Geopunt4Qgis

"Geopunt for QGIS"

System requirements

QGIS 2.0 or above
Python 2.7 (installed with qgis)
Any OS capable of running QGIS with python plug-ins: ao. MS Windows, Mac OSX and Linux
Requires internet connection, restrictive firewalls may block connection

Goals

geopunt4Qgis - "Geopunt for QGIS" is a plugin for the QGIS open source desktop GIS.

The Flemish government Geographical Portal Geopunt offers several web-services that can be used freely by third party's, including other governments and citizens.

The mapping services are based on the OGC open standard WMS or WMTS and can be added to to QGIS easily. These services can be found through the metadacenter.

But some services are not standardized because there is no standard.
These include:

Geocoding based on the Flemish CRAB address-database
Location search based on databases joined to the CRAB database, like the locations of the schools in Flanders.
Traffic obstruction information from the GIPOD public works and manifestation database.

The goal of this project is to make these webservices available to QGIS-users, so they can be uses for creating print-maps and for doing research and analyses.

General use cases:

The services are accessed through a interactive dialog, opened when the user clicks a button or menu entry.
The dialogs can be used and the data can be displayed at every supported Spatial Reference System, not just Belgian Lambert 1972 (epsg:31370) or wgs84.
The user can enter a "text" search query and if available also add other search options like a geographical extent.
The user gets a list of results for the query and he can select "zoom to selection" on this list, in order to evaluate if the selected variable is the wanted data.
The user can select the correct search result from the dialog and add it to map.

What is Geopunt ?

Geopunt is the central gateway to government geographic information in Flanders. The portal focuses on a comprehensive data, services and application offerings to a broad and diverse audience. Citizens looking for a suitable land or the GIS-user or engineer who wishes to perform an environmental study. Socially relevant geographic data and services are brought together in an intelligent and user-friendly manner.

All components (metadata catalog , download application, data and network services) are directly integrated. The geoportal is the Flemish node in a European spatial data infrastructure and meets the requirements of the European INSPIRE directive.

Geopunt is the website of the partnership for geographic information within the Flemish government, GDI Flanders (GDI = Spatial Data Infrastructures). The Flemish Agency for Geographical Information (AGIV) is responsible for organising and maintaining geopunt.

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