Last week the first official “FOSS4G/SOTM Oceania” conference was held at Melbourne University. This was a fantastic event, and there’s simply no way I can extend sufficient thanks to all the organisers and volunteers who put this event together. They did a brilliant job, and their efforts are even more impressive considering it was the inaugural event!

Upfront — this is not a recap of the conference (I’m sure someone else is working on a much more detailed write up of the event!), just some musings I’ve had following my experiences assisting Nathan Woodrow deliver an introductory Python for QGIS workshop he put together for the conference. In short, we both found that delivering this workshop to a group of PyQGIS newcomers was a great way for us to identify “pain points” in the PyQGIS API and areas where we need to improve. The good news is that as a direct result of the experiences during this workshop the API has been improved and streamlined! Let’s explore how:

Part of Nathan’s workshop (notes are available here) focused on a hands-on example of creating a custom QGIS “Processing” script. I’ve found that preparing workshops is guaranteed to expose a bunch of rare and tricky software bugs, and this was no exception! Unfortunately the workshop was scheduled just before the QGIS 3.4.2 patch release which fixed these bugs, but at least they’re fixed now and we can move on…

The bulk of Nathan’s example algorithm is contained within the following block (where “distance” is the length of line segments we want to chop our features up into):

for input_feature in enumerate(features):
    geom = feature.geometry().constGet()
    if isinstance(geom, QgsLineString):
        continue
    first_part = geom.geometryN(0)
    start = 0
    end = distance
    length = first_part.length()

    while start < length:
        new_geom = first_part.curveSubstring(start,end)

        output_feature = input_feature
        output_feature.setGeometry(QgsGeometry(new_geom))
        sink.addFeature(output_feature)

        start += distance
        end += distance

There’s a lot here, but really the guts of this algorithm breaks down to one line:

new_geom = first_part.curveSubstring(start,end)

Basically, a new geometry is created for each trimmed section in the output layer by calling the “curveSubstring” method on the input geometry and passing it a start and end distance along the input line. This returns the portion of that input LineString (or CircularString, or CompoundCurve) between those distances. The PyQGIS API nicely hides the details here – you can safely call this one method and be confident that regardless of the input geometry type the result will be correct.

Unfortunately, while calling the “curveSubstring” method is elegant, all the code surrounding this call is not so elegant. As a (mostly) full-time QGIS developer myself, I tend to look over oddities in the API. It’s easy to justify ugly API as just “how it’s always been”, and over time it’s natural to develop a type of blind spot to these issues.

Let’s start with the first ugly part of this code:

geom = input_feature.geometry().constGet()
if isinstance(geom, QgsLineString):
    continue
first_part = geom.geometryN(0)
# chop first_part into sections of desired length
...

This is rather… confusing… logic to follow. Here the script is fetching the geometry of the input feature, checking if it’s a LineString, and if it IS, then it skips that feature and continues to the next. Wait… what? It’s skipping features with LineString geometries?

Well, yes. The algorithm was written specifically for one workshop, which was using a MultiLineString layer as the demo layer. The script takes a huge shortcut here and says “if the input feature isn’t a MultiLineString, ignore it — we only know how to deal with multi-part geometries”. Immediately following this logic there’s a call to geometryN( 0 ), which returns just the first part of the MultiLineString geometry.

There’s two issues here — one is that the script just plain won’t work for LineString inputs, and the second is that it ignores everything BUT the first part in the geometry. While it would be possible to fix the script and add a check for the input geometry type, put in logic to loop over all the parts of a multi-part input, etc, that’s instantly going to add a LOT of complexity or duplicate code here.

Fortunately, this was the perfect excuse to improve the PyQGIS API itself so that this kind of operation is simpler in future! Nathan and I had a debrief/brainstorm after the workshop, and as a result a new “parts iterator” has been implemented and merged to QGIS master. It’ll be available from version 3.6 on. Using the new iterator, we can simplify the script:

geom = input_feature.geometry()
for part in geom.parts():
    # chop part into sections of desired length
    ...

Win! This is simultaneously more readable, more Pythonic, and automatically works for both LineString and MultiLineString inputs (and in the case of MultiLineStrings, we now correctly handle all parts).

Here’s another pain-point. Looking at the block:

new_geom = part.curveSubstring(start,end)
output_feature = input_feature
output_feature.setGeometry(QgsGeometry(new_geom))

At first glance this looks reasonable – we use curveSubstring to get the portion of the curve, then make a copy of the input_feature as output_feature (this ensures that the features output by the algorithm maintain all the attributes from the input features), and finally set the geometry of the output_feature to be the newly calculated curve portion. The ugliness here comes in this line:

output_feature.setGeometry(QgsGeometry(new_geom))

What’s that extra QgsGeometry(…) call doing here? Without getting too sidetracked into the QGIS geometry API internals, QgsFeature.setGeometry requires a QgsGeometry argument, not the QgsAbstractGeometry subclass which is returned by curveSubstring.

This is a prime example of a “paper-cut” style issue in the PyQGIS API. Experienced developers know and understand the reasons behind this, but for newcomers to PyQGIS, it’s an obscure complexity. Fortunately the solution here was simple — and after the workshop Nathan and I added a new overload to QgsFeature.setGeometry which accepts a QgsAbstractGeometry argument. So in QGIS 3.6 this line can be simplified to:

output_feature.setGeometry(new_geom)

Or, if you wanted to make things more concise, you could put the curveSubstring call directly in here:

output_feature = input_feature
output_feature.setGeometry(part.curveSubstring(start,end))

Let’s have a look at the simplified script for QGIS 3.6:

for input_feature in enumerate(features):
    geom = feature.geometry()
    for part in geom.parts():
        start = 0
        end = distance
        length = part.length()

        while start < length:
            output_feature = input_feature
            output_feature.setGeometry(part.curveSubstring(start,end))
            sink.addFeature(output_feature)

            start += distance
            end += distance

This is MUCH nicer, and will be much easier to explain in the next workshop! The good news is that Nathan has more niceness on the way which will further improve the process of writing QGIS Processing script algorithms. You can see some early prototypes of this work here:

I couldn’t be at the community day but managed to knock out some of the new API on the plane on the way home. **API subject to change #FOSS4G_SotM_Oceania

cc @nyalldawson @underdarkGIS this will create a alg under the hood and check for double inputs, etc pic.twitter.com/49VpyuukGU

— Nathan Woodrow (@madmanwoo) November 23, 2018

So there we go. The process of writing and delivering a workshop helps to look past “API blind spots” and identify the ugly points and traps for those new to the API. As a direct result of this FOSS4G/SOTM Oceania 2018 Workshop, the QGIS 3.6 PyQGIS API will be easier to use, more readable, and less buggy! That’s a win all round!

Last week we kicked off the first (of hopefully many) Australian QGIS hackfests Developers Meetings. It was attended by 3 of the core QGIS development team: Nathan Woodrow, Martin Dobias and myself (Nyall Dawson), along with various family members. While there’s been QGIS hackfests in Europe for over 10 years, and others scattered throughout various countries (I think there was a Japanese one recently… but Twitter’s translate tool leaves me with little confidence about this!), there’s been no events like this in the Southern hemisphere yet. I’ve been to a couple in Europe and found them to be a great way to build involvement in the project, for both developers and non-developers alike.

In truth the Australian hackfest plans began mostly an excuse for Nathan and I to catch up with Martin Dobias before he heads back out of this hemisphere and returns to Europe. That said, Nathan and I have long spoken about ways we can build up the QGIS community in Australia, so in many ways this was a trial run for future events. It was based it in Noosa, QLD (and yes, we did manage to tear ourselves away from our screens long enough to visit the beach!).

Nathan Woodrow (@NathanW2), myself (@nyalldawson), and Martin Dobias (@wonder-sk)

Here’s a short summary of what we worked on during the hackfest:

• Martin implemented a new iterator style accessor for vertices within geometries. The current approach to accessing vertices in QGIS is far from optimal. You either have the choice of an inefficient methods (eg QgsGeometry.asPolyline(), asPolygon(), etc) which requires translations of all vertices to a different data structure (losing any z/m dimensional values in the process), or an equally inefficient QgsAbstractGeometry.coordinateSequence() method, which at least keeps z/m values but still requires expensive copies of every vertex in the geometry. For QGIS 3.0 we’ve made a huge focus on optimising geometry operations and vertex access is one of the largest performance killers remaining in the QGIS code. Martin’s work adds a proper iterator for the vertices within a geometry object, both avoiding all these expensive copies and also simplifying the API for plugins. When this work lands traversing the vertices will become as simple as

for v in geom.vertices():
   ... do something with the vertex!

• Martin is also planning on extending this work to allow simple iteration over the parts and rings within geometries too. When this lands in QGIS we can expect to see much faster geometry operations.
• Nathan fixed a long standing hassle with running standalone PyQGIS scripts outside of the QGIS application on Windows. In earlier versions there’s a LOT of batch file mangling and environment variable juggling required before you can safely import the qgis libraries within Python. Thanks to Nathan’s work, in QGIS 3.0 this will be as simple as just making sure that the QGIS python libraries are included in your Python path, and then importing qgis.core/gui etc will work without any need to create environment variables for OSGEO/GDAL/PLUGINS/etc. Anyone who has fought with this in the past will definitely appreciate this change, and users of Python IDEs will also appreciate how simple it is now to make the PyQGIS libraries available in these environments.
• Nathan also worked on “profiles” support for QGIS 3.0. This work will add isolated user profiles within QGIS, similar to how Chrome handles this. Each profile has it’s own separate set of settings, plugins, etc. This work is designed to benefit both plugin developers and QGIS users within enterprise environments. You can read more about what Nathan has planned for this here.
• I continued the ongoing work of moving long running interface “blocking” operations to background tasks. In QGIS 3.0 many of these tasks churn away in the background, allowing you to continue work while the operation completes. It’s been implemented so far for vector and raster layer saving, map exports to images/PDF (not composers unfortunately), and obtaining feature counts within legends. During the hackfest I moved the layer import which occurs when you drag and drop a layer to a destination in the browser to a background task.
• On the same topic, I took some inspiration from a commit in Sourcepole’s QGIS fork and reworked how composer maps are cached. One of my biggest gripes with QGIS’ composer is how slow it is to work with when you’ve got a complex map included. This change pushes the map redrawing into a background thread, so that these redraws no longer “lock up” the UI. It makes a HUGE difference in how usable composer is. This improvement also allowed me to remove those confusing map item “modes” (Cache/Render/Rectangle) – now everything is redrawn silently in the background whenever required.
• Lastly, I spent a lot of time on a fun feature I’ve long wanted in QGIS – a unified search “locator” bar. This feature is heavily inspired by Qt Creator’s locator bar. It sits away down in the status bar, and entering any text here fires up a bunch of background search tasks. Inbuilt searches include searching the layers within the current project (am I the only one who loses layers in the tree in complex projects!?), print layouts in the project, processing algorithms, and menu/toolbar actions. The intention here is that plugins will “take over” and add additional search functionality, such as OSM place names searching, data catalog searches, etc. I’m sure when QGIS 3.0 is released this will quickly become indispensable!

The upcoming QGIS 3.0 locator bar

Big thanks go out to Nathan’s wife, Stacey, who organized most of the event and without whom it probably would never have happened, and to Lutra Consulting who sponsored an awesome dinner for the attendees.

We’d love this to be the first of many. The mature European hackfests are attended by a huge swath of the community, including translators, documentation writers, and plugin developers (amongst others). If you’ve ever been interested in finding out how you can get more involved in the project it’s a great way to dive in and start contributing. There’s many QGIS users in this part of the world and we really want to encourage a community of contributors who “give back” to the project. So let Nathan or myself know if you’d be interested in attending other events like this, or helping to organize them locally yourself…

A lot of cartographers have a love/hate relationship with label halos. On one hand they can be an essential technique for improving label readability, especially against complex background layers. On the other hand they tend to dominate maps and draw unwanted attention to the map labels.

In this post I’m going to share my preferred techniques for using label halos. I personally find this technique is a good approach which minimises the negative effects of halos, while still providing a good boost to label readability. (I’m also going to share some related QGIS 3.0 news at the end of this post!)

Let’s start with some simple white labels over an aerial image:

These labels aren’t very effective. The complex background makes them hard to read, especially the “Winton Shire” label at the bottom of the image. A quick and nasty way to improve readability is to add a black halo around the labels:

Sure, it’s easy to read the labels now, but they stand out way too much and it’s difficult to see anything here except the labels!

We can improve this somewhat through a better choice of halo colour:

This is much better. We’ve got readable labels which aren’t too domineering. Unfortunately the halo effect is still very prominent, especially where the background image varies a lot. In this case it works well for the labels toward the middle of the map, but not so well for the labels at the top and bottom.

A good way to improve this is to take advantage of blending (or “composition”) modes (which QGIS has native support for). The white labels will be most readable when there’s a good contrast with the background map, i.e. when the background map is dark. That’s why we choose a halo colour which is darker than the text colour (or vice versa if you’ve got dark coloured labels). Unfortunately, by choosing the mid-toned brown colour to make the halos blend in more, we are actually lightening up parts of this background layer and both reducing the contrast with the label and also making the halo more visible. By using the “darken” blend mode, the brown halo will only be drawn for pixels were the brown is darker then the existing background. It will darken light areas of the image, but avoid lightening pixels which are already dark and providing good contrast. Here’s what this looks like:

The most noticeable differences are the labels shown above darker areas – the “Winton Shire” label at the bottom and the “Etheridge Shire” at the top. For both these labels the halo is almost imperceptible whilst still subtly doing it’s part to make the label readable. (If you had dark label text with a lighter halo color, you can use the “lighten” blend mode for the same result).

The only issue with this map is that the halo is still very obvious around “Shire” in “Richmond Shire” and “McKinlay” on the left of the map. This can be reduced by applying a light blur to the halo:

There’s almost no loss of readability by applying this blur, but it’s made those last prominent halos disappear into the map. At first glance you probably wouldn’t even notice that there’s any halos being used here. But if we compare back against the original map (which used no halos) we can see the huge difference in readability:

Compare especially the Winton Shire label at the bottom, and the Richmond Shire label in the middle. These are much clearer on our tweaked map versus the above image.

Now for the good news… when QGIS 3.0 is released you’ll no longer have to rely on an external illustration/editing application to get this effect with your maps. In fact, QGIS 3.0 is bringing native support for applying many types of live layer effects to label buffers and background shapes, including blur. This means it will be possible to reproduce this technique directly inside your GIS, no external editing or tweaking required!

I’ve recently spent some time optimising the performance of various QGIS plugins and algorithms, and I’ve noticed that there’s a few common performance traps which developers fall into when fetching features from a vector layer. In this post I’m going to explore these traps, what makes them slow, and how to avoid them.

As a bit of background, features are fetched from a vector layer in QGIS using a QgsFeatureRequest object. Common use is something like this:

request = QgsFeatureRequest()
for feature in vector_layer.getFeatures(request):
    # do something

This code would iterate over all the features in layer. Filtering the features is done by tweaking the QgsFeatureRequest, such as:

request = QgsFeatureRequest().setFilterFid(1001)
feature_1001 = next(vector_layer.getFeatures(request))

In this case calling getFeatures(request) just returns the single feature with an ID of 1001 (which is why we shortcut and use next(…) here instead of iterating over the results).

Now, here’s the trap: calling getFeatures is expensive. If you call it on a vector layer, QGIS will be required to setup an new connection to the data store (the layer provider), create some query to return data, and parse each result as it is returned from the provider. This can be slow, especially if you’re working with some type of remote layer, such as a PostGIS table over a VPN connection. This brings us to our first trap:

Trap #1: Minimise the calls to getFeatures()

A common task in PyQGIS code is to take a list of feature IDs and then request those features from the layer. A see a lot of older code which does this using something like:

for id in some_list_of_feature_ids:
    request = QgsFeatureRequest().setFilterFid(id)
    feature = next(vector_layer.getFeatures(request))
    # do something with the feature

Why is this a bad idea? Well, remember that every time you call getFeatures() QGIS needs to do a whole bunch of things before it can start giving you the matching features. In this case, the code is calling getFeatures() once for every feature ID in the list. So if the list had 100 features, that means QGIS is having to create a connection to the data source, set up and prepare a query to match a single feature, wait for the provider to process that, and then finally parse the single feature result. That’s a lot of wasted processing!

If the code is rewritten to take the call to getFeatures() outside of the loop, then the result is:

request = QgsFeatureRequest().setFilterFids(some_list_of_feature_ids)
for feature in vector_layer.getFeatures(request):
    # do something with the feature

Now there’s just a single call to getFeatures() here. QGIS optimises this request by using a single connection to the data source, preparing the query just once, and fetching the results in appropriately sized batches. The difference is huge, especially if you’re dealing with a large number of features.

Trap #2: Use QgsFeatureRequest filters appropriately

Here’s another common mistake I see in PyQGIS code. I often see this one when an author is trying to do something with all the selected features in a layer:

for feature in vector_layer.getFeatures():
    if not feature.id() in vector_layer.selectedFeaturesIds():
        continue

    # do something with the feature

What’s happening here is that the code is iterating over all the features in the layer, and then skipping over any which aren’t in the list of selected features. See the problem here? This code iterates over EVERY feature in the layer. If you’re layer has 10 million features, we are fetching every one of these from the data source, going through all the work of parsing it into a QGIS feature, and then promptly discarding it if it’s not in our list of selected features. It’s very inefficient, especially if fetching features is slow (such as when connecting to a remote database source).

Instead, this code should use the setFilterFids() method for QgsFeatureRequest:

request = QgsFeatureRequest().setFilterFids(vector_layer.selectedFeaturesIds())
for feature in vector_layer.getFeatures(request):
    # do something with the feature

Now, QGIS will only fetch features from the provider with matching feature IDs from the list. Instead of fetching and processing every feature in the layer, only the actual selected features will be fetched. It’s not uncommon to see operations which previously took many minutes (or hours!) drop down to a few seconds after applying this fix.

Another variant of this trap uses expressions to test the returned features:

filter_expression = QgsExpression('my_field > 20')
for feature in vector_layer.getFeatures():
    if not filter_expression.evaluate(feature):
        continue

    # do something with the feature

Again, this code is fetching every single feature from the layer and then discarding it if it doesn’t match the “my_field > 20” filter expression. By rewriting this to:

request = QgsFeatureRequest().setFilterExpression('my_field > 20')
for feature in vector_layer.getFeatures(request):
    # do something with the feature

we hand over the bulk of the filtering to the data source itself. Recent QGIS versions intelligently translate the filter into a format which can be applied directly at the provider, meaning that any relevant indexes and other optimisations can be applied by the provider itself. In this case the rewritten code means that ONLY the features matching the ‘my_field > 20’ criteria are fetched from the provider – there’s no time wasted messing around with features we don’t need.

Trap #3: Only request values you need

The last trap I often see is that more values are requested from the layer then are actually required. Let’s take the code:

my_sum = 0
for feature in vector_layer.getFeatures(request):
    my_sum += feature['value']

In this case there’s no way we can optimise the filters applied, since we need to process every feature in the layer. But – this code is still inefficient. By default QGIS will fetch all the details for a feature from the provider. This includes all attribute values and the feature’s geometry. That’s a lot of processing – QGIS needs to transform the values from their original format into a format usable by QGIS, and the feature’s geometry needs to be parsed from it’s original type and rebuilt as a QgsGeometry object. In our sample code above we aren’t doing anything with the geometry, and we are only using a single attribute from the layer. By calling setFlags( QgsFeatureRequest.NoGeometry ) and setSubsetOfAttributes() we can tell QGIS that we don’t need the geometry, and we only require a single attribute’s value:

my_sum = 0
request = QgsFeatureRequest().setFlags(QgsFeatureRequest.NoGeometry).setSubsetOfAttributes(['value'], vector_layer.fields() )
for feature in vector_layer.getFeatures(request):
    my_sum += feature['value']

None of the unnecessary geometry parsing will occur, and only the ‘value’ attribute will be fetched and populated in the features. This cuts down both on the processing required AND the amount of data transfer between the layer’s provider and QGIS. It’s a significant improvement if you’re dealing with larger layers.

Conclusion

Optimising your feature requests is one of the easiest ways to speed up your PyQGIS script! It’s worth spending some time looking over all your uses of getFeatures() to see whether you can cut down on what you’re requesting – the results can often be mind blowing!

Last week I posted regarding some thoughts I’ve had recently concerning what I perceive as a general confusion about how QGIS is developed and how users can successfully get things to change in the project. The post certainly started a lot of conversation! However, based on feedback received I realise some parts of the posts were being misinterpreted and some clarification is needed. So here we go…

1. Please keep filing bug reports/feature requests

I don’t think I was very clear about this – but my original post wasn’t meant to be a discouragement from filing bug reports or feature requests. The truth is that there is a LOT of value in these reports, and if you don’t file a report then the QGIS team will never be aware of the bug or your feature idea. Here’s some reasons why you SHOULD file a report:

• QGIS developers are a conscientious mob, and generally take responsibility for any regressions they’ve caused by changes they’ve made. In other words, there’s very much an attitude of “I-broke-it, I’ll-fix-it” in the project. So, if a new feature is buggy or has broken something else then filing bugs ASAP is the best way to make the developer aware of these issues. In my experience they’ll usually be addressed rapidly.
• As mentioned in the original post – there’s always a pre-release bug fix sprint, so filing a bug (especially if it’s a critical one) may mean that it’s addressed during this sprint.
• Filing feature requests can gain traction if your idea is innovative, novel, or interesting enough to grab a developer’s attention!

Speaking for myself, I regularly check new incoming tickets (at least once a day), and I know I’m not the only one. So filing a report WILL bring your issue to developer’s attention. Which leads to…

2. Frustration is understandable!

I can honestly understand why people get frustrated and resort to an aggressive “why hasn’t this been fixed yet?!” style reply. I believe that these complaints are caused because people have the misunderstanding that filing a bug report is the ONLY thing they can do to get an issue fixed. If filing a report IS the only avenue you have to get something fixed/implemented, then it’s totally understandable to be annoyed when your ticket gets no results. This is a failing on behalf of the project though – we need to be clearly communicating that filing a report is the LEAST you can do. It’s a good first step, but on its own it’s just the beginning and needs to be followed up by one of the methods I described in the initial post.

3. It applies to more than just code

When I wrote the original piece I focused on just the code aspect of the QGIS project. That’s only because I’m a developer and it’s the area I know best. But it applies equally across the whole project, including documentation, translations, infrastructure, websites, packaging QGIS releases, etc. In fact, some of these non-code areas are the best entry points into the project as they don’t require a development background, and eg the documentation and translation teams have done a great job making it easy to submit contributions. Find something missing in the QGIS documentation? Add it yourself! Missing a translation of the website which prevents QGIS adoption within your community? Why not sponsor a translator to tackle this task?!

4. It applies to more than just QGIS!

Again, I wrote the original piece focusing on QGIS because that’s the project I’m most familiar with. You could just as easily substitute GDAL, GEOS, OpenLayers, PostGIS, Geoserver, R, D3, etc… in and it would be equally valid!

Hopefully that helps clarify some of the points raised by the earlier article. Let’s keep the discussion flowing – I’d love to hear if you have any other suggestions or questions raised by this topic.

In part 3 of my exploration of variables in QGIS 2.12, I’m going to dig into how variables are scoped in QGIS and what layer level variables are available (you can read parts 1 and 2 for a general introduction to variables).

Some background

Before we get to the good stuff, a bit of background in how variables work behind-the-scenes is important. Whenever an expression is evaluated in QGIS the context of the expression is considered. The context is built up from a set of scopes, which are all stacked on top of each other in order from least-specific to most-specific. It’s easier to explain with an example. Let’s take an expression used to set the source of a picture in a map composer. When this expression is evaluated, the context will consist of:

1. The global scope, consisting of variables set in the QGIS options dialog, and other installation-wide properties
2. The project scope, which includes variables set in the Project Properties dialog and the auto-generated project variables like @project_path, @project_title (you can read more about this in part 2)
3. A composer scope, with any variables set for the current composer, plus variables for @layout_pagewidth, @layout_pageheight, @layout_numpages, etc.
4. A composer item scope for the picture, with item-specific variables including @item_id

The more specific scopes will override any existing clashing variables from less specific scopes. So a global @my_var variable will be overridden by an @my_var variable set for the composer:

Another example. Let’s consider now an expression set for a data-defined label size. When this expression is evaluated the context will depend on where the map is being rendered. If it’s in the main map canvas then the context will be:

1. The global scope
2. The project scope
3. A map settings scope, with variables relating to how the map is being rendered. Eg @map_rotation, @map_scale, etc
4. A layer scope. More on this later, but the layer scope includes layer-level variables plus preset variables for @layer_name and @layer_id

If instead the map is being rendered inside a map item in a map composer, the context will be:

1. The global scope
2. The project scope
3. The composer scope
4. An atlas scope, if atlas is enabled. This contains variables like @atlas_pagename, @atlas_feature, @atlas_totalfeatures.
5. A composer item scope for the map item
6. A map settings scope (with scale and rotation determined by the map item’s settings)
7. The layer scope

Using layer level variables

Ok, enough with the details. The reason I’ve explained all this is to help explain when layer level variables come into play. Basically, they’ll be available whenever an expression is evaluated inside of a particular layer. This includes data defined symbology and labeling, field calculator, and diagrams. You can’t use a layer-level variable inside a composer label, because there’s no layer scope used when evaluating this. Make sense? Great! To set a layer level variable, you use the Variables section in the Layer Properties dialog:

Setting a layer variable

Any layer level variables you set will be saved inside your current project, i.e. layer variables are per-layer and per-project. You can also see in the above screenshot that as well as the layer level variables QGIS also lists the existing variables from the Project and Global scopes. This helps show exactly what variables are accessible by the layer and whether they’ve been overridden by any scopes. You can also see that there’s two automatic variables, @layer_id and @layer_name, which contain the unique layer ID and user-set layer name too.

Potential use cases for layer-level variables

In the screenshot above I’ve set two variables, @class1_threshold and @class2_threshold. I’m going to use these to sync up some manual class breaks between rule based symbology and rule based labeling. Here’s how I’ve set up the rule-based symbols for the layer:

Rule based symbology using layer level variables

In a similar way, I’ve also created matching rule-based labeling (another new feature in QGIS 2.12):

Matching rule-based labels

Here’s what my map looks like now, with label and symbol colors matched:

*Map for illustrative purposes only… not for cartographic/visual design excellence!

If I’d hard-coded the manual class breaks, it would be a pain to keep the labeling and symbology in sync. I’d have to make sure that the breaks are updated everywhere I’ve used them in both the symbology and labeling settings. Aside from being boring, tedious work, this would also prevent immediate before/after comparisons. Using variables instead means that I can update the break value in a single place (the variables panel) and have all my labeling and symbols immediately reflect this change when I hit apply!

Another recent use case I had was teaming layer-level variables along with Time Manager. I wanted my points to falloff in both transparency and size with age, and this involved data defined symbol settings scattered all throughout my layer symbology. By storing the decay fall-off rate in a variable, I could again tweak this falloff by changing the value in a single place and immediately see the result. It also helps with readability of the data defined expressions. Instead of trying to decipher a random, hard-coded value, it’s instead immediately obvious that this value relates to a decay fall-off rate. Much nicer!

I’m sure there’s going to be hundreds of novel uses of layer-level variables which I never planned for when adding this feature. I’d love to hear about them though – leave a comment if you’d like to share your ideas!

One last thing – the new “layer_property” function

This isn’t strictly related to variables, but another new feature which was introduced in QGIS 2.12 was a new “layer_property” expression function. This function allows you to retrieve any one of a bunch of properties relating to a specific map layer, including the layer CRS, metadata, source path, etc.

This function can be used anywhere in QGIS. For instance, it allows you to insert dynamic metadata about layers into a print composer layout. In the screenshot below I’ve used expressions like layer_property(‘patron’,’crs’) and layer_property(‘patron’,’source’) to insert the CRS and source path of the “patron” layer into the label. If either the CRS or the file path ever changes, this label will be automatically updated to reflect the new values.

Inserting dynamic layer properties into a composer label

So there you go – layer level variables and the layer_property function – here in QGIS 2.12 and making your workflow in QGIS easier. In the final part of this series, we’ll explore the magical @value variable. Trust me, I’ve saved the best for last!

Following on from part 1 in which I introduced how variables can be used in map composers, I’d like to now explore how using variables can make it easier to manage your QGIS projects. As a quick refresher, variables are a new feature in QGIS 2.12 which allow you to create preset values for use anywhere you can use an expression in QGIS.

Let’s imagine a typical map project. You load up QGIS, throw a bunch of layers on your map, and then get stuck into styling and labelling them ‘just right’. Over time the project gets more and more complex, with a stack of layers all styled using different rendering and labelling rules. You keep tweaking settings until you’re almost happy with the result, but eventually realise that you made the wrong choice of font for the labelling and now need to go through all your layers and labelling rules and update each in turn to the new typeface. Ouch.

Variables to the rescue! As you may recall from part 1, you can reuse variables anywhere in QGIS where you can enter an expression. This includes using them for data defined overrides in symbology and labelling. So, lets imagine that way back at the beginning of our project we created a project level variable called @main_label_font:

Creating a variable for label font

Now, we can re-use that variable in a data defined override for the label font setting. In fact, QGIS makes this even easier for you by showing a “variables” sub-menu allowing easy access to all the currently defined variables accessible to the layer:

Binding the label font to the @main_label_font variable

When we hit Apply all our labels will be updated to use the font face defined by the @main_label_font variable, so in this case ‘Courier New’:

In a similar way we can bind all the other layer’s label fonts to the same variable, so @main_label_font will be reused by all the layers in the project. Then, when we later realise that Courier New was a horrible choice for labelling the map, it’s just a matter of opening up the Project Properties dialog and updating the value of the @main_label_font variable:

And now when we hit Apply the font for all our labelled layers will be updated all at once:

It’s not only a huge time saver, it also makes changes like this easier because you can try out different font faces by updating the variable and hitting apply and seeing the effect that the changes have all at once. Updating multiple layers manually tends to have the consequence that you forget what the map looked like before you started making the change, making direct comparisons harder.

Of course, you could have multiple variables for other fonts used by your project too, eg @secondary_label_font and @highlighted_feature_font. Plus, this approach isn’t limited to just setting the label font. You could utilise project level variables for consolidating font sizes, symbol line thickness, marker rotation, in fact, ANYTHING that has one of those handy little data defined override buttons next to it:

See all those nice little yellow buttons? All those controls can be bound to variables…

One last thing before I wrap up part 2 of this series. The same underlying changes which introduced variables to QGIS also allows us to begin introducing a whole stack of new, useful functions to the expression engine. One of these which also helps with project management is the new project_color function. Just like how we can use project level variables throughout a project, project_color lets you reuse a color throughout your project. First, you need to create a named colour in the Default Styles group under the Project Properties dialog:

Define a colour in the project’s colour scheme…

Then, you can set a data defined override for a symbol or label colour to the expression “project_color(‘red alert!’)“:

When you go back and change the corresponding colour in the Project Properties dialog, every symbol bound to this colour will also be updated!

So, there you have it. With a little bit of forward planning and by taking advantage of the power of expression variables in QGIS 2.12 you can help make your mapping projects much easier to manage and update!

That’s all for now, but we’re still only just getting started with variables. Part 3, coming soon!.. (Update: Part 3 is available now)

It’s been quite some time since I last had a chance to blog and a lot has happened since then. Not least of which is that QGIS 2.12 has now been released with a ton of new features that I’ve neglected to write about! To try and get things moving along here again I’m planning on writing a short series exploring how variables work in QGIS 2.12 and the exciting possibilities they unlock. First, let’s look into how variables can be used with QGIS map composer…

So, let’s get started! A new concept introduced in QGIS 2.12 is the ability to set custom variables for use in QGIS’ expression engine. The easiest way to do this is through the “Project Properties” dialog, under the “Variables” section:

Default project variables

You’ll see in the screenshot above that a blank project includes a number of read-only preset variables, such as @project_path and @project_title. (All variables in QGIS are prefixed with an @ character to differentiate them from fields or functions). You can add your own variables to this list by clicking the + button, as shown below:

Adding new variables to a project

Here I’ve added some new variables, @project_version and @author. Now, any of these variables can be used anywhere that you can use expressions in QGIS, including the field calculator, data defined symbology, labelling, map composer text, etc. So, you could make a map composer template with a label that includes the @author, @project_version and @project_path variables:

Variables in a composer label

Sure, you *could* also manually enter all these details directly into the label for the same result. But what happens when you have multiple composers in your project, and need to update the version number in all of them? Or you move your project to a new folder and need to make sure the path is updated accordingly? Manually updating multiple composers is a pain – make QGIS do the work for you and instead use variables! This would especially be helpful if you’re saving map composer templates for use across multiple projects or users. Using variables will ensure that the template is automatically updated with the right details for the current project.

Another neat thing about QGIS variables is that they can be inherited and overridden, just like CSS rules. Opening the options dialog will also show a Variables group for setting “Global” variables. These variables are always available for your QGIS installation, regardless of what project you’re working on at the time. If your workplace tends to reorganise a lot and constantly shuffle your department around, you could add a global variable for @work_department, so that changing the global variable value in one place will automatically filter through to any existing and future projects you have.

Global variables

And like I mentioned earlier, these variables are inherited through various “contexts” within QGIS. If I reopen the Project Properties dialog, you’ll see that a project has access to all the global variables plus the variables set within that specific project. In addition, by adding a variable with the same name to the Project variables the value of the Global variable will be overridden:

Overridden variables

There’s also a variable editor within each individual composer’s properties tab, so variables can also be set and overridden on a composer-by-composer basis within a project. It’s a really flexible and powerful approach which both simplifies workflows and also opens up lots of new possibilities.

Stay tuned for more on this topic – this topic has only just scratched the surface of how expression variables have changed QGIS! (You can also read part 2 and part 3)

If you’re not like me and don’t keep a constant eye over at QGIS development change log (be careful – it’s addictive!), then you’re probably not aware of a bunch of labelling improvements which recently landed in QGIS master version. I’ve been working recently on a large project which involves a lot (>300) of atlas map outputs, and due to the size of this project it’s not feasible to manually tweak placements of labels. So, I’ve been totally at the mercy of QGIS’ labelling engine for automatic label placements. Generally it’s quite good but there were a few things missing which would help this project. Fortunately, due to the open-source nature of QGIS, I’ve been able to dig in and enhance the label engine to handle these requirements (insert rhetoric about beauty of open source here!). Let’s take a look at them one-by-one:

Data defined quadrant in “Around Point” placement mode

First up, it’s now possible to specify a data defined quadrant when a point label is set to the Around Point placement mode. In the past, you had a choice of either Around Point mode, in which QGIS automatically places labels around point features in order to maximise the number of labels shown, or the Offset from Point mode, in which all labels are placed at a specified position relative to the points (eg top-left). In Offset from Point mode you could use data defined properties to force labels for a feature to be placed at a specific relative position by binding the quadrant to a field in your data. This allowed you to manually tweak the placement for individual labels, but at the cost of every other label being forced to the same relative position. Now, you’ve also got the option to data define the relative position when in Around Point mode, so that the rest of the labels will fall back to being automatically placed. Here’s a quick example – I’ll start with a layer with labels in Around Point mode:

Around Point placement mode

You can see that some labels are sitting to the top right of the points, others to the bottom right, and some in the top middle, in order to fit all the labels for these points. With this new option, I can setup a data defined quadrant for the labels, and then force the ‘Tottenham’ label (top left of the map) to display below and to the left of the point:

Setting a data-defined quadrant

Here’s what the result looks like:

Manually setting the quadrant for the Tottenham label

The majority of the labels are still auto-placed, but Tottenham is now force to the lower left corner.

Data defined label priority

Another often-requested feature which landed recently is the ability to set the priority for individual labels. QGIS has long had the ability to set the priority for an entire labelling layer, but you couldn’t control the priority of features within a layer. That would lead to situations like that shown below, where the most important central station (the green point) hasn’t been labelled:

What… no label for the largest station in Melbourne?

By setting a data defined priority for labels, I can set the priority either via values manually entered in a field or by taking advantage of an existing “number of passengers” field present in my data. End result is that this central station is now prioritised over any others:

Much better! (in case you’re wondering… I’ve manually forced some other non-optimal placement settings for illustrative purposes!)

Obstacle only layers

The third new labelling feature is the option for “Obstacle only” layers. What this option does is allow a non-labelled layer to act as an obstacle for the labels in other layers, so they will be discouraged from drawing labels over the features in the obstacle layer. Again, it’s best demonstrated with an example. Here’s my stations layer with labels placed automatically – you can see that some labels are placed right over the features in the rail lines layer:

Labels over rail lines…

Now, let’s set the rail lines layer to act as an obstacle for other labels:

… setting the layer as an obstacle…

The result is that labels will be placed so that they don’t cover the rail lines anymore! (Unless there’s no other choice). Much nicer.

No more clashing labels!

Control over how polygons act as obstacles for labels

This change is something I’m really pleased about. It’s only applicable for certain situations, but when it works the improvements are dramatic.

Let’s start with my labelled stations map, this time with an administrative boundary layer in the background:

Stations with administrative boundaries

Notice anything wrong with this map? If you’re like me, you won’t be able to look past those labels which cross over the admin borders. Yuck. What’s happening here is that although my administrative regions layer is set to discourage labels being placed over features, there’s actually nowhere that labels can possibly be placed which will avoid this. The admin layer covers the entire map, so regardless of where the labels are placed they will always cover an administrative polygon feature. This is where the new option to control how polygon layers act as obstacles comes to the rescue:

…change a quick setting…

Now, I can set the administrative layer to only avoid placing labels over feature’s boundaries! I don’t care that they’ll still be placed inside the features (since we have no choice!), but I don’t want them sitting on top of these boundaries. The result is a big improvement:

Much better!

Now, QGIS has avoided placing labels over the boundaries between regions. Better auto-placement of labels like this means much less time required manually tweaking their positioning, and that’s always a good thing!

Draw only labels which fit inside a polygon

The last change is fairly self explanatory, so no nice screenshots here. QGIS now has the ability to prevent drawing labels which are too large to fit inside their corresponding polygon features. Again, in certain circumstances this can make a huge cartographic improvement to your map.

So there you go. Lots of new labelling goodies to look forward to when QGIS 2.12 rolls around.

I’ve been working on QGIS for a number of years now and, contrary to what I thought when I started, my wishlist seems to grow longer with every feature I add to QGIS! Unfortunately, almost all of my QGIS development work is done on a volunteer basis and it’s sometimes hard to justify the time required to tackle items on this list. So here’s your chance to help me fix this!

Here’s a quick list of things which I’d love to add to QGIS (or improve), but would need someone to step up and help sponsor their development:

• Raster marker symbol type: Currently QGIS supports a number of marker symbol types (simple markers, font markers, SVG markers) but there’s no option to just use a raster image file for a symbol. A few versions back I added support for a raster image fill type, and now I’d love to do the same for markers. Options could include overriding the image size, rotation and opacity. And of course, all of these properties would be data-definable.
  
• Paint effects for diagrams: The successful Kickstarter campaign meant that QGIS 2.10 includes a powerful framework for applying live effects to layers, including drop shadows, outer glows, blurs, and colour effects (plus lots of others!). I’d like to take this framework and allow effects to be applied to diagrams on a layer. Drop shadows and outer glows would really help aid the readability of diagrams by allowing them to sit on a different visual layer to the rest of the map. The effects framework was designed to allow reuse across all of QGIS, and diagrams would be the next logical step in this.
  

  Layer effects for diagrams! (Well… a mockup of them…)

• Additional diagram types/options: While we’re on the topic of diagrams, there’s lots more that we could do with QGIS’ diagram support. We’ve currently got support for pie charts, text diagrams and histograms, but there’s a lot of really nice diagram styles which we don’t yet support. Everybody loves infographics with nicely designed diagrams… so I’d love the chance to extend what’s possible using QGIS diagram engine. Some ideas include icon arrays, circle packing.
• Adding a geometry widget in the attribute table: This feature has been on my mind a lot lately. What I’d like to add is a new “geometry widget” as the last column in a layer’s attribute table. This widget would allow you to do all sorts of modifications to the geometry attached to a feature. Possible options include clearing the geometry (resetting it to null), copying the geometry as WKT or GeoJSON, or pasting geometry into the feature from a WKT string (making it super easy to copy the geometry between features). This could also be extended in future to start incorporating the editing capabilities current possible through the Plain Geometry Editor plugin.
  

  Poor quality mockup of a geometry widget…

• Options for non square/straight line legend patches: QGIS’ legend currently has no options for customising the shape of legend patches. Polygon layers in the legend are rectangles, line layers are straight lines — that’s it. There’s lots of room for improvement here. I’d like to add options for shapes such as circles, rounded rectangles, jagged lines, and possibly even custom shapes (via a WKT string or something similar).
  

  Custom legend shapes anyone?

• Improving the heatmap plugin: The current heatmap plugin needs some love. The code and UI could do with a big refresh. I’d love a chance to totally revamp this plugin and move it into QGIS core code, and allow it to be used from within processing models. I’d also like to add additional hotspot techniques, such as Getis Ord Gi* hotspotting, to the plugin.
• Extending the raster calculator: QGIS’ raster calculator was given a bunch of needed fixes and improvements in 2.10, but there’s more we could do. The major limitation with the calculator is that it currently only supports functions with at most two parameters. This needs to be fixed so that we can add a bunch of much desired functions to the calculator – eg min, max, avg, coalesce, if, etc… Lack of support for multi-parameter functions is really holding back what’s possible in the calculator.

Of course, this list is just a start. I’m always keen to chat about any other features you’d like to see added to QGIS (or even tackle specific pet-hate bugs or frustrations!). Just drop me an email at [email protected] to discuss.

Oh, one last thing – I’m in the process of preparing for my next crowd funded feature for QGIS – and this one is big! More on that shortly.

TimeManager is a fantastic plugin for QGIS which allows you to create animated maps from your data. You can read all about it here and here, and there’s a really nice demonstration of it here.

I’ve been playing with TimeManager a fair bit over the last month, and thought I’d share a quick tip on improving the appearance of TimeManager’s time stamp. TimeManager includes some basic functionality for placing a time stamp in the corner of your outputs, but it’s fairly limited. There’s only some basic appearance options, and no way to control the date or time formats displayed.

Default TimeManager time stamp

But, there’s a trick we can use to get around this: use a temporary point layer for the time stamp label. Let me elaborate:

1. Create a throwaway point layer. It doesn’t matter what fields or format this layer has.
2. Add a single point feature to this layer at the place you’d like the improved time stamp to appear at.
   

   …add a single point feature

3. We don’t want to see the marker, so hide the symbol for this layer by setting it to use a transparent fill and outline.
   

   Transparent fill and outline

4. Then, enable labels for this layer. Here’s the trick – set the label expression for the label to use “animation_datetime()” (or for QGIS 2.8, “$animation_datetime”). This is a custom function provided by the TimeManager plugin which evaluates to the current frame’s date and time.
   

   Setting the layer’s label expression

5. Now, you can use all the built-in options within QGIS for styling this label. Buffers, drop shadows, background shapes… anything!
   

   …tweaking the label appearance

6. Apply and check. Much nicer!
   

   A nicely formatted time stamp

7. To tweak the formatting of the time stamp’s date and time, you can modify the label expression using the built-in ‘format_date’, ‘year’, ‘month’, etc functions. Let’s try “format_date(animation_datetime(),’ddd dd MMM yyyy’)”:
   

   Tweaked expression

Now, our final formatted time stamp looks like this:

Final, formatted time stamp

…and there we go. Using this simple trick allows you to take advantage of all the possibilities which the QGIS labelling and expression engines allow!

*Bonus points for the first person to use this technique along with data defined controls for animating the label colour/size!

It seems like over the last year the amount of literature published regarding QGIS has really exploded. In the past few months alone there’s been at least three titles I can think of (Building Mapping Applications with QGIS, Mastering QGIS, and the QGIS Python Programming Cookbook). I think this is a great sign of a healthy project. Judging by this there’s certainly a lot of demand for quality guides and documentation for QGIS.

I recently finished reading one of these titles – Building Mapping Applications with QGIS. (Erik Westra, Packt Publishing 2015) In short, I’m a huge fan of this work and think it may be my favourite QGIS book to date! I’ve read Erik’s previous work, Python Geospatial Development, and thought it was an entertaining and really well written book. He’s clearly got an in-depth knowledge about what he’s writing about and this confidence comes through in his writing. So when I first saw this title announced I knew it would be a must-read for me.

In Building Mapping Applications with QGIS, Erik has created a comprehensive guide through all the steps required to create QGIS plugins and standalone Python applications which utilise the QGIS libraries. It’s not a beginner’s guide to Python or to PyQGIS, but that’s what helps it stand out. There’s no introductory chapters on programming with Python or how to use QGIS and instead Erik dives straight into the meat of this topic. I found this approach really refreshing, as I’m often frustrated when the first few chapters of an advanced work just cover the basics. Instead, Building Mapping Applications with QGIS is packed with lessons about, well, actually building mapping applications!

So, why do I like this book so much? Personally, I think it fills a a really crucial void in the existing QGIS literature. There’s a lot of works covering using QGIS, and a few covering PyQGIS development (eg, the PyQGIS Programmer’s Guide, which I reviewed here). But to date, there hasn’t been any literature that covers developing QGIS based applications in such great depth. It’s just icing on the cake that Erik’s writing is also so interesting and easy to read.

Is there any criticisms I have with this book? Well, there’s one small omission which I would have liked to see addressed. While the chapter Learning the QGIS Python API goes into some detail about how QGIS is built using the Qt libraries and a great deal of depth about interpreting the QGIS c++ APIs, I think it could really benefit from some discussion about both the PyQt and Qt APIs themselves. Since a lot of the QGIS classes are either directly derived from Qt classes or heavily utilise them it’s really important that PyQGIS developers are also directed to the PyQt and Qt APIs. For instance, the Qt QColor class is used heavily throughout PyQGIS, but you won’t find any API documentation on QColor in QGIS’ API. Instead, you need to first consult the PyQt API docs and also the detailed Qt c++ docs. It’s often that you may think the PyQGIS API is missing a crucial method, but consulting the Qt docs reveals that the method is instead implemented in the base classes. It’s an important point to note for mastering PyQGIS development. To be fair, I’m yet to read a PyQGIS book which has nailed the interaction between the QGIS, PyQt and Qt APIs.

Honestly, that’s a really minor quibble with an otherwise outstanding work. I’m so glad Erik’s written this work and strongly recommend it to anyone wanting to take their PyQGIS development skills to the next level.

I’m pleased to announce that the crowdfunded work on layer effects for QGIS is now complete and available in the current development snapshots! Let’s dive in and explore how these effects work, and check out some of the results possible using them.

I’ll start with a simple polygon layer, with some nice plain styling:

A nice and boring polygon layer

If I open the properties for this layer and switch to the Style tab, there’s a new checkbox for “Draw effects“. Let’s enable that, and then click the little customise effects button to its right:

Enabling effects for the layer

A new “Effects Properties” dialog opens:

Effects Properties dialog

You can see that currently the only effect listed is a “Source” effect. Source effects aren’t particularly exciting – all they do is draw the original layer unchanged. I’m going to change this to a “Blur” effect by clicking the “Effect type” combo box and selecting “Blur“:

Changing to a blur effect

If I apply the settings now, you’ll see that the polygon layer is now blurry. Now we’re getting somewhere!

Blurry polygons!

Ok, so back to the Effects Properties dialog. Let’s try something a bit more advanced. Instead of just a single effect, it’s possible to chain multiple effects together to create different results. Let’s make a traditional drop shadow by adding a “Drop shadow” effect under the “Source” effect:

Setting up a drop shadow

Effects are drawn top-down, so the drop shadow will appear below the source polygons:

Live drop shadows!

Of course, if you really wanted, you could rearrange the effects so that the drop shadow effect is drawn above the source!..

Hmmmm…

You can stack as many effects as you like. Here’s a purple inner glow over a source effect, with a drop shadow below everything:

Inner glow, source, drop shadow…

Now it’s time to get a bit more creative… Let’s explore the “transform” effect. This effect allows you to apply all kinds of transformations to your layer, including scaling, shearing, rotation and translation:

The transform effect

Here’s what the layer looks like if I add a horizontally shearing transform effect above an outer glow effect:

Getting tricky…

Transforms can get really freaky. Here’s what happens if we apply a 180° rotation to a continents layer (with a subtle nod to xkcd):

Change your perspective on the world!

Remember that all these effects are applied when the layers are rendered, so no modifications are made to the underlying data.

Now, there’s one last concept regarding effects which really blasts open what’s possible with them, and that’s “Draw modes“. You’ll notice that this combo box contains a number of choices, including “Render“, “Modify” and “Render and Modify“:

“Draw mode” options

These draw modes control how effects are chained together. It’s easiest to demonstrate how draw modes work with an example, so this time I’ll start with a Transform effect over a Colorise effect. The transform effect is set to a 45° rotation, and the colorise effect set to convert to grayscale. To begin, I’ll set the transform effect to a draw mode of Render only:

The “Render only” draw mode

In this mode, the results of the effect will be drawn but won’t be used to modify the underlying effects:

Rotation effect over the grayscale effect

So what we have here is that the polygon is drawn rotated by 45° by the transform effect, and then underneath that there’s a grayscale copy of the original polygon drawn by the colorise effect. The results of the transform effect have been rendered, but they haven’t affected the underlying colorise effect.

If I instead set the Transform effect’s draw mode to “Modifier only” the results are quite different:

Rotation modifier for grayscale effect

Now, the transform effect is rotating the polygon by 45° but the result is not rendered. Instead, it is passed on to the subsequent colorise effect, so that now the colorise effect draws a grayscale copy of the rotated polygon. Make sense? We could potentially chain a whole stack of modifier effects together to get some great results. Here’s a transform, blur, colorise, and drop shadow effect all chained together using modifier only draw modes:

A stack of modifier effects

The final draw mode, “Render and modify” both renders the effect and applies its result to underlying effects. It’s a combination of the two other modes. Using draw modes to customise the way effects chain is really powerful. Here’s a combination of effects which turn an otherwise flat star marker into something quite different:

Lots of effects!

The last thing I’d like to point out is that effects can be either applied to an entire layer, or to the individual symbol layers for features within a layer. Basically, the possibilities are almost endless! Python plugins can also extend this further by implementing additional effects.

All this work was funded through the 71 generous contributors who donated to the crowdfunding campaign. A big thank you goes out to you all whole made this work possible! I honestly believe that this feature takes QGIS’ cartographic possibilities to whole new levels, and I’m really excited to see the maps which come from it.

Lastly, there’s two other crowdfunding campaigns which are currently in progress. Lutra consulting is crowdfunding for a built in auto trace feature, and Radim’s campaign to extend the functionality of the QGIS GRASS plugin. Please check these out and contribute if you’re interested in their work and would like to see these changes land in QGIS.

Here’s another quick video demonstration of the latest developments in layer effects – effects on polygon and polyline layers, and outer glow effects:

Time is running out to fund this campaign and make this work happen… Please donate via Kickstarter!

I’ve also been asked what will happen if funding exceeds the Kickstarter goal? Well, if this happens, the extra funds will be used to add additional layer effects to QGIS. Next up will be inner glow, inner shadow and color modification effects.

QGIS is well regarded for its fantastic cartographic abilities – it’s got a huge range of symbology styles and options which can be used to style your maps. But there’s more we can do to push this even further.

One long requested cartographic feature has been for live drop shadows on layers. Why stop there? Why not inner and outer glow effects and live blur effects? Just imagine the cartographic possibilities if this functionality was available from within a GIS, and didn’t require exporting maps to external editors…

I’ve launched a Kickstarter project to fund implementing live layer effects like this within QGIS. Please consider donating or spreading the word if you’d find this feature useful!

In recent releases QGIS’ map composer has undergone some large usability improvements, such as the ability to select and interact with multiple items, and much improved navigation of compositions. Another massive usability improvement which is included in QGIS 2.6 is the new “Items” panel in the map composer. The panel shows a list of all items currently in the composition, and allows you to individually select, show or hide items, toggle their lock status, and rearrange them via drag and drop. You can also double click the item’s description to modify its ID, which makes managing items in the composition much easier.

QGIS composer’s new items panel

This change has been on my wish list for a long time. The best bit is that implementing the panel has allowed me to fix some of the composer’s other biggest usability issues. For instance, now locked items are no longer selectable in the main composer view. If you’ve ever tried to create fancy compositions with items which are stacked on top of other items, you’ll know that trying to interact with the lower items has been almost impossible in previous QGIS versions. Now, if you lock the higher stacked items you’ll be able to fully interact with all underlying items without the higher items getting in the way. Alternatively you could just temporarily hide them while you work with the lower items.

This feature brings us one more step closer to making QGIS’ map composer a powerful DTP tool in itself. If you’d like to help support further improvements like this in QGIS, please consider sponsoring my development work, or you can contact me directly for a quote on specific development.

In my last post I explored some of the new colour related features available in QGIS 2.6. At the end of that post I hinted at the possibility of creating QGIS colour schemes using python. Let’s take a look…

We’ll start with something nice and easy – a colour scheme which contains a predefined set of colours (e.g., standard company colours). This is done by subclassing QgsColorScheme and implementing the required methods ‘schemeName‘, ‘fetchColors‘ and ‘clone‘. It’s all fairly self explanatory – most of the important stuff happens in fetchColors, which returns a list of QColor/string pairs. Here’s a sample:

from PyQt4.QtCore import *
from PyQt4.QtGui import *

class QgsCgaLightColorScheme(QgsColorScheme):
    def __init__(self, parent=None): 
        QgsColorScheme.__init__(self)
 
    def schemeName(self):
        return "CGA Colors!"
 
    def fetchColors(self,context='', basecolor=QColor()):
        return [[QColor('#555555'),'Gray'],
                    [QColor('#5555FF'),'Light Blue'],
                    [QColor('#55FF55'),'Light Green'],
                    [QColor('#55FFFF'),'Light Cyan'],
                    [QColor('#FF5555'),'Light Red'],
                    [QColor('#FF55FF'),'Light Magenta'],
                    [QColor('#FFFF55'),'Yellow'],
                    [QColor('#FFFFFF'),'White']]
    def flags(self):
        return QgsColorScheme.ShowInAllContexts
 
    def clone(self):
        return QgsCgaLightColorScheme()

cgaScheme = QgsCgaLightColorScheme()
QgsColorSchemeRegistry.instance().addColorScheme(cgaScheme)

This scheme will now appear in all colour buttons and colour picker dialogs:

CGA colours… what your map was missing!

If you only wanted the scheme to appear in the colour picker dialog, you’d modify the flags method to return QgsColorScheme.ShowInColorDialog instead.

QgsColorSchemes can also utilise a “base colour” when generating their colour list. Here’s a sample colour scheme which generates slightly randomised variations on the base colour. The magic again happens in the fetchColors method, which copies the hue of the base colour and generates random saturation and value components for the returned colours.

from PyQt4.QtCore import *
from PyQt4.QtGui import *
import random

class QgsRandomColorScheme(QgsColorScheme):
    def __init__(self, parent=None): 
        QgsColorScheme.__init__(self)

    def schemeName(self):
        return "Random colors!"

    def fetchColors(self, context='', basecolor=QColor() ):
        noColors = random.randrange(30)
        minVal = 130;
        maxVal = 255;
        colorList = []
        for i in range(noColors):
            if basecolor.isValid():
                h = basecolor.hue()
            else:
                #generate random hue
                h = random.randrange(360);

            s = random.randrange(100,255)
            v = random.randrange(100,255)

            colorList.append( [ QColor.fromHsv( h, s, v), "random color! " + str(i) ] )

        return colorList

    def flags(self):
        return QgsColorScheme.ShowInAllContexts

    def clone(self):
        return QgsRandomColorScheme()

randomScheme = QgsRandomColorScheme()
QgsColorSchemeRegistry.instance().addColorScheme(randomScheme)

Here’s the random colour scheme in action… note how the colours are all based loosely around the current red base colour.

Randomised colours

You may also have noticed the context argument for fetchColors. This can be used to tweak the returned colour list depending on the context of the colour picker. Possible values include ‘composer‘, ‘symbology‘, ‘gui‘ or ‘labelling‘.

One final fun example… here’s a colour scheme which grabs its colours using the Colour Lovers API to fetch a random popular palette from the site:

from PyQt4.QtCore import *
from PyQt4.QtGui import *
from xml.etree import ElementTree
import urllib2
import random

class colorLoversScheme(QgsColorScheme):

    def __init__(self, parent=None): 
        QgsColorScheme.__init__(self)
        xmlurl = 'http://www.colourlovers.com/api/palettes/top'

        headers = { 'User-Agent' : 'Mozilla/5.0' }
        req = urllib2.Request(xmlurl, None, headers)
        doc = ElementTree.parse(urllib2.urlopen(req)).getroot()

        palettes = doc.findall('palette')
        palette = random.choice(palettes)

        title = palette.find('title').text
        username = palette.find('userName').text
        attrString = title + ' by ' + username
        colors = ['#'+c.text for c in palette.find('colors').findall('hex')]

        self.color_list = [[QColor(c), attrString] for c in colors]

    def schemeName(self):
        return "Color lovers popular palette"

    def fetchColors(self, context='', basecolor=QColor()):
        return self.color_list

    def flags(self):
        return QgsColorScheme.ShowInAllContexts

    def clone(self):
        return colorLoversScheme()

loversScheme = colorLoversScheme()      
QgsColorSchemeRegistry.instance().addColorScheme( loversScheme )

Clicking a colour button will now give us some daily colour scheme inspiration…

Grabbing a palette from the Colours Lovers site

Ok, now it’s over to all you PyQGIS plugin developers – time to go wild!

With one month left before the release of QGIS 2.6, it’s time to dive into some of the new features it will bring… starting with colours.

Working with colours is a huge part of cartography. In QGIS 2.4 I made a few changes to improve interaction with colours. These included the ability to copy and paste colours by right clicking on a colour button, and dragging-and-dropping colours between buttons. However, this was just the beginning of the awesomeness awaiting colours in QGIS 2.6… so let’s dive in!

Part 1 – New colour picker dialog

While sometimes it’s best to stick with an operating system’s native dialog boxes, colour pickers are one exception to this. That’s because most native colours pickers are woefully inadequate, and are missing a bunch of features which make working with colours much easier. So, in QGIS 2.6, we’ve taken the step of rolling out our very own colour picker:

Before starting work on this, I conducted a review of a number of existing colour picker implementations to find out what works and what doesn’t. Then, I shamelessly modelled this new dialog off the best bits of all of these! (GIMP users will find the new dialog especially familiar – that’s no coincidence, it’s a testament to how well crafted GIMP’s colour picker is.)

The new QGIS colour picker features:

• Colour sliders and spin boxes for Hue, Saturation, Value, Red, Green and Blue colour components
• An opacity slider (no more guessing what level of transparency “189” corresponds to!)
• A text entry box which accepts hex colours, colour names and CSS rgb(#,#,#) type colours. (The drop down arrow you can see on this box in the screenshot above allows you to specify the display format for colours, with options like #RRGGBB and #RRGGBBAA)
• A grid of colour swatches for storing custom colours
• A visual preview of the new colour compared to the previous colour
• Support for dragging and dropping colours into and out of the dialog
• A colour wheel and triangle method for tweaking colours (by the way, all these colour widgets are reusable, so you can easily dump them into your PyQGIS plugins)
  
• A colour palettes tab. This tab supports adding and removing colours from a palette, creating new palettes and importing and exporting colours from a GPL palette file. (We’ll explore colour palettes in more detail later in this post.)
  
• A colour sampler! This tab allows you to sample a colour from under the mouse pointer. Just click the “Sample color” button, and then click anywhere on the screen (or press the space bar if you’re sampling outside of the QGIS window). You even get the choice of averaging the colour sample over a range of pixels. (Note that support for sampling is operating system dependant, and currently it is not available under OSX.)
  

Part 2 – New colour button menus

Just like the new colour dialog is heavily based off other colour dialog implementations, this new feature is inspired by Microsoft’s excellent colour buttons in their recent Office versions (I make no claim to originality here!). Now, all QGIS colour buttons come with a handy drop down menu which allows you to quickly choose from some frequently used colour shortcuts. You’ve got the previously available options of copying and pasting colours from 2.4, plus handy swatches for recently used colours and for other standard colours.

Handy colour menu for buttons

Part 3 – Colour palettes

You may have noticed in the above screenshot the “Standard colors” swatches, and wondered what these were all about.  Well, QGIS 2.6 has extensive support for color palettes. There’s a few different “built-in” color palettes:

• The “Standard colors” palette. This palette can be modified through the Options → Colors tab. You can add, remove, edit, and rename colours, as well as import color schemes from a GPL palette file. These standard colours apply to your QGIS installation, so they’ll be available regardless of what project you’re currently working on.
  

  Customising the standard QGIS colours

• The “Project colors” palette. This can be accessed via the Project Properties → Default styles tab. This palette is saved inside the .qgs project file, so it’s handy for setting up a project-specific colour scheme.
• The “Recent colors” palette. This simply shows colours you’ve recently used within QGIS.

You can easily create new colour palettes directly from the colour picker dialog. Behind the scenes, these palettes are saved into your .qgis/palettes folder as standard GPL palette files, which makes it nice and easy to modify them in other apps or transfer them between installations. It’s also possible to just dump a stack of quality palettes directly into this folder and they’ll be available from within QGIS.

Perhaps the best bit about colour schemes in QGIS is that they can be created using PyQGIS plugins, which opens up tons of creative possibilities… More on this in a future blog post!

So there we go. Tons of improvements for working with colours are heading your way in QGIS 2.6, which is due out on the 24th October.

(Before we end, let’s take a quick look at what the competition offers over in MapInfo land. Yeah… no thanks. You might want to invest some development time there Pitney Bowes!)

With QGIS 2.4 getting closer (only a few weeks away now) I’d like to take some time to explore an exciting new feature which will be available in the upcoming release… shapeburst fills!

As a bit of background, QGIS 2.2 introduced a gradient fill style for polygons, which included linear, radial and conical gradients. While this was a nice feature, it was missing the much-requested ability to create so-called “buffered” gradient fills. If you’re not familiar with buffered gradients, a great example is the subtle shading of water bodies in the latest incarnation of Google maps. ArcGIS users will also be familiar with the type of effects possible using buffered gradients.

Gradient fills on water bodies in Google maps

Implementing buffered gradients in QGIS originally started as a bit of a challenge to myself. I wanted to see if it was possible to create these fill effects without a major impact on the rendering speed of a layer. Turns out you can… well, you can get pretty close anyway. (QGIS 2.4’s new multi-threaded responsive rendering helps a lot here too).

So, without further delay, let’s dive into how shapeburst fills work in QGIS 2.4! (I’ve named this fill effect ‘shapeburst fills’, since that’s what GIMP calls it and it sounds much cooler than ‘buffered gradients’!)

Basic shapeburst fills

For those of you who aren’t familiar with this fill effect, a shapeburst fill is created by shading each pixel in the interior of a polygon by its distance to the closest edge. Here’s how a lake feature polygon looks in QGIS 2.4 with a shapeburst from a dark blue to a lighter blue colour:

A simple shapeburst fill from a dark blue to a lighter blue

You can see in the image above that both polygons are shaded with the dark blue colour at their outer boundaries through to the lighter blue at their centres. The screenshot below shows the symbol settings used to create this particular fill:

Creating a simple shapeburst fill from a dark blue to a lighter blue

Here we’ve used the ‘Two color‘ option, and chosen our shades of blue manually. You can also use the ‘Color ramp’ option, which allows shading using a complex gradient containing multi stops and alpha channels. In the image below I’ve created a red to yellow to transparent colour ramp for the shapeburst:

Colour ramp shapeburst with alpha channels

Controlling shading distance

In the above examples the shapeburst fill has been drawn using the whole interior of the polygon. If desired, you can change this behaviour and instead only shade to a set distance from the polygon edge. Let’s take the blue shapeburst from the first example above and set it to shade to a distance of 5 mm from the edge:

Shapeburst fills can also shade to a set distance from the polygon’s exterior

This distance can either be set in millimetres, so that it stays constant regardless of the map’s scale, or in map units, so that it scales along with the map. Here’s what our lake looks like shaded to a 5 millimetre distance:

Shading to 5mm from the lake’s edge

Let’s zoom in on a portion of this shape and see the result. Note how the shaded distance remains the same even though we’ve increased the scale:

Zooming in maintains a constant shaded distance

Smoothing shapeburst fills

A pure buffered gradient fill can sometimes show an odd optical effect which gives it an undesirable ‘spiny’ look for certain polygons. This is most strongly visible when using two highly contrasting colours for the fill. Note the white lines which appear to branch toward the polygon’s exterior in the image below:

Spiny artefacts on a pure buffered gradient fill

To overcome this effect, QGIS 2.4 offers the option to blur the results of a shapeburst fill:

Blur option for shapeburst fills

Cranking up the blur helps smooth out these spines and results in a nicer fill:

Adding a blur to the shapeburst fill

Ignoring interior rings

Another option you can control for shapeburst fills is whether interior polygon rings should be ignored. This option is useful for shading water bodies to give the illusion of depth. In this case you may not want islands in the polygon to affect their surrounding water ‘depth’. So, checking the ‘Ignore rings in polygons while shading‘ option results in this fill:

Ignoring interior rings while shading

Compare this image with the first image posted above, and note how the shading differs around the small island on the polygon’s left.

Some extra bonuses…

There’s two final killer features with shapeburst fills I’d like to highlight. First, every parameter for the fill can be controlled via data defined expressions. This means every feature in your layer could have a different start and end colour, distance to shade, or blur strength, and these could be controlled directly from the attributes of the features themselves! Here’s a quick and dirty example using a random colour expression to create a basic ‘tint band‘ effect:

Using a data defined expression for random colours

Last but not least, shapeburst fills also work nicely with QGIS 2.4’s new “inverted polygon” renderer. The inverted polygon renderer flips a normal fill’s behaviour so that it shades the area outside a polygon. If we combine this with a shapeburst fill from transparent to opaque white, we can achieve this kind of masking effect:

Creating a smooth exterior mask using the “inverted polygons” renderer

This technique plays nicely with atlas prints, so you can now smoothly fade out the areas outside of your coverage layer’s features for every page in your atlas print!

All this and more, coming your way in a few short weeks when QGIS 2.4 is officially released…

Quick poll… what’s the most frustrating thing about GIS? Fighting with colour plotters? Trying to remember GDAL command line syntax? MapInfo’s new ribbon interface* [1]? All of the above?

Wrong!

It’s getting a colour from here:

…all the way over to here:

Since the dawn of GIS humanity has struggled with this simple task* [2]. We’ve come up with multiple techniques for solving this problem, ranging from the RSI inducing “select and copy red value, alt-tab, paste, alt-tab, select and copy green value, alt-tab, paste, etc….” method, through to chanting “70, 145, 160… 70, 145, 160… 70, 145, 150… 70, 145, 150” to ourselves as we frantically try and rearrange dialogs to find the destination colour picker, all the while avoiding strange looks from co-workers.

Fortunately, QGIS 2.4 is coming to the rescue! Now, you can right click on any of QGIS’ colour picker buttons for a handy copy/paste colour shortcut menu. Pasting colours works from a whole range of formats, including hex codes, color names, and css-style “rgb” and “rgba” strings.

Problem solved!

Even better, you can just drag colours from one colour button to another:

… and solved again…

Or, drag a colour from GIMP and drop it onto a QGIS colour button:

… and yet again!

Or even drag a colour from a QGIS button directly onto a shape in Inkscape! All this win is coming your way in QGIS 2.4, due June 2014.

[1] Pre-empting the inevitable flood of complaints when this new interface is rolled out
[2] I assume