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QGIS Planet

QGIS atlas on non geometry tables

This is proof that no matter how close you are to a project you can still miss some really cool stuff that you never knew or considered was possible.

The problem to solve:

You have a CSV with a row of colours. Each row should be a new map and each column is the colour for that feature.

This is example of that kind of input

A       B
#93b2f3 #FF0000 
#dfbdbb #FF0000
#f9d230 #FF0000

This questhion was asked on GIS.SE this morning. When I first saw it I had no idea it was even possible, I was thinking along the same lines as the person asking, that it would have to be done with Python. Not hard, but a lot harder then something built in and I put it in the too hard basket. I thought the atlas can almost do that, almost but not really.

Well almost was wrong. It can.

Note: You will need QGIS 2.5 (2.6 when released) for this to work

Lets make some cool maps! (and go to GIS.SE and upvote Nyalls answer)

First open your vector layer and the CSV. Don't worry about style just yet, we will do it later.

Create a composer and add your map.

Here comes the first part of the trick.

Enable Atlas and set the coverage layer to the CSV layer. Wait? What? That doesn't make any sense. If you think about it for a while it does. We need a map for each row (or "feature") in the CSV and atlas does just that.

Alt Text

How do we style the features? Well here is the other part of the trick. In 2.6 there is a magic expression function that returns a field value from another feature. And it's as simple as attribute( $atlasfeature , 'A' ) - give me the attribute from the current atlas feature for field 'A'. Simple.

First we categorize our features so we have a symbol for each feature. I'm using a sample layer I have but you can understand how this works. The first feature is A and the other is B, etc, etc

Alt Text

Now to use another awesome feature of QGIS. The data defined symbol properties (and labels too). Change each symbol and define the colour data defined property. Using attribute( $atlasfeature , 'A' ) for the first one and attribute( $atlasfeature , 'B' ) for the second.

Alt Text

That is it. Now jump back over to your composer and enable Atlas preview.

Alt Text

Alt Text

Bam! Magic! How awesome is that!

Now my other thought was. "Ok cool, but the legend won't update". I should learn by now not to assume anything. The legend will also update based on the colours from the feature.

Alt Text

Alt Text

How far can we take this. What if you need the label to match the colour. Simple just make the label text look like this:

<h1 style='color:[% "A" %]'>This is the colour of A</h1>

Alt Text

Heaps of credit to Nyall and the others who have added all this great stuff to the composer, atlas, and the data defined properties. It's not something that you will do every day but it's great to see the flexibility of QGIS in these situations.

You can even make the background colour of the page match the atlas feature

Alt Text

but don't do that because people might think you are mad ;)

QGIS atlas on non geometry tables

This is proof that no matter how close you are to a project you can still miss some really cool stuff that you never knew or considered was possible.

The problem to solve:

You have a CSV with a row of colours. Each row should be a new map and each column is the colour for that feature.

This is example of that kind of input

A       B
#93b2f3 #FF0000 
#dfbdbb #FF0000
#f9d230 #FF0000

This questhion was asked on GIS.SE this morning. When I first saw it I had no idea it was even possible, I was thinking along the same lines as the person asking, that it would have to be done with Python. Not hard, but a lot harder then something built in and I put it in the too hard basket. I thought the atlas can almost do that, almost but not really.

Well almost was wrong. It can.

Note: You will need QGIS 2.5 (2.6 when released) for this to work

Lets make some cool maps! (and go to GIS.SE and upvote Nyalls answer)

First open your vector layer and the CSV. Don't worry about style just yet, we will do it later.

Create a composer and add your map.

Here comes the first part of the trick.

Enable Atlas and set the coverage layer to the CSV layer. Wait? What? That doesn't make any sense. If you think about it for a while it does. We need a map for each row (or "feature") in the CSV and atlas does just that.

Alt Text

How do we style the features? Well here is the other part of the trick. In 2.6 there is a magic expression function that returns a field value from another feature. And it's as simple as attribute( $atlasfeature , 'A' ) - give me the attribute from the current atlas feature for field 'A'. Simple.

First we categorize our features so we have a symbol for each feature. I'm using a sample layer I have but you can understand how this works. The first feature is A and the other is B, etc, etc

Alt Text

Now to use another awesome feature of QGIS. The data defined symbol properties (and labels too). Change each symbol and define the colour data defined property. Using attribute( $atlasfeature , 'A' ) for the first one and attribute( $atlasfeature , 'B' ) for the second.

Alt Text

That is it. Now jump back over to your composer and enable Atlas preview.

Alt Text

Alt Text

Bam! Magic! How awesome is that!

Now my other thought was. "Ok cool, but the legend won't update". I should learn by now not to assume anything. The legend will also update based on the colours from the feature.

Alt Text

Alt Text

How far can we take this. What if you need the label to match the colour. Simple just make the label text look like this:

<h1 style='color:[% "A" %]'>This is the colour of A</h1>

Alt Text

Heaps of credit to Nyall and the others who have added all this great stuff to the composer, atlas, and the data defined properties. It's not something that you will do every day but it's great to see the flexibility of QGIS in these situations.

You can even make the background colour of the page match the atlas feature

Alt Text

but don't do that because people might think you are mad ;)

IntraMaps Roam - A Python QGIS data collection app

For the last couple of months I, though Digital Mapping Solutions, have been working on a tablet friendly data collection application that has been built on Python and QGIS. For those of you who have seen my QMap project I started a year or so ago you can consider this a reincarnation of that project, and that project retired. Most of the code has been reworked and using the QGIS libs gave me full flexibility in layout and workflow.

IntraMaps Roam (or Roam for short) is a standalone, fully bundled, Python application that was created to do data collection with a QGIS backend. The primary use of Roam is in a disconnected setup were one might not have internet connection, however Roam is using QGIS so will support any data format QGIS does. You can can use Roam in a connected environment, if your internet premits, by having WFS and WMS layers, or direct database connections; it's up to you. Roam forms also allow for custom logic to be added to each form using Python so you can add your own workflow if needed.

Roam Map Window Roam Data Capture

The binary package comes with a config manager application that can be used to create and manage Roam projects

Config Manager Config Manager

The release page contains links to the 2.0 installers. The wiki contains all the information to get started. You can also take a look at the FAQ for the common questions.

Roam has been a great exercise in using and bundling QGIS libs with a Python application, which I have never done before but turned out to be pretty easy. Being a fully bundled application means you don't need to install QGIS, or Python, on the client in order to run the application. Everything is in a nice bundled exe.

As Roam is based on PyQt and QGIS it is under the GPL2 license. Pull requests are welcome.

Currently Roam is only being packaged for Windows, because that was our first priority, however there isn't a lot of Windows only stuff in the code itself so creating a version for OS X and Linux shouldn't be too hard for someone with the know how.

Links

Happy mapping!?

IntraMaps Roam - A Python QGIS data collection app

For the last couple of months I, though Digital Mapping Solutions, have been working on a tablet friendly data collection application that has been built on Python and QGIS. For those of you who have seen my QMap project I started a year or so ago you can consider this a reincarnation of that project, and that project retired. Most of the code has been reworked and using the QGIS libs gave me full flexibility in layout and workflow.

IntraMaps Roam (or Roam for short) is a standalone, fully bundled, Python application that was created to do data collection with a QGIS backend. The primary use of Roam is in a disconnected setup were one might not have internet connection, however Roam is using QGIS so will support any data format QGIS does. You can can use Roam in a connected environment, if your internet premits, by having WFS and WMS layers, or direct database connections; it's up to you. Roam forms also allow for custom logic to be added to each form using Python so you can add your own workflow if needed.

Roam Map Window Roam Data Capture

The binary package comes with a config manager application that can be used to create and manage Roam projects

Config Manager Config Manager

The release page contains links to the 2.0 installers. The wiki contains all the information to get started. You can also take a look at the FAQ for the common questions.

Roam has been a great exercise in using and bundling QGIS libs with a Python application, which I have never done before but turned out to be pretty easy. Being a fully bundled application means you don't need to install QGIS, or Python, on the client in order to run the application. Everything is in a nice bundled exe.

As Roam is based on PyQt and QGIS it is under the GPL2 license. Pull requests are welcome.

Currently Roam is only being packaged for Windows, because that was our first priority, however there isn't a lot of Windows only stuff in the code itself so creating a version for OS X and Linux shouldn't be too hard for someone with the know how.

Links

Happy mapping!?

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