Last update:
Thu Nov 14 12:30:27 2024
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With the QGIS Grant Programme 2022, we were able to support four proposals that are aimed to improve the QGIS project, including software, infrastructure, and documentation. The following reports summarize the work performed in the proposals.
Thank you to everyone who participated and made this round of grants a great success and thank you to all our sustaining members and donors who make this initiative possible!
It is with great pleasure that we would like to welcome Felt as our first flagship sustaining member!
Felt plays a revolutionary role for those who work with maps daily by making maps and spatial analysis more accessible across organizations through modern web-based collaboration features. Teams across planning, tech, infrastructure, consulting, environmental sciences and more are using QGIS & Felt to access the power of desktop GIS alongside the ease of modern web-based collaboration features, including:
Have a look yourself and discover the inspiring maps shared by Felt users.
We are particularly excited about this collaboration since Felt users regularly pair the analytical power of QGIS with the team-based sharing and collaboration features of Felt. Together, we contribute to a winning ecosystem of easy-to-use map-making tools for modern teams and organizations.
Felt’s support for QGIS helps us reach the goal of a stable financial basis to ensure another 20+ years of sustainable development and keep bringing the most user-friendly GIS to users worldwide.
Sourcepole hat an der FOSSGIS 2023 in Berlin verschiedene Themen mit Vorträgen abgedeckt:
QGIS 3.30 was released late last week and we are pleased to announce the new features introduced as a part of our latest crowdfunding campaign to improve 3D, point cloud and elevation data.
First and foremost, thanks to the generous support from the community to fund our work. Here is the list of our contributors in no particular order:
IGN (INSTITUT NATIONAL DE L’INFORMATION GEOGRAPHIQUE ET FORESTIERE), National Land Survey of Finland, Danish Agency for Data Supply and Infrastructure, K2 Engineering GmbH, ProScape Consulting, Västra Götalandsregionen, Kristianstads kommun, IGN FI, L’Arrière Guichet, Septima, QWAST-GIS, ATAPEX s.r.o., REDcatch GmbH, F.A.R.M. Facilitazioni Agroecologiche Regionali Mobili, EPYMA TERRITORIO Y MEDIO AMBIENTE, SL, GEO EXPLORATION LTD, Bohannan Huston, Inc., Lidar Guys, Neuchâtel- Service de la géomatique, Wooding Geospatial Solutions, Ville de Vevey, QGIS User Group Switzerland, Ecophylla Consulting, Refactor, Locate Press, Alta ehf, Oester Messtechnik GmbH, RUDAZ+PARTNER AG, BayesMap Solutions LLC, GEOACE, Natalie Gyles, Andreas Neumann, Dougal Munro, Spatial Thoughts, Cicada Systems GIS Consulting, Cori Hermle, Powell Asset Mapping LLC, Darren Farmer, Greg Hall, Ecothought Pty Ltd, Gabriel Diosan, Bhutan QGIS Group, Ultimatum Finesse, Balanced Risk Strategies, Ltd, Concordia University, Burmis Studio Inc., Nicholas Hadaller, Angello Villatoro, Yoichi Kayama, Hennessy Amor Becerra Ayala, Flow Design Limited, BNHR.XYZ, Roberto Moyano, Benjamin Kuster, Goldspot, North River Geographic Systems, Inc, David W. Wormuth, Victor Graphics, Valley Spatial, Stephen Mather, SANTIAGO AURELIO MOTA, Kelly Crowell, Brian Duhan, Paddy Fisher, OSGEO:UK, Christian Gugl, GIP CRAIG - Centre Régional Auvergne-Rhône-Alpes de l’Infromation Géographqiue, Raphael Mabit, Tibor Lieskovský, Kerstin Fohlert, Zhan Li, Bernd Vogelgesang, Marlin Müller, Johannes Bonekamp, Stefan Giese, Fabian Faßnacht, QGIS Sweden user group, Falo, DAVID GARCIA HERNANDEZ, Lint Data and Geospatial, Cliff Sin Wai Lau, Grzegorz Sapijaszko, Łukasz Rapa, Alessandro Pintucci and Maarten Pronk.
Our gratitude also goes to those who want to remain anonymous.
To see this feature in action, you can open QGIS project properties and under Terrain, there should be an option for Global Map Shading. You will need to first add a raster as your DEM under the Terrain section.
Elevations of all these layers are combined and the considered elevation is chosen depending on one of two methods:
Depending on the context and the use of the map the user can choose the more appropriate method.
For now, the shading methods implemented are the Eye Dome Lighting and the hill-shade. More methods could be added in the future - such as ambient occlusion.
The user can choose the elevation shading settings in a specific UI widget that can be found in two places:
This work was carried out by our collaborator North Road. The profile tool can embed elevation profiles within print layouts. It is possible to add beautifully styled profiles in your print outputs.
To use elevation profiles in print layouts, simply click the Add Elevation Profile button 
in the toolbar, and then to initialize it, copy profile configuration from an existing elevation profile from QGIS main window using the “Copy From Profile” button.
With the new improvements, you can:
The terrain’s and point cloud layers’ elevation range are taken into account so that the camera is not positioned below the scene’s contents, which was the case when using the terrain’s vertical scale setting to exaggerate the elevation differences.
3D Views can now be limited to a specific 2D extent. The terrain is clipped and no 3D features beyond that extent are loaded, making it easy to render specific areas of big QGIS projects. The project’s 2D extent is used by default which can then be adjusted in each 3D view separately using the new General tab in 3D configuration.
There will be more features planned for QGIS 3.32. We are finalising the Processing framework for point cloud data and it should be available on QGIS master in coming weeks.
Please do not hesitate to contact us if you have any suggestions to improve QGIS 3D and point cloud support.
You may be wondering where Oslandia’s name is coming from ? Or maybe you already know ? In this article we focus on the “OS” part of Oslandia : OpenSource !
Oslandia positions itself as IT expert in the field of OpenSource geographical information systems. QGIS is namely one of the proheminent opensource softwares for the geospatial industry. This position is a key element of our business model.
But do you know how we work behind the scene ? This article will give you an opportunity to discover some of our contributions to the OpenSource ecosystem.
Our general business model is based on projects we carry out for our clients. They fund us to design and implement solutions adapted to their needs and requirements. Part of these developments consist in core development of Opensource software. This allows us to contribute actively to FOSS4G components.
But this funding method makes it complicated to fund maintenance, or new exploratory developments, as well as communication, community management or other tasks necessary for healthy opensource projects.
As a consequence, we introduced at Oslandia a mechanism of internal OpenSource project grants.
These grants constitute self-investment from the company into the OpenSource ecosystem, and can be applied to new projects, research and development or existing projects.
This mechanism has multiple interests :
These OpenSource grants consist in a large range of possible tasks, as we often say : “Opensource projects are not only code”. Instead of developers, we prefer the term contributors. Development, code review, maintenance, documentation, community management, communication, each collaborator can choose the type of task to focus on.
We differentiate software maintenance grants and opensource project grants. We call the latter “OpenSource mini-projects”
Software maintenance consists in refactoring, bugfixing, packaging, release management… All these tasks need dedicated time which is difficult to fund directly on client’s project.
Opensource mini-projects grants are specific opensource proposal which can be submitted by any collaborator on any subject. We then vote on the best proposal and the team can start working on the subject within the allocated budget.
We allocate around 5% of the global production time to software maintenance grants. Our Opensource maintenance grant for 2022 is therefore approximately 190 days of work. It mainly focus on QGIS, PostGIS, QWC2, Giro3D and a few other components we actively maintain.
We also allocate 5% of the global production time to opensource mini-projects grants. It represents an additional 190 days of work for 2022.
Oslandia therefore invests almost 400 days of work into the OpenSource ecosystem, outside of direct contributions for client’s projects.
OpenSource mini-projects grants are submitted by Oslandia’s collaborators and focus on various task and thematics : innovation, development, design, prototyping, communication or any other kind of Opensource contribution.
Proposals have to define goals, deliverables, planning, team and needed budget. Then we evaluate the proposals given the following criteria :
We then vote on best proposal and manage these mini-projects just as a client project.
The maintenance grant on QGIS allowed us to work on the following tasks :
During the year of 2022, we worked on the following mini-projects :
In 2023 we will continue to work on these projects, and others ! for example pg_featureserv, py3dtiles, infoclimat website, MapProxy, pgRouting…
This investment mechanism allows Oslandia to be an opensource “pure player” and contribute actively to these OpenSource projects and to the OpenSource ecosystem as a whole.
Should you be interested in our contribution model, or if you have any question regarding our internal OpenSource grant program, do not hesitate to contact us : [email protected] !
We are pleased to announce the release of QGIS 3.30 ‘s-Hertogenbosch!
Installers for all supported operating systems are already out. QGIS 3.30 comes with tons of new features, as you can see in our visual changelog. QGIS 3.30 ‘s-Hertogenbosch is named after this year’s QGIS user conference and contributor meeting host city.
We would like to thank the developers, documenters, testers and all the many folks out there who volunteer their time and effort (or fund people to do so). From the QGIS community we hope you enjoy this release! If you wish to donate time, money or otherwise get involved in making QGIS more awesome, please wander along to qgis.org and lend a hand!
QGIS is supported by donors and sustaining members. A current list of donors who have made financial contributions large and small to the project can be seen on our donors list. If you would like to become a sustaining member, please visit our page for sustaining members for details. Your support helps us fund our six monthly developer meetings, maintain project infrastructure and fund bug fixing efforts.
QGIS is Free software and you are under no obligation to pay anything to use it – in fact we want to encourage people far and wide to use it regardless of what your financial or social status is – we believe empowering people with spatial decision making tools will result in a better society for all of humanity.
In a few weeks, our 25th Contributor Meeting and International QGIS User Conference uc2023.qgis.nl will take off on 18 April.
Register or become a speaker yourself. For details on all the exciting opportunities to get involved, check out the introduction by our awesome organizing team:
Today’s post is a geeky deep dive into how to leverage DVC (not just) data version control to track QGIS geoprocessing workflows.
“Why is this great?” you may ask.
DVC tracks data, parameters, and code. If anything changes, we simply rerun the process and DVC will figure out which stages need to be recomputed and which can be skipped by re-using cached results.
This can lead to huge time savings compared to re-running the whole model
You can find the source code used in this post on my repo https://github.com/anitagraser/QGIS-resources/tree/dvc
I’m using DVC with the DVC plugin for VSCode but DVC can be used completely from the command line, if you prefer this appraoch.
Basically, what follows is a proof of concept: converting a QGIS Processing model to a DVC workflow. In the following screenshot, you can see the main stages
dvc.yaml file in the upper right corner (And please ignore the hello world stage. It’s a left over from my first experiment)
Besides the stage definitions in dvc.yaml, there’s a parameters file:
random-points:
n: 10
buffer-points:
size: 0.5
And, of course, the two stages, each as it’s own Python script.
First, random-points.py which reads the random-points.n parameter to create the desired number of points within the polygon defined in qgis3/data/test.geojson:
import dvc.api
from qgis.core import QgsVectorLayer
from processing.core.Processing import Processing
import processing
Processing.initialize()
params = dvc.api.params_show()
pts_n = params['random-points']['n']
input_vector = QgsVectorLayer("qgis3/data/test.geojson")
output_filename = "qgis3/output/random-points.geojson"
alg_params = {
'INCLUDE_POLYGON_ATTRIBUTES': True,
'INPUT': input_vector,
'MAX_TRIES_PER_POINT': 10,
'MIN_DISTANCE': 0,
'MIN_DISTANCE_GLOBAL': 0,
'POINTS_NUMBER': pts_n,
'SEED': None,
'OUTPUT': output_filename
}
processing.run('native:randompointsinpolygons', alg_params)
And second, buffer-points.py which reads the buffer-points.size parameter to buffer the previously generated points:
import dvc.api
import geopandas as gpd
import matplotlib.pyplot as plt
from qgis.core import QgsVectorLayer
from processing.core.Processing import Processing
import processing
Processing.initialize()
params = dvc.api.params_show()
buffer_size = params['buffer-points']['size']
input_vector = QgsVectorLayer("qgis3/output/random-points.geojson")
output_filename = "qgis3/output/buffered-points.geojson"
alg_params = {
'DISSOLVE': False,
'DISTANCE': buffer_size,
'END_CAP_STYLE': 0, # Round
'INPUT': input_vector,
'JOIN_STYLE': 0, # Round
'MITER_LIMIT': 2,
'SEGMENTS': 5,
'OUTPUT': output_filename
}
processing.run('native:buffer', alg_params)
gdf = gpd.read_file(output_filename)
gdf.plot()
plt.savefig('qgis3/output/buffered-points.png')
With these things in place, we can use dvc to run the workflow, either from within VSCode or from the command line. Here, you can see the workflow (and how dvc skips stages and fetches results from cache) in action:
If you try it out yourself, let me know what you think.
This month has been busy with 20 new plugins in the QGIS plugin repository.
Since it can be challenging to stay up to date, our monthly plugin update provides you a quick overview of the newest plugins. If any of the names or short descriptions piques your interest, you can find the direct link to the plugin page in the table below the screenshot.
| ThreePointMethod |
| Determine the orientation of geological surfaces using the three-point vector method. |
| japanGeology3 |
| japanGeology3 |
| CartoDruid Synchronizer |
| Plugin to synchronize SQLite databases to Cartodruid Synchronization services at ITACyL |
| eTracability Automatic Accountability Tracker |
| This plugin adds automatic attributes to vector layers, that track who updated or created features, and when. |
| MINDED FBA |
| An automatic remote sensing tool for the estimation of flooded and burned areas. |
| QKan |
| Gruppe der QKan-Erweiterung(en) |
| MAGIC Map Loader |
| This plugin will open the DEFRA MAGIC Map service on the area of your map canvas |
| Full MCE for Public Health |
| Full Multicriteria Evaluation tool for Public Health |
| Lat lon buffer |
| This processing plugin makes a buffer in meters around lat lon point features |
| Equi Processing |
| Equidistance algorithme |
| Qpip |
| Qgis Pip Management |
| Geo-Zone Check Germany |
| UAS flight restriction checker for Germany |
| NIB-ortofoto-prosjekt |
| Henter alle ortofoto-prosjekt fra Norge i bilder (WMS) som ligger innafor et utsnitt. |
| Kauko työkalut |
| Kauko työkalut |
| Plan Creator 3 |
| Tool for creating a digital building model Инструмент создания цифровой модели здания |
| Project Reports |
| Plugin to generate reports (CSV and HTML) of properties and metadata about layers, fields and layouts of QGIS projects. |
| Kartverket adresse-API |
| This plugin fetches coordinates for Norwegian addresses using the Kartverket open adress-API |
| SenseHawk QC |
| This plugin will load and save SenseHawk projects needing quality check. |
| Polygon from map extent |
| A lightweight QGIS plugin to make a polygon from the current map extent. |
| Equirectangular 360° Viewer |
| Equirectangular and 360° streetview like image viewer |
An amazing 30 new sustaining members have already answered our crowd-funding call raising total member contributions to €158,000 annually.
We are particularly happy to welcome our first medium-level university sustaining member, the University of Zurich, Department of Geography:
New medium sustaining members
New small sustaining members
Even with this impressive list of new members, we also realize that we have not reached the campaign goals yet and that potential large and flagship members may need more time to respond.
Our funding progress so far:
Therefore, we are extending the campaign until the end of March 2023.
Become a sustaining member or donor. Every contribution counts.
It’s only been a few weeks into the new year, but we’ve got great news for you: a brand new QField 2.6 “Geeky Gecko ?” has been released with a focus on positioning improvements, including Bluetooth support for Windows. And with that, we are delighted to remove the ‘beta’ status from QField for Windows.
Let’s open with a bang: QField 2.6 now supports NMEA streaming from external GNSS devices over TCP, UDP, and serial ports, in addition to preexisting Bluetooth connectivity. This new functionality means that QField is now compatible with a much larger range of GNSS devices out there.
These new receivers unlock NTRIP-driven centimetre accuracy for devices that use the Bluetooth connection to a manufacturer’s application to connect to NTRIP servers. In this scenario, QField could not initiate a Bluetooth connection since it was already taken. With the new TCP and UDP receivers – provided the manufacturer’s application offers NMEA streaming over either of those Internet protocols – QField can connect and consume high-accuracy positioning.
The presence of a serial port receiver provides support for external GNSS devices using Bluetooth on Windows via the virtual serial port created by the operating system. The lack of Bluetooth support on Windows was a long-wanted enhancement from QField users on that platform and was the last blocker for the ‘beta’ status to go away.
In addition, QField 2.6 allows users to pick from half a dozen metrics a value to attach to the measure (M) dimension of geometries being digitized when locked to the current position. This functionality is available to both users digitizing and the positioning tracker. The measurement values available as of 2.6 are timestamp, ground speed, bearing, horizontal accuracy and vertical accuracy, as well as PDOP, HDOP and VDOP values.
Starting with version 2.6, QField ships with increased quality assurances thanks to the addition of tests covering positioning functionalities in its growing CI framework.
Practically speaking, this means that every single line of QField code changed is now being tested against positioning-related regression, significantly decreasing the risks of shipping a new version of QField with broken functionality in the area of antenna height, vertical grid shift, and ellipsoidal height adjustments.
We would like to commend Deutsche Bahn for funding the required work here. This could not have come in soon enough as more and more people are opting for QField and relying on it for their crucial day-to-day fieldwork.
The QGIS conda packages have been around for a while. One of their use cases, for example, is to allow Linux users to easily install multiple versions of QGIS.
Similarly, we’ve seen posts on using PyQGIS in Jupyter notebooks. However, I find the setup with *.bat files rather tricky.
This post presents a way to set up a conda environment with QGIS that is ready to be used in Jupyter notebooks.
The first steps are to create a new environment and install QGIS. I use mamba for the installation step because it is faster than conda but you can use conda as well:
(base) PS C:\Users\anita> conda create -n qgis python=3.9
(base) PS C:\Users\anita> conda activate qgis
(qgis) PS C:\Users\anita> mamba install -c conda-forge qgis=3.28.2
(qgis) PS C:\Users\anita> qgis
If we now try to import the qgis module in Python, we get an error:
(qgis) PS C:\Users\anita> python
Python 3.9.15 | packaged by conda-forge | (main, Nov 22 2022, 08:41:22) [MSC v.1929 64 bit (AMD64)] on win32
Type "help", "copyright", "credits" or "license" for more information.
>>> import qgis
Traceback (most recent call last):
File "<stdin>", line 1, in <module>
ModuleNotFoundError: No module named 'qgis'
To fix this error, we need to get the paths from the Python console inside QGIS:
import sys
sys.path
['H:/miniconda3/envs/qgis/Library/./python', 'C:/Users/anita/AppData/Roaming/QGIS/QGIS3\\profiles\\default/python', ... ]
This list of paths can be configured as the defaults for our qgis environment using conda develop:
(qgis) PS C:\Users\anita> conda activate base
(base) PS C:\Users\anita> mamba install conda-build -c conda-forge
(base) PS C:\Users\anita> conda develop -n qgis [list of paths from qgis python console]
With this setup, the import should now work without errors:
(base) PS C:\Users\anita> conda activate qgis
(qgis) PS C:\Users\anita> python
Python 3.9.15 | packaged by conda-forge | (main, Nov 22 2022, 08:41:22) [MSC v.1929 64 bit (AMD64)] on win32
Type "help", "copyright", "credits" or "license" for more information.
>>> import qgis
The example Jupyter notebook covers running a QGIS Processing algorithm and visualizing the results in the notebook using GeoPandas:
Head over to Github to find the full instructions: https://github.com/anitagraser/QGIS-resources/blob/master/qgis3/notebooks/hello-world.ipynb
Thanks to the sponsoring of the Swiss QGIS User Group, starting from QGIS 3.26 is it possible to override field names in the layer export dialog. Previous to that, QGIS would always export with the technical names from the database, whereas now it’s possible to override with the alias defined in QGIS or any custom name. One use for this in Switzerland — a highly polyglot country — is an export with translated names.
This is done via an additional column “Export name”. For convenience we also added a tri-state checkbox to toggle export names to their alias defined in the layer configuration or back to the field name. If a name is changed by hand the checkbox shows a mixed state.
