One of the developers will review it and apply it to QGIS. Please
dont be alarmed if your patch is not applied straight away developers may be tied up with other commitments.
20.4 Blog
The QGIS community also runs a weblog at http://planet.qgis.org/planet/, which has some interesting articles for
users and developers as well provided by other blogs in the community. You are invited to contribute your own
QGIS blog!
20.5 Plugins
The website http://plugins.qgis.org provides the official QGIS plugins web portal. Here, you find a list of all stable
and experimental QGIS plugins available via the Official QGIS Plugin Repository.
20.6 Wiki
Lastly, we maintain a WIKI web site at http://hub.qgis.org/projects/quantum-gis/wiki where you can find a variety
of useful information relating to QGIS development, release plans, links to download sites, message-translation
hints and more. Check it out, there are some goodies inside!
.
20.4. Blog
317
318
CHAPTER 21
Appendix
any such program or work, and a work based on the Program means either the Program or any derivative
work under copyright law: that is to say, a work containing the Program or a portion of it, either verbatim
or with modifications and/or translated into another language. (Hereinafter, translation is included without
limitation in the term modification.) Each licensee is addressed as you.
Activities other than copying, distribution and modification are not covered by this License; they are outside
its scope. The act of running the Program is not restricted, and the output from the Program is covered only
if its contents constitute a work based on the Program (independent of having been made by running the
Program). Whether that is true depends on what the Program does.
1. You may copy and distribute verbatim copies of the Programs source code as you receive it, in any medium,
provided that you conspicuously and appropriately publish on each copy an appropriate copyright notice
and disclaimer of warranty; keep intact all the notices that refer to this License and to the absence of any
warranty; and give any other recipients of the Program a copy of this License along with the Program.
You may charge a fee for the physical act of transferring a copy, and you may at your option offer warranty
protection in exchange for a fee.
2. You may modify your copy or copies of the Program or any portion of it, thus forming a work based on the
Program, and copy and distribute such modifications or work under the terms of Section 1 above, provided
that you also meet all of these conditions:
(a) You must cause the modified files to carry prominent notices stating that you changed the files and the
date of any change.
(b) You must cause any work that you distribute or publish, that in whole or in part contains or is derived
from the Program or any part thereof, to be licensed as a whole at no charge to all third parties under
the terms of this License.
(c) If the modified program normally reads commands interactively when run, you must cause it, when
started running for such interactive use in the most ordinary way, to print or display an announcement
including an appropriate copyright notice and a notice that there is no warranty (or else, saying that
you provide a warranty) and that users may redistribute the program under these conditions, and telling
the user how to view a copy of this License. (Exception: if the Program itself is interactive but does
not normally print such an announcement, your work based on the Program is not required to print an
announcement.)
These requirements apply to the modified work as a whole. If identifiable sections of that work are not
derived from the Program, and can be reasonably considered independent and separate works in themselves,
then this License, and its terms, do not apply to those sections when you distribute them as separate works.
But when you distribute the same sections as part of a whole which is a work based on the Program, the
distribution of the whole must be on the terms of this License, whose permissions for other licensees extend
to the entire whole, and thus to each and every part regardless of who wrote it.
Thus, it is not the intent of this section to claim rights or contest your rights to work written entirely by you;
rather, the intent is to exercise the right to control the distribution of derivative or collective works based on
the Program.
In addition, mere aggregation of another work not based on the Program with the Program (or with a work
based on the Program) on a volume of a storage or distribution medium does not bring the other work under
the scope of this License.
3. You may copy and distribute the Program (or a work based on it, under Section 2) in object code or executable form under the terms of Sections 1 and 2 above provided that you also do one of the following:
(a) Accompany it with the complete corresponding machine-readable source code, which must be distributed under the terms of Sections 1 and 2 above on a medium customarily used for software interchange; or,
(b) Accompany it with a written offer, valid for at least three years, to give any third party, for a charge no
more than your cost of physically performing source distribution, a complete machine-readable copy
of the corresponding source code, to be distributed under the terms of Sections 1 and 2 above on a
medium customarily used for software interchange; or,
320
(c) Accompany it with the information you received as to the offer to distribute corresponding source
code. (This alternative is allowed only for noncommercial distribution and only if you received the
program in object code or executable form with such an offer, in accord with Subsection b above.)
The source code for a work means the preferred form of the work for making modifications to it. For an
executable work, complete source code means all the source code for all modules it contains, plus any
associated interface definition files, plus the scripts used to control compilation and installation of the executable. However, as a special exception, the source code distributed need not include anything that is
normally distributed (in either source or binary form) with the major components (compiler, kernel, and
so on) of the operating system on which the executable runs, unless that component itself accompanies the
executable.
If distribution of executable or object code is made by offering access to copy from a designated place, then
offering equivalent access to copy the source code from the same place counts as distribution of the source
code, even though third parties are not compelled to copy the source along with the object code.
4. You may not copy, modify, sublicense, or distribute the Program except as expressly provided under this
License. Any attempt otherwise to copy, modify, sublicense or distribute the Program is void, and will
automatically terminate your rights under this License. However, parties who have received copies, or
rights, from you under this License will not have their licenses terminated so long as such parties remain in
full compliance.
5. You are not required to accept this License, since you have not signed it. However, nothing else grants you
permission to modify or distribute the Program or its derivative works. These actions are prohibited by law
if you do not accept this License. Therefore, by modifying or distributing the Program (or any work based
on the Program), you indicate your acceptance of this License to do so, and all its terms and conditions for
copying, distributing or modifying the Program or works based on it.
6. Each time you redistribute the Program (or any work based on the Program), the recipient automatically
receives a license from the original licensor to copy, distribute or modify the Program subject to these terms
and conditions. You may not impose any further restrictions on the recipients exercise of the rights granted
herein. You are not responsible for enforcing compliance by third parties to this License.
7. If, as a consequence of a court judgment or allegation of patent infringement or for any other reason (not
limited to patent issues), conditions are imposed on you (whether by court order, agreement or otherwise)
that contradict the conditions of this License, they do not excuse you from the conditions of this License.
If you cannot distribute so as to satisfy simultaneously your obligations under this License and any other
pertinent obligations, then as a consequence you may not distribute the Program at all. For example, if a
patent license would not permit royalty-free redistribution of the Program by all those who receive copies
directly or indirectly through you, then the only way you could satisfy both it and this License would be to
refrain entirely from distribution of the Program.
If any portion of this section is held invalid or unenforceable under any particular circumstance, the balance
of the section is intended to apply and the section as a whole is intended to apply in other circumstances.
It is not the purpose of this section to induce you to infringe any patents or other property right claims or
to contest validity of any such claims; this section has the sole purpose of protecting the integrity of the
free software distribution system, which is implemented by public license practices. Many people have
made generous contributions to the wide range of software distributed through that system in reliance on
consistent application of that system; it is up to the author/donor to decide if he or she is willing to distribute
software through any other system and a licensee cannot impose that choice.
This section is intended to make thoroughly clear what is believed to be a consequence of the rest of this
License.
8. If the distribution and/or use of the Program is restricted in certain countries either by patents or by copyrighted interfaces, the original copyright holder who places the Program under this License may add an
explicit geographical distribution limitation excluding those countries, so that distribution is permitted only
in or among countries not thus excluded. In such case, this License incorporates the limitation as if written
in the body of this License.
9. The Free Software Foundation may publish revised and/or new versions of the General Public License from
time to time. Such new versions will be similar in spirit to the present version, but may differ in detail to
address new problems or concerns.
21.1. GNU General Public License
321
Each version is given a distinguishing version number. If the Program specifies a version number of this
License which applies to it and any later version, you have the option of following the terms and conditions
either of that version or of any later version published by the Free Software Foundation. If the Program
does not specify a version number of this License, you may choose any version ever published by the Free
Software Foundation.
10. If you wish to incorporate parts of the Program into other free programs whose distribution conditions are
different, write to the author to ask for permission. For software which is copyrighted by the Free Software
Foundation, write to the Free Software Foundation; we sometimes make exceptions for this. Our decision
will be guided by the two goals of preserving the free status of all derivatives of our free software and of
promoting the sharing and reuse of software generally.
NO WARRANTY
11. BECAUSE THE PROGRAM IS LICENSED FREE OF CHARGE, THERE IS NO WARRANTY FOR
THE PROGRAM, TO THE EXTENT PERMITTED BY APPLICABLE LAW. EXCEPT WHEN OTHERWISE STATED IN WRITING THE COPYRIGHT HOLDERS AND/OR OTHER PARTIES PROVIDE
THE PROGRAM AS IS WITHOUT WARRANTY OF ANY KIND, EITHER EXPRESSED OR IMPLIED, INCLUDING, BUT NOT LIMITED TO, THE IMPLIED WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTABILITY AND FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE. THE ENTIRE RISK AS TO THE QUALITY AND
PERFORMANCE OF THE PROGRAM IS WITH YOU. SHOULD THE PROGRAM PROVE DEFECTIVE, YOU ASSUME THE COST OF ALL NECESSARY SERVICING, REPAIR OR CORRECTION.
12. IN NO EVENT UNLESS REQUIRED BY APPLICABLE LAW OR AGREED TO IN WRITING WILL
ANY COPYRIGHT HOLDER, OR ANY OTHER PARTY WHO MAY MODIFY AND/OR REDISTRIBUTE THE PROGRAM AS PERMITTED ABOVE, BE LIABLE TO YOU FOR DAMAGES, INCLUDING ANY GENERAL, SPECIAL, INCIDENTAL OR CONSEQUENTIAL DAMAGES ARISING
OUT OF THE USE OR INABILITY TO USE THE PROGRAM (INCLUDING BUT NOT LIMITED TO
LOSS OF DATA OR DATA BEING RENDERED INACCURATE OR LOSSES SUSTAINED BY YOU
OR THIRD PARTIES OR A FAILURE OF THE PROGRAM TO OPERATE WITH ANY OTHER PROGRAMS), EVEN IF SUCH HOLDER OR OTHER PARTY HAS BEEN ADVISED OF THE POSSIBILITY OF SUCH DAMAGES.
QGIS Qt exception for GPL
In addition, as a special exception, the QGIS Development Team gives permission to link the code
of this program with the Qt library, including but not limited to the following versions (both free
and commercial): Qt/Non-commerical Windows, Qt/Windows, Qt/X11, Qt/Mac, and Qt/Embedded
(or with modified versions of Qt that use the same license as Qt), and distribute linked combinations
including the two. You must obey the GNU General Public License in all respects for all of the code
used other than Qt. If you modify this file, you may extend this exception to your version of the file,
but you are not obligated to do so. If you do not wish to do so, delete this exception statement from
your version.
322
This License is a kind of copyleft, which means that derivative works of the document must themselves be free
in the same sense. It complements the GNU General Public License, which is a copyleft license designed for free
software.
We have designed this License in order to use it for manuals for free software, because free software needs free
documentation: a free program should come with manuals providing the same freedoms that the software does.
But this License is not limited to software manuals; it can be used for any textual work, regardless of subject
matter or whether it is published as a printed book. We recommend this License principally for works whose
purpose is instruction or reference.
1. APPLICABILITY AND DEFINITIONS
This License applies to any manual or other work, in any medium, that contains a notice placed by the copyright
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A Modified Version of the Document means any work containing the Document or a portion of it, either copied
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The Invariant Sections are certain Secondary Sections whose titles are designated, as being those of Invariant
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above definition of Secondary then it is not allowed to be designated as Invariant. The Document may contain
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The Cover Texts are certain short passages of text that are listed, as Front-Cover Texts or Back-Cover Texts, in
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A Transparent copy of the Document means a machine-readable copy, represented in a format whose specification is available to the general public, that is suitable for revising the document straightforwardly with generic
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An image format is not Transparent if used for any substantial amount of text. A copy that is not Transparent is
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Examples of suitable formats for Transparent copies include plain ASCII without markup, Texinfo input format,
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The Title Page means, for a printed book, the title page itself, plus such following pages as are needed to hold,
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the beginning of the body of the text.
The publisher means any person or entity that distributes copies of the Document to the public.
A section Entitled XYZ means a named subunit of the Document whose title either is precisely XYZ or contains
XYZ in parentheses following text that translates XYZ in another language. (Here XYZ stands for a specific
section name mentioned below, such as Acknowledgements, Dedications, Endorsements, or History.)
323
To Preserve the Title of such a section when you modify the Document means that it remains a section Entitled
XYZ according to this definition.
The Document may include Warranty Disclaimers next to the notice which states that this License applies to the
Document. These Warranty Disclaimers are considered to be included by reference in this License, but only as
regards disclaiming warranties: any other implication that these Warranty Disclaimers may have is void and has
no effect on the meaning of this License.
2. VERBATIM COPYING
You may copy and distribute the Document in any medium, either commercially or noncommercially, provided
that this License, the copyright notices, and the license notice saying this License applies to the Document are
reproduced in all copies, and that you add no other conditions whatsoever to those of this License. You may not
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However, you may accept compensation in exchange for copies. If you distribute a large enough number of copies
you must also follow the conditions in section 3.
You may also lend copies, under the same conditions stated above, and you may publicly display copies.
3. COPYING IN QUANTITY
If you publish printed copies (or copies in media that commonly have printed covers) of the Document, numbering
more than 100, and the Documents license notice requires Cover Texts, you must enclose the copies in covers
that carry, clearly and legibly, all these Cover Texts: Front-Cover Texts on the front cover, and Back-Cover Texts
on the back cover. Both covers must also clearly and legibly identify you as the publisher of these copies. The
front cover must present the full title with all words of the title equally prominent and visible. You may add other
material on the covers in addition. Copying with changes limited to the covers, as long as they preserve the title
of the Document and satisfy these conditions, can be treated as verbatim copying in other respects.
If the required texts for either cover are too voluminous to fit legibly, you should put the first ones listed (as many
as fit reasonably) on the actual cover, and continue the rest onto adjacent pages.
If you publish or distribute Opaque copies of the Document numbering more than 100, you must either include
a machine-readable Transparent copy along with each Opaque copy, or state in or with each Opaque copy a
computer-network location from which the general network-using public has access to download using publicstandard network protocols a complete Transparent copy of the Document, free of added material. If you use the
latter option, you must take reasonably prudent steps, when you begin distribution of Opaque copies in quantity, to
ensure that this Transparent copy will remain thus accessible at the stated location until at least one year after the
last time you distribute an Opaque copy (directly or through your agents or retailers) of that edition to the public.
It is requested, but not required, that you contact the authors of the Document well before redistributing any large
number of copies, to give them a chance to provide you with an updated version of the Document.
4. MODIFICATIONS
You may copy and distribute a Modified Version of the Document under the conditions of sections 2 and 3 above,
provided that you release the Modified Version under precisely this License, with the Modified Version filling the
role of the Document, thus licensing distribution and modification of the Modified Version to whoever possesses
a copy of it. In addition, you must do these things in the Modified Version:
1. Use in the Title Page (and on the covers, if any) a title distinct from that of the Document, and from those of
previous versions (which should, if there were any, be listed in the History section of the Document). You
may use the same title as a previous version if the original publisher of that version gives permission.
2. List on the Title Page, as authors, one or more persons or entities responsible for authorship of the modifications in the Modified Version, together with at least five of the principal authors of the Document (all of
its principal authors, if it has fewer than five), unless they release you from this requirement.
3. State on the Title page the name of the publisher of the Modified Version, as the publisher.
4. Preserve all the copyright notices of the Document.
5. Add an appropriate copyright notice for your modifications adjacent to the other copyright notices.
6. Include, immediately after the copyright notices, a license notice giving the public permission to use the
Modified Version under the terms of this License, in the form shown in the Addendum below.
324
7. Preserve in that license notice the full lists of Invariant Sections and required Cover Texts given in the
Documents license notice.
8. Include an unaltered copy of this License.
9. Preserve the section Entitled History, Preserve its Title, and add to it an item stating at least the title, year,
new authors, and publisher of the Modified Version as given on the Title Page. If there is no section Entitled
History in the Document, create one stating the title, year, authors, and publisher of the Document as
given on its Title Page, then add an item describing the Modified Version as stated in the previous sentence.
10. Preserve the network location, if any, given in the Document for public access to a Transparent copy of the
Document, and likewise the network locations given in the Document for previous versions it was based
on. These may be placed in the History section. You may omit a network location for a work that was
published at least four years before the Document itself, or if the original publisher of the version it refers
to gives permission.
11. For any section Entitled Acknowledgements or Dedications, Preserve the Title of the section, and preserve in the section all the substance and tone of each of the contributor acknowledgements and/or dedications given therein.
12. Preserve all the Invariant Sections of the Document, unaltered in their text and in their titles. Section
numbers or the equivalent are not considered part of the section titles.
13. Delete any section Entitled Endorsements. Such a section may not be included in the Modified Version.
14. Do not retitle any existing section to be Entitled Endorsements or to conflict in title with any Invariant
Section.
15. Preserve any Warranty Disclaimers.
If the Modified Version includes new front-matter sections or appendices that qualify as Secondary Sections and
contain no material copied from the Document, you may at your option designate some or all of these sections
as invariant. To do this, add their titles to the list of Invariant Sections in the Modified Versions license notice.
These titles must be distinct from any other section titles.
You may add a section Entitled Endorsements, provided it contains nothing but endorsements of your Modified
Version by various partiesfor example, statements of peer review or that the text has been approved by an
organization as the authoritative definition of a standard.
You may add a passage of up to five words as a Front-Cover Text, and a passage of up to 25 words as a Back-Cover
Text, to the end of the list of Cover Texts in the Modified Version. Only one passage of Front-Cover Text and one
of Back-Cover Text may be added by (or through arrangements made by) any one entity. If the Document already
includes a cover text for the same cover, previously added by you or by arrangement made by the same entity you
are acting on behalf of, you may not add another; but you may replace the old one, on explicit permission from
the previous publisher that added the old one.
The author(s) and publisher(s) of the Document do not by this License give permission to use their names for
publicity for or to assert or imply endorsement of any Modified Version.
5. COMBINING DOCUMENTS
You may combine the Document with other documents released under this License, under the terms defined in
section 4 above for modified versions, provided that you include in the combination all of the Invariant Sections
of all of the original documents, unmodified, and list them all as Invariant Sections of your combined work in its
license notice, and that you preserve all their Warranty Disclaimers.
The combined work need only contain one copy of this License, and multiple identical Invariant Sections may be
replaced with a single copy. If there are multiple Invariant Sections with the same name but different contents,
make the title of each such section unique by adding at the end of it, in parentheses, the name of the original author
or publisher of that section if known, or else a unique number. Make the same adjustment to the section titles in
the list of Invariant Sections in the license notice of the combined work.
In the combination, you must combine any sections Entitled History in the various original documents, forming
one section Entitled History; likewise combine any sections Entitled Acknowledgements, and any sections
Entitled Dedications. You must delete all sections Entitled Endorsements.
6. COLLECTIONS OF DOCUMENTS
21.2. GNU Free Documentation License
325
You may make a collection consisting of the Document and other documents released under this License, and
replace the individual copies of this License in the various documents with a single copy that is included in the
collection, provided that you follow the rules of this License for verbatim copying of each of the documents in all
other respects.
You may extract a single document from such a collection, and distribute it individually under this License,
provided you insert a copy of this License into the extracted document, and follow this License in all other respects
regarding verbatim copying of that document.
7. AGGREGATION WITH INDEPENDENT WORKS
A compilation of the Document or its derivatives with other separate and independent documents or works, in
or on a volume of a storage or distribution medium, is called an aggregate if the copyright resulting from the
compilation is not used to limit the legal rights of the compilations users beyond what the individual works permit.
When the Document is included in an aggregate, this License does not apply to the other works in the aggregate
which are not themselves derivative works of the Document.
If the Cover Text requirement of section 3 is applicable to these copies of the Document, then if the Document
is less than one half of the entire aggregate, the Documents Cover Texts may be placed on covers that bracket
the Document within the aggregate, or the electronic equivalent of covers if the Document is in electronic form.
Otherwise they must appear on printed covers that bracket the whole aggregate.
8. TRANSLATION
Translation is considered a kind of modification, so you may distribute translations of the Document under the
terms of section 4. Replacing Invariant Sections with translations requires special permission from their copyright
holders, but you may include translations of some or all Invariant Sections in addition to the original versions of
these Invariant Sections. You may include a translation of this License, and all the license notices in the Document,
and any Warranty Disclaimers, provided that you also include the original English version of this License and the
original versions of those notices and disclaimers. In case of a disagreement between the translation and the
original version of this License or a notice or disclaimer, the original version will prevail.
If a section in the Document is Entitled Acknowledgements, Dedications, or History, the requirement (section 4) to Preserve its Title (section 1) will typically require changing the actual title.
9. TERMINATION
You may not copy, modify, sublicense, or distribute the Document except as expressly provided under this License.
Any attempt otherwise to copy, modify, sublicense, or distribute it is void, and will automatically terminate your
rights under this License.
However, if you cease all violation of this License, then your license from a particular copyright holder is reinstated
(a) provisionally, unless and until the copyright holder explicitly and finally terminates your license, and (b)
permanently, if the copyright holder fails to notify you of the violation by some reasonable means prior to 60 days
after the cessation.
Moreover, your license from a particular copyright holder is reinstated permanently if the copyright holder notifies
you of the violation by some reasonable means, this is the first time you have received notice of violation of this
License (for any work) from that copyright holder, and you cure the violation prior to 30 days after your receipt
of the notice.
Termination of your rights under this section does not terminate the licenses of parties who have received copies
or rights from you under this License. If your rights have been terminated and not permanently reinstated, receipt
of a copy of some or all of the same material does not give you any rights to use it.
10. FUTURE REVISIONS OF THIS LICENSE
The Free Software Foundation may publish new, revised versions of the GNU Free Documentation License from
time to time. Such new versions will be similar in spirit to the present version, but may differ in detail to address
new problems or concerns. See http://www.gnu.org/copyleft/.
Each version of the License is given a distinguishing version number. If the Document specifies that a particular
numbered version of this License or any later version applies to it, you have the option of following the terms
and conditions either of that specified version or of any later version that has been published (not as a draft) by the
Free Software Foundation. If the Document does not specify a version number of this License, you may choose
any version ever published (not as a draft) by the Free Software Foundation. If the Document specifies that a
326
proxy can decide which future versions of this License can be used, that proxys public statement of acceptance
of a version permanently authorizes you to choose that version for the Document.
11. RELICENSING
Massive Multiauthor Collaboration Site (or MMC Site) means any World Wide Web server that publishes
copyrightable works and also provides prominent facilities for anybody to edit those works. A public wiki that
anybody can edit is an example of such a server. A Massive Multiauthor Collaboration (or MMC) contained
in the site means any set of copyrightable works thus published on the MMC site.
CC-BY-SA means the Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 license published by Creative Commons
Corporation, a not-for-profit corporation with a principal place of business in San Francisco, California, as well as
future copyleft versions of that license published by that same organization.
Incorporate means to publish or republish a Document, in whole or in part, as part of another Document.
An MMC is eligible for relicensing if it is licensed under this License, and if all works that were first published
under this License somewhere other than this MMC, and subsequently incorporated in whole or in part into the
MMC, (1) had no cover texts or invariant sections, and (2) were thus incorporated prior to November 1, 2008.
The operator of an MMC Site may republish an MMC contained in the site under CC-BY-SA on the same site at
any time before August 1, 2009, provided the MMC is eligible for relicensing.
ADDENDUM: How to use this License for your documents
To use this License in a document you have written, include a copy of the License in the document and put the
following copyright and license notices just after the title page:
Copyright YEAR YOUR NAME. Permission is granted to copy, distribute and/or modify this
document under the terms of the GNU Free Documentation License, Version 1.3 or any later version
published by the Free Software Foundation; with no Invariant Sections, no Front-Cover Texts, and no
Back-Cover Texts. A copy of the license is included in the section entitled GNU Free Documentation
License.
If you have Invariant Sections, Front-Cover Texts and Back-Cover Texts, replace the with ... Texts. line with
this:
with the Invariant Sections being LIST THEIR TITLES, with the Front-Cover Texts being LIST, and
with the Back-Cover Texts being LIST.
If you have Invariant Sections without Cover Texts, or some other combination of the three, merge those two
alternatives to suit the situation.
If your document contains nontrivial examples of program code, we recommend releasing these examples in
parallel under your choice of free software license, such as the GNU General Public License, to permit their use
in free software.
.
327
328
CHAPTER 22
Web
map
service
(1.1.1)
implementation
specification.
OPEN-GEOSPATIAL-CONSORTIUM.
http://portal.opengeospatial.org, 2004.
Web
map
service
(1.3.0)
implementation
specification.
329
330
Index
%%, 103
Custom_CRS, 60
Actions, 103
Analysis tools, 285
annotation, 41
apache, 158
apache2, 158
Arc/Info_ASCII_Grid, 137
Arc/Info_Binary_Grid, 137
ArcInfo_Binary_Coverage, 68
Atlas_Generation, 261
attribute table, 128
Attribute_Actions, 103
Attribute_Table, 250
Attribute_Table_Selection, 128
Avoid_Intersections_Of_Polygons, 118
Datum_transformation, 61
DB_Manager, 75
Debian_Squeeze, 158
default_CRS, 57
define an action, 103
Derived_Fields, 134
Digitizing, 118
Discrete, 142
Displacement_plugin, 87
documentation, 7
bookmarks, 42
Browse_Maps, 63
Calculator_Field, 134
CAT, 149
Categorized_Renderer, 85
CGI, 158
Colliding_labels, 93
Color_interpolation, 142
color_Ramp, 80
colorBrewer, 80
Colormap, 142
Comma Separated Values, 68
command line options, 17
Common_Gateway_Interface, 158
Compose_Maps, 229
Composer_Manager, 264
Composer_Template, 230
Context help, 33
Contrast_enhancement, 140
Coordinate_Reference_System, 57, 153
Create_Maps, 229
Create_New_Layers, 126
crossing the 180 degrees longitude line, 74
CRS, 57, 153
CSV, 68, 121
Current_Edits, 120
Custom_color_Ramp, 80
editing, 116
Elements_Alignment, 259
EPSG, 57
Equal_Interval, 85
Erdas Imagine, 137
ESRI, 65
European_Petroleom_Search_Group, 57
example actions, 104
Export_as_image, 263
Export_as_PDF, 263
Export_as_SVG, 263
Expressions, 109
FastCGI, 158
Field_Calculator, 134
Field_Calculator_Functions, 111
GDAL, 137
Georeferencer tools, 291
GeoTIFF, 137
GeoTiff, 137
GiST (Generalized Search Tree) index, 73
GML, 149
GNU General Public License, 319
Gradient_color_Ramp, 80
Graduated_Renderer, 85
GRASS, 175, see Creating new vectors;editing;creating
a new layer
attribute linkage, 180
attribute storage, 179
category settings, 181
digitizing tools, 180
display results, 184, 187
331
region, 183
region display, 183
region editing, 183
snapping tolerance, 182
symbology settings, 182
table editing, 182
toolbox, 187
GRASS toolbox, 183
Browser, 190
customize, 191
GRASS vector data model, 179
Grid
Grids
Map_Grid, 237
Heatmap Renderer, 89
Histogram, 144
HTML_Frame, 256
Identify features, 37
IGNF, 57
Import_Maps, 63
Institut_Geographique_National_de_France, 57
InteProxy, 156
Inverted_Polygon_Renderer, 87
join, 107
join layer, 107
Keyboard shortcuts, 33
layer visibility, 28
layout toolbars, 27
Layout_Maps, 229
legend, 28
license document, 319
load a shapefile, 66
loading_raster, 137
main window, 21
Map overview, 45
Map_Legend, 242
Map_Navigation, 117
Map_Template, 230
MapInfo, 68
measure, 35
angles, 35
areas, 35
line length, 35
menus, 22
merge attributes of features, 125
Merge_Attributes_of_Selected_Features, 125
Merge_Selected_Features, 125
Metadata, 144
MSSQL Spatial, 75
Multi_Band_Raster, 139
multipolygon, 123
Natural_Breaks_(Jenks), 85
nesting projects, 43
332
WMS, 149
WMS-C, 154
WMS_1.3.0, 156
WMS_client, 149
WMS_identify, 154
WMS_layer_transparency, 153
WMS_metadata, 155
WMS_properties, 155
WMS_tiles, 154
WMTS, 154
WMTS_client, 149
Work_with_Attribute_Table, 128
zoom mouse wheel, 30
Zoom_In Zoom_Out, 117
Three_Band_Color_Raster, 139
Tiger_Format, 68
Toggle Editing, 119
toolbar, 27
Topological_Editing, 118
Transparency, 143
UK_National_Transfer_Format, 68
US_Census_Bureau, 68
Vertex, 120
Vertices, 120
WCS, 149, 157
Web Coverage Service, 157
WFS, 149, 157
WFS-T, 157
WFS_Transactional, 157
WKT, 57, 121
Index
333