Last update:
Sat Jan 18 04:30:26 2025
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The building contours of BAG objects are much more precise than the standard built-up block shapes of the Top10NL topographic data set (aside from the fact that the BAG is more up-to-date than the Top10NL). The “BAG objects & addresses” data set also contains the usage function(s) of buildings. Using the BAG, it’s possible to […]
The easiest way install Python libraries is to use easy_install and pip. easy_install and pip are package managers for Python. From the easy_install page:
Easy Install is a python module (easy_install) bundled with setuptools that lets you automatically download, build, install, and manage Python packages.
and from the pip page:
pip is a tool for installing and managing Python packages, such as those found in the Python Package Index. It's a replacement for easy_install.
To get easy_install you need to install Python setuptools and you are good to go. Sounds easy! However the setuptools installer assumes that you have the normal standalone Python installed which writes it's install location to the registry, and when you run the installer it will say that it can't find Python on the system. What the!?
If you have installed QGIS, or any other tool from the OSGeo4W install, you will see that OSGeo4W bundles its own version of Python in: C:\OSGeo4W\apps\python27. This is the Python that is used when calling python in the OSGeo4W shell. It seems someone on the OSGeo wiki has made a bootstrapped installer for setuptools that will install setuptools and easy_install into the C:\OSGeo4W\apps\python27 folder for you.
python ez_setup.py in your OSGeo4W shellTo install a package with easy_install just use:
easy_install {packagename}
I wanted to have bottle and flask installed:
easy_install bottle
which gives you something like:
Searching for bottle
Reading http://pypi.python.org/simple/bottle/
Reading http://bottle.paws.de/
Reading http://github.com/defnull/bottle
Reading http://bottlepy.org/
Best match: bottle 0.11.4
Downloading http://pypi.python.org/packages/source/b/bottle/bottle-0.11.4.tar.gz#md5=f767c340de0b7c9581917c48e609479b
Processing bottle-0.11.4.tar.gz
Running bottle-0.11.4\setup.py -q bdist_egg --dist-dir c:\users\woo\appdata\local\temp\easy_install-5b4qq6\bottle-0.11.4\egg-dist-tmp-q2yd68
zip_safe flag not set; analyzing archive contents...
bottle: module references __file__
bottle: module references __path__
Adding bottle 0.11.4 to easy-install.pth file
Installing bottle.py script to C:\OSGeo4W\apps\Python27\Scripts
Installed c:\osgeo4w\apps\python27\lib\site-packages\bottle-0.11.4-py2.7.egg
Processing dependencies for bottle
Finished processing dependencies for bottle
You should also install pip as it is a better package manager then easy_install
Just run easy_install pip
Most of the time any Python packages that are needed by your OSGeo4W tools are bundled in the installer and can be downloaded using the OSGeo4W installer, however there have been cases when I wanted to install a non OSGeo4W package into my setup by using easy_install or pip. Like bottle and flask in the example above.
The easiest way install Python libraries is to use easy_install and pip. easy_install and pip are package managers for Python. From the easy_install page:
Easy Install is a python module (easy_install) bundled with setuptools that lets you automatically download, build, install, and manage Python packages.
and from the pip page:
pip is a tool for installing and managing Python packages, such as those found in the Python Package Index. It’s a replacement for easy_install.
To get easy_install you need to install Python setuptools and you are good to go. Sounds easy! However the setuptools installer assumes that you have the normal standalone Python installed which writes it’s install location to the registry, and when you run the installer it will say that it can’t find Python on the system. What the!?
If you have installed QGIS, or any other tool from the OSGeo4W install, you will see that OSGeo4W bundles its own version of Python in: C:\OSGeo4W\apps\python27. This is the Python that is used when calling python in the OSGeo4W shell. It seems someone on the OSGeo wiki has made a bootstrapped installer for setuptools that will install setuptools and easy_install into the C:\OSGeo4W\apps\python27 folder for you.
python ez_setup.py in your OSGeo4W shellTo install a package with easy_install just use:
easy_install {packagename}
I wanted to have bottle and flask installed:
easy_install bottle
which gives you something like:
Searching for bottle
Reading http://pypi.python.org/simple/bottle/
Reading http://bottle.paws.de/
Reading http://github.com/defnull/bottle
Reading http://bottlepy.org/
Best match: bottle 0.11.4
Downloading http://pypi.python.org/packages/source/b/bottle/bottle-0.11.4.tar.gz#md5=f767c340de0b7c9581917c48e609479b
Processing bottle-0.11.4.tar.gz
Running bottle-0.11.4\setup.py -q bdist_egg –dist-dir c:\users\woo\appdata\local\temp\easy_install-5b4qq6\bottle-0.11.4\egg-dist-tmp-q2yd68
zip_safe flag not set; analyzing archive contents…
bottle: module references __file__
bottle: module references __path__
Adding bottle 0.11.4 to easy-install.pth file
Installing bottle.py script to C:\OSGeo4W\apps\Python27\Scripts
Installed c:\osgeo4w\apps\python27\lib\site-packages\bottle-0.11.4-py2.7.egg
Processing dependencies for bottle
Finished processing dependencies for bottle
easy_install pipMost of the time any Python packages that are needed by your OSGeo4W tools are bundled in the installer and can be downloaded using the OSGeo4W installer, however there have been cases when I wanted to install a non OSGeo4W package into my setup by using easy_install or pip. Like bottle and flask in the example above.
The easiest way install Python libraries is to use easy_install and pip. easy_install and pip are package managers for Python. From the easy_install page:
Easy Install is a python module (easy_install) bundled with setuptools that lets you automatically download, build, install, and manage Python packages.
and from the pip page:
pip is a tool for installing and managing Python packages, such as those found in the Python Package Index. It's a replacement for easy_install.
To get easy_install you need to install Python setuptools and you are good to go. Sounds easy! However the setuptools installer assumes that you have the normal standalone Python installed which writes it's install location to the registry, and when you run the installer it will say that it can't find Python on the system. What the!?
If you have installed QGIS, or any other tool from the OSGeo4W install, you will see that OSGeo4W bundles its own version of Python in: C:\OSGeo4W\apps\python27. This is the Python that is used when calling python in the OSGeo4W shell. It seems someone on the OSGeo wiki has made a bootstrapped installer for setuptools that will install setuptools and easy_install into the C:\OSGeo4W\apps\python27 folder for you.
python ez_setup.py in your OSGeo4W shellTo install a package with easy_install just use:
easy_install {packagename}
I wanted to have bottle and flask installed:
easy_install bottle
which gives you something like:
Searching for bottle
Reading http://pypi.python.org/simple/bottle/
Reading http://bottle.paws.de/
Reading http://github.com/defnull/bottle
Reading http://bottlepy.org/
Best match: bottle 0.11.4
Downloading http://pypi.python.org/packages/source/b/bottle/bottle-0.11.4.tar.gz#md5=f767c340de0b7c9581917c48e609479b
Processing bottle-0.11.4.tar.gz
Running bottle-0.11.4\setup.py -q bdist_egg --dist-dir c:\users\woo\appdata\local\temp\easy_install-5b4qq6\bottle-0.11.4\egg-dist-tmp-q2yd68
zip_safe flag not set; analyzing archive contents...
bottle: module references __file__
bottle: module references __path__
Adding bottle 0.11.4 to easy-install.pth file
Installing bottle.py script to C:\OSGeo4W\apps\Python27\Scripts
Installed c:\osgeo4w\apps\python27\lib\site-packages\bottle-0.11.4-py2.7.egg
Processing dependencies for bottle
Finished processing dependencies for bottle
You should also install pip as it is a better package manager then easy_install
Just run easy_install pip
Most of the time any Python packages that are needed by your OSGeo4W tools are bundled in the installer and can be downloaded using the OSGeo4W installer, however there have been cases when I wanted to install a non OSGeo4W package into my setup by using easy_install or pip. Like bottle and flask in the example above.
The easiest way install Python libraries is to use easy_install and pip. easy_install and pip are package managers for Python. From the easy_install page:
Easy Install is a python module (easy_install) bundled with setuptools that lets you automatically download, build, install, and manage Python packages.
and from the pip page:
pip is a tool for installing and managing Python packages, such as those found in the Python Package Index. It's a replacement for easy_install.
To get easy_install you need to install Python setuptools and you are good to go. Sounds easy! However the setuptools installer assumes that you have the normal standalone Python installed which writes it's install location to the registry, and when you run the installer it will say that it can't find Python on the system. What the!?
If you have installed QGIS, or any other tool from the OSGeo4W install, you will see that OSGeo4W bundles its own version of Python in: C:\OSGeo4W\apps\python27. This is the Python that is used when calling python in the OSGeo4W shell. It seems someone on the OSGeo wiki has made a bootstrapped installer for setuptools that will install setuptools and easy_install into the C:\OSGeo4W\apps\python27 folder for you.
python ez_setup.py in your OSGeo4W shellTo install a package with easy_install just use:
easy_install {packagename}
I wanted to have bottle and flask installed:
easy_install bottle
which gives you something like:
Searching for bottle
Reading http://pypi.python.org/simple/bottle/
Reading http://bottle.paws.de/
Reading http://github.com/defnull/bottle
Reading http://bottlepy.org/
Best match: bottle 0.11.4
Downloading http://pypi.python.org/packages/source/b/bottle/bottle-0.11.4.tar.gz#md5=f767c340de0b7c9581917c48e609479b
Processing bottle-0.11.4.tar.gz
Running bottle-0.11.4\setup.py -q bdist_egg --dist-dir c:\users\woo\appdata\local\temp\easy_install-5b4qq6\bottle-0.11.4\egg-dist-tmp-q2yd68
zip_safe flag not set; analyzing archive contents...
bottle: module references __file__
bottle: module references __path__
Adding bottle 0.11.4 to easy-install.pth file
Installing bottle.py script to C:\OSGeo4W\apps\Python27\Scripts
Installed c:\osgeo4w\apps\python27\lib\site-packages\bottle-0.11.4-py2.7.egg
Processing dependencies for bottle
Finished processing dependencies for bottle
You should also install pip as it is a better package manager then easy_install
Just run easy_install pip
Most of the time any Python packages that are needed by your OSGeo4W tools are bundled in the installer and can be downloaded using the OSGeo4W installer, however there have been cases when I wanted to install a non OSGeo4W package into my setup by using easy_install or pip. Like bottle and flask in the example above.
The easiest way install Python libraries is to use easy_install and pip. easy_install and pip are package managers for Python. From the easy_install page:
Easy Install is a python module (easy_install) bundled with setuptools that lets you automatically download, build, install, and manage Python packages.
and from the pip page:
pip is a tool for installing and managing Python packages, such as those found in the Python Package Index. It's a replacement for easy_install.
To get easy_install you need to install Python setuptools and you are good to go. Sounds easy! However the setuptools installer assumes that you have the normal standalone Python installed which writes it's install location to the registry, and when you run the installer it will say that it can't find Python on the system. What the!?
If you have installed QGIS, or any other tool from the OSGeo4W install, you will see that OSGeo4W bundles its own version of Python in: C:\OSGeo4W\apps\python27. This is the Python that is used when calling python in the OSGeo4W shell. It seems someone on the OSGeo wiki has made a bootstrapped installer for setuptools that will install setuptools and easy_install into the C:\OSGeo4W\apps\python27 folder for you.
python ez_setup.py in your OSGeo4W shellTo install a package with easy_install just use:
easy_install {packagename}
I wanted to have bottle and flask installed:
easy_install bottle
which gives you something like:
Searching for bottle
Reading http://pypi.python.org/simple/bottle/
Reading http://bottle.paws.de/
Reading http://github.com/defnull/bottle
Reading http://bottlepy.org/
Best match: bottle 0.11.4
Downloading http://pypi.python.org/packages/source/b/bottle/bottle-0.11.4.tar.gz#md5=f767c340de0b7c9581917c48e609479b
Processing bottle-0.11.4.tar.gz
Running bottle-0.11.4\setup.py -q bdist_egg --dist-dir c:\users\woo\appdata\local\temp\easy_install-5b4qq6\bottle-0.11.4\egg-dist-tmp-q2yd68
zip_safe flag not set; analyzing archive contents...
bottle: module references __file__
bottle: module references __path__
Adding bottle 0.11.4 to easy-install.pth file
Installing bottle.py script to C:\OSGeo4W\apps\Python27\Scripts
Installed c:\osgeo4w\apps\python27\lib\site-packages\bottle-0.11.4-py2.7.egg
Processing dependencies for bottle
Finished processing dependencies for bottle
You should also install pip as it is a better package manager then easy_install
Just run easy_install pip
Most of the time any Python packages that are needed by your OSGeo4W tools are bundled in the installer and can be downloaded using the OSGeo4W installer, however there have been cases when I wanted to install a non OSGeo4W package into my setup by using easy_install or pip. Like bottle and flask in the example above.
This post covers how to add you own tools to expand Sextante’s ftools toolbox.
I was looking through Sextante for a tool that inserts additional nodes into a linestring at intervals of my choice. I couldn’t find that exact tool but I found something similar: Densify Geometries in ftools which adds the same number of nodes to all line segments. So I decided to modify Densify Geometries to fit my requirements.
Ftools scripts (such as DensifyGeometries.py) are located in ~/.qgis/python/plugins/sextante/ftools. To create my modified version, I just copied the original and modified the code to accept a densification interval instead of a number of nodes. Since I didn’t know how to add my new tool to Sextante I contacted the developer mailing list and after a short coffee break I had the answer (thanks Alexander!):
The new algorithm has to be exposed in the provider FToolsAlgorithmProvider.py. To do that: Add an import statement for the new algorithm (using existing statements as examples) and add the algorithm to the list self.alglist in the __init__() method. That’s it!
Sextante automatically creates the input form you can see in above screenshot. Very handy! And the new tool can be added to geoprocessing models just like any of the original ones.
Here is a little update to my last post. I quickly whipped up a web app for the little stats script I wrote. It is available at http://osm.linfiniti.com. The stats only update once per hour so as not to hammer the osm export server. The code is all open source (https://github.com/timlinux/osm-reporter), written in python and... Read more »
Here is a little update to my last post. I quickly whipped up a web app for the little stats script I wrote.
It is available at http://osm.linfiniti.com. The stats only update once per hour so as not to hammer the osm export server. The code is all open source (https://github.com/timlinux/osm-reporter), written in python and Flask. I don't really have time to work on it more right now but hopefully others will pick up on it and improve it. Here are some todo items:
Hopefully someone will give me some nice patches :-)
If you even visited my lovely home town of Swellendam in the Western Cape of South Africa on http://openstreetmap.org, you might have noticed that the building footprints for the town are almost non-existent. Building footprints provide a valuable way to understand impacts of flood and other natural hazards, as well as being a valuable source... Read more »
If you even visited my lovely home town of Swellendam in the Western Cape of South Africa onhttp://openstreetmap.org, you might have noticed that the building footprints for the town are almost non-existent. Building footprints provide a valuable way to understand impacts of flood and other natural hazards, as well as being a valuable source of context information when browsing the town map. It's Christmas holiday season here in South Africa, schools have finished exams and students have time on their hands.
This year Linfiniti Consulting is sponsoring 3 students (from left to right: Jaocoline, Barbara and Nico in the image below) to capture all of the building footprints in Swellendam. Of course I was inspired by seeing the awesome work done by AIFDR, GFDRR, ACCESS and BNPB and the HOT team in Indonesia.
As well as building footprints they will also capture the building:levels and building:walls attributes so that we can in the future create a nice 3D extruded model of the towns buildings. The students are new to the OpenStreetMap project and have a lot to learn about capturing data fast and accurately, so it should be a great holiday challenge for them!
If you want to grab the current dataset for the area they are going to be working on, you can get it here (in osm format). I wrote a quick and dirty script to get the osm dump from our area and calculate how many ways each person has captured. The script is a simple python flask app. I will probably flesh it out a little as time goes by to make some pretty graphs and reports. In the mean time it just produces something like this:
Well not quite destruction, but a bit of hair pulling…
While working on an update to the Plugin Builder, I encountered a small problem. The Plugin Builder displays the version number in the title bar of its main window. After bumping the version number to 1.8.4 in all the requisite places, it still showed 1.8.3 when testing.
Using grep on all the source files revealed no instance of 1.8.3 in any file.
The title of this post has probably already given you the answer—I had on old version of the plugin in my Python path. The old plugin was getting picked up first when QGIS loaded.
Here’s what happened:
I previously had the old version in my plugin directory (~/.qgis/python/plugins), but moved it up one level so I could test the new one. It turns out this directory is also in the Python path when you load QGIS, a fact that escaped my attention. Using the Python Console in QGIS to display the path revealed the problem. Once I moved the version 1.8.3 plugin out of the way, my new version happily loaded.
The other pitfall you can encounter is if you use the QGIS_PLUGINPATH environment variable during your development. This allows you to specify another directory QGIS will also search for plugins. If you have multiple versions of the same plugin in any of these directories you may be setting yourself up for conflict.
The moral of the story:
Don’t stash old plugins in .qgis/python or you may send yourself down the wrong path…
A lot of of GIS work involves editing polygons and polylines as well as calculating the size of any overlapping features. For example when I provided GIS support to a local authority’s planning team, I was regularly asked to calculate what proportion of proposed developments overlapped constraints such as flood zones.
In this tutorial, I first look at the re-shaping features on the Advanced Digitising Toolbar. Then I will go through geo-processing tools such as buffer, union, intersect etc.
QGIS Advanced Digitising Toolbar
From left to right, the tools are:
To use any of the tools,
This is the polygon at the start of the edit session, I will show a screen shot of each result:
Polygon in QGIS
is used to subtract a new internal region from the existing polygon. Select the tool and then draw the desired internal polygon:-
Add Ring in QGIS
deletes the selected internal region. Select the tool, and then click on the internal region’s nodes.
adds a new external region to the existing region. Select the tool, then draw the new region, ensure it snaps to the existing region:-
Add Part in QGIS
deletes the selected region. Select the tool, and then click on the region’s nodes.
draws a temporary region which is then subtracted from the existing region:
Reshape Features in QGIS
Reshape Features in QGIS
draws a line through the region. The region is then split along the line
Split Features in QGIS
Merge Features – merges two or more selected features. Note Ctrl+click is used to select multiple features
Merge Features in QGIS
A dialogue box allows you to choose which attributes to keep, discard. It is also possible to carry out mathematical operations such as sum, maximum on numeric fields and to concatenate text fields:-
Attributes in QGIS
The current developer version makes it easier to share symbol libraries online. Here a quick example of how to share using Github.
This is one of the symbol libraries I uploaded:
If you click on “Raw”, you get the url of the raw text file which can be used to import the symbols into Style Manager:
The importer lets you select which symbols to import:
Anton Westholm just published this great article on using QGIS and blender to create 3D visualisations: http://kodex.tumblr.com/post/37038839550/visualising-qgis-data-with-blender
Anton Westholm just published this great article on using QGIS and blender to create 3D visualisations:
http://kodex.tumblr.com/post/37038839550/visualising-qgis-data-with-blender
As QGIS is such a fast moving project I have decided to make this a regular blog post in order to highlight some new features added to QGIS. If you haven’t already, don’t forget to check out round one.
Remember that some of these features may still only be new which might change between now and the next official released version. With that out of the way lets get listing.
If you are a regular user of QGIS Python plugins, and who isn’t, then you would have used the awesome Atlas plugin developed by Vincent Picavet. This great tool can be used to generate mapbooks, or an atlas as some people like to say, using a coverage layer and a print composer. What makes this even more awesome is that it is now built into the print composer.
Atlas composer intergration
The builtin atlas function also gives you the ability to use an expression to do runtime text replacement, including access to all the fields on the coverage layer. The coverage layer doesn’t even have to be a region layer, it can be a simple point layer, or even a line layer. You can see the result of me running the atlas generation from the above example here
Big thanks to Oslandia for integrating this great feature, and the companies sponsoring the work.
This new addition comes from the great work that Salvatore Larosa has been doing to add a better Python console to QGIS.
The new Python console includes attribute auto complete, syntax highlighting, better copy and paste, uploading to codepad, the ability to run code from a file, etc. You don’t realise how much difference there is until you go back to using the old one in version 1.8.
New Python console
One of the things I really loved about QGIS, coming from MapInfo, was the builtin forms. Just having the ability to enter data using controls like combo boxes, calendar widgets, etc makes you one step closer to having better data. This feature is the exact reason I setup a 67 year old for kerb data collection.
As good as they are the builtin forms have an issue of ending up with as a big scrolling list with lots of fields; also the lack of the ability to group or put fields on tabs in the UI meant you had to create a custom form. Well not any more.
There is now a combo box on the Fields tab that allows you to build a generated form but also add tabs and group boxes. You can even have the same field shown more then once on the form, handy for something like an ID field that you would like to show on each tab.
With this new ability the builtin forms can get me 95% of the way for data entry jobs, the other 5% I just make a custom form – but that is very rare.
Sextante is a great and powerful analytical framework that has been added to the core of QGIS thanks to Victor Olaya. This is not a feature that I use a lot but this is only due to most of my work being in development and not analysis, however that doesn’t mean that it’s not a really cool feature.
One of the greatest things about the Sextante toolbox is that it allows you to integrate other great open source tools like GRASS, SAGA, R, OTB, etc, right into your QGIS workflow and view the results in the canvas. It even includes a modeller so that you can build a connected diagram of all the bits of your process, even if it crosses between programs.
The toolbox
For me what is even better is that you can use Sextante in your plugins or custom Python code. Sextante has a Python interface – well the whole thing is written in Python – that you can use to run a Sextante supported algorithm.
import sextante
outputs_0=sextante.runalg("grass:v.crossbones", /file, 0, ,, 1, 2, 3, 4, 1=3.0,2=8.0,5=6.0,8=6.0,11=6.0,14=6.0, None)
outputs_1=sextante.runalg("grass:v.delaunay", outputs_0['output'], True, True, None)
outputs_2=sextante.runalg("grass:v.dissolve", outputs_0['output'], , None)
Victor has created a blog to cover some Sextante recipes at QGIS-SEXTANTE cookbook/. There are also some really cool example of Sextante in use at:
This last feature, or rather feature set, comes from the sponsorship and support of the World Bank, Australia-Indonesia Facility for Disaster Reduction, Geoscience Australia and the GFDRR. Most of this work was done to aid in the development of a new QGIS plugin called inaSAFE, which has also received some great praise
“(InaSAFE) is very beneficial for all of us. It’s a good example of our partnership.”
Dr Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono – President of Indonesia
Some of the improvements include:
These are great additions to the QGIS composer and I have already used the overview frame feature along with the new atlas integration to make some quick nice looking map books. \
A huge thanks to the World Bank, Australia-Indonesia Facility for Disaster Reduction, Geoscience Australia and the GFDRR, and all the developers included.
You can see some of the output that InaSAFE generates using some of these new features at http://quake.linfiniti.com/
P.S The World Bank also sponsored the new raster Save As.. ability just like we have for vector layers.
As QGIS is such a fast moving project I have decided to make this a regular blog post in order to highlight some new features added to QGIS. If you haven't already, don't forget to check out round one.
Remember that some of these features may still only be new which might change between now and the next official released version. With that out of the way lets get listing.
If you are a regular user of QGIS Python plugins, and who isn't, then you would have used the awesome Atlas plugin developed by Vincent Picavet. This great tool can be used to generate mapbooks, or an atlas as some people like to say, using a coverage layer and a print composer. What makes this even more awesome is that it is now built into the print composer.
{% image http://woostuff.files.wordpress.com/2012/11/atlas.png %} title: Atlas composer intergration. alt: Something descriptive link: http://woostuff.files.wordpress.com/2012/11/atlas.png
The builtin atlas function also gives you the ability to use an expression to do runtime text replacement, including access to all the fields on the coverage layer. The coverage layer doesn't even have to be a region layer, it can be a simple point layer, or even a line layer. You can see the result of me running the atlas generation from the above example here
Big thanks to Oslandia for integrating this great feature, and the companies sponsoring the work.
This new addition comes from the great work that Salvatore Larosa has been doing to add a better Python console to QGIS.
The new Python console includes attribute auto complete, syntax highlighting, better copy and paste, uploading to codepad, the ability to run code from a file, etc. You don't realise how much difference there is until you go back to using the old one in version 1.8.
{% image http://woostuff.files.wordpress.com/2012/11/python.png %} title: New Python console alt: New Python console link: http://woostuff.files.wordpress.com/2012/11/python.png
One of the things I really loved about QGIS, coming from MapInfo, was the builtin forms. Just having the ability to enter data using controls like combo boxes, calendar widgets, etc makes you one step closer to having better data. This feature is the exact reason I setup a 67 year old for kerb data collection.
As good as they are the builtin forms have an issue of ending up with as a big scrolling list with lots of fields; also the lack of the ability to group or put fields on tabs in the UI meant you had to create a custom form. Well not any more.
There is now a combo box on the Fields tab that allows you to build a generated form but also add tabs and group boxes. You can even have the same field shown more then once on the form, handy for something like an ID field that you would like to show on each tab.
With this new ability the builtin forms can get me 95% of the way for data entry jobs, the other 5% I just make a custom form - but that is very rare.
Sextante is a great and powerful analytical framework that has been added to the core of QGIS thanks to Victor Olaya. This is not a feature that I use a lot but this is only due to most of my work being in development and not analysis, however that doesn't mean that it's not a really cool feature.
One of the greatest things about the Sextante toolbox is that it allows you to integrate other great open source tools like GRASS, SAGA, R, OTB, etc, right into your QGIS workflow and view the results in the canvas. It even includes a modeller so that you can build a connected diagram of all the bits of your process, even if it crosses between programs.
For me what is even better is that you can use Sextante in your plugins or custom Python code. Sextante has a Python interface - well the whole thing is written in Python - that you can use to run a Sextante supported algorithm.
import sextante
outputs_0=sextante.runalg("grass:v.crossbones", /file, 0, ,, 1, 2, 3, 4, 1=3.0,2=8.0,5=6.0,8=6.0,11=6.0,14=6.0, None)
outputs_1=sextante.runalg("grass:v.delaunay", outputs_0['output'], True, True, None)
outputs_2=sextante.runalg("grass:v.dissolve", outputs_0['output'], , None)
Victor has created a blog to cover some Sextante recipes at QGIS-SEXTANTE cookbook/. There are also some really cool example of Sextante in use at:
http://www.qgis.org/en/community/qgis-case-studies/pinhel-portugal.html
http://www.qgis.org/en/community/qgis-case-studies/lisbon-portugal.html
This last feature, or rather feature set, comes from the sponsorship and support of the World Bank, Australia-Indonesia Facility for Disaster Reduction, Geoscience Australia and the GFDRR. Most of this work was done to aid in the development of a new QGIS plugin called inaSAFE, which has also received some great praise
“(InaSAFE) is very beneficial for all of us. It’s a good example of our partnership.” Dr Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono - President of Indonesia
Some of the improvements include:
A new loadFromTemplate method, in the API, that can do text replacement in the QGIS composer template.
Better support for EPSG:4326 scale bars
Multipage in one composer
Automatic overview frame in map frame
HTML frame
Zebra style grid frame border
More control of grid labels. Inside, outside, disabled
etc, etc
These are great additions to the QGIS composer and I have already used the overview frame feature along with the new atlas integration to make some quick nice looking map books. \
A huge thanks to the World Bank, Australia-Indonesia Facility for Disaster Reduction, Geoscience Australia and the GFDRR, and all the developers included.
You can see some of the output that InaSAFE generates using some of these new features at http://quake.linfiniti.com/
P.S The World Bank also sponsored the new raster Save As.. ability just like we have for vector layers.
As QGIS is such a fast moving project I have decided to make this a regular blog post in order to highlight some new features added to QGIS. If you haven't already, don't forget to check out round one.
Remember that some of these features may still only be new which might change between now and the next official released version. With that out of the way lets get listing.
If you are a regular user of QGIS Python plugins, and who isn't, then you would have used the awesome Atlas plugin developed by Vincent Picavet. This great tool can be used to generate mapbooks, or an atlas as some people like to say, using a coverage layer and a print composer. What makes this even more awesome is that it is now built into the print composer.
{% image http://woostuff.files.wordpress.com/2012/11/atlas.png %} title: Atlas composer intergration. alt: Something descriptive link: http://woostuff.files.wordpress.com/2012/11/atlas.png
The builtin atlas function also gives you the ability to use an expression to do runtime text replacement, including access to all the fields on the coverage layer. The coverage layer doesn't even have to be a region layer, it can be a simple point layer, or even a line layer. You can see the result of me running the atlas generation from the above example here
Big thanks to Oslandia for integrating this great feature, and the companies sponsoring the work.
This new addition comes from the great work that Salvatore Larosa has been doing to add a better Python console to QGIS.
The new Python console includes attribute auto complete, syntax highlighting, better copy and paste, uploading to codepad, the ability to run code from a file, etc. You don't realise how much difference there is until you go back to using the old one in version 1.8.
{% image http://woostuff.files.wordpress.com/2012/11/python.png %} title: New Python console alt: New Python console link: http://woostuff.files.wordpress.com/2012/11/python.png
One of the things I really loved about QGIS, coming from MapInfo, was the builtin forms. Just having the ability to enter data using controls like combo boxes, calendar widgets, etc makes you one step closer to having better data. This feature is the exact reason I setup a 67 year old for kerb data collection.
As good as they are the builtin forms have an issue of ending up with as a big scrolling list with lots of fields; also the lack of the ability to group or put fields on tabs in the UI meant you had to create a custom form. Well not any more.
There is now a combo box on the Fields tab that allows you to build a generated form but also add tabs and group boxes. You can even have the same field shown more then once on the form, handy for something like an ID field that you would like to show on each tab.
With this new ability the builtin forms can get me 95% of the way for data entry jobs, the other 5% I just make a custom form - but that is very rare.
Sextante is a great and powerful analytical framework that has been added to the core of QGIS thanks to Victor Olaya. This is not a feature that I use a lot but this is only due to most of my work being in development and not analysis, however that doesn't mean that it's not a really cool feature.
One of the greatest things about the Sextante toolbox is that it allows you to integrate other great open source tools like GRASS, SAGA, R, OTB, etc, right into your QGIS workflow and view the results in the canvas. It even includes a modeller so that you can build a connected diagram of all the bits of your process, even if it crosses between programs.
For me what is even better is that you can use Sextante in your plugins or custom Python code. Sextante has a Python interface - well the whole thing is written in Python - that you can use to run a Sextante supported algorithm.
import sextante
outputs_0=sextante.runalg("grass:v.crossbones", /file, 0, ,, 1, 2, 3, 4, 1=3.0,2=8.0,5=6.0,8=6.0,11=6.0,14=6.0, None)
outputs_1=sextante.runalg("grass:v.delaunay", outputs_0['output'], True, True, None)
outputs_2=sextante.runalg("grass:v.dissolve", outputs_0['output'], , None)
Victor has created a blog to cover some Sextante recipes at QGIS-SEXTANTE cookbook/. There are also some really cool example of Sextante in use at:
http://www.qgis.org/en/community/qgis-case-studies/pinhel-portugal.html
http://www.qgis.org/en/community/qgis-case-studies/lisbon-portugal.html
This last feature, or rather feature set, comes from the sponsorship and support of the World Bank, Australia-Indonesia Facility for Disaster Reduction, Geoscience Australia and the GFDRR. Most of this work was done to aid in the development of a new QGIS plugin called inaSAFE, which has also received some great praise
“(InaSAFE) is very beneficial for all of us. It’s a good example of our partnership.” Dr Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono - President of Indonesia
Some of the improvements include:
A new loadFromTemplate method, in the API, that can do text replacement in the QGIS composer template.
Better support for EPSG:4326 scale bars
Multipage in one composer
Automatic overview frame in map frame
HTML frame
Zebra style grid frame border
More control of grid labels. Inside, outside, disabled
etc, etc
These are great additions to the QGIS composer and I have already used the overview frame feature along with the new atlas integration to make some quick nice looking map books. \
A huge thanks to the World Bank, Australia-Indonesia Facility for Disaster Reduction, Geoscience Australia and the GFDRR, and all the developers included.
You can see some of the output that InaSAFE generates using some of these new features at http://quake.linfiniti.com/
P.S The World Bank also sponsored the new raster Save As.. ability just like we have for vector layers.
