Many of my previous posts in this series [1][2][3] have relied on PostGIS for trajectory data handling. While I love PostGIS, it feels like overkill to require a database to analyze smaller movement datasets. Wouldn’t it be great to have a pure Python solution?

If we look into moving object data literature, beyond the “trajectories are points with timestamps” perspective, which is common in GIS, we also encounter the “trajectories are time series with coordinates” perspective. I don’t know about you, but if I hear “time series” and Python, I think Pandas! In the Python Data Science Handbook, Jake VanderPlas writes:

Pandas was developed in the context of financial modeling, so as you might expect, it contains a fairly extensive set of tools for working with dates, times, and time-indexed data.

Of course, time series are one thing, but spatial data handling is another. Lucky for us, this is where GeoPandas comes in. GeoPandas has been around for a while and version 0.4 has been released in June 2018. So far, I haven’t found examples that use GeoPandas to manage movement data, so I’ve set out to give it a shot. My trajectory class uses a GeoDataFrame df for data storage. For visualization purposes, it can be converted to a LineString:

import pandas as pd 
from geopandas import GeoDataFrame
from shapely.geometry import Point, LineString

class Trajectory():
    def __init__(self, id, df, id_col):
        self.id = id
        self.df = df    
        self.id_col = id_col
        
    def __str__(self):
        return "Trajectory {1} ({2} to {3}) | Size: {0}".format(
            self.df.geometry.count(), self.id, self.get_start_time(), 
            self.get_end_time())
        
    def get_start_time(self):
        return self.df.index.min()
        
    def get_end_time(self):
        return self.df.index.max()
        
    def to_linestring(self):
        return self.make_line(self.df)
        
    def make_line(self, df):
        if df.size > 1:
            return df.groupby(self.id_col)['geometry'].apply(
                lambda x: LineString(x.tolist())).values[0]
        else:
            raise RuntimeError('Dataframe needs at least two points to make line!')

    def get_position_at(self, t):
        try:
            return self.df.loc[t]['geometry'][0]
        except:
            return self.df.iloc[self.df.index.drop_duplicates().get_loc(
                t, method='nearest')]['geometry']

Of course, this class can be used in stand-alone Python scripts, but it can also be used in QGIS. The following script takes data from a QGIS point layer, creates a GeoDataFrame, and finally generates trajectories. These trajectories can then be added to the map as a line layer.

All we need to do to ensure that our data is ordered by time is to set the GeoDataFrame’s index to the time field. From then on, Pandas takes care of the time series aspects and we can access the index as shown in the Trajectory.get_position_at() function above.

# Get data from a point layer
l = iface.activeLayer()
time_field_name = 't'
trajectory_id_field = 'trajectory_id' 
names = [field.name() for field in l.fields()]
data = []
for feature in l.getFeatures():
    my_dict = {}
    for i, a in enumerate(feature.attributes()):
        my_dict[names[i]] = a
    x = feature.geometry().asPoint().x()
    y = feature.geometry().asPoint().y()
    my_dict['geometry']=Point((x,y))
    data.append(my_dict)

# Create a GeoDataFrame
df = pd.DataFrame(data).set_index(time_field_name)
crs = {'init': l.crs().geographicCrsAuthId()} 
geo_df = GeoDataFrame(df, crs=crs)
print(geo_df)

# Test if spatial functions work
print(geo_df.dissolve([True]*len(geo_df)).centroid)

# Create a QGIS layer for trajectory lines
vl = QgsVectorLayer("LineString", "trajectories", "memory")
vl.setCrs(l.crs()) # doesn't stop popup :(
pr = vl.dataProvider()
pr.addAttributes([QgsField("id", QVariant.String)])
vl.updateFields() 

df_by_id = dict(tuple(geo_df.groupby(trajectory_id_field)))
trajectories = {}
for key, value in df_by_id.items():
    traj = Trajectory(key, value, trajectory_id_field)
    trajectories[key] = traj
    line = QgsGeometry.fromWkt(traj.to_linestring().wkt)
    f = QgsFeature()
    f.setGeometry(line)
    f.setAttributes([key])
    pr.addFeature(f) 
print(trajectories[1])

vl.updateExtents() 
QgsProject.instance().addMapLayer(vl)

The following screenshot shows this script applied to a sample of the Geolife datasets containing 100 trajectories with a total of 236,776 points. On my notebook, the runtime is approx. 20 seconds.

So far, GeoPandas has proven to be a convenient way to handle time series with coordinates. Trying to implement some trajectory analysis tools will show if it is indeed a promising data structure for trajectories.

If you follow me on Twitter, you have probably already heard that the ebook of “QGIS Map Design 2nd Edition” has now been published and we are expecting the print version to be up for sale later this month. Gretchen Peterson and I – together with our editor Gary Sherman (yes, that Gary Sherman!) – have been working hard to provide you with tons of new and improved map design workflows and many many completely new maps. By Gretchen’s count, this edition contains 23 new maps, so it’s very hard to pick a favorite!

Like the 1st edition, we provide increasingly advanced recipes in three chapters, each focusing on either layer styling, labeling, or creating print layouts. If I had to pick a favorite, I’d have to go with “Mastering Rotated Maps”, one of the advanced recipes in the print layouts chapter. It looks deceptively simple but it combines a variety of great QGIS features and clever ideas to design a map that provides information on multiple levels of detail. Besides the name inspiring rotated map items, this design combines

• map overviews
• map themes
• graduated lines and polygons
• a rotated north arrow
• fancy leader lines

all in one:

“QGIS Map Design 2nd Edition” provides how-to instructions, as well as data and project files for each recipe. So you can jump right into it and work with the provided materials or apply the techniques to your own data.

The ebook is available at LocatePress.

If you’re are following me on Twitter, you’ve certainly already read that I’m working on PyQGIS 101 a tutorial to help GIS users to get started with Python programming for QGIS.

I’ve often been asked to recommend Python tutorials for beginners and I’ve been surprised how difficult it can be to find an engaging tutorial for Python 3 that does not assume that the reader already knows all kinds of programming concepts.

It’s been a while since I started programming, but I do teach QGIS and Python programming for QGIS to university students and therefore have some ideas of which concepts are challenging. Nonetheless, it’s well possible that I overlook something that is not self explanatory. If you’re using PyQGIS 101 and find that some points could use further explanations, please leave a comment on the corresponding page.

PyQGIS 101 is a work in progress. I’d appreciate any feedback, particularly from beginners!

In Movement data in GIS #2: visualization I mentioned that it should be possible to label trajectory segments without having to break the original trajectory feature. While it’s not a straightforward process, it is indeed possible to create timestamp labels at desired intervals:

The main point here is that we cannot use regular labels because there would be only one label for the whole trajectory feature. Instead, we are using a marker line with a font marker:

By default, font markers only display one character from a given font but by using expressions we can make it display longer text, including datetime strings:

If you want to have a label at every node of the trajectory, the expression looks like this:

format_date( 
   to_datetime('1970-01-01T00:00:00Z')+to_interval(
      m(start_point(geometry_n(
         segments_to_lines( $geometry ),
         @geometry_part_num)
      ))||' seconds'
   ),
   'HH:mm:ss'
)

You probably remember those parts of the expression that extract the m value from previous posts. Note that – compared to 2016 – it is now necessary to add the segments_to_lines() function.

The m value (which stores time as seconds since Unix epoch) is then converted to datetime and finally formatted to only show time. Of course you can edit the datetime format string to also include the date.

If we only want a label every 30 seconds, we can add a case statement around that:

CASE WHEN 
m(start_point(geometry_n(
   segments_to_lines( $geometry ),
   @geometry_part_num)
)) % 30 = 0
THEN
format_date( 
   to_datetime('1970-01-01T00:00:00Z')+to_interval(
      m(start_point(geometry_n(
         segments_to_lines( $geometry ),
         @geometry_part_num)
      ))||' seconds'
   ),
   'HH:mm:ss'
)
END

This works well if the trajectory sampling interval is fairly regular. This is not always the case and that means that the above case statement wouldn’t find many nodes with a timestamp that ends in :30 or :00. In such a case, we could resort to labeling nodes based on their order in the linestring:

CASE WHEN 
 @geometry_part_num  % 30 = 0
THEN
...

Thanks a lot to @JuergenEFischer for providing a solution for converting seconds since Unix epoch to datetime without a custom function!

Note that expressions using @geometry_part_num currently suffer from the following issue: Combination of segments_to_lines($geometry) and @geometry_part_num gives wrong segment numbers

This post is part of a series. Read more about movement data in GIS.

Remember the good old times when all parameters in Processing were mandatory?

Inputs and outputs are fixed, and optional parameters or outputs are not supported. [Graser & Olaya, 2015]

Since QGIS 2.14, this is no longer the case. Scripts, as well as models, can now have optional parameters. Here is how for QGIS 3:

When defining a Processing script parameter, the parameter’s constructor takes a boolean flag indicating whether the parameter should be optional. It’s false by default:

class qgis.core.QgsProcessingParameterNumber(
   name: str, description: str = '', 
   type: QgsProcessingParameterNumber.Type = QgsProcessingParameterNumber.Integer, 
   defaultValue: Any = None, 
   optional: bool = False,
   minValue: float = -DBL_MAX+1, maxValue: float = DBL_MAX)

(Source: http://python.qgis.org/api/core/Processing/QgsProcessingParameterNumber.html)

One standard tool that uses optional parameters is Add autoincremental field:

From Python, this algorithm can be called with or without the optional parameters:

When building a model, an optional input can be assigned to the optional parameter. To create an optional input, make sure to deactivate the mandatory checkbox at the bottom of the input parameter definition:

Then this optional input can be used in an algorithm. For example, here the numerical input optional_value is passed to the Start values at parameter:

You can get access to all available inputs by clicking the … button next to the Start values at field. In this example, I have access to values of the input layer as well as  the optional value:

Once this is set up, this is how it looks when the model is run:

You can see that the optional value is indeed Not set.

References

Graser, A., & Olaya, V. (2015). Processing: A Python Framework for the Seamless Integration of Geoprocessing Tools in QGIS. ISPRS Int. J. Geo-Inf. 2015, 4, 2219-2245. doi:10.3390/ijgi4042219.

Processing has been overhauled significantly for QGIS 3.0. Besides speed-ups, one of the most obvious changes is the way to write Processing scripts. Instead of the old Processing-specific syntax, Processing scripts for QGIS3 are purely pythonic implementations of QgsProcessingAlgorithm.

Here’s a template that you can use to develop your own algorithms:

from qgis.PyQt.QtCore import QCoreApplication, QVariant
from qgis.core import (QgsField, QgsFeature, QgsFeatureSink, QgsFeatureRequest, QgsProcessing, QgsProcessingAlgorithm, QgsProcessingParameterFeatureSource, QgsProcessingParameterFeatureSink)
                      
class ExAlgo(QgsProcessingAlgorithm):
    INPUT = 'INPUT'
    OUTPUT = 'OUTPUT'

    def __init__(self):
        super().__init__()

    def name(self):
        return "exalgo"
    
    def tr(self, text):
        return QCoreApplication.translate("exalgo", text)
        
    def displayName(self):
        return self.tr("Example script")

    def group(self):
        return self.tr("Examples")

    def groupId(self):
        return "examples"

    def shortHelpString(self):
        return self.tr("Example script without logic")

    def helpUrl(self):
        return "https://qgis.org"
        
    def createInstance(self):
        return type(self)()
  
    def initAlgorithm(self, config=None):
        self.addParameter(QgsProcessingParameterFeatureSource(
            self.INPUT,
            self.tr("Input layer"),
            [QgsProcessing.TypeVectorAnyGeometry]))
        self.addParameter(QgsProcessingParameterFeatureSink(
            self.OUTPUT,
            self.tr("Output layer"),
            QgsProcessing.TypeVectorAnyGeometry))

    def processAlgorithm(self, parameters, context, feedback):
        source = self.parameterAsSource(parameters, self.INPUT, context)
        (sink, dest_id) = self.parameterAsSink(parameters, self.OUTPUT, context,
                                               source.fields(), source.wkbType(), source.sourceCrs())

        features = source.getFeatures(QgsFeatureRequest())
        for feat in features:
            out_feat = QgsFeature()
            out_feat.setGeometry(feat.geometry())
            out_feat.setAttributes(feat.attributes())
            sink.addFeature(out_feat, QgsFeatureSink.FastInsert)

        return {self.OUTPUT: dest_id}

This script just copies the features of the input layer to the output layer without any modifications. Add your logic to the processAlgorithm() function to get started.

Use Create New Script from the Toolbox toolbar:

Paste the example script:

Once saved, the script will show up in the Processing toolbox:

Joining polygon attributes to points based on their location is a very common GIS task. In QGIS 2, QGIS’ own implementation of “Join attributes by location” was much slower than SAGA’s “Add polygon attributes to points”. Thus, installations without SAGA were out of good options.

Luckily this issue (and many more) has been fixed by the rewrite of many geoprocessing algorithms for QGIS 3! Let’s revisit the comparison:

I’m using publicly available datasets from Naturalearth: The small scale populated places (243 points) and the large scale countries (255 polygons with many nodes). Turns out that QGIS 3’s built-in tool takes a little less than two seconds while the SAGA Processing tool requires a litte less than six seconds:

Like in the previous comparison, times were measured using the Python Console:

In both tools, only the countries’ SOVEREIGNT attribute is joined to the point attribute table:

import processing
t0 = datetime.datetime.now()
print("QGIS Join attributes by location ...")
processing.runAndLoadResults(
   "qgis:joinattributesbylocation", 
   {'INPUT':'E:/Geodata/NaturalEarth/vector_v4/natural_earth_vector/110m_cultural/ne_110m_populated_places.shp',
   'JOIN':'E:/Geodata/NaturalEarth/vector_v4/natural_earth_vector/10m_cultural/ne_10m_admin_0_countries.shp',
   'PREDICATE':[5],'JOIN_FIELDS':['SOVEREIGNT'],
   'METHOD':0,'DISCARD_NONMATCHING':False,'OUTPUT':'memory:'})
t1 = datetime.datetime.now()
print("Runtime: "+str(t1-t0))
print("SAGA Add polygon attributers to points ...")
processing.runAndLoadResults("saga:addpolygonattributestopoints", 
   {'INPUT':'E:/Geodata/NaturalEarth/vector_v4/natural_earth_vector/110m_cultural/ne_110m_populated_places.shp',
   'POLYGONS':'E:/Geodata/NaturalEarth/vector_v4/natural_earth_vector/10m_cultural/ne_10m_admin_0_countries.shp',
   'FIELDS':'SOVEREIGNT','OUTPUT':'C:/Users/anita/AppData/Local/Temp/processing_8b1bbde78de5490285dd530e115cca52/099660d88bf14c54a853cc230e388e55/OUTPUT.shp'})
t2 = datetime.datetime.now()
print("Runtime: "+str(t2-t1))

It is worth noting that it takes longer if more attributes are to be joined to the point layer attribute table. For example, if the JOIN_FIELDS parameter is empty:

'JOIN_FIELDS':[]

instead of

'JOIN_FIELDS':['SOVEREIGNT']

then the the Join attributes by location takes almost 16 seconds. (The country layer contains 71 attributes after all.)

(The SAGA tool currently allows only joining one attribute at a time.)

The release of 3.0 is really close now. If you want to know what’s new or are just looking for interesting ways to pass the time until the packages land, check out the following QGIS3 resources.

For users

• “24 Days of QGIS 3.0 Features” by Nyall Dawson
• “Exploring Reports in QGIS 3.0 – the Ultimate Guide!” by Nyall Dawson
• “Data exploration with Data Plotly for QGIS3” by your’s truly
• “Intro to QGIS3 3D view with Viennese building data” by your’s truly

For more recordings from the developer meeting in Madeira check my Youtube playlist.

For developers

• The official “Plugin migration to QGIS 3” wiki page
• “The PyQGIS Programmer’s Guide – Extending QGIS 3 with Python 3” by Gary Sherman
• “Porting Processing scripts to QGIS3” by your’s truly

If you have further reading recommendations, please post them in the comments below.

TimeManager 2.5 is quite likely going to be the final TimeManager release for the QGIS 2 series. It comes with a couple of bug fixes and enhancements:

• Fixed #245: updated help.htm
• Fixed #240: now hiding unmanageable WFS layers
• Fixed #220: fixed issues with label size
• Fixed #194: now exposing additional functions: animation_time_frame_size, animation_time_frame_type, animation_start_datetime, animation_end_datetime

Besides updating the help, I also decided to display it more prominently in the settings dialog (similarly to how the help is displayed in the field calculator or in Processing):

So far, I haven’t started porting to QGIS 3 yet. If you are interested in TimeManager and want to help, please get in touch.

On this note, let me leave you with a couple of animation inspirations from the Twitterverse:

I’ll start with some tech talk first. Feel free to jump to the usage example further down if you are here for the edge bundling plugin.

As you certainly know, QGIS 3 brings a lot of improvements and under-the-hood changes. One of those changes affects all Python scripts. They need to be updated to Python 3 and the new PyQGIS API. (See the official migration guide for details.)

To get ready for the big 3.0 release, I’ve started porting my Processing tools. The edge bundling script is my first candidate for porting to QGIS 3. I also wanted to use this opportunity to “upgrade” from a simple script to a plugin that integrates into Processing.

I used Alexander Bruy’s “prepair for Processing” plugin as a template but you can also find an example template in your Processing folder. (On my system, it is located in C:\OSGeo4W64\apps\qgis-dev\python\plugins\processing\algs\exampleprovider.)

Since I didn’t want to miss the advantages of a good IDE, I set up PyCharm as described by Heikki Vesanto. This will give you code completion for Python 3 and PyQGIS which is very helpful for refactoring and porting. (I also tried Eclipse with PyDev but if you don’t have a favorite IDE yet, I find PyCharm easier to install and configure.)

My PyCharm startup script qgis3_pycharm.bat is a copy of C:\OSGeo4W64\bin\python-qgis-dev.bat with the last line altered to start PyCharm:

@echo off
call "%~dp0\o4w_env.bat"
call qt5_env.bat
call py3_env.bat
@echo off<span data-mce-type="bookmark" style="display: inline-block; width: 0px; overflow: hidden; line-height: 0;" class="mce_SELRES_start"></span>
path %OSGEO4W_ROOT%\apps\qgis-dev\bin;%PATH%
set QGIS_PREFIX_PATH=%OSGEO4W_ROOT:\=/%/apps/qgis-dev
set GDAL_FILENAME_IS_UTF8=YES
rem Set VSI cache to be used as buffer, see #6448
set VSI_CACHE=TRUE
set VSI_CACHE_SIZE=1000000
set QT_PLUGIN_PATH=%OSGEO4W_ROOT%\apps\qgis-dev\qtplugins;%OSGEO4W_ROOT%\apps\qt5\plugins
set PYTHONPATH=%OSGEO4W_ROOT%\apps\qgis-dev\python;%PYTHONPATH%
start /d "C:\Program Files\JetBrains\PyCharm\bin\" pycharm64.exe

In PyCharm File | Settings, I configured the OSGeo4W Python 3.6 interpreter and added qgis-dev and the plugin folder to its path:

With this setup done, we can go back to the code.

I first resolved all occurrences of import * in my script to follow good coding practices. For example:

from qgis.core import *

became

from qgis.core import QgsFeature, QgsPoint, QgsVector, QgsGeometry, QgsField, QGis<span data-mce-type="bookmark" style="display: inline-block; width: 0px; overflow: hidden; line-height: 0;" class="mce_SELRES_start"></span>

in this PR.

I didn’t even run the 2to3 script that is provided to make porting from Python 2 to Python 3 easier. Since the edge bundling code is mostly Numpy, there were almost no changes necessary. The only head scratching moment was when Numpy refused to add a map() return value to an array. So (with the help of Stackoverflow of course) I added a work around to convert the map() return value to an array as well:

flocal_x = map(forcecalcx, subtr_x, subtr_y, distance)
electrostaticforces_x[e_idx, :] += np.array(list(flocal_x))

The biggest change related to Processing is that the VectorWriter has been replaced by a QgsFeatureSink. It’s defined as a parameter of the edgebundling QgsProcessingAlgorithm:

self.addParameter(QgsProcessingParameterFeatureSink(
   self.OUTPUT,
   self.tr("Bundled edges"),
   QgsProcessing.TypeVectorLine)
)

And when the algorithm is run, the sink is filled with the output features:

(sink, dest_id) = self.parameterAsSink(
   parameters, self.OUTPUT, context,
   source.fields(), source.wkbType(), source.sourceCrs()
)

# code that creates features

sink.addFeature(feat, QgsFeatureSink.FastInsert)

The ported plugin is available on Github.

The edge bundling plugin in action

I haven’t uploaded the plugin to the official plugin repository yet, but you can already download if from Github and give it a try:

For this example, I’m using taxi pick-up and drop-off data provided by the NYC Taxi & Limousine Commission. I downloaded the January 2017 green taxi data and extracted all trips for the 1st of January. Then I created origin-destination (OD) lines using the QGIS virtual layer feature:

To get an interesting subset of the data, I extracted only those OD flows that cross the East River and have a count of at least 5 taxis:

Now the data is ready for bundling.

If you have installed the edge bundling plugin, the force-directed edge bundling algorithm should be available in the Processing toolbox. The UI of the edge bundling algorithm looks pretty much the same as it did for the QGIS 2 Processing script:

Since this is a small dataset with only 148 OD flows, the edge bundling processes is pretty quick and we can explore the results:

Beyond this core edge bundling algorithm, the repository also contains two more scripts that still need to be ported. They include dependencies on sklearn, so it will be interesting to see how straightforward it is to convert them.

QGIS 3 has a new feature: reports! In short, reports are the good old Altas feature on steroids.

Let’s have a look at an example project:

To start a report, go to Project | New report. The report window is quite similar to what we’ve come to expect from Print Composer (now called Layouts). The most striking difference is the report panel at the left side of the screen.

When a new report is created, the center of the report window is empty. To get started, we need to select the report entry in the panel on the left. By selecting the report entry, we get access to the Include report header and Include report footer checkboxes. For example, pressing the Edit button next to the Include report header option makes it possible to design the front page (or pages) of the report:

Similarly, pressing Edit next to the Include report footer option enables us to design the final pages of our report.

Now for the content! We can populate our report with content by clicking on the plus button to add a report section or a “field group”. A field group is basically an Atlas. For example, here I’ve added a field group that creates one page for each country in the Natural Earth countries layer that I have loaded in my project:

Note that in the right panel you can see that the Controlled by report option is activated for the map item. (This is equivalent to a basic Atlas setup in QGIS 2.x.)

With this setup, we are ready to export our report. Report | Export Report as PDF creates a 257 page document:

As configured, the pages are ordered by country name. This way, for example, Australia ends up on page 17.

Of course, it’s possible to add more details to the individual pages. In this example, I’ve added an overview map in Robinson projection (to illustrate again that it is now possible to mix different CRS on a map).

Happy QGIS mapping!

If you have already designed a few maps in QGIS, you are probably aware of a long-standing limitation: Print Composer maps were limited to the project’s coordinate reference system (CRS). It was not possible to have maps with different CRS in a composition.

Note how I’ve been using the past tense? 

Rejoice! QGIS 3 gets rid of this limitation. Print Composer has been replaced by the new Layout dialog which – while very similar at first sight – offers numerous improvements. But today, we’ll focus on projection handling.

For example, this is a simple project using WGS84 as its project CRS:

In the Layouts dialog, each map item now has a CRS property. For example, the overview map is set to World_Robinson while the main map is set to ETRS-LAEA:

As you can see, the red overview frame in the upper left corner is curved to correctly represent the extent of the main map.

Of course, CRS control is not limited to maps. We also have full freedom to add map grids in yet another CRS:

This opens up a whole new level of map design possibilities.

Bonus fact: Another great improvement related to projections in QGIS3 is that Processing tools are now aware of layers with different CRS and will actively reproject layers. This makes it possible, for example, to intersect two layers with different CRS without any intermediate manual reprojection steps.

Happy QGIS mapping!

Data Plotly is a new plugin by Matteo Ghetta for QGIS3 which makes it possible to draw D3 graphs of vector layer attribute values. This is a huge step towards making QGIS a one stop shop for data exploration!

Data Plotly adds a new panel where graphs can be configured and viewed. Currently, there are nine different plot types:

The following examples use tree cadastre data from the city of Linz, Austria.

Scatter plots with both two and three variables are supported. After picking the attributes you want to visualize, press “Create plot”.

If you change some settings and press “Create plot” again, by default, the new graph will be plotted on top of the old one. If you don’t want that to happen, press “Clean plot canvas” before creating a new plot.

The plots are interactive and display more information on mouse over, for example, the values of a box plot:

Even aggregate expressions are supported! Here’s the mean height of trees by type (deciduous L or coniferous N):

For more examples, I strongly recommend to have a look at the plugin home page.

In this post, I want to show how to visualize building block data published by the city of Vienna in 3D using QGIS. This data is interesting due to its level of detail. For example, here you can see the Albertina landmark in the center of Vienna:

an this is the corresponding 3D visualization, including flying roof:

To enable 3D view in QGIS 2.99 (soon to be released as QGIS 3), go to View | New 3D Map View.

Viennese building data (https://www.data.gv.at/katalog/dataset/76c2e577-268f-4a93-bccd-7d5b43b14efd) is provided as Shapefiles. (Saber Razmjooei recently published a similar post using data from New York City in ESRI Multipatch format.) You can download a copy of the Shapefile and a DEM for the same area from my dropbox.  The Shapefile contains the following relevant attributes for 3D visualization

• O_KOTE: absolute building height measured to the roof gutter(?) (“absolute Gebäudehöhe der Dachtraufe”)
• U_KOTE: absolute height of the lower edge of the building block if floating above ground (“absolute Überbauungshöhe unten”)
• HOEHE_DGM: absolute height of the terrain (“absolute Geländehöhe”)
• T_KOTE: lowest point of the terrain for the given building block (“tiefster Punkt des Geländes auf den Kanten der Gebäudeteilfläche”)

To style the 3D view in QGIS 3, I set height to “U_KOTE” and extrusion to

O_KOTE-coalesce(U_KOTE,0)

both with a default value of 0 which is used if the field or expression is NULL:

The altitude clamping setting defines how height values are interpreted. Absolute clamping is perfect for the Viennese data since all height values are provided as absolute measures from 0. Other options are “relative” and “terrain” which add given elevation values to the underlying terrain elevation. According to the source of qgs3dutils:

  AltClampAbsolute,   //!< Z_final = z_geometry
  AltClampRelative,   //!< Z_final = z_terrain + z_geometry
  AltClampTerrain,    //!< Z_final = z_terrain

The gray colored polygon style shown in the map view on the top creates the illusion of shadows in the 3D view:

Beyond that, this example also features elevation model data which can be configured in the 3D View panel. I found it helpful to increase the terrain tile resolution (for example to 256 px) in order to get more detailed terrain renderings:

Overall, the results look pretty good. There are just a few small glitches in the rendering, as well as in the data. For example, the kiosik in front of Albertina which you can also see in the StreetView image, is lacking height information and therefore we can only see it’s “shadow” in the 3D rendering.

So far, I found 3D rendering performance very good. It works great on my PC with Nvidia graphics card. On my notebook with Intel Iris graphics, I’m unfortunately still experiencing crashes which I hope will be resolved in the future.

MarineCadastre.gov is a great source for AIS data along the US coast. Their data formats and tools though are less open. Luckily, GDAL – and therefore QGIS – can read ESRI File Geodatabases (.gdb).

MarineCadastre.gov also offer a Track Builder script that creates lines out of the broadcast points. (It can also join additional information from the vessel and voyage layers.) We could reproduce the line creation step using tools such as Processing’s Point to path but this post will show how to create PostGIS trajectories instead.

First, we have to import the points into PostGIS using either DB Manager or Processing’s Import into PostGIS tool:

Then we can create the trajectories. I’ve opted to create a materialized view:

The first part of the query creates a temporary table called ptm (short for PointM). This step adds time stamp information to each point. The second part of the query then aggregates these PointMs into trajectories of type LineStringM.

CREATE MATERIALIZED VIEW ais.trajectory AS
 WITH ptm AS (
   SELECT b.mmsi,
     st_makepointm(
       st_x(b.geom), 
       st_y(b.geom), 
       date_part('epoch', b.basedatetime)
     ) AS pt,
     b.basedatetime t
   FROM ais.broadcast b
   ORDER BY mmsi, basedatetime
 )
 SELECT row_number() OVER () AS id,
   st_makeline(ptm.pt) AS st_makeline,
   ptm.mmsi,
   min(ptm.t) AS min_t,
   max(ptm.t) AS max_t
 FROM ptm
 GROUP BY ptm.mmsi
WITH DATA;

The trajectory start and end times (min_t and max_t) are optional but they can help speed up future queries.

One of the advantages of creating trajectory lines is that they render many times faster than the original points.

Of course, we end up with some artifacts at the border of the dataset extent. (Files are split by UTM zone.) Trajectories connect the last known position before the vessel left the observed area with the position of reentry. This results, for example, in vertical lines which you can see in the bottom left corner of the above screenshot.

With the trajectories ready, we can go ahead and start exploring the dataset. For example, we can visualize trajectory speed and/or create animations:

Purple trajectory segments are slow while green segments are faster

We can also perform trajectory analysis, such as trajectory generalization:

This is a first proof of concept. It would be great to have a script that automatically fetches the datasets for a specified time frame and list of UTM zones and loads them into PostGIS for further processing. In addition, it would be great to also make use of the information in the vessel and voyage tables, thus splitting up trajectories into individual voyages.

Read more:

• Movement data in GIS: issues & ideas
• Movement data in GIS #2: visualizing individual trajectories
• Movement data in GIS #3: visualizing massive trajectory datasets
• Movement data in GIS #4: variations over time
• Movement data in GIS #5: current research topics
• Movement data in GIS #6: updates from AGILE2017
• Movement data in GIS #7: animated trajectories with TimeManager
• Movement data in GIS #8: edge bundling for flow maps
• Movement data in GIS extra: trajectory generalization code and sample data
• Movement data in GIS #9: trajectory data models

Today’s post is a follow-up of Movement data in GIS #3: visualizing massive trajectory datasets. In that post, I summarized a concept for trajectory generalization. Now, I have published the scripts and sample data in my QGIS-Processing-tools repository on Github.

To add the trajectory generalization scripts to your Processing toolbox, you can use the Add scripts from files tool:

It is worth noting, that Add scripts from files fails to correctly import potential help files for the scripts but that’s not an issue this time around, since I haven’t gotten around to actually write help files yet.

The scripts are used in the following order:

1. Extract characteristic trajectory points
2. Group points in space
3. Compute flows between cells from trajectories

The sample project contains input data, as well as output layers of the individual tools. The only required input is a layer of trajectories, where trajectories have to be LINESTRINGM (note the M!) features:

Trajectory sample based on data provided by the GeoLife project

In Extract characteristic trajectory points, distance parameters are specified in meters, stop duration in seconds, and angles in degrees. The characteristic points contain start and end locations, as well as turns and stop locations:

The characteristic points are then clustered. In this tool, the distance has to be specified in layer units, which are degrees in case of the sample data.

Finally, we can compute flows between cells defined by these clusters:

Flow lines scaled by flow strength and cell centers scaled by counts

If you use these tools on your own data, I’d be happy so see what you come up with!

Read more:

• Movement data in GIS: issues & ideas
• Movement data in GIS #2: visualizing individual trajectories
• Movement data in GIS #3: visualizing massive trajectory datasets
• Movement data in GIS #4: variations over time
• Movement data in GIS #5: current research topics
• Movement data in GIS #6: updates from AGILE2017
• Movement data in GIS #7: animated trajectories with TimeManager
• Movement data in GIS #8: edge bundling for flow maps

If you follow this blog, you’ll probably remember that I published a QGIS style for flow maps a while ago. The example showed domestic migration between the nine Austrian states, a rather small dataset. Even so, it required some manual tweaking to make the flow map readable. Even with only 72 edges, the map quickly gets messy:

Raw migration flows between Austrian states, line width scaled by flow strength

One popular approach in the data viz community to deal with this problem is edge bundling. The idea is to reduce visual clutter by generate bundles of similar edges. 

Surprisingly, edge bundling is not available in desktop GIS. Existing implementations in the visual analytics field often run on GPUs because edge bundling is computationally expensive. Nonetheless, we have set out to implement force-directed edge bundling for the QGIS Processing toolbox [0]. The resulting scripts are available at https://github.com/dts-ait/qgis-edge-bundling.

The main procedure consists of two tools: bundle edges and summarize. Bundle edges takes the raw straight lines, and incrementally adds intermediate nodes (called control points) and shifts them according to computed spring and electrostatic forces. If the input are 72 lines, the output again are 72 lines but each line geometry has been bent so that similar lines overlap and form a bundle.

After this edge bundling step, most common implementations compute a line heatmap, that is, for each map pixel, determine the number of lines passing through the pixel. But QGIS does not support line heatmaps and this approach also has issues distinguishing lines that run in opposite directions. We have therefore implemented a summarize tool that computes the local strength of the generated bundles.

Continuing our previous example, if the input are 72 lines, summarize breaks each line into its individual segments and determines the number of segments from other lines that are part of the same bundle. If a weight field is specified, each line is not just counted once but according to its weight value. The resulting bundle strength can be used to create a line layer style with data-defined line width:

Bundled migration flows

To avoid overlaps of flows in opposing directions, we define a line offset. Finally, summarize also adds a sequence number to the line segments. This sequence number is used to assign a line color on the gradient that indicates flow direction.

I already mentioned that edge bundling is computationally expensive. One reason is that we need to perform pairwise comparison of edges to determine if they are similar and should be bundled. This comparison results in a compatibility matrix and depending on the defined compatibility threshold, different bundles can be generated.

The following U.S. dataset contains around 4000 lines and bundling it takes a considerable amount of time.

One approach to speed up computations is to first use a quick clustering algorithm and then perform edge bundling on each cluster individually. If done correctly, clustering significantly reduces the size of each compatibility matrix.

In this example, we divided the edges into six clusters before bundling them. If you compare this result to the visualization at the top of this post (which did not use clustering), you’ll see some differences here and there but, overall, the results are quite similar:

Looking at these examples, you’ll probably spot a couple of issues. There are many additional ideas for potential improvements from existing literature which we have not implemented yet. If you are interested in improving these tools, please go ahead! The code and more examples are available on Github.

For more details, leave your email in a comment below and I’ll gladly send you the pre-print of our paper.

[0] Graser, A., Schmidt, J., Roth, F., & Brändle, N. (2017 online) Untangling Origin-Destination Flows in Geographic Information Systems. Information Visualization – Special Issue on Visual Movement Analytics.

Read more:

• Movement data in GIS: issues & ideas
• Movement data in GIS #2: visualizing individual trajectories
• Movement data in GIS #3: visualizing massive trajectory datasets
• Movement data in GIS #4: variations over time
• Movement data in GIS #5: current research topics
• Movement data in GIS #6: updates from AGILE2017
• Movement data in GIS #7: animated trajectories with TimeManager

This is a guest post by Chris Kohler @Chriskohler8.

Introduction:

This guide provides step-by-step instructions to produce drive-time isochrones using a single vector shapefile. The method described here involves building a routing network using a single vector shapefile of your roads data within a Virtual Box. Furthermore, the network is built by creating start and end nodes (source and target nodes) on each road segment. We will use Postgresql, with PostGIS and Pgrouting extensions, as our database. Please consider this type of routing to be fair, regarding accuracy, as the routing algorithms are based off the nodes locations and not specific addresses. I am currently working on an improved workflow to have site address points serve as nodes to optimize results. One of the many benefits of this workflow is no financial cost to produce (outside collecting your roads data). I will provide instructions for creating, and using your virtual machine within this guide.

Steps:–Getting Virtual Box(begin)–

Intro 1. Download/Install Oracle VM(https://www.virtualbox.org/wiki/Downloads)

Intro 2. Start the download/install OSGeo-Live 11(https://live.osgeo.org/en/overview/overview.html).

Pictures used in this workflow will show 10.5, though version 11 can be applied similarly. Make sure you download the version: osgeo-live-11-amd64.iso. If you have trouble finding it, here is the direct link to the download (https://sourceforge.net/projects/osgeo-live/files/10.5/osgeo-live-10.5-amd64.iso/download)
Intro 3. Ready for virtual machine creation: We will utilize the downloaded OSGeo-Live 11 suite with a virtual machine we create to begin our workflow. The steps to create your virtual machine are listed below. Also, here are steps from an earlier workshop with additional details with setting up your virtual machine with osgeo live(http://workshop.pgrouting.org/2.2.10/en/chapters/installation.html).

1.  Create Virutal Machine: In this step we begin creating the virtual machine housing our database.

Open Oracle VM VirtualBox Manager and select “New” located at the top left of the window.

Then fill out name, operating system, memory, etc. to create your first VM.

2. Add IDE Controller:  The purpose of this step is to create a placeholder for the osgeo 11 suite to be implemented. In the virtual box main window, right-click your newly-created vm and open the settings.

In the settings window, on the left side select the storage tab.

Find “adds new storage controller” button located at the bottom of the tab. Be careful of other buttons labeled “adds new storage attachment”! Select “adds new storage controller” button and a drop-down menu will appear. From the top of the drop-down select “Add IDE Controller”.

You will see a new item appear in the center of the window under the “Storage Tree”.

3.  Add Optical Drive: The osgeo 11 suite will be implemented into the virtual machine via an optical drive. Highlight the new controller IDE you created and select “add optical drive”.

A new window will pop-up and select “Choose Disk”.

Locate your downloaded file “osgeo-live 11 amd64.iso” and click open. A new object should appear in the middle window under your new controller displaying “osgeo-live-11.0-amd64.iso”.

Finally your virtual machine is ready for use.
Start your new Virtual Box, then wait and follow the onscreen prompts to begin using your virtual machine.

–Getting Virtual Box(end)—

4. Creating the routing database, and both extensions (postgis, pgrouting): The database we create and both extensions we add will provide the functions capable of producing isochrones.

To begin, start by opening the command line tool (hold control+left-alt+T) then log in to postgresql by typing “psql -U user;” into the command line and then press Enter. For the purpose of clear instruction I will refer to database name in this guide as “routing”, feel free to choose your own database name. Please input the command, seen in the figure below, to create the database:

CREATE DATABASE routing;

You can use “\c routing” to connect to the database after creation.

The next step after creating and connecting to your new database is to create both extensions. I find it easier to take two-birds-with-one-stone typing “psql -U user routing;” this will simultaneously log you into postgresql and your routing database.

When your logged into your database, apply the commands below to add both extensions

CREATE EXTENSION postgis;
CREATE EXTENSION pgrouting;

5. Load shapefile to database: In this next step, the shapefile of your roads data must be placed into your virtual machine and further into your database.

My method is using email to send myself the roads shapefile then download and copy it from within my virtual machines web browser. From the desktop of your Virtual Machine, open the folder named “Databases” and select the application “shape2pgsql”.

Follow the UI of shp2pgsql to connect to your routing database you created in Step 4.

Next, select “Add File” and find your roads shapefile (in this guide we will call our shapefile “roads_table”) you want to use for your isochrones and click Open.

Finally, click “Import” to place your shapefile into your routing database.

6. Add source & target columns: The purpose of this step is to create columns which will serve as placeholders for our nodes data we create later.

There are multiple ways to add these columns into the roads_table. The most important part of this step is which table you choose to edit, the names of the columns you create, and the format of the columns. Take time to ensure the source & target columns are integer format. Below are the commands used in your command line for these functions.

ALTER TABLE roads_table ADD COLUMN "source" integer;
ALTER TABLE roads_table ADD COLUMN "target" integer;

7. Create topology: Next, we will use a function to attach a node to each end of every road segment in the roads_table. The function in this step will create these nodes. These newly-created nodes will be stored in the source and target columns we created earlier in step 6.

As well as creating nodes, this function will also create a new table which will contain all these nodes. The suffix “_vertices_pgr” is added to the name of your shapefile to create this new table. For example, using our guide’s shapefile name , “roads_table”, the nodes table will be named accordingly: roads_table_vertices_pgr. However, we will not use the new table created from this function (roads_table_vertices_pgr). Below is the function, and a second simplified version, to be used in the command line for populating our source and target columns, in other words creating our network topology. Note the input format, the “geom” column in my case was called “the_geom” within my shapefile:

pgr_createTopology('roads_table', 0.001, 'geom', 'id',
 'source', 'target', rows_where := 'true', clean := f)

Here is a direct link for more information on this function: http://docs.pgrouting.org/2.3/en/src/topology/doc/pgr_createTopology.html#pgr-create-topology

Below is an example(simplified) function for my roads shapefile:

SELECT pgr_createTopology('roads_table', 0.001, 'the_geom', 'id')

8. Create a second nodes table: A second nodes table will be created for later use. This second node table will contain the node data generated from pgr_createtopology function and be named “node”. Below is the command function for this process. Fill in your appropriate source and target fields following the manner seen in the command below, as well as your shapefile name.

To begin, find the folder on the Virtual Machines desktop named “Databases” and open the program “pgAdmin lll” located within.

Connect to your routing database in pgAdmin window. Then highlight your routing database, and find “SQL” tool at the top of the pgAdmin window. The tool resembles a small magnifying glass.

We input the below function into the SQL window of pgAdmin. Feel free to refer to this link for further information: (https://anitagraser.com/2011/02/07/a-beginners-guide-to-pgrouting/)

CREATE TABLE node AS
   SELECT row_number() OVER (ORDER BY foo.p)::integer AS id,
          foo.p AS the_geom
   FROM (     
      SELECT DISTINCT roads_table.source AS p FROM roads_table
      UNION
      SELECT DISTINCT roads_table.target AS p FROM roads_table
   ) foo
   GROUP BY foo.p;

9.  Create a routable network: After creating the second node table from step 8,  we will combine this node table(node) with our shapefile(roads_table) into one, new, table(network) that will be used as the routing network. This table will be called “network” and will be capable of processing routing queries.  Please input this command and execute in SQL pgAdmin tool as we did in step 8. Here is a reference for more information:(https://anitagraser.com/2011/02/07/a-beginners-guide-to-pgrouting/)   

CREATE TABLE network AS
   SELECT a.*, b.id as start_id, c.id as end_id
   FROM roads_table AS a
      JOIN node AS b ON a.source = b.the_geom
      JOIN node AS c ON a.target = c.the_geom;

10. Create a “noded” view of the network:  This new view will later be used to calculate the visual isochrones in later steps. Input this command and execute in SQL pgAdmin tool.

CREATE OR REPLACE VIEW network_nodes AS 
SELECT foo.id,
 st_centroid(st_collect(foo.pt)) AS geom 
FROM ( 
  SELECT network.source AS id,
         st_geometryn (st_multi(network.geom),1) AS pt 
  FROM network
  UNION 
  SELECT network.target AS id, 
         st_boundary(st_multi(network.geom)) AS pt 
  FROM network) foo 
GROUP BY foo.id;

11.​ Add column for speed:​ This step may, or may not, apply if your original shapefile contained a field of values for road speeds.

In reality a network of roads will typically contain multiple speed limits. The shapefile you choose may have a speed field, otherwise the discrimination for the following steps will not allow varying speeds to be applied to your routing network respectfully.

If values of speed exists in your shapefile we will implement these values into a new field, “traveltime“, that will show rate of travel for every road segment in our network based off their geometry. Firstly, we will need to create a column to store individual traveling speeds. The name of our column will be “traveltime” using the format: ​double precision.​ Input this command and execute in the command line tool as seen below.

ALTER TABLE network ADD COLUMN traveltime double precision;

Next, we will populate the new column “traveltime” by calculating traveling speeds using an equation. This equation will take each road segments geometry(shape_leng) and divide by the rate of travel(either mph or kph). The sample command I’m using below utilizes mph as the rate while our geometry(shape_leng) units for my roads_table is in feet​. If you are using either mph or kph, input this command and execute in SQL pgAdmin tool. Below further details explain the variable “X”.

UPDATE network SET traveltime = shape_leng / X*60

How to find X​, ​here is an example​: Using example 30 mph as rate. To find X, we convert 30 miles to feet, we know 5280 ft = 1 mile, so we multiply 30 by 5280 and this gives us 158400 ft. Our rate has been converted from 30 miles per hour to 158400 feet per hour. For a rate of 30 mph, our equation for the field “traveltime”  equates to “shape_leng / 158400*60″. To discriminate this calculations output, we will insert additional details such as “where speed = 30;”. What this additional detail does is apply our calculated output to features with a “30” value in our “speed” field. Note: your “speed” field may be named differently.

UPDATE network SET traveltime = shape_leng / 158400*60 where speed = 30;

Repeat this step for each speed value in your shapefile examples:

UPDATE network SET traveltime = shape_leng / X*60 where speed = 45;
UPDATE network SET traveltime = shape_leng / X*60 where speed = 55;

The back end is done. Great Job!

Our next step will be visualizing our data in QGIS. Open and connect QGIS to your routing database by right-clicking “PostGIS” in the Browser Panel within QGIS main window. Confirm the checkbox “Also list tables with no geometry” is checked to allow you to see the interior of your database more clearly. Fill out the name or your routing database and click “OK”.

If done correctly, from QGIS you will have access to tables and views created in your routing database. Feel free to visualize your network by drag-and-drop the network table into your QGIS Layers Panel. From here you can use the identify tool to select each road segment, and see the source and target nodes contained within that road segment. The node you choose will be used in the next step to create the views of drive-time.

12. ​Create views​: In this step, we create views from a function designed to determine the travel time cost. Transforming these views with tools will visualize the travel time costs as isochrones.

The command below will be how you start querying your database to create drive-time isochrones. Begin in QGIS by draging your network table into the contents. The visual will show your network as vector(lines). Simply select the road segment closest to your point of interest you would like to build your isochrone around. Then identify the road segment using the identify tool and locate the source and target fields. ​

Place the source or target field value in the below command where you see ​VALUE​, in all caps​.

This will serve you now as an isochrone catchment function for this workflow. Please feel free to use this command repeatedly for creating new isochrones by substituting the source value. Please input this command and execute in SQL pgAdmin tool.

*AT THE BOTTOM OF THIS WORKFLOW I PROVIDED AN EXAMPLE USING SOURCE VALUE “2022”

CREATE OR REPLACE VIEW "​view_name" AS 
SELECT di.seq, 
       di.id1, 
       di.id2, 
       di.cost, 
       pt.id, 
       pt.geom 
FROM pgr_drivingdistance('SELECT
     gid::integer AS id, 
     Source::integer AS source, 
     Target::integer AS target,                                    
     Traveltime::double precision AS cost 
       FROM network'::text, ​VALUE::bigint, 
    100000::double precision, false, false)
    di(seq, id1, id2, cost)
JOIN network_nodes pt ON di.id1 = pt.id;

13. ​Visualize Isochrone: Applying tools to the view will allow us to adjust the visual aspect to a more suitable isochrone overlay.

​After creating your view, a new item in your routing database is created, using the “view_name” you chose. Drag-and-drop this item into your QGIS LayersPanel. You will see lots of small dots which represent the nodes.

In the figure below, I named my view “take1“.

Each node you see contains a drive-time value, “cost”, which represents the time used to travel from the node you input in step 12’s function.

Start by installing the QGIS plug-in “Interpolation” by opening the Plugin Manager in QGIS interface.

Next, at the top of QGIS window select “Raster” and a drop-down will appear, select “Interpolation”.

A new window pops up and asks you for input.

Select your “​view”​ as the​ vector layer​, select ​”cost​” as your ​interpolation attribute​, and then click “Add”.

A new vector layer will show up in the bottom of the window, take care the type is “Points“. For output, on the other half of the window, keep the interpolation method as “TIN”, edit the ​output file​ location and name. Check the box “​Add result to project​”.

Note: decreasing the cellsize of X and Y will increase the resolution but at the cost of performance.

Click “OK” on the bottom right of the window.

A black and white raster will appear in QGIS, also in the Layers Panel a new item was created.

Take some time to visualize the raster by coloring and adjusting values in symbology until you are comfortable with the look.

14. ​Create contours of our isochrone:​ Contours can be calculated from the isochrone as well.

Find near the top of QGIS window, open the “Raster” menu drop-down and select Extraction → Contour.

Fill out the appropriate interval between contour lines but leave the check box “Attribute name” unchecked. Click “OK”.

15.​ Zip and Share:​ Find where you saved your TIN and contours, compress them in a zip folder by highlighting them both and right-click to select “compress”. Email the compressed folder to yourself to export out of your virtual machine.

Example Isochrone catchment for this workflow:

CREATE OR REPLACE VIEW "2022" AS 
SELECT di.seq, Di.id1, Di.id2, Di.cost,                           
       Pt.id, Pt.geom 
FROM pgr_drivingdistance('SELECT gid::integer AS id,                                       
     Source::integer AS source, Target::integer AS target, 
     Traveltime::double precision AS cost FROM network'::text, 
     2022::bigint, 100000::double precision, false, false) 
   di(seq, id1, id2, cost) 
JOIN netowrk_nodes pt 
ON di.id1 = pt.id;

References: Virtual Box ORACLE VM, OSGeo-Live 11  amd64 iso, Workshop FOSS4G Bonn(​http://workshop.pgrouting.org/2.2.10/en/index.html​),

Invalid geometries can cause a lot of headache: from missing features to odd analysis results.

This post aims to illustrate one of the most common issues and presents an approach that can help with these errors.

The dataset used for this example is the Alaska Shapefile from the QGIS sample data:

This dataset has a couple of issues. One way to find out if a dataset contains errors is the Check Validity tool in the Processing toolbox:

If there are errors, a layer called Error output will be loaded. In our case, there are multiple issues:

If we try to use this dataset for spatial analysis, there will likely be errors. For example, using the Fixed distance buffer tool results in missing features:

Note the errors in the Processing log message panel:

Feature ### has invalid geometry. Skipping ...

So what can we do?

In my experience, GRASS can work wonders for fixing these kind of issues. The idea is to run v.buffer.distance with the distance set to zero:

This will import the dataset into GRASS and run the buffer algorithm without actually growing the polygons. Finally, it should export a fixed version of the geometries:

A quick validity check with the Check validity tool confirms that there are no issues left.

In this post, we use TimeManager to visualize the position of a moving object over time along a trajectory. This is another example of what is possible thanks to QGIS’ geometry generator feature. The result can look like this:

What makes this approach interesting is that the trajectory is stored in PostGIS as a LinestringM instead of storing individual trajectory points. So there is only one line feature loaded in QGIS:

(In part 2 of this series, we already saw how a geometry generator can be used to visualize speed along a trajectory.)

The layer is added to TimeManager using t_start and t_end attributes to define the trajectory’s temporal extent.

TimeManager exposes an animation_datetime() function which returns the current animation timestamp, that is, the timestamp that is also displayed in the TimeManager dock, as well as on the map (if we don’t explicitly disable this option).

Once TimeManager is set up, we can edit the line style to add a point marker to visualize the position of the moving object at the current animation timestamp. To do that, we interpolate the position along the trajectory segments. The first geometry generator expression splits the trajectory in its segments:

The second geometry generator expression interpolates the position on the segment that contains the current TimeManager animation time:

The WHEN statement compares the trajectory segment’s start and end times to the current TimeManager animation time. Afterwards, the line_interpolate_point function is used to draw the point marker at the correct position along the segment:

CASE 
WHEN (
m(end_point(geometry_n($geometry,@geometry_part_num)))
> second(age(animation_datetime(),to_datetime('1970-01-01 00:00')))
AND
m(start_point(geometry_n($geometry,@geometry_part_num)))
<= second(age(animation_datetime(),to_datetime('1970-01-01 00:00')))
)
THEN
line_interpolate_point( 
  geometry_n($geometry,@geometry_part_num),
  1.0 * (
    second(age(animation_datetime(),to_datetime('1970-01-01 00:00')))
	- m(start_point(geometry_n($geometry,@geometry_part_num)))
  ) / (
    m(end_point(geometry_n($geometry,@geometry_part_num)))
	- m(start_point(geometry_n($geometry,@geometry_part_num)))
  ) 
  * length(geometry_n($geometry,@geometry_part_num))
)
END

Here is the animation result for a part of the trajectory between 08:00 and 09:00:

Read more:

• Movement data in GIS: issues & ideas
• Movement data in GIS #2: visualizing individual trajectories
• Movement data in GIS #3: visualizing massive trajectory datasets
• Movement data in GIS #4: variations over time
• Movement data in GIS #5: current research topics
• Movement data in GIS #6: updates from AGILE2017