Quantum GIS
User Guide
Version 1.6.0 ’Copiapó’Preamble

This document is the original user guide of the described software Quantum GIS. The software and hardware
described in this document are in most cases registered trademarks and are therefore subject to the legal
requirements. Quantum GIS is subject to the GNU General Public License. Find more information on the
Quantum GIS Homepage http://www.qgis.org.
The details, data, results etc. in this document have been written and verified to the best of knowledge andresponsibility of the authors and editors. Nevertheless, mistakes concerning the content are possible.
Therefore, all data are not liable to any duties or guarantees. The authors, editors and publishers do not takeany responsibility or liability for failures and their consequences. Your are always welcome to indicate possible
mistakes.
This document has been typeset with LATEX. It is available as LATEX source code via subversion and online
as PDF document via http://qgis.osgeo.org/documentation/manuals.html. Translated versions of thisdocument can be downloaded via the documentation area of the QGIS project as well. For more information
about contributing to this document and about translating it, please visit: http://www.qgis.org/wiki/

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iUser, Installation and Coding Guide Authors and Editors:
Tara Athan
Otto Dassau
Anne Ghisla
Magnus Homann
Werner Macho
Claudia A. Engel
Jürgen E. Fischer
Gary E. Sherman

Radim Blazek
Martin Dobias
Stephan HollK. KoyCarson J.Q. Farmer
Brendan Morely
Marco Hugentobler
Tim Sutton

Godofredo Contreras
Peter Ersts
N. Horning
Lars Luthman
Tyler MitchellDavid Willis
Gavin Macaulay

With thanks to Bertrand Masson for the layout, to Tisham Dhar for preparing the initial msys (MS Windows)
environment documentation, to Tom Elwertowski and William Kyngesburye for help in the MAC OSX Installation Section and to Carlos Dávila, Paolo Cavallini and Christian Gunning for revisions. If we have neglected tomention any contributors, please accept our apologies for this oversight.
Copyright c 2004 - 2010 Quantum GIS Development TeamInternet : http://www.qgis.org

License of this document
Permission is granted to copy, distribute and/or modify this document under the terms of the GNU Free Documentation License, Version 1.3 or any later version published by the Free Software Foundation; with noInvariant Sections, no Front-Cover Texts and no Back-Cover Texts. A copy of the license is included in section
D entitled "GNU Free Documentation License".

ii

Contents
Preamble
License of this document . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

iii

Table of Contentsiii

List of Figures

viii

List of Tables

xi

List of QGIS Tips

xii

Foreword
Features . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

1
1Conventions
GUI Conventions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
Text or Keyboard Conventions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
Platform-specific instructions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

5
5
6
6

1 Introduction To GIS
1.1 Why is all this so new? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
1.1.1
Raster Data . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
1.1.2
Vector Data . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
1.2 Getting Started . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
1.3 Installation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
1.4 Sample Data . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
1.5 Sample Session . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

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8
8
8
9
9
10

2 Features at a Glance
2.1 Starting and Stopping QGIS . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
2.1.1
Command Line Options . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
2.2 QGIS GUI . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
2.2.1
Menu Bar . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
2.2.2
Toolbars . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
2.2.3
Map Legend . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
2.2.4
Map View . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
2.2.5
Map Overview . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
2.2.6
Status Bar . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
2.2.7
Keyboard shortcuts . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
2.2.8
Context help . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
2.3 Rendering . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
2.3.1
Scale Dependent Rendering . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
2.3.2
Controlling Map Rendering . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
2.4 Measuring . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
2.4.1
Measure length, areas and angles . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

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23

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2.4.2
Select and deselect features . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
2.5 Projects . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
2.6 Output . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
2.7 GUI Options . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
2.8 Annotation Tools . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
2.8.1
Form annotations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
2.9 Spatial Bookmarks . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
2.9.1
Creating a Bookmark . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
2.9.2
Working with Bookmarks . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
2.9.3
Zooming to a Bookmark . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
2.9.4
Deleting a Bookmark . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
2.10 Live GPS tracking . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
2.10.1 Position coordinates . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
2.10.2 GPS signal strength . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
2.10.3 GPS polar window . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
2.10.4 GPS options . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

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31
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31
31

3 Working with Vector Data
3.1 ESRI Shapefiles . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
3.1.1
Loading a Shapefile . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
3.1.2
Improving Performance . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
3.1.3
Loading a MapInfo Layer . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
3.1.4
Loading an ArcInfo Binary Coverage . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
3.2 PostGIS Layers . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
3.2.1
Creating a stored Connection . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
3.2.2
Loading a PostGIS Layer . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
3.2.3
Some details about PostgreSQL layers . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
3.2.4
Importing Data into PostgreSQL . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
3.2.5
Improving Performance . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
3.2.6
Vector layers crossing 180◦ longitude . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
3.3 SpatiaLite Layers . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
3.4 The Vector Properties Dialog . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
3.4.1
Symbology Tab . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
3.4.2
New Generation Symbology . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
3.4.3
Working with the New Generation Symbology . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
3.4.4
Style Manager to manage symbols and color ramps . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
3.4.5
Labels Tab . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
3.4.6
New Labeling . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
3.4.7
Attributes Tab . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
3.4.8
General Tab . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
3.4.9
Metadata Tab . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
3.4.10 Actions Tab . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
3.4.11 Diagram Tab . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
3.5 Editing . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
3.5.1
Setting the Snapping Tolerance and Search Radius . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
3.5.2
Zooming and Panning . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
3.5.3
Digitizing an existing layer . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
3.5.4
Advanced digitizing . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
3.5.5
Creating a new Shapefile and Spatialite layer . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
3.5.6
Working with the Attribute Table . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
3.6 Query Builder . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
3.7 Field Calculator . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

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4 Working with Raster Data
4.1 What is raster data? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
4.2 Loading raster data in QGIS . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
4.3 Raster Properties Dialog . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
4.3.1
Symbology Tab . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
4.3.2
Transparency Tab . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
4.3.3
Colormap . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
4.3.4
General Tab . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
4.3.5
Metadata Tab . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
4.3.6
Pyramids Tab . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
4.3.7
Histogram Tab . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
4.4 Raster Calculator . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

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75

5 Working with OGC Data
5.1 What is OGC Data . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
5.2 WMS Client . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
5.2.1
Overview of WMS Support . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
5.2.2
Selecting WMS Servers . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
5.2.3
Loading WMS Layers . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
5.2.4
Server-Search . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
5.2.5
Tilesets . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
5.2.6
Using the Identify Tool . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
5.2.7
WMS Client Limitations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
5.3 WMS Server . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
5.4 WFS and WFS-T Client . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

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83

6 Working with Projections
6.1 Overview of Projection Support . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
6.2 Specifying a Projection . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
6.3 Define On The Fly (OTF) Projection . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
6.4 Custom Coordinate Reference System . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

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86
87

7 GRASS GIS Integration89
7.1 Starting the GRASS plugin . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 89
7.2 Loading GRASS raster and vector layers . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 89
7.3 GRASS LOCATION and MAPSET . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 90
7.3.1
Creating a new GRASS LOCATION . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 90
7.3.2
Adding a new MAPSET . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 92
7.4 Importing data into a GRASS LOCATION . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 92
7.5 The GRASS vector data model . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 93
7.6 Creating a new GRASS vector layer . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 94
7.7 Digitizing and editing a GRASS vector layer . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 94
7.8 The GRASS region tool . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 96
7.9 The GRASS toolbox . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 96
7.9.1
Working with GRASS modules . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 96
7.9.2
GRASS module examples . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 100
7.9.3
Working with the GRASS LOCATION browser . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 105
7.9.4
Customizing the GRASS Toolbox . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 106
8 Print Composer
8.1 Open a new Print Composer Template . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
8.2 Using Print Composer . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
8.3 Adding a current QGIS map canvas to the Print Composer . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
8.3.1
Map item tab - Map and Extents dialog . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

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108
108
109
109

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8.3.2
Map item tab - Grid and General options dialog . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
8.4 Adding other elements to the Print Composer . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
8.4.1
Label item tab - Label and General options dialog . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
8.4.2
Image item tab - Picture options and General options dialog . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
8.4.3
Legend item tab - General, Legend items and Item option dialog . . . . . . . . . . . .
8.4.4
Scalebar item tab - Scalebar and General options dialog . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
8.5 Navigation tools . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
8.6 Add Basic shape and Arrow . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
8.7 Add attribute table values . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
8.8 Raise, lower and align elements . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
8.9 Creating Output . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
8.10 Saving and loading a print composer layout . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

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111
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113
114
115
115
116
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117

9 QGIS Plugins
9.1 Managing Plugins . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
9.1.1
Loading a QGIS Core Plugin . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
9.1.2
Loading an external QGIS Plugin . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
9.1.3
Using the QGIS Python Plugin Installer . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
9.2 Data Providers . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

119
119
119
120
120
122

10 Using QGIS Core Plugins
10.1 Coordinate Capture Plugin . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
10.2 Decorations Plugins . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
10.2.1 Copyright Label Plugin . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
10.2.2 North Arrow Plugin . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
10.2.3 Scale Bar Plugin . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
10.3 Delimited Text Plugin . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
10.4 Dxf2Shp Converter Plugin . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
10.5 eVis Plugin . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
10.5.1 Event Browser . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
10.5.2 Event ID Tool . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
10.5.3 Database connection . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
10.6 fTools Plugin . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
10.7 GDAL Tools Plugin . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
10.7.1 What is GDALTools? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
10.7.2 The GDAL Library . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
10.7.3 Examples . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
10.8 Georeferencer Plugin . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
10.9 GPS Plugin . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
10.9.1 What is GPS? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
10.9.2 Loading GPS data from a file . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
10.9.3 GPSBabel . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
10.9.4 Importing GPS data . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
10.9.5 Downloading GPS data from a device . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
10.9.6 Uploading GPS data to a device . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
10.9.7 Defining new device types . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
10.10 Interpolation Plugin . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
10.11 MapServer Export Plugin . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
10.11.1 Creating the Project File . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
10.11.2 Creating the Map File . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
10.11.3 Testing the Map File . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
10.12 OGR Converter Plugin . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
10.13 Oracle GeoRaster Plugin . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

123
124
124
125
125
125
126
128
128
129
132
133
138
142
142
142
143
148
151
151
152
152
152
153
153
153
154
155
156
156
158
158
159

vi

10.13.1 Managing connections . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
10.13.2 Selecting a GeoRaster . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
10.13.3 Displaying GeoRaster . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
10.14 OpenStreetMap Plugin . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
10.14.1 Installation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
10.14.2 Basic user interface . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
10.14.3 Loading OSM data . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
10.14.4 Viewing OSM data . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
10.14.5 Editing basic OSM data . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
10.14.6 Editing relations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
10.14.7 Downloading OSM data . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
10.14.8 Uploading OSM data . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
10.14.9 Saving OSM data . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
10.14.10Import OSM data . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
10.15 Raster Terrain Modelling Plugin . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
10.16 Quick Print Plugin . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

159
160
160
161
163
163
164
165
165
167
168
169
170
170
171
172

11 Other core plugins

175

12 Using external QGIS Python Plugins

177

13 Help and Support
13.1 Mailinglists . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
13.2 IRC . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
13.3 BugTracker . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
13.4 Blog . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
13.5 Wiki . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

179
179
180
180
180
180

A Supported Data Formats
181
A.1 OGR Vector Formats . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 181
A.2 GDAL Raster Formats . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 182
B GRASS Toolbox modules
185
B.1 GRASS Toolbox modules . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 185
C GNU General Public License
187
C.1 Quantum GIS Qt exception for GPL . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 189
D GNU Free Documentation License

191

Index
196
Cited literature . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 201

vii

List of Figures

viii

1.1

A Simple QGIS Session. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

10

2.1
2.2
2.3
2.4
2.5
2.6
2.7
2.8

QGIS GUI with Alaska sample data (KDE) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
Define shortcut options (KDE) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
Measure tools in action
Proxy-settings in QGIS
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
Annotation text dialog
Customized qt designer annotation form
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
Live GPS tracking. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
GPS tracking options window

15
22
24
28
29
29
31
32

3.1
3.2
3.3
3.4
3.5
3.6
3.7
3.8
3.9
3.10
3.11
3.12
3.13
3.14
3.15
3.16
3.17
3.18
3.19
3.20
3.21
3.22
3.23
3.24
3.25
3.26
3.27
3.28
3.29

. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
Add Vector Layer Dialog
Open an OGR Supported Vector Layer Dialog. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
QGIS with Shapefile of Alaska loaded. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
Map in lat/lon crossing the 180◦ longitude line
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
◦Map crossing 180 longitude applying the ST_Shift_Longitude function. . . . . . . . . . .
Vector Layer Properties Dialog. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
Symbolizing Options. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
New Single Symbolizing options. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
New Categorized Symbolizing options
Example of custom gradient color ramp with multiple stops. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
New Graduated Symbolizing options. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
New Rule-based Symbolizing options
Point displacement dialog. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
Defining symbol properties. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
Style Manager to manage symbols and color ramps. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
Smart labeling of vector point layers. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
Smart labeling of vector line layers. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
Smart labeling of vector polygon layers. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
Dialog to change label engine settings
Dialog to select an edit widget for an attribute column. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
Select feature and choose action. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
Vector properties dialog with diagram tab. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
Diagram from temperature data overlayed on a map. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
Edit snapping options on a layer basis. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
Enter Attribute Values Dialog after digitizing a new vector feature. . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
Redo and Undo digitizing steps. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
Rotate Point Symbols
Creating a new Shapefile layer Dialog. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
Creating a New Spatialite layer Dialog. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

34
35
36
40
40
41
42
44
45
45
46
47
47
48
49
50
51
51
52
52
55
56
57
58
60
63
64
65
66

3.30 Attribute Table for Alaska layer. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
3.31 Query Builder
3.32 Field Calculator. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

67
69
70

4.1
4.2

Raster Layers Properties Dialog. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
Raster Calculator

73
76

5.1
5.2
5.3

. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
Dialog for adding a WMS server, showing its available layers
Dialog for searching WMS servers after some keywords. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
Adding a WFS layer. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

79
80
84

6.1
6.2
6.3

CRS tab in the QGIS Options Dialog. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
Projection Dialog. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
Custom CRS Dialog

86
87
88

7.1
7.2
7.3
7.4
7.5
7.6
7.7
7.8
7.9
7.10
7.11
7.12
7.13
7.14

GRASS data in the alaska LOCATION (adapted from Neteler & Mitasova 2008 [4]) . . . . . .
Creating a new GRASS LOCATION or a new MAPSET in QGIS
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
GRASS Digitizing Toolbar. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
GRASS Digitizing Category Tab
GRASS Digitizing Settings Tab. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
GRASS Digitizing Symbolog Tab. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
GRASS Digitizing Table Tab
GRASS Toolbox and searchable Modules List
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
GRASS Toolbox Module Dialogs. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
GRASS Toolbox r.contour module
GRASS module v.generalize to smooth a vector map. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
The GRASS shell, r.shaded.relief module
Displaying shaded relief created with the GRASS module r.shaded.relief. . . . . . . . . .
GRASS LOCATION browser. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

91
92
94
96
97
97
98
98
99
101
102
103
104
105

8.1
8.2
8.3
8.4
8.5
8.6
8.7
8.8
8.9
8.10
8.11

Print Composer. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
Print Composer map item tab - Map and Extents dialog. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
Print Composer map item tab - Grid and General options dialog. . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
. . . . . . . . . .
Print composer label item tab - Label options and General options dialog
Print composer image item tab - Picture options and General options. . . . . . . . . . . .
Print composer legend item tab - General, Legend items and Item option dialog . . . . . . .
Print composer scalebar item tab - Scalebar and General options dialog. . . . . . . . . . .
Print composer basic shape and arrow item tab - Shape and Arrow options dialog. . . . .
Print composer attribute table item tab - Table and General options dialog. . . . . . . . . .
Print Composer with map view, legend, scalebar, coordinates and text added. . . . . . . .
Composer Manager. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

108
110
111
112
113
114
115
116
116
118
118

9.1
9.2

Plugin Manager. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 119
Installing external python plugins. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 120

10.1
10.2
10.3
10.4
10.5
10.6

Coordinate Cature Plugin. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
Copyright Label Plugin. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
North Arrow Plugin. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
Scale Bar Plugin. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
Delimited Text Dialog. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
Dxf2Shape Converter Plugin. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

124
125
126
126
127
128

ix

10.7 The eVis display window. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
10.8 The eVis Options window
10.9 The eVis External Applications window. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
10.10 The eVis Database connection window. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
10.11 The eVis SQL query tab. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
10.12 The eVis Perdefined queries tab. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
10.13 The GDALTools menu list
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
10.14 The Information dialog window. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
10.15 The Contours dialog window. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
10.16 The resulting contours layer
10.17 The GDAL warp dialog window. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
10.18 Georeferencer Plugin Dialog
10.19 Add points to the raster image. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
10.20 Defining the georeferencer transformation settings
10.21 The GPS Tools dialog window. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
10.22 The download tool
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
10.23 Interpolation Plugin. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
10.24 Interpolation of elevp data using TIN method
10.25 Arrange raster and vector layers for QGIS project file
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
10.26 Export to MapServer Dialog
10.27 Test PNG created by shp2img with all MapServer Export layers. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
10.28 OGR Layer Converter Plugin. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
10.29 Create Oracle connection dialog. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
10.30 Select Oracle GeoRaster dialog. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
10.31 OpenStreetMap data in the web. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
10.32 OSM plugin user interface. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
10.33 Load OSM data dialog. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
10.34 Changing an OSM feature tag
10.35 OSM point creation message. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
10.36 OSM download dialog. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
10.37 OSM upload dialog. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
10.38 OSM saving dialog. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
10.39 OSM import message dialog. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
10.40 Import data to OSM dialog. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
10.41 Raster Terrain Modelling Plugin. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
10.42 Quick Print Dialog. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
10.43 Quick Print result as DIN A4 PDF using the alaska sample dataset. . . . . . . . . . . . . .

x

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List of Tables
3.1
3.2
3.3

PostGIS Connection Parameters . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
Vector layer basic editing toolbar . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
Vector layer advanced editing toolbar . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

37
59
62

5.1

WMS Connection Parameters . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

78

7.1

GRASS Digitizing Tools . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

95

8.1

Print Composer Tools . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 107

10.1 22 QGIS Core Plugins . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
10.2 Example format using absolute path, relative path, and a URL . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
10.3 The XML tags read by eVis . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
10.4 fTools Analysis tools . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
10.5 fTools Research tools . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
10.6 fTools Geoprocessing tools . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
10.7 fTools Geometry tools . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
10.8 fTools Data management tools . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
10.9 List of GDAL tools . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
10.10 Georeferencer Tools . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

123
131
137
139
139
140
140
141
142
148

11.1 Other Core Plugins . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 175
12.1 Current moderated external QGIS Plugins . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 177

xi

QGIS Tips
1

U P - TO - DATE D OCUMENTATION . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

1

2
3
4
5
6
7

E XAMPLE U SING COMMAND LINE ARGUMENTS . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
R ESTORING TOOLBARS . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
Z OOMING THE M AP WITH THE M OUSE W HEEL . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
PANNING THE M AP WITH THE A RROW K EYS AND S PACE B AR . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
C ALCULATING THE CORRECT S CALE OF YOUR M AP C ANVAS . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
U SING P ROXIES . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

14
19
20
21
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28

8
9
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L AYER C OLORS . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
L OAD LAYER AND PROJECT FROM MOUNTED EXTERNAL DRIVES ON OS X . . . . . . . . . . . .
QGIS U SER S ETTINGS AND S ECURITY . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
P OST GIS L AYERS . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
E XPORTING DATASETS FROM P OST GIS . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
I MPORTING S HAPEFILES C ONTAINING P OSTGRE SQL R ESERVED W ORDS . . . . . . . . . . . .
C ONCURRENT E DITS . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
S AVE R EGULARLY . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
ATTRIBUTE VALUE T YPES . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
V ERTEX M ARKERS . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
C ONGRUENCY OF PASTED F EATURES . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
F EATURE D ELETION S UPPORT . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
DATA I NTEGRITY . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
M ANIPULATING ATTRIBUTE DATA . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
C HANGING THE L AYER D EFINITION . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

34
34
36
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68

23
24

V IEWING A S INGLE B AND OF A M ULTIBAND R ASTER . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
G ATHERING R ASTER S TATISTICS . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

73
75

25
26
27
28
29
30
31
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O N WMS S ERVER URL S . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
I MAGE E NCODING . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
WMS L AYER O RDERING . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
WMS L AYER T RANSPARENCY . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
WMS P ROJECTIONS . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
ACCESSING SECURED OGC- LAYERS . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
F INDING WFS S ERVERS . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
ACCESSING SECURE WFS S ERVERS . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

78
78
79
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82
83
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P ROJECT P ROPERTIES D IALOG . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

87

34
35
36
37
38
39
40

GRASS DATA L OADING . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 90
L EARNING THE GRASS V ECTOR M ODEL . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 93
C REATING AN ATTRIBUTE TABLE FOR A NEW GRASS VECTOR LAYER . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 94
D IGITIZING POLYGONS IN GRASS . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 94
C REATING AN ADDITIONAL GRASS ’ LAYER ’ WITH QGIS . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 96
GRASS E DIT P ERMISSIONS . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 98
D ISPLAY RESULTS IMMEDIATELY . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 100

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xiv

41
42

T HE SIMPLIFY TOOL . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 101
OTHER USES FOR R . CONTOUR . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 102

43
44

C RASHING P LUGINS . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 120
U SING EXPERIMENTAL PLUGINS . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 122

45
46

P LUGINS S ETTINGS S AVED TO P ROJECT . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 126
C REATING A VECTOR LAYER FROM A M ICROSOFT E XCEL W ORKSHEET . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 137

47

A DD MORE REPOSITORIES . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 177

Foreword
Welcome to the wonderful world of Geographical Information Systems (GIS)! Quantum GIS (QGIS) is anOpen Source Geographic Information System. The project was born in May of 2002 and was established
as a project on SourceForge in June of the same year. We’ve worked hard to make GIS software (which
is traditionally expensive proprietary software) a viable prospect for anyone with basic access to a Personal
Computer. QGIS currently runs on most Unix platforms, Windows, and OS X. QGIS is developed using the
Qt toolkit (http://qt.nokia.com) and C++. This means that QGIS feels snappy to use and has a pleasing,easy-to-use graphical user interface (GUI).
QGIS aims to be an easy-to-use GIS, providing common functions and features. The initial goal was to provide
a GIS data viewer. QGIS has reached the point in its evolution where it is being used by many for their daily
GIS data viewing needs. QGIS supports a number of raster and vector data formats, with new format support
easily added using the plugin architecture (see Appendix A for a full list of currently supported data formats).
QGIS is released under the GNU General Public License (GPL). Developing QGIS under this license meansthat you can inspect and modify the source code, and guarantees that you, our happy user, will always haveaccess to a GIS program that is free of cost and can be freely modified. You should have received a full copyof the license with your copy of QGIS, and you also can find it in Appendix C.
QGIS Tip 1 U P - TO - DATE D OCUMENTATION
The latest version of this document can always be found at http://download.osgeo.org/qgis/doc/manual/,
or in the documentation area of the QGIS website at http://qgis.osgeo.org/documentation/

Features
QGIS offers many common GIS functionalities provided by core features and plugins. As a short summary
they are presented in six categories to gain a first insight.
View data
You can view and overlay vector and raster data in different formats and projections without conversion to aninternal or common format. Supported formats include:– spatially-enabled PostgreSQL tables using PostGIS, vector formats supported by the installed OGR
library, including ESRI shapefiles, MapInfo, SDTS and GML (see Appendix A.1 for the complete list) .
– Raster and imagery formats supported by the installed GDAL (Geospatial Data Abstraction Library)library, such as GeoTiff, Erdas Img., ArcInfo Ascii Grid, JPEG, PNG (see Appendix A.2 for the completelist).
– SpatiaLite databases (see Section 3.3)
– GRASS raster and vector data from GRASS databases (location/mapset), see Section 7,– Online spatial data served as OGC-compliant Web Map Service (WMS) or Web Feature Service (WFS),
see Section 5,– OpenStreetMap data (see Section 10.14).
Explore data and compose maps
You can compose maps and interactively explore spatial data with a friendly GUI. The many helpful tools
available in the GUI include:1Foreword– on the fly projection– map composers– overview panel– spatial bookmarks– identify/select features– edit/view/search attributes– feature labeling– change vector and raster symbology– add a graticule layer - now via fTools plugin– decorate your map with a north arrow scale bar and copyright label– save and restore projects
Create, edit, manage and export data
You can create, edit, manage and export vector maps in several formats. Raster data have to be imported into
GRASS to be able to edit and export them into other formats. QGIS offers the following:– digitizing tools for OGR supported formats and GRASS vector layer– create and edit shapefiles and GRASS vector layers– geocode images with the Georeferencer plugin– GPS tools to import and export GPX format, and convert other GPS formats to GPX or down/upload
directly to a GPS unit (on Linux, usb: has been added to list of GPS devices)– visualize and edit OpenStreetMap data
– create PostGIS layers from shapefiles with the SPIT plugin– improved handling of PostGIS tables– manage vector attribute tables with the new attribute table (see Section 3.5.6) or Table Manager plugin– save screenshots as georeferenced images
Analyse data
You can perform spatial data analysis on PostgreSQL/PostGIS and other OGR supported formats using the
fTools Python plugin. QGIS currently offers vector analysis, sampling, geoprocessing, geometry and databasemanagement tools. You can also use the integrated GRASS tools, which include the complete GRASS functionality of more than 300 modules (See Section 7).
Publish maps on the Internet
QGIS can be used to export data to a mapfile and to publish them on the Internet using a webserver with UMN
MapServer installed. QGIS can also be used as a WMS or WFS client, and as WMS server.
Extend QGIS functionality through plugins
QGIS can be adapted to your special needs with the extensible plugin architecture. QGIS provides libraries
that can be used to create plugins. You can even create new applications with C++ or Python!
Core Plugins
1. Add Delimited Text Layer (Loads and displays delimited text files containing x,y coordinates)
2. Coordinate Capture (Capture mouse coordinates in different CRS)
3. Decorations (Copyright Label, North Arrow and Scale bar)
4. Diagram Overlay (Placing diagrams on vector layer)
5. Dxf2Shp Converter (Convert DXF to Shape)

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QGIS 1.6.0 User GuideFeatures
6. GPS Tools (Loading and importing GPS data)
7. GRASS (GRASS GIS integration)
8. Georeferencer GDAL (Adding projection information to raster using GDAL)
9. Interpolation plugin (interpolate based on vertices of a vector layer)
10. Mapserver Export (Export QGIS project file to a MapServer map file)
11. OGR Layer Converter (Translate vector layer between formats)
12. OpenStreetMap plugin (Viewer and editor for openstreetmap data)
13. Oracle Spatial GeoRaster support
14. Python Plugin Installer (Download and install QGIS python plugins)
15. Quick Print (Print a map with minimal effort)
16. Raster terrain analysis (Raster based terrain analysis)
17. SPIT (Import Shapefile to PostgreSQL/PostGIS)
18. WFS Plugin (Add WFS layers to QGIS canvas)
19. eVIS (Event Visualization Tool)
20. fTools (Tools for vector data analysis and management)
21. Python Console (Access QGIS environment)
22. GDAL Tools
External Python Plugins
QGIS offers a growing number of external python plugins that are provided by the community. These plugins
reside in the official PyQGIS repository, and can be easily installed using the Python Plugin Installer (See
Section 9).
What’s new in version 1.6.0
Please note that this is a release in our ’cutting edge’ release series. As such it contains new features andextends the programmatic interface over QGIS 1.0.x and QGIS 1.5.0. We recommend that you use this version
over previous releases.
This release includes over 177 bug fixes and many new features and enhancements.
General Improvements– Added gpsd support to live gps tracking.
– A new plugin has been included that allows for offline editing.
– Field calculator will now insert NULL feature value in case of calculation error instead of stopping andreverting calculation for all features.
– Update srs.db to include grid reference.
– Added a native (C++) raster calculator implementation which can deal with large rasters efficiently.
– Improved interaction with extents widget in statusbar so that the text contents of the widget can be copiedand pasted.
– Many improvements and new operators to the field calculator including field concatenation, row counteretc.
– Added –configpath option that overrides the default path ( /.qgis) for user configuration and forces QSettings to use this directory, too. This allows users to e.g. carry QGIS installation on a flash drive together
with all plugins and settings.
– Experimental WFS-T support. Additionally ported wfs to network manager.
– Georeferencer has had many tidy ups and improvements.

QGIS 1.6.0 User Guide

3

Foreword– Support for long int in attribute dialog and editor.
– The QGIS Mapserver project has been incorporated into the main SVN repository and packages arebeing made available. QGIS Mapserver allows you to serve your QGIS project files via the OGC WMS
protocol.
– Select and measure toolbar flyouts and submenus.
– Support has been added for non-spatial tables (currently OGR, delimited text and PostgreSQL
providers). These tables can be used for field lookups or just generally browsed and edited using thetable view.
– Added search string support for feature ids ($id) and various other search related improvements.
– Added reload method to map layers and provider interface. Like this, caching providers (currently WMS
and WFS) can synchronize with changes in the datasource.
Table of contents (TOC) improvements– Added a new option to the raster legend menu that will stretch the current layer using the min and max
pixel values of the current extent.
– When writing vector files using the table of contents context menu’s ’Save as’ option, you can now specify
OGR creation options.
– In the table of contents, it is now possible to select and remove or move several layers at once.
Labelling (New generation only)– Data defined label position.
– Line wrapping, data defined font and buffer settings.
Layer properties and symbology– Three new classification modes added to graduated symbol renderer (version 2), including Natural
Breaks (Jenks), Standard Deviations, and Pretty Breaks (based on pretty from the R statistical environment).
– Improved loading speed of the symbol properties dialog.
– Data-defined rotation and size for categorized and graduated renderer (symbology-ng).
– Use size scale also for line symbols to modify line width.
– Replaced raster histogram implementation with one based on Qwt. Added option to save histogram as
image file. Show actual pixel values on x axis of raster histogram.
– Added ability to interactively select pixels from the canvas to populate the transparency table in the rasterlayer properties dialog.
– Allow creation of color ramps in vector color ramp combo box.
– Added ’style manager...’ button to symbol selector so that users will find the style manager more easily.
Map Composer– add capability to show and manipulate composer item width/ height in item position dialog.
– Composer items can now be deleted with the backspace key.
– Sorting for composer attribute table (several columns and ascending / descending).

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QGIS 1.6.0 User Guide

Conventions
This section describes a collection of uniform styles throughout the manual. The conventions used in thismanual are as follows:

GUI Conventions
The GUI convention styles are intended to mimic the appearance of the GUI. In general, the objective is to use
the non-hover appearance, so a user can visually scan the GUI to find something that looks like the instructionin the manual.
– Menu Options: Layer

Add a Raster Layeror
Settings

Toolbars

3 DigitizingI

Add a Raster Layer– Tool:– Botton : Save as Default– Dialog Box Title:

Layer Properties– Tab: General– Toolbox :nviz - Open 3D-View in NVIZ

– Checkbox:

Render– Radio Button:

Postgis SRIDEPSG ID– Select a Number: Hue 60– Select a String: Outline style—Solid Line– Browse for a File: . . .
– Select a Color: Outline color– Slider:

020mm

Transparency 10%– Input Text: Display Namelakes.shp

A shadow indicates a clickable GUI component.

5

Conventions

Text or Keyboard Conventions
The manual also includes styles related to text, keyboard commands and coding to indicate different entities,
such as classes, or methods. They don’t correspond to any actual appearance.
– Hyperlinks: http://qgis.org– Keystroke Combinations: press
key.

Ctrl+B, meaning press and hold the Ctrl key and then press the B– Name of a File: lakes.shp– Name of a Class: NewLayer– Method: classFactory– Server: myhost.de– User Text: qgis –-help
Code is indicated by a fixed-width font:
PROJCS["NAD_1927_Albers",
GEOGCS["GCS_North_American_1927",

Platform-specific instructions
GUI sequences and small amounts of text can be formatted inline: Click {close QGIS.

File

QGIS}

Quit toThis indicates that on Linux, Unix and Windows platforms, click the File menu option first, then Quit from thedropdown menu, while on Macintosh OSX platforms, click the QGIS menu option first, then Quit from thedropdown menu. Larger amounts of text may be formatted as a list:•

do this;•do that;•do something else.

or as paragraphs.
Do this and this and this. Then do this and this and this and this and this and this and this and thisand this.
Do that. Then do that and that and that and that and that and that and that and that and that and that andthat and that and that and that and that.
Screenshots that appear throughout the user guide have been created on different platforms; the platform isindicated by the platform-specific iconsat the end of the figure caption.

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QGIS 1.6.0 User Guide

1. Introduction To GIS
A Geographical Information System (GIS) ([3]1 ) is a collection of software that allows you to create, visualize,
query and analyze geospatial data. Geospatial data refers to information about the geographic location of anentity. This often involves the use of a geographic coordinate, like a latitude or longitude value. Spatial data
is another commonly used term, as are: geographic data, GIS data, map data, location data, coordinate dataand spatial geometry data.
Applications using geospatial data perform a variety of functions. Map production is the most easily understoodfunction of geospatial applications. Mapping programs take geospatial data and render it in a form that isviewable, usually on a computer screen or printed page. Applications can present static maps (a simple
image) or dynamic maps that are customised by the person viewing the map through a desktop program or a
web page.
Many people mistakenly assume that geospatial applications just produce maps, but geospatial data analysis
is another primary function of geospatial applications. Some typical types of analysis include computing:
1. distances between geographic locations
2. the amount of area (e.g., square meters) within a certain geographic region
3. what geographic features overlap other features
4. the amount of overlap between features
5. the number of locations within a certain distance of another6. and so on...
These may seem simplistic, but can be applied in all sorts of ways across many disciplines. The results ofanalysis may be shown on a map, but are often tabulated into a report to support management decisions.
The recent phenomena of location-based services promises to introduce all sorts of other features, but many
will be based on a combination of maps and analysis. For example, you have a cell phone that tracks yourgeographic location. If you have the right software, your phone can tell you what kind of restaurants are withinwalking distance. While this is a novel application of geospatial technology, it is essentially doing geospatial
data analysis and listing the results for you.

1.1. Why is all this so new?
Well, it’s not. There are many new hardware devices that are enabling mobile geospatial services. Many open
source geospatial applications are also available, but the existence of geospatially focused hardware andsoftware is nothing new. Global positioning system (GPS) receivers are becoming commonplace, but havebeen used in various industries for more than a decade. Likewise, desktop mapping and analysis tools havealso been a major commercial market, primarily focused on industries such as natural resource management.
What is new is how the latest hardware and software is being applied and who is applying it. Traditional usersof mapping and analysis tools were highly trained GIS Analysts or digital mapping technicians trained to use
CAD-like tools. Now, the processing capabilities of home PCs and open source software (OSS) packages
have enabled an army of hobbyists, professionals, web developers, etc. to interact with geospatial data. The
learning curve has come down. The costs have come down. The amount of geospatial technology saturation
has increased.
1 This chapter is by Tyler Mitchell (http://www.oreillynet.com/pub/wlg/7053) and used under the Creative Commons License. Tyler

is the author of Web Mapping Illustrated, published by O’Reilly, 2005.

7

1.2. Getting Started
How is geospatial data stored? In a nutshell, there are two types of geospatial data in widespread use today.
This is in addition to traditional tabular data that is also widely used by geospatial applications.

1.1.1. Raster Data
One type of geospatial data is called raster data or simply "a raster". The most easily recognised form ofraster data is digital satellite imagery or air photos. Elevation shading or digital elevation models are also
typically represented as raster data. Any type of map feature can be represented as raster data, but there arelimitations.
A raster is a regular grid made up of cells, or in the case of imagery, pixels. They have a fixed number of rows
and columns. Each cell has a numeric value and has a certain geographic size (e.g. 30x30 meters in size).
Multiple overlapping rasters are used to represent images using more than one colour value (i.e. one rasterfor each set of red, green and blue values is combined to create a colour image). Satellite imagery also
represents data in multiple "bands". Each band is essentially a separate, spatially overlapping raster, where
each band holds values of certain wavelengths of light. As you can imagine, a large raster takes up more filespace. A raster with smaller cells can provide more detail, but takes up more file space. The trick is finding
the right balance between cell size for storage purposes and cell size for analytical or mapping purposes.

1.1.2. Vector Data
Vector data is also used in geospatial applications. If you stayed awake during trigonometry and coordinate
geometry classes, you will already be familiar with some of the qualities of vector data. In its simplest sense,
vectors are a way of describing a location by using a set of coordinates. Each coordinate refers to a geographic
location using a system of x and y values.
This can be thought of in reference to a Cartesian plane - you know, the diagrams from school that showed
an x and y-axis. You might have used them to chart declining retirement savings or increasing compoundmortgage interest, but the concepts are essential to geospatial data analysis and mapping.
There are various ways of representing these geographic coordinates depending on your purpose. This is awhole area of study for another day - map projections.
Vector data takes on three forms, each progressively more complex and building on the former.
1. Points - A single coordinate (x y) represents a discrete geographic location
2. Lines - Multiple coordinates (x1 y1, x2 y2, x3 y4, ... xn yn) strung together in a certain order, like drawing
a line from Point (x1 y1) to Point (x2 y2) and so on. These parts between each point are consideredline segments. They have a length and the line can be said to have a direction based on the order ofthe points. Technically, a line is a single pair of coordinates connected together, whereas a line string ismultiple lines connected together.
3. Polygons - When lines are strung together by more than two points, with the last point being at the same
location as the first, we call this a polygon. A triangle, circle, rectangle, etc. are all polygons. The key
feature of polygons is that there is a fixed area within them.

1.2. Getting Started
This chapter gives a quick overview of installing QGIS, some sample data from the QGIS web page andrunning a first and simple session visualizing raster and vector layers.

8

QGIS 1.6.0 User Guide

1.3. Installation
Installation of QGIS is very simple. Standard installer packages are available for MS Windows and Mac OS
X. For many flavors of GNU/Linux binary packages (rpm and deb) or software repositories to add to yourinstallation manager are provided. Get the latest information on binary packages at the QGIS website at
http://qgis.osgeo.org/download/.
Installation from source
If you need to build QGIS from source, please refer to the coding and compiling guide available at http://qgis.osgeo.org/documentation/. The installation instructions are also distributed with the QGIS source
code.
Installation on external media
QGIS allows to define a –configpath option that overrides the default path (e.g. /.qgis under Linux) for user
configuration and forces QSettings to use this directory, too. This allows users to e.g. carry a QGIS installation
on a flash drive together with all plugins and settings.

1.4. Sample Data
The user guide contains examples based on the QGIS sample dataset.
The Windows installer has an option to download the QGIS sample dataset. If checked, the data will be
downloaded to your My Documents folder and placed in a folder called GIS Database. You may use Windows
Explorer to move this folder to any convenient location. If you did not select the checkbox to install the sample
dataset during the initial QGIS installation, you can either– use GIS data that you already have;– download the sample data from the qgis website at http://qgis.osgeo.org/download; or– uninstall QGIS and reinstall with the data download option checked, only if the above solutions are
unsuccessful.
For GNU/Linux and Mac OSX there are not yet dataset installation packages available as rpm, deb
or dmg. To use the sample dataset download the file QGIS _sample_data as ZIP or TAR archive from http://download.osgeo.org/qgis/data/ and unzip or untar the archive on your system. The Alaska dataset
includes all GIS data that are used as examples and screenshots in the user guide, and also includes a small
GRASS database. The projection for the qgis sample dataset is Alaska Albers Equal Area with unit feet. The
EPSG code is 2964.
PROJCS["Albers Equal Area",
GEOGCS["NAD27",
DATUM["North_American_Datum_1927",
SPHEROID["Clarke 1866",6378206.4,294.978698213898,
AUTHORITY["EPSG","7008"]],TOWGS84[-3,142,183,0,0,0,0],
AUTHORITY["EPSG","6267"]],PRIMEM["Greenwich",0,
AUTHORITY["EPSG","8901"]],
UNIT["degree",0.0174532925199433,
AUTHORITY["EPSG","9108"]],AUTHORITY["EPSG","4267"]],
PROJECTION["Albers_Conic_Equal_Area"],
PARAMETER["standard_parallel_1",55],
PARAMETER["standard_parallel_2",65],
PARAMETER["latitude_of_center",50],

QGIS 1.6.0 User Guide9

1.5. Sample Session
PARAMETER["longitude_of_center",-154],
PARAMETER["false_easting",0],PARAMETER["false_northing",0],UNIT["us_survey_feet",0.3048006096012192]]
If you intend to use QGIS as graphical frontend for GRASS, you can find a selection of sample locations (e.g.
Spearfish or South Dakota) at the official GRASS GIS website
http://grass.osgeo.org/download/data.php.

1.5. Sample Session
Now that you have QGIS installed and a sample dataset available, we would like to demonstrate ashort and simple QGIS sample session. We will visualize a raster and a vector layer. We will use
the landcover raster layer QGIS _sample_data/raster/landcover.img and the lakes vector layer QGIS
_sample_data/gml/lakes.gml.
start QGIS–Start QGIS by typing: QGIS at a command prompt, or if using precompiled binary, using the Applications menu.

–

Start QGIS using the Start menu or desktop shortcut, or double click on a QGIS project file.

–

Double click the icon in your Applications folder.

Figure 1.1.: A Simple QGIS Session
Load raster and vector layers from the sample dataset
1. Click on the

Load Raster icon.

2. Browse to the folder QGIS _sample_data/raster/, select the ERDAS Img file landcover.img and click
Open .
3. If the file is not listed, check if the Filetype combobox at the bottom of the dialog is set on the right type,in this case "Erdas Imagine Images (*.img, *.IMG)"

10QGIS 1.6.0 User Guide

4. Now click on the5.

’File’

Load Vector icon.

should be selected as Source Type in the new

Add Vector Layerdialog. Now click

Browse to select the vector layer.
6. Browse to the folder QGIS _sample_data/gml/, select "GML" from the filetype combobox, then selectthe GML file lakes.gml and click Open , then in Add Vector dialog click OK .
7. Zoom in a bit to your favorite area with some lakes.
8. Double click the lakes layer in the map legend to open the Layer Properties dialog.
9. Click on the Symbology tab and select a blue as fill color.
10. Click on the Labels

tab and check the

Display labels

checkbox to enable labeling. Choose

NAMES field as Field containing label.
11. To improve readability of labels, you can add a white buffer around them, by clicking “Buffer” in the liston the left, checking

Buffer labels? and choosing 3 as buffer size.

12. Click Apply , check if the result looks good and finally click OK .
You can see how easy it is to visualize raster and vector layers in QGIS. Let’s move on to the sections that
follow to learn more about the available functionality, features and settings and how to use them.

QGIS 1.6.0 User Guide112. Features at a Glance
After a first and simple sample session in Section 1.2 we now want to give you a more detailed overview of thefeatures of QGIS. Most features presented in the following chapters will be explained and described in own
sections later in the manual.

2.1. Starting and Stopping QGISIn Section 1.5 you already learned how to start QGIS. We will repeat this here and you will see that QGIS also
provides further command line options.
•••

Assuming that QGIS is installed in the PATH, you can start QGIS by typing: qgis at a commandprompt or by double clicking on the QGIS application link (or shortcut) on the desktop or in the application
menu.
Start QGIS using the Start menu or desktop shortcut, or double click on a QGIS project file.
Double click the icon in your Applications folder. If you need to start QGIS in a shell, run /path-toinstallation-executable/Contents/MacOS/Qgis.

To stop QGIS, click the menu options {

File

QGIS}

Quit, or use the shortcut Ctrl+Q .

2.1.1. Command Line Options
QGIS supports a number of options when started from the command line. To get a list of the options, enter
qgis –-help on the command line. The usage statement for QGIS is:
qgis --help
Quantum GIS - 1.5.0-Tethys ’Tethys’ (exported)
Quantum GIS (QGIS) is a viewer for spatial data sets, including
raster and vector data.
Usage: qgis [options] [FILES]
options:[--snapshot filename]emit snapshot of loaded datasets to given file[--width width]
width of snapshot to emit[--height height]
height of snapshot to emit[--lang language]
use language for interface text[--project projectfile]load the given QGIS project[--extent xmin,ymin,xmax,ymax] set initial map extent[--nologo]
hide splash screen[--noplugins]
don’t restore plugins on startup[--optionspath path]use the given QSettings path[--configpath path]use the given path for all user configuration[--help]
this text
FILES:
Files specified on the command line can include rasters,
vectors, and QGIS project files (.qgs):
1. Rasters - Supported formats include GeoTiff, DEM
and others supported by GDAL
2. Vectors - Supported formats include ESRI Shapefiles

13

2.2. QGIS GUI
and others supported by OGR and PostgreSQL layers using
the PostGIS extension

QGIS Tip 2 E XAMPLE U SING COMMAND LINE ARGUMENTS
You can start QGIS by specifying one or more data files on the command line. For example, assuming you
are in the qgis_sample_data directory, you could start QGIS with a vector layer and a raster file set to load on
startup using the following command: qgis ./raster/landcover.img ./gml/lakes.gml

Command line option –-snapshot
This option allows you to create a snapshot in PNG format from the current view. This comes in handy when
you have a lot of projects and want to generate snapshots from your data.
Currently it generates a PNG-file with 800x600 pixels. This can be adapted using the –-width and –-heightcommand line arguments. A filename can be added after –-snapshot.
Command line option –-lang
Based on your locale QGIS, selects the correct localization. If you would like to change your language,
you can specify a language code. For example: –-lang=it starts QGIS in italian localization. A list of
currently supported languages with language code and status is provided at http://www.qgis.org/wiki/
GUI_Translation_Progress
Command line option –-projectStarting QGIS with an existing project file is also possible. Just add the command line option –-project
followed by your project name and QGIS will open with all layers loaded described in the given file.
Command line option –-extent
To start with a specific map extent use this option. You need to add the bounding box of your extent in thefollowing order separated by a comma:--extent xmin,ymin,xmax,ymax
Command line option –-nologo
This command line argument hides the splash screen when you start QGIS.
Command line option –-noplugins
If you have trouble at startup with plugins, you can avoid loading them at startup. They will still be available in
Plugins Manager afterwards.
Command line option –-optionspath
You can have multiple configurations and decide which one to use when starting QGIS using this option. See
2.7 to check where does the operating system save the settings files. Presently there is no way to specify inwhich file where to write the settings, therefore you can create a copy of the original settings file and renameit.
Command line option –-configpath
This option is similar to the one above, but furthermore overrides the default path ( /.qgis) for user configurationand forces QSettings to use this directory, too. This allows users to e.g. carry QGIS installation on a flash
drive together with all plugins and settings

2.2. QGIS GUI
When QGIS starts, you are presented with the GUI as shown below (the numbers 1 through 6 in yellow ovals
refer to the six major areas of the interface as discussed below):

14

QGIS 1.6.0 User Guide

2.2.1. Menu Bar

Figure 2.1.: QGIS GUI with Alaska sample data

(KDE)

Note: Your window decorations (title bar, etc.) may appear different depending on your operating system andwindow manager.
The QGIS GUI is divided into six areas:
1. Menu Bar
4. Map View
2. Tool Bar
5. Map Overview
3. Map Legend
6. Status Bar
These six components of the QGIS interface are described in more detail in the following sections. Two more
sections present keyboard shortcuts and context help.

2.2.1. Menu Bar
The menu bar provides access to various QGIS features using a standard hierarchical menu. The top-levelmenus and a summary of some of the menu options are listed below, together with the icons of the corresponding tools as they appear on the toolbar, as well as keyboard shortcuts.1 Although most menu options
have a corresponding tool and vice-versa, the menus are not organized quite like the toolbars. The toolbar
containing the tool is listed after each menu option as a checkbox entry. For more information about tools andtoolbars, see Section 2.2.2.
Menu Option

Shortcut

Reference

Toolbar

New Project

Ctrl+Nsee Section 2.5

3 FileOpen Project

Ctrl+O

see Section 2.5

3 FileI

see Section 2.5

Save Project

Ctrl+S

see Section 2.5

3 FileSave Project As

Ctrl+Shift+S

see Section 2.5

3 File• FileOpen Recent Projects

1 Keyboard shortcuts can now be configured manually (shortcuts presented in this section are the defaults), using the Configure Shortcuts

tool under Settings Menu.

QGIS 1.6.0 User Guide15

2.2. QGIS GUI
see Section 2.6

Save as Image
New Print Composer

Ctrl+P

Composer manager
Print Composers

I

see Section 8

3 Filesee Section 8

3 Filesee Section 8
Ctrl+QExit• EditUndo

Ctrl+Z

see Section 3.5.4

3 Advanced Digitizing

Redo

Ctrl+Shift+Z

see Section 3.5.4

3 Advanced Digitizing

Cut Features

Ctrl+X

see Section 3.5.3

3 Digitizing

Copy Features

Ctrl+Csee Section 3.5.3

3 Digitizing

Paste Features

Ctrl+V

see Section 3.5.3

3 Digitizing

Move Feature

see Section 3.5.3

3 Digitizing

Delete Selected

see Section 3.5.3

3 Digitizing

Simplify Feature

see Section 3.5.4

3 Advanced Digitizing

Add Ring

see Section 3.5.4

3 Advanced Digitizing

Add Partsee Section 3.5.4

3 Advanced Digitizing

Delete Ring

see Section 3.5.4

3 Advanced Digitizing

Delete Part

see Section 3.5.4

3 Advanced Digitizing

Reshape Features

see Section 3.5.4

3 Advanced Digitizing

Split Features

see Section 3.5.4

3 Advanced Digitizing

Merge selected Features

see Section 3.5.4

3 Advanced Digitizing

Node Tool

see Section 3.5.3

3 Digitizing

Rotate Point Symbols

see Section 3.5.4

3 Advanced Digitizing

After activating

Toggle editing mode for a layer, you will find a capture feature icon in the Editmenu depending on the layer type (point, line or polygon).

Capture Point

see Section 3.5.3

3 Digitizing

Capture Linesee Section 3.5.3

3 Digitizing

Capture Polygon

see Section 3.5.3

3 Digitizing• View
Pan Map

16

3 Map Navigation

Zoom In

Ctrl++

3 Map Navigation

Zoom Out

Ctrl+-

3 Map Navigation

QGIS 1.6.0 User Guide

2.2.1. Menu Bar

see Section 2.4.2

Select Features

3 Attributes

Deselect Features from all layers

3 Attributes

Identify Features

Ctrl-Alt-I

3 Attributes

Measure Line

Ctrl-Alt-M

3 Attributes

Measure Area

Ctrl-Alt-J

3 Attributes

Measure Angle
Zoom Full

3 Attributes
3 Map Navigation

Ctrl-Alt-F

Zoom To Layer
Zoom To Selection

3 Map Navigation
3 Map Navigation

Ctrl+J

Zoom Last

3 Map Navigation

Zoom Next

3 Map Navigation

Zoom Actual Size
Map Tips

3 Attributes

New Bookmark

Ctrl+Bsee Section 2.9

3 Attributes

Show Bookmarks

Ctrl-Alt-B

see Section 2.9

3 Attributes

RefreshCtrl+R

3 Map Navigation

Tile scale slider

see Section 5.2.5

3 Tile scale

Live GPS tracking

see Section 2.10

3 GPS Information• LayerNew

see Section 3.5.5

I

3 Manage Layers

see Section 4.4

Raster calculator
Add Vector Layer

Ctrl+Shift+V

see Section 3

3 Manage Layers

Add Raster Layer

Ctrl+Shift+R

see Section 4

3 Manage Layers

Add PostGIS Layer

Ctrl+Shift+D

see Section 3.2

3 Manage Layers

Add SpatiaLite Layer

Ctrl+Shift+L

see Section 3.3

3 Manage Layers

Add WMS Layer

Ctrl+Shift+W

see Section 5.2

3 Manage Layers

Open Attribute Table

3 Attributes

Save edits

3 Digitizing

Toggle editing

3 Digitizing

Save as...
Save selection as vector file...
Remove Layer

See 3.5.6
Ctrl+D

3 Properties

Ctrl+Shift+O

3 Manage Layers

Properties
Query...
Add to Overview

QGIS 1.6.0 User Guide17

2.2. QGIS GUI
Add All To Overview
Remove All From Overview
Hide All Layers

Ctrl+Shift+H

3 Manage Layers

Show All Layers

Ctrl+Shift+U

3 Manage Layers

Labeling• Settings
PanelsI
Toolbars
I
Toggle Full Screen Mode
Project Properties

Ctrl-F
Ctrl-Alt-P

see Section 2.5
see Section 6.4

Custom CRS
Style Manager
Configure shortcuts

see Section 2.7

Options• Plugins - (Futher menu items are added by plugins as they are loaded.)see Section 9.1 3 Plugins

Manage Plugins
Python Console• Help
Help Contents

F1

QGIS Home Page

Ctrl+H

3 HelpCheck QGIS Version
About

Note:
The Menu Bar items listed above are the default ones in KDE window manager. In GNOME, Settings
menu is missing and its items are to be found there:
Project Properties

3 File menu

Options

3 EditConfigure Shortcuts

3 EditStyle Manager

3 EditCustom CRS

3 EditPanelsToolbarsI
I

3 View
3 View

Toggle Full Screen Mode

3 View

Tile scale slider

3 View

Live GPS tracking

3 View

18

QGIS 1.6.0 User Guide

2.2.2. Toolbars

2.2.2. Toolbars
The toolbars provide access to most of the same functions as the menus, plus additional tools for interactingwith the map. Each toolbar item has popup help available. Hold your mouse over the item and a short
description of the tool’s purpose will be displayed.
Every menubar can be moved around according to your needs. Additionally every menubar can be switched
off using your right mouse button context menu holding the mouse over the toolbars.
QGIS Tip 3 R ESTORING TOOLBARS
If you have accidentally hidden all your toolbars, you can get them back by choosing menu option Settings
Toolbars

I .

2.2.3. Map Legend
The map legend area is used to set the visibility and z-ordering of layers. Z-ordering means that layers listed
nearer the top of the legend are drawn over layers listed lower down in the legend. The checkbox in eachlegend entry can be used to show or hide the layer.
Layers can be grouped in the legend window by adding a layer group and dragging layers into the group. To
I . A new folder
do so, move the mouse pointer to the legend window, right click, choose Add group
appears. Now drag the layers onto to the folder symbol. It is then possible to toggle the visibility of all the layers
in the group with one click. To bring layers out of a group, move the mouse pointer to the layer symbol, right
I . To give the folder a new name, choose Rename
click, and choose Make to toplevel itemIin the right click menu of the group.
The content of the right mouse button context menu depends on whether the loaded legend item you holdI is notyour mouse over is a raster or a vector layer. For GRASS vector layers the toggle editing
available. See section 7.7 for information on editing GRASS vector layers.
• Right mouse button menu for raster layers– Zoom to layer extent

I– Zoom to best scale (100%)– Show in overview– Remove

I

I– Properties– RenameI

I
I– Add GroupI– Expand allI– Collapse allI• Right mouse button menu for vector layers– Zoom to layer extent– Show in overview– RemoveI

I– Open attribute table

QGIS 1.6.0 User Guide

I

I

19

2.2. QGIS GUI– Toggle editing (not available for GRASS layers)– Save as

I

I– Save selection as– QueryI

I– Properties– RenameI
I– Add GroupI– Expand allI– Collapse allI• Right mouse button menu for layer groups– RemoveI– RenameI– Add GroupI– Expand allI– Collapse allI

If several vector data sources have the same vector type and the same attributes, their symbolisations may begrouped. This means that if the symbolisation of one data source is changed, the others automatically havethe new symbolisation as well. To group symbologies, open the right click menu in the legend window andI . The file groups of the layers appear. It is now possible to drag a file from one
choose Add Group
file group into another one. If this is done, the symbologies are grouped. Note that QGIS only permits the dragif the two layers are able to share symbology (same vector geometry type and same attributes).
It is also possible to select more than one Layer or Group at the same time by holding down the CTRL -Key
while selecting the Layers with the left mouse button. You can than move all selected Layers to a new Groupat the same time.
You are also able to delete more than one Layer or Group at once by selecting several Layers with the CTRL-Key and pressing
Layerlist.

CTRL-D

afterwards. This way all selected Layers or Groups will be removed from the

2.2.4. Map View
This is the ’business end’ of QGIS - maps are displayed in this area! The map displayed in this window will
depend on the vector and raster layers you have chosen to load (see sections that follow for more information
on how to load layers). The map view can be panned (shifting the focus of the map display to another region)and zoomed in and out. Various other operations can be performed on the map as described in the toolbar
description above. The map view and the legend are tightly bound to each other - the maps in view reflectchanges you make in the legend area.
QGIS Tip 4 Z OOMING THE M AP WITH THE M OUSE W HEEL
You can use the mouse wheel to zoom in and out on the map. Place the mouse cursor inside the map area
and roll the wheel forward (away from you) to zoom in and backwards (towards you) to zoom out. The mouse
cursor position is the center where the zoom occurs. You can customize the behavior of the mouse wheel
Options
I menu.
zoom using the Map tools tab under the Settings

20

QGIS 1.6.0 User Guide

2.2.5. Map Overview
QGIS Tip 5 PANNING THE M AP WITH THE A RROW K EYS AND S PACE B AR
You can use the arrow keys to pan in the map. Place the mouse cursor inside the map area and click on theright arrow key to pan East, left arrow key to pan West, up arrow key to pan North and down arrow key to pan
South. You can also pan the map using the space bar: just move the mouse while holding down space bar.

2.2.5. Map Overview
The map overview panel provides a full extent view of layers added to it. It can be selected under the menu
Settings
PanelsI . Within the view is a rectangle showing the current map extent. This allows
you to quickly determine which area of the map you are currently viewing. Note that labels are not rendered
to the map overview even if the layers in the map overview have been set up for labeling.
You can add a single layer to the overview by right-clicking on it in the legend and selectShow in overview. You can also add layers to, or remove all layers from the overview using the Overview tools on the toolbar.
If you click and drag the red rectangle in the overview that shows your current extent, the main map view will
update accordingly.

2.2.6. Status Bar
The status bar shows you your current position in map coordinates (e.g. meters or decimal degrees) as themouse pointer is moved across the map view. To the left of the coordinate display in the status bar is a small
button that will toggle between showing coordinate position or the view extents of the map view as you pan
and zoom in and out.
A progress bar in the status bar shows progress of rendering as each layer is drawn to the map view. In somecases, such as the gathering of statistics in raster layers, the progress bar will be used to show the status oflengthy operations.
If a new plugin or a plugin update is available, you will see a message in the status bar. On the right side of
the status bar is a small checkbox which can be used to temporarily prevent layers being rendered to the mapview (see Section 2.3 below). At the far right of the status bar is a projector icon. Clicking on this opens the
projection properties for the current project.
QGIS Tip 6 C ALCULATING THE CORRECT S CALE OF YOUR M AP C ANVASWhen you start QGIS, degrees is the default unit, and it tells QGIS that any coordinate in your layer is indegrees. To get correct scale values, you can either change this to meter manually in the General tab under
Settings
clicking on the

Project Properties

I or you can select a project Coordinate Reference System (CRS)

projector icon in the lower right-hand corner of the statusbar. In the last case, the units

are set to what the project projection specifies, e.g. ’+units=m’.

2.2.7. Keyboard shortcuts
QGIS provides default keyboard shortcuts for many features. You find them in Section 2.2.1 below. AddiConfigure Shortcuts
I allows to change the default keyboard
tionally the menu option Settings
shortcuts and to add new keyboard shortcuts to QGIS features.
Configuration is very simple. Just select a feature from the list and click on Change , Set noneor

Set default . Once you have found your configuration, you can save it as XML file and load it to another
QGIS installation.

QGIS 1.6.0 User Guide21

2.3. Rendering

Figure 2.2.: Define shortcut options(KDE)

2.2.8. Context help
When you need help on specific topic, you can access context help via the Help button available in most
dialogs - please note that third-party plugins can point to dedicated web pages.

2.3. Rendering
By default, QGIS renders all visible layers whenever the map canvas must be refreshed. The events thattrigger a refresh of the map canvas include:• Adding a layer• Panning or zooming• Resizing the QGIS window• Changing the visibility of a layer or layers
QGIS allows you to control the rendering process in a number of ways.

2.3.1. Scale Dependent Rendering
Scale dependent rendering allows you to specify the minimum and maximum scales at which a layer will bevisible. To set scale dependency rendering, open the Properties dialog by double-clicking on the layer
in the legend. On the Generaltab, set the minimum and maximum scale values and then click on the

Use scale dependent rendering checkbox.
You can determine the scale values by first zooming to the level you want to use and noting the scale value inthe QGIS status bar.

2.3.2. Controlling Map Rendering
Map rendering can be controlled in the following ways:

22

QGIS 1.6.0 User Guide

a) Suspending Rendering
To suspend rendering, click theRendercheckbox in the lower right corner of the statusbar. When the

Render box is not checked, QGIS does not redraw the canvas in response to any of the events describedin Section 2.3. Examples of when you might want to suspend rendering include:• Add many layers and symbolize them prior to drawing• Add one or more large layers and set scale dependency before drawing• Add one or more large layers and zoom to a specific view before drawing• Any combination of the above
Checking theRender box enables rendering and causes and immediate refresh of the map canvas.

b) Setting Layer Add Option
You can set an option to always load new layers without drawing them. This means the layer will be added tothe map, but its visibility checkbox in the legend will be unchecked by default. To set this option, choose menu
Options
I and click on the Rendering & SVG tab. Uncheck theoption Settings
By default new layers added to the map should be displayed checkbox. Any layer added to the map will
be off (invisible) by default.
c) Updating the Map Display During Rendering
You can set an option to update the map display as features are drawn. By default, QGIS does not display
any features for a layer until the entire layer has been rendered. To update the display as features are read
Options
I click on the Rendering & SVG
from the datastore, choose menu option Settings
tab. Set the feature count to an appropriate value to update the display during rendering. Setting a value of 0
disables update during drawing (this is the default). Setting a value too low will result in poor performance as
the map canvas is continually updated during the reading of the features. A suggested value to start with is
500.
d) Influence Rendering Quality
To influence the rendering quality of the map you have 3 options. Choose menu option Settings
Options

I click on the Rendering & SVG tab and select or deselect following checkboxes.

•

Make lines appear less jagged at the expense of some drawing performance•Fix problems with incorrectly filled polygons

2.4. Measuring
Measuring works within projected coordinate systems only (e.g., UTM). If the loaded map is defined with ageographic coordinate system (latitude/longitude), the results from line or area measurements will be incorrect.
To fix this you need to set an appropriate map coordinate system (See Section 6). Both measuring modules
also use the snapping settings from the digitizing module. This is useful, if you want to measure along lines orareas in vector layers.
To select a measure tool click onand select the tool you want to use.

2.4.1. Measure length, areas and angles
QGIS is also able to measure real distances between given points according to a defined ellipsoid. To
Options
I , click on the Map tools tab and choose
configure this, choose menu option Settings

QGIS 1.6.0 User Guide23

2.5. Projects
the appropriate ellipsoid. There you can also define a rubberband color and your preferred measurement units(meters or feet). The tool then allows you to click points on the map. Each segment-length as well as the totalshows up in the measure-window. To stop measuring click your right mouse button.
Areas can also be measured. In the measure window the accumulated area-size appears
In addition, the measuring tool will snap to the currently selected layer, provided that layer has its snapping
tolerance set. (See Section 3.5.1). So if you want to measure exactly along a line feature, or around a polygon
feature, first set its snapping tolerance, then select the layer. Now, when using the measuring tools, eachmouse click (within the tolerance setting) will snap to that layer.
You can also measure angles, selecting Measure Angle tool. The cursor becomes cross-shaped. Click to
draw the first segment of the angle you wish to measure, then move the the cursor to draw the desired angle.
The measure is displayed in a popup dialog.

(a) Measure lines(b) Measure areas(c) Measure angles

Figure 2.3.: Measure tools in action

2.4.2. Select and deselect features
The QGIS toolbar provides several tools to select features in the map canvas. To select one or several features
just click onand select the tools:

Select features
Select features by rectangle
Select features by polygon
Select features by freehand
Select features by radius
To deselect all selected features click on.

2.5. Projects
The state of your QGIS session is considered a Project. QGIS works on one project at a time. Settings areeither considered as being per-project, or as a default for new projects (see Section 2.7). QGIS can save thestate of your workspace into a project file using the menu options File

Save Project or File

Save Project As .
Load saved projects into a QGIS session using File
Open Recent ProjectOpen Project or FileI .

If you wish to clear your session and start fresh, choose File24

New Project . Either of these menu

QGIS 1.6.0 User Guideoptions will prompt you to save the existing project if changes have been made since it was opened or last
saved.
The kinds of information saved in a project file include:• Layers added• Layer properties, including symbolization• Projection for the map view
• Last viewed extent
The project file is saved in XML format, so it is possible to edit the file outside QGIS if you know what you
are doing. The file format was updated several times compared to earlier QGIS versions. Project files fromolder QGIS versions may not work properly anymore. To be made aware of this, in the General tab under
Settings

Options

I you can select:

Promt to save project changes when required
Warn when opening a project file saved with an older version of QGIS
Project Properties
In the properties window for the project under
Project Properties

File

Project Properties

Ior

Settings

I you set project specific options. These include:• In the General tab the project title, selection and background color, layer units, precision, and theoption to save relative paths to layers can be defined. In addition the topological editing, and layerwisesnapping options are set here.
• The CRS Coordinate Reference System tab enables you to choose the CRS for this project, and toenable on-the-fly reprojection of vector layers when displaying layers from a different CRS.
• With the third Identifiable layers tab you set (or disable) which layers will respond to the identify tool.
(See the Map tools paragraph from the 2.7 section to enable identifying of multiple layers.)

2.6. Output
There are several ways to generate output from your QGIS session. We have discussed one already in Section
2.5: saving as a project file. Here is a sampling of other ways to produce output files:• Menu option
Save as Image opens a file dialog where you select the name, path and type of image(PNG or JPG format). A world file with extension PNGW or JPGW saved in the same folder georeferences the image.
• Menu option
Print Composer opens a dialog where you can layout and print the current map canvas(see Section 8).
• The

Quick Print plugin allows to print a simple map with minimal effort (see Section 10.16).

2.7. GUI Options
Some basic options for QGIS can be selected using theSettings

Options

dialog. Select the menu option

Options . The tabs where you can optmize your options are:General Tab•

Promt to save project changes when required

QGIS 1.6.0 User Guide25

2.7. GUI Options•

Warn when opening a project file saved with an older version of QGIS

• Change Selection and backgroud Color• Change the icon theme (choose between default, classic, gis and newgis)•

Capitalise layer names in legend•

Display classification attribute names in legend•

Create raster icons in legend•

Hide splash screen at startup•

Open identify results in a dock window (QGIS restart required)•Open attribute table in a dock window•

Add PostGIS layers with double click and select in extended mode•

Add new layers to selected group• Attribute table behavior (choose between Show all features (default), Show selected features, showfeatures in current canvas)

Rendering & SVG Tab•

By default new layers added to the map should be displayed• Define number of features to draw before updating the display.
•

Use render caching where possible to speed up redraws•

Make lines appear less jagged at the expense of some drawing performance•Fix problems with incorrectly filled polygons•

Use new generation symbology for rendering• Add/remove path(s) to search for Scalable Vector Graphics (SVG) symbols

Additionally you can define wether to save the path for svg textures absolute or relative in the General tabof the Settings

Project Properties menu.

Map tools Tab• The Mode setting determines which layers will be shown by the Identify tool. By switching to Top down orTop down, stop at first instead of Current layer attributes for all identifiable layers (see the Projectproperties section under: 2.5 to set which layers are identifiable) will be shown with the Identify tool.
•Open feature form, if a single feature is identified• Define search radius for identifying and displaying map tips as a percentage of the map width• Define ellipsoid for distance calculations• Define rubberband color for measure tools•

Define preferred measurement units (meters or feet)•

Define preferred angle units (Degrees, Radians or Gon)

• Define Mouse wheel action (Zoom, Zoom and recenter, Zoom to mouse cursor, Nothing)• Define Zoom factor for wheel mouse

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QGIS 1.6.0 User Guide

Overlay• Define placement algorithm for labels (choose between central point (standard), chain, popmusic tabu
chain, popmusic tabu and popmusic chain)
Digitizing Tab• Define Rubberband line color and line width• Define default snap mode (to vertex, to segment, to vertex and segment)• Define default snapping tolerance in map units or pixel• Define search radius for vertex edits in map units or pixel•

Show markers only for selected features• Define vertex marker style (cross (default), semi transparent circle or none) and vertex marker size•

Suppress attributes pop-up windows after each created feature

CRS Tab•

Prompt for Coordinate Reference System (CRS)•

Project wide default Coordinate Reference System (CRS) will be used•

Global default Coordinate Reference System (CRS) displayed below will be used

• Select global default Coordinate Reference System (CRS)
Locale Tab•

Overwrite system locale and use defined locale instead• Information about active system locale
Proxy Tab•

Define timeout for network requests in ms•

Use proxy for web access and define host, port, user, and password.

• Set the Proxy type– Default ProxyI according to your needs
I : Proxy is determined based on the application proxy set using

I : Generic proxy for any kind of connection. Supports TCP, UDP, binding to– Socks5Proxya port (incoming connections) and authentication.
I : Implemented using the "CONNECT" command, supports only outgoing TCP– HttpProxyconnections; supports authentication.
I : Implemented using normal HTTP commands, it is useful only in the– HttpCachingProxycontext of HTTP requests– FtpCachingProxyFTP requests

I : Implemented using an FTP proxy, it is useful only in the context of

Excluding some URLs can be added to the textbox below the proxy-settings (see fig. 2.4) by pressing theAdd -button. After that double-click into the just created URL-field and enter the URL you would like to
exclude from using the proxy. Obviously the button Remove removes the selected entry.
If you need more detailed information about the different proxy-settings, please refer to the manual of the unterlaying QT-library-documentation at http://doc.trolltech.com/4.5/qnetworkproxy.html#
ProxyType-enum.

QGIS 1.6.0 User Guide27

2.8. Annotation Tools

Figure 2.4.: Proxy-settings in QGISQGIS Tip 7 U SING P ROXIESUsing proxies can sometimes be tricky. It is useful to ’trial and error’ the above proxy types and check if theysucceed in your case.

You can modify the options according to your needs. Some of the changes may require a restart of QGIS
before they will be effective.
•

settings are saved in a texfile: $HOME/.config/QuantumGIS/qgis.conf•

you can find your settings in: $HOME/Library/Preferences/org.qgis.qgis.plist•

settings are stored in the registry under:\\HKEY\CURRENT\USER\Software\QuantumGIS\qgis2.8. Annotation Tools
The
text annotation tools in the attribute toolbar provides the possibility to place formated text in a balloon
on the QGIS map canvas. Use the text annotation tool and click into the map canvas.
Double click on the item opens a dialog with various options. There is the text editor to enter the formated text
and other item settings. E.g. there is the choice of having the item placed on a map position (displayed by amarker symbol) or to have the item on a screen position (not related to the map). The item can be moved bymap position (drag the map marker) or by moving only the balloon. The icons are part of gis theme, and areused by default in the other themes too.
Themove annotation tool allows to move the annotation on the map canvas.

2.8.1. Form annotations
Additionally you can also create your own annotation forms. The
form annotation tool is useful to display
attributes of a vector layer in a customised qt designer form (see Figure 2.6). It is similar to the designer forms

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2.8.1. Form annotations

Figure 2.5.: Annotation text dialog
for the identify tool, but displayed in an annotation item. Also see QGIS blog http://blog.qgis.org/node/
143 for more information.

Figure 2.6.: Customized qt designer annotation form

QGIS 1.6.0 User Guide29

2.10. Live GPS tracking

2.9. Spatial Bookmarks
Spatial Bookmarks allow you to “bookmark” a geographic location and return to it later.

2.9.1. Creating a Bookmark
To create a bookmark:1. Zoom or pan to the area of interest.
2. Select the menu option View

New Bookmark

I or press Ctrl-B .

3. Enter a descriptive name for the bookmark (up to 255 characters).
4. Click OK to add the bookmark or Cancel to exit without adding the bookmark.
Note that you can have multiple bookmarks with the same name.

2.9.2. Working with Bookmarks
To use or manage bookmarks, select the menu option View

I . TheShow Bookmarks

Geospatial Bookmarks dialog allows you to zoom to or delete a bookmark. You can not edit the bookmark
name or coordinates.

2.9.3. Zooming to a Bookmark
From the Geospatial Bookmarks dialog, select the desired bookmark by clicking on it, then click Zoom To. You can also zoom to a bookmark by double-clicking on it.

2.9.4. Deleting a Bookmark
To delete a bookmark from the Geospatial Bookmarks dialog, click on it then click Delete . Confirm yourchoice by clicking Yes or cancel the delete by clicking No .

2.10. Live GPS tracking
To activate Live GPS tracking in QGIS you need to select View
get a new docked Window on the left side of the canvas.

Live GPS tracking

I . You will

There are 4 possible screens in this GPS tracking window (see Figure 2.7 and Figure 2.8).
(a)GPS position coordinates and for manually entering Vertices and Features(b)

GPS signal strength of satellite connections(c)

GPS polar screen showing number and polar position of satellites(d)GPS options screen (see Figure 2.8).

With a plugged in GPS receiver (has to be supported by your operating system) a simple click on Connect
connects the GPS to QGIS. A second click (now Disconnect disconnects the GPS-Reciever from you Computer. For GNU/Linux gpsd support is integrated to support connection to most GPS receivers. Therefore you
first have to configure gpsd properly to connect QGIS to it.
[ IMPORTANT ]: If you want to record your position to the canvas you have to create a new vector layer firstand switch it to editable status to be able to record your track.

30

QGIS 1.6.0 User Guide2.10.1. Position coordinates(a) Position coordinates(b) GPS signal strenght(c) GPS polar window

Figure 2.7.: Live GPS tracking

2.10.1. Position coordinates
If the GPS is recieving signals from satellites you will see your position in latitude, longitude and elevation
as you can see in Figure 2.7a

2.10.2. GPS signal strength
Here you can see the signal strenght of the satellites you are revieving signals from (Figure 2.7b).

2.10.3. GPS polar window
If you want to know where in the sky all the connected satellites are, you have to switch to the polar screen(Figure 2.7c). You can also see the ID numbers of the satellites you are recieving signals from.

2.10.4. GPS options
In case of connection problems you can switch from

Autodetectto

Use path/port below

and select the path/port your GPS receiver is connected to. A click on Connect again initiates the connection
to the GPS receiver.
With the slider

GPS Cursor Size 10%

you can shrink and grow the position cursor on

the canvas. Activating
Auto-add vertices within GPS digitizing your track will automatically be recordedin the active vector layer (of course the layer has to be in edit mode).
With GPS map recenter you can decide in which way the canvas will be updated if your recorded coordinates
start either to move out of canvas or there is any change at all.
Track color and width sets the color of and the width of your drawn track.
If you want to set a feature manually you have to go back to”Position Coordinates” and click on
Add feature . Also when you did not activate ”Auto-add vertices“ and want to record vertices manually
you have to go back there and click Add vertex

QGIS 1.6.0 User Guide31

2.10. Live GPS tracking

Figure 2.8.: GPS tracking options window

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QGIS 1.6.0 User Guide

3. Working with Vector Data
QGIS supports vector data in a number of formats, including those supported by the OGR library data provider
plugin, such as ESRI shapefiles, MapInfo MIF (interchange format) and MapInfo TAB (native format). You finda list of OGR supported vector formats in Appendix A.1.
QGIS also supports PostGIS layers in a PostgreSQL database using the PostgreSQL data provider plugin.
Support for additional data types (eg. delimited text) is provided by additional data provider plugins.
This section describes how to work with several common formats: ESRI shapefiles, PostGIS layers and SpatialLite layers. Many of the features available in QGIS work the same, regardless of the vector data source.
This is by design and includes the identify, select, labeling and attributes functions.
Working with GRASS vector data is described in Section 7.

3.1. ESRI Shapefiles
The standard vector file format used in QGIS is the ESRI Shapefile. Support is provided by the OGR Simple
Feature Library (http://www.gdal.org/ogr/) . A shapefile actually consists of several files. The following
three are required:– .shp file containing the feature geometries.
– .dbf file containing the attributes in dBase format.
– .shx index file.
Shapefiles also can include a file with a .prj suffix, which contains the projection information. While it isvery useful to have a projection file, it is not mandatory. A shapefile dataset can contain additional files. For
further details see the ESRI technical specification at http://www.esri.com/library/whitepapers/pdfs/
shapefile.pdf .
Problem loading a shape .prj fileIf you load a shapefile with .prj file and QGIS is not able to read the coordinate reference system from that
file, you have to define the proper projection manually within the General tab of the Layer Properties
dialog. This is due to the fact, that .prj files often do not provide the complete projection parameters, as used
in QGIS and listed in the CRS dialog.
For that reason, if you create a new shapefile with QGIS, two different projection files are created. A .prj
file with limited projection parameters, compatible with ESRI software, and a .qpj file, providing the complete
parameters of the used CRS. Whenever QGIS finds a .qpj file, it will be used instead of the .prj.

3.1.1. Loading a Shapefile
To load a shapefile, start QGIS and click on the

Add Vector Layer toolbar button or simply typeCtrl-Shift-V . This will bring up a new window (see Figure 3.1).
From the available options check

File . Click on Browse . That will bring up a standard open file
dialog (see Figure 3.2) which allows you to navigate the file system and load a shapefile or other supported
data source. The selection box Files of type...

allows you to preselect some OGR supported fileformats.
You can also select the Encoding type for the shapefile if desired.

33

3.1. ESRI Shapefiles

Figure 3.1.: Add Vector Layer Dialog

Selecting a shapefile from the list and clicking Open loads it into QGIS. Figure 3.3 shows QGIS after loading
the alaska.shp file.
QGIS Tip 8 L AYER C OLORSWhen you add a layer to the map, it is assigned a random color. When adding more than one layer at a time,different colors are assigned to each layer.
Once loaded, you can zoom around the shapefile using the map navigation tools. To change the symbology
of a layer, open the Layer Properties dialog by double clicking on the layer name or by right-clicking on
the name in the legend and choosing Properties
information on setting symbology of vector layers.

I from the popup menu. See Section 3.4.1 for more

QGIS Tip 9 L OAD LAYER AND PROJECT FROM MOUNTED EXTERNAL DRIVES ON OS X
On OS X, portable drives that are mounted besides the primary hard drive do not show up under File
Open
Project as expected. We are working on a more OSX-native open/save dialog to fix this. As a workaround
you can type ’/Volumes’ in the File name box and press return. Then you can navigate to external drives andnetwork mounts.

3.1.2. Improving Performance
To improve the performance of drawing a shapefile, you can create a spatial index. A spatial index will improve
the speed of both zooming and panning. Spatial indexes used by QGIS have a .qix extension.
Use these steps to create the index:– Load a shapefile.
– Open theLayer Properties

dialog by double-clicking on the shapefile name in the legend or byright-clicking and choosing Properties

I from the popup menu.

– In the tab General click the Create Spatial Index button.

3.1.3. Loading a MapInfo Layer
To load a MapInfo layer, click on the34

Add Vector Layer toolbar bar button or type Ctrl-Shift-V

QGIS 1.6.0 User Guide

3.1.4. Loading an ArcInfo Binary Coverage

Figure 3.2.: Open an OGR Supported Vector Layer Dialog, change the file type filter to Files of Typeand select the[OGR] MapInfo (*.mif *.tab *.MIF *.TAB)

layer you want to load.

3.1.4. Loading an ArcInfo Binary Coverage
To load an ArcInfo binary coverage, click on the
type
Type

Ctrl-Shift-V

to open the

Add Vector Layer

Arc/Info Binary Coverage

dialog.

Add Vector Layer
Selecttoolbar button or

Directory.

Change to. Navigate to the directory that contains the coverage files and selectit.
Similarly, you can load directory based vector files in the UK National Transfer Format as well as the raw
TIGER Format of the US Census Bureau.

3.2. PostGIS Layers
PostGIS layers are stored in a PostgreSQL database. The advantages of PostGIS are the spatial indexing,
filtering and query capabilities it provides. Using PostGIS, vector functions such as select and identify work
more accurately than with OGR layers in QGIS.
To use PostGIS layers you must:– Create a stored connection in QGIS to the PostgreSQL database (if one is not already defined).
– Connect to the database.
– Select the layer to add to the map.
– Optionally provide a SQL where clause to define which features to load from the layer.
– Load the layer.

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3.2. PostGIS Layers

Figure 3.3.: QGIS with Shapefile of Alaska loaded

3.2.1. Creating a stored Connection
The first time you use a PostGIS data source, you must create a connection to the PostgreSQL database
Add PostGIS Layerthat contains the data. Begin by clicking on the
Add PostGIS Layer...
Add Vector Layer

option from the Layerdialog and selectmenu or typing

Database . The

toolbar button, selecting the. You can also open the

Ctrl-Shift-D

Add PostGIS Table(s)dialog will be dis-played. To access the connection manager, click on the New button to display theCreate a New PostGIS Connection
3.1.

dialog. The parameters required for a connection are shown in table

Optional you can activate follwing checkboxes:–

Save Username–

Save Password–

Only look in the geometry_columns table–

Only look in the ’public’ schema–

Use estimated table metadata

Once all parameters and options are set, you can test the connection by clicking on the Test Connect button.
QGIS Tip 10 QGIS U SER S ETTINGS AND S ECURITY
Your customized settings for QGIS are stored based on the operating system.

, the settings are stored inyour home directory in .QGIS/.
, the settings are stored in the registry. Depending on your computing
environment, storing passwords in your QGIS settings may be a security risk.

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3.2.2. Loading a PostGIS Layer

Table 3.1.: PostGIS Connection Parameters
Name
Host

Database
Port
SSL mode

A name for this connection. Can be the same as Database.
Name of the database host. This must be a resolvable host name the same as
would be used to open a telnet connection or ping the host. If the database is on
the same computer as QGIS, simply enter ’localhost’ here.
Name of the database.
Port number the PostgreSQL database server listens on. The default port is 5432.
How the SSL connection will be negotiated with the server. These are the options:• disable: only try an unencrypted SSL connection;• allow: try a non-SSL connection, if that fails, try an SSL connection;• prefer (the default): try an SSL connection, if that fails, try a non-SSL connection;• require: only try an SSL connection.

Username
Password

Note that massive speedups in PostGIS layer rendering can be achieved by disabling SSL in the connection editor.
User name used to login to the database.
Password used with Username to connect to the database.

3.2.2. Loading a PostGIS Layer
Once you have one or more connections defined, you can load layers from the PostgreSQL database.
Of course this requires having data in PostgreSQL. See Section 3.2.4 for a discussion on importing data into
the database.
To load a layer from PostGIS, perform the following steps:– If the Add PostGIS Table(s) dialog is not already open, click on the

Add PostGIS Layer tool-

bar button.
– Choose the connection from the drop-down list and click Connect .
– Find the layer you wish to add in the list of available layers.
– Select it by clicking on it. You can select multiple layers by holding down the shift key while clicking.
See Section 3.6 for information on using the PostgreSQL Query Builder to further define the layer.
– Click on the Add button to add the layer to the map.
QGIS Tip 11 P OST GIS L AYERS
Normally a PostGIS layer is defined by an entry in the geometry_columns table. From version 1.5.0 on, QGIS
can load layers that do not have an entry in the geometry_columns table. This includes both tables and views.
Defining a spatial view provides a powerful means to visualize your data. Refer to your PostgreSQL manual
for information on creating views.

3.2.3. Some details about PostgreSQL layers
This section contains some details on how QGIS accesses PostgreSQL layers. Most of the time QGIS should
simply provide you with a list of database tables that can be loaded, and load them on request. However, if
you have trouble loading a PostgreSQL table into QGIS, the information below may help you understand any
QGIS messages and give you direction on changing the PostgreSQL table or view definition to allow QGIS toload it.
QGIS requires that PostgreSQL layers contain a column that can be used as a unique key for the layer. For

QGIS 1.6.0 User Guide37

3.2. PostGIS Layers
tables this usually means that the table needs a primary key, or a column with a unique constraint on it. In
QGIS, this column needs to be of type int4 (an integer of size 4 bytes). Alternatively the ctid column can beused as primary key. If a table lacks these items, the oid column will be used instead. Performance will be
improved if the column is indexed (note that primary keys are automatically indexed in PostgreSQL).
If the PostgreSQL layer is a view, the same requirement exists, but views don’t have primary keys or columns
with unique constraints on them. In this case QGIS will try to find a column in the view that is derived froma suitable table column. It does this by parsing the view definition SQL. However there are several aspectsof SQL that QGIS ignores - these include the use of table aliases and columns that are generated by SQL
functions.
If a suitable column cannot be found, QGIS will not load the layer. If this occurs, the solution is to alter the viewso that it does include a suitable column (a type of int4 and either a primary key or with a unique constraint,
preferably indexed).

3.2.4. Importing Data into PostgreSQL
shp2pgsql
Data can be imported into PostgreSQL using a number of methods. PostGIS includes a utility called shp2pgsql
that can be used to import shapefiles into a PostGIS enabled database. For example, to import a shapefile
named lakes.shp into a PostgreSQL database named gis_data, use the following command:
shp2pgsql -s 2964 lakes.shp lakes_new | psql gis_data
This creates a new layer named lakes_new in the gis_data database. The new layer will have a spatialreference identifier (SRID) of 2964. See Section 6 for more information on spatial reference systems andprojections.
QGIS Tip 12 E XPORTING DATASETS FROM P OST GIS
Like the import-tool shp2pgsql there is also a tool to export PostGIS-datasets as shapefiles: pgsql2shp. Thisis shipped within your PostGIS distribution.

SPIT Plugin
QGIS comes with a plugin named SPIT (Shapefile to PostGIS Import Tool). SPIT can be used to load
multiple shapefiles at one time and includes support for schemas. To use SPIT, open the Plugin Manager fromthe Plugins menu, check the box next to the
SPIT plugin and click OK . The SPIT icon will be added
to the plugin toolbar.
To import a shapefile, click on the

SPIT tool in the toolbar to open the

SPIT - Shapefile to PostGIS Import Tool dialog. Select the PostGIS database you want to connect to andclick on Connect . Now you can add one or more files to the queue by clicking on the Add

button. To

process the files, click on the OK button. The progress of the import as well as any errors/warnings will be
displayed as each shapefile is processed.
QGIS Tip 13 I MPORTING S HAPEFILES C ONTAINING P OSTGRE SQL R ESERVED W ORDS
If a shapefile is added to the queue containing fields that are reserved words in the PostgreSQL database a
dialog will popup showing the status of each field. You can edit the field names prior to import and change any
that are reserved words (or change any other field names as desired). Attempting to import a shapefile withreserved words as field names will likely fail.
ogr2ogr
Beside shp2pgsql and SPIT there is another tool for feeding geodata in PostGIS: ogr2ogr. This is part of your
GDAL installation. To import a shapefile into PostGIS, do the following:

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QGIS 1.6.0 User Guide

3.2.5. Improving Performanceogr2ogr -f "PostgreSQL" PG:"dbname=postgis host=myhost.de user=postgres \password=topsecret" alaska.shp
This will import the shapefile alaska.shp into the PostGIS-database postgis using the user postgres withthe password topsecret on host myhost.de.
Note that OGR must be built with PostgreSQL to support PostGIS. You can see this by typing
ogrinfo --formats | grep -i post
If you like to use PostgreSQL’s COPY-command instead of the default INSERT INTO method you can export thefollowing environment-variable (at least available on

and

):

export PG_USE_COPY=YES
ogr2ogr does not create spatial indexes like shp2pgsl does. You need to create them manually using thenormal SQL-command CREATE INDEX afterwards as an extra step (as described in the next section 3.2.5).

3.2.5. Improving Performance
Retrieving features from a PostgreSQL database can be time consuming, especially over a network. You can
improve the drawing performance of PostgreSQL layers by ensuring that a spatial index exists on each layer
in the database. PostGIS supports creation of a GiST (Generalized Search Tree) index to speed up spatial
searches of the data.
The syntax for creating a GiST1 index is:
CREATE INDEX [indexname] ON [tablename]
USING GIST ( [geometryfield] GIST_GEOMETRY_OPS );Note that for large tables, creating the index can take a long time. Once the index is created, you should
perform a VACUUM ANALYZE. See the PostGIS documentation [8] for more information.
The following is an example of creating a GiST index:
gsherman@madison:~/current$ psql gis_data
Welcome to psql 8.3.0, the PostgreSQL interactive terminal.
Type:\copyright for distribution terms\h for help with SQL commands\? for help with psql commands\g or terminate with semicolon to execute query\q to quit

gis_data=# CREATE INDEX sidx_alaska_lakes ON alaska_lakes
gis_data-# USING GIST (the_geom GIST_GEOMETRY_OPS);
CREATE INDEX
gis_data=# VACUUM ANALYZE alaska_lakes;
VACUUM
gis_data=# \qgsherman@madison:~/current$

3.2.6. Vector layers crossing 180◦ longitude
Many GIS packages don’t wrap vector maps, with a geographic reference system (lat/lon), crossing the 180◦
longitude line. As result, if we open such map in QGIS, we will see two far, distinct locations, that should shownear each other. In Figure 3.4 the tiny point on the far left of the map canvas (Chatham Islands), should bewithin the grid, right of New Zealand main islands.
1 GiST index information is taken from the PostGIS documentation available at http://postgis.refractions.net

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3.3. SpatiaLite Layers

Figure 3.4.: Map in lat/lon crossing the 180◦ longitude line

A workaround is to transform the longitude values using PostGIS and the ST_Shift_Longitude 2 function.
This function reads every point/vertex in every component of every feature in a geometry, and if the longitude
coordinate is < 0◦ adds 360◦ to it. The result would be a 0◦ - 360◦ version of the data to be plotted in a 180◦
centric map.

Figure 3.5.: Map crossing 180◦ longitude applying the ST_Shift_Longitude function

Usage– Import data to PostGIS (3.2.4) using for example the PostGIS Manager plugin or the SPIT plugin– Use the PostGIS command line interface to issue the following command (this is an example where"TABLE" is the actual name of your PostGIS table)
gis_data=# update TABLE set the_geom=ST_shift_longitude(the_geom);– If everything went right you should receive a confirmation about the number of features that were updated, then you’ll be able to load the map and see the difference (Figure 3.5)

3.3. SpatiaLite Layers
The first time you load data from a SpatiaLite database,
Add SpatiaLite Layer

toolbar button or by selecting the

begin by clicking on the

Add SpatiaLite Layer...

option from theLayer menu or by typing L . This will bring up a window, which will allow you to either connect to a
SpatiaLite database already known to QGIS, which you can choose from the dropdown menu or to define a
new connection to a new database. To define a new connection, click on New and use the file browser topoint to your SpatiaLite database, which is a file with a .sqlite extension.
2 http://postgis.refractions.net/documentation/manual-1.4/ST_Shift_Longitude.html

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3.4. The Vector Properties Dialog
The Layer Properties dialog for a vector layer provides information about the layer, symbology settingsand labeling options. If your vector layer has been loaded from a PostgreSQL/PostGIS datastore, you canalso alter the underlying SQL for the layer by invoking the Query Builder dialog on the General tab. To
access theLayer Properties

select Properties

dialog, double-click on a layer in the legend or right-click on the layer andI from the popup menu.

Figure 3.6.: Vector Layer Properties Dialog

3.4.1. Symbology Tab
QGIS supports a number of symbology renderers to control how vector features are displayed. Currently thefollowing renderers are available:
Single symbol - a single style is applied to every object in the layer.
Graduated symbol - objects within the layer are displayed with different symbols classified by the values ofa particular field.
Continuous color - objects within the layer are displayed with a spread of colours classified by the numericalvalues within a specified field.
Unique value - objects are classified by the unique values within a specified field with each value having a
different symbol.
To change the symbology for a layer, simply double click on its legend entry and the vector Layer Properties
dialog will be shown.
Style Options
Within this dialog you can style your vector layer. Depending on the selected rendering option you have thepossibility to also classify your mapfeatures.
At least the following styling options apply for nearly all renderers:
Fill options Fill style - Style for filling. Beside the given brushes you can select Fill style

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3.4. The Vector Properties Dialog

Figure 3.7.: Symbolizing Options(a) Single symbol(b) Graduated symbol(c) Continous color(d) Unique value

and click the . . . button for selecting your own texture file. Currently the fileformats *.jpeg,*.xpm, and *.png are supported.
Fill color - fill-color of your features.
Outline options Outline style - pen-style for your outline of your feature. You can also set this to ’no pen’.
Outline color - color of the ouline of your feature.
Outline width - width of your features.
Once you have styled your layer you also could save your layer-style to a separate file (with *.qml-ending). To
do this, use the button Save Style . . . . No need to say that Load Style . . . loads your saved layer-style-file.
If you wish to always use a particular style whenever the layer is loaded, use the Save As Default button
to make your style the default. Also, if you make changes to the style that you are not happy with, use the
Restore Default Style button to revert to your default style.
Vector transparency
QGIS allows to set a transparency for every vector layer. This can be done with the slider
Transparency 10%
overlaying several vector layers.

42

inside the symbology

tab (see fig. 3.8a). This is very useful for

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3.4.2. New Generation Symbology

3.4.2. New Generation Symbology

Since QGIS 1.4.0 a new symbology was integrated in parallel with the symbology described above. This
new generation symbology provides a variety of improvements and new features and will replace the current
symbology in one of the upcoming releases. To switch to the new symbolgy you currently have to click on the
New symbology button in the General tab of the Layer Properties dialog. You can also make the New
symobolgy the default, activating
tab under the Settings

Use new generation symbology for rendering in the Rendering & SVG

Options

I menu.

Understanding the new generation symbology
There are three types of symbols: marker symbols (for points), line symbols and fill symbols (for polygons).
Symbols can consist of one or more symbol layers. It is possible to define the color of a symbol and this color
is then defined for all symbol layers. Some layers may have the color locked - for those the color can not bealtered. This is useful when you define the color of a multilayer symbol. Similarly, it is possible to define thewidth for line symbols, as well as size and angle for marker symbols.
Available symbol layer types– Simple marker: Rendering with one of hardcoded markers.
– Simple line: Usual rendering of a line (with specified width, color and pen style).
– Simple fill: Usual rendering of a polygon (with defined fill color, fill pattern and outline).
– SVG marker: Rendering with a SVG picture.
– Marker line: A line rendered by repeating a marker symbol.

Color ramps
Color ramps are used to define a range of colors that can be used during the creation of renderers. The
symbol’s color will be set from the color ramp.
There are three types of color ramps:– Gradient: Linear gradient from one color to some other.
– Random: Randomly generated colors from a specified area of color space.
– ColorBrewer: Create color area from a color shema and a defined number of color classes.
Color ramps can be defined in the Style Manager dialog (see Section 3.4.4) by selecting
Style item type:

Color ramp

as style element type from the drop-down list, clicking on Add item

button and then choosing a color ramp type.
Styles
A style groups a set of various symbols and color ramps. You can define your prefered or frequently used
symbols, and can use it without having to recreate it everytime. Style items (symbols and color ramps) havealways a name by which they can be queried from the style. There is one default style in QGIS (modifiable)
and the user can add further styles.
Renderers
The renderer is responsible for drawing a feature together with the correct symbol. There are three types ofrenderers: single symbol, categorized (called unique color in the old symbology), and graduated. There is no
continuous color renderer, because it is in fact only a special case of the graduated renderer. The categorized
and graduated renderer can be created by specifying a symbol and a color ramp - they will set the colors forsymbols appropriately.

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3.4. The Vector Properties Dialog

3.4.3. Working with the New Generation Symbology
First you have to enable the new generation symbology clicking on the New symbology

button in the

Symbology tab of the Layer Properties dialog. The new dialog allows to choose one of the three
renderers: single symbol, categorized and graduated. Depending on the chosen renderer, the symbology
tab provides different settings and options, that will be described in the following sections. The new generation symbology dialog also provides a Style Manager button which gives access to the Style Manager (seesection 3.4.4). The Style Manager allows you to edit and remove existing symbols and add new ones.
Single Symbol Renderer
The Single Symbol Renderer is used to render all features of the layer using a single user-defined symbol.
The properties, that can be adjusted in the Symbology tab, depend partially on the type of the layer, but all
types share the following structure. In the top left part of the tab, there is a preview of the current symbol to berendered. In the bottom part of the tab, there is a list of symbols already defined for the current style, prepared
to be used via selecting them from the list. The current symbol can be modified using the Properties button,
which opens a Symbol Properties dialog, or the Set Color button, which opens an ordinary Colordialog. After having done any needed changes, the symbol can be added to the list of current style symbols(using the Add to style button) and then easily be used in the future.
Note: To modify line width, besides modifying the symbol itself, you can use data-defined Size Scale (available
through Advanced next to Add to Style ).

(a) Single symbol point properties(b) Single symbol line properties(c) Single symbol area properties

Figure 3.8.: New Single Symbolizing options
Categorized Renderer
The Categorized Renderer is used to render all features from a layer, using a single user-defined symbol,
which color reflects the value of a selected feature’s attribute. The Symbology tab allows you to select:– The attribute (using the Column listbox)– The symbol (using the Symbol Properties dialog)– The colors (using the Color Ramp listbox)
The Advanced button in the lower right corner of the dialog allows to set th fields containing rotation and size
scale information. For convenience, the list in the bottom part of the tab lists the values of all currently selected

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3.4.3. Working with the New Generation Symbology
attributes together, including the symbols that will be rendered.
The example in figure 3.9 shows the category rendering dialog used for the rivers layer of the QGIS sample
dataset.
Figure 3.9.: New Categorized Symbolizing options

You can create a custom color ramp choosing New color ramp... from the Color ramp dropdown menu. A
dialog will prompt for the ramp type: Gradient, Random, ColorBrewer, then each one has options for numberof steps and/or multiple stops in the color ramp. See 3.10 for an example of custom color ramp.

Figure 3.10.: Example of custom gradient color ramp with multiple stops

Graduated Renderer
The Graduated Renderer is used to render all the features from a layer, using a single user-defined symbol,
whose color reflects the classification of a selected feature’s attribute to a class. Like Categorized Renderer,
it allows to define rotation and size scale from specified columns.

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3.4. The Vector Properties Dialog
Analogue to the categorized rendered, the symbology tab allows you to select:– The attribute (using the Column listbox)– The symbol (using the Symbol Properties button)– The colors (using the Color Ramp list)
Additionally, you can specify the number of classes and also the mode how to classify features inside theclasses (using the Mode list). The available modes are:• Equal Interval• Quantile• Natural Breaks (Jenks)• Standard Deviation• Pretty Breaks
The listbox in the bottom part of the symbology tab lists the classes together with their ranges, labels andsymbols that will be rendered.
The example in figure 3.11 shows the graduated rendering dialog for the rivers layer of the QGIS sample
dataset.

Figure 3.11.: New Graduated Symbolizing options
Rule-based rendering
The rule-based renderer is used to render all the features from a layer, using rule based symbols, whose color
reflects the classification of a selected feature’s attribute to a class.
The example in figure 3.12 shows the rule-based rendering dialog for the rivers layer of the QGIS sample
dataset.
Point displacement
The point displacement renderer offers to visualize all features of a point layer, even if they have the same
location. To do this, the symbols of the points are placed on a displacement circle around a center symbol.
Symbol Properties
The symbol properties dialog allows the user to specify different properties of the symbol to be rendered. In
the top left part of the dialog, you find a preview of the current symbol as it will be displayed in the map canvas.
Below the preview is the list of symbol layers. To start the symbol properties dialog, click theProperties

button in the Symbology tab of the Layer Properties dialog.
The control panels allow adding or removing layers, changing the position of layers, or locking layers for color
changes. In the right part of the dialog, there are shown the settings applicable to the single symbol layer

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3.4.3. Working with the New Generation Symbology

Figure 3.12.: New Rule-based Symbolizing options

Figure 3.13.: Point displacement dialog

selected in the symbol layer list. The most important is the ’Symbol Layer Type’ combo box, which allows you
to choose the layer type. The available options depend on the layer type (Point, Line, Polygon).
Symbol layer type options for point layers– SimpleMarker: Border color, Fill color, Size, Angle, Offset X,Y– SvgMarker: Size, Angle, Offset X,Y, SVG Image
Symbol layer type options for line layers– LineDecoration: Color– MarkerLine: Marker, Marker Interval, Rotate marker, Line offset– SimpleLine: Color, Pen width, pen style, Offset, Join style and Cap style
Symbol layer type options for polygon layers– SimpleFill: Color, Fill style, Border color, Border style, Border width

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3.4. The Vector Properties Dialog(a) Line composed from three simple
lines(b) Symbol properties for point layer(c) Filling pattern for a polygon

Figure 3.14.: Defining symbol properties

3.4.4. Style Manager to manage symbols and color ramps
The Style Manger is a small helper application, that lists symbols and color ramps available in a style.
It also allows you to add and/or remove items. To launch the Style Manager, click on Settings
Style Manager

I in the main menu.

3.4.5. Labels Tab
The Labels tab allows you to enable labeling features and control a number of options related to fonts,
placement, style, alignment and buffering.
We will illustrate this by labelling the lakes shapefile of the QGIS _example_dataset:
1. Load the Shapefile alaska.shp and GML file lakes.gml in QGIS.
2. Zoom in a bit to your favorite area with some lake.
3. Make the lakes layer active.
4. Open the Layer Properties dialog.
5. Click on the Labels tab.
6. Check the

Display labels checkbox to enable labeling.

7. Choose the field to label with. We’ll use Field containing label

NAMES

.

8. Enter a default for lakes that have no name. The default label will be used each time QGIS encountersa lake with no value in the NAMES field.
9. If have labels extending over several lines, check
Multiline labels? . QGIS will check for a true line
return in your label field and insert the line breaks accordingly. A true line return is a single character\n, (not two separate characters, like a backlash \ followed by the character n).
10. Click Apply .
Now we have labels. How do they look? They are probably too big and poorly placed in relation to the marker
symbol for the lakes.

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3.4.5. Labels Tab

Figure 3.15.: Style Manager to manage symbols and color ramps

Select the Font entry and use the Font and Color buttons to set the font and color. You can also change
the angle and the placement of the text-label.
To change the position of the text relative to the feature:
1. Click on the Font entry.
2. Change the placement by selecting one of the radio buttons in the Placement group. To fix our labels,
choose theRightradio button.

3. the Font size units allows you to select between

Pointsor

Map units .

4. Click Apply to see your changes without closing the dialog.
Things are looking better, but the labels are still too close to the marker. To fix this we can use the options on
the Position entry. Here we can add offsets for the X and Y directions. Adding an X offset of 5 will move ourlabels off the marker and make them more readable. Of course if your marker symbol or font is larger, moreof an offset will be required.
The last adjustment we’ll make is to Buffer the labels. This just means putting a backdrop around them tomake them stand out better. To buffer the lakes labels:
1. Click the Buffer tab.
2. Click the

Buffer Labels? checkbox to enable buffering.

3. Choose a size for the buffer using the spin box.
4. Choose a color by clicking on Color and choosing your favorite from the color selector. You can also
set some transparency for the buffer if you prefer.
5. Click Apply to see if you like the changes.
If you aren’t happy with the results, tweak the settings and then test again by clicking Apply .
A buffer of 1 points seems to give a good result. Notice you can also specify the buffer size in map units if thatworks out better for you.
The remaining entries inside the LabelQGIS 1.6.0 User Guide

tab allow you control the appearance of the labels using attributes

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3.4. The Vector Properties Dialog
stored in the layer. The entries beginning with Data defined allow you to set all the parameters for the labels
using fields in the layer.
Not that the Label tab provides a preview-box where your selected label is shown.

3.4.6. New Labeling
The new

Labelingcore application provides smart labeling for vector point, line and polygon layers

and only requires a few parameters. This new application will replace the current QGIS labeling, described in
section 3.4.5 and also supports on-the-fly transformated layers.
Using new labeling
1. Start QGIS and load a vector point, line or polygon layer.
2. Activate the layer in the legend and click on the

Labeling icon in the QGIS toolbar menu.

Labeling point layers
First step is to activate theLabel this layer checkbox and select an attribute column to use for labeling.
After that you can define the label placement and text style, labeling priority, scale-based visibility, if every partof multipart feature is to be labeled and if features act as obstacles for labels or not (see Figure 3.16).

Figure 3.16.: Smart labeling of vector point layers

Labeling line layers
First step is to activate theLabel this layer checkbox and select an attribute column to use for labeling.
After that you can define the label placement, orientation, distance to feature, text style, labeling priority, scalebased visibility, if every part of a multipart line is to be labeled, if lines shall be merged to avoid duplicate labels
and if features act as obstacles for labels or not (see Figure 3.17).
Labeling polygon layers
First step is to activate theLabel this layer checkbox and select an attribute column to use for labeling.
After that you can define the label placement, distance and text style, labeling priority, scale-based visibility,
if every part of multipart feature is to be labeled and if features act as obstacles for labels or not (see Figure3.18).
Change engine settings
Additionally you can click the Engine settings button and select the search method, used to find the best
label placement. Available is Chain, Popmusic Tabu, Popmusic Chain, Popmusic Tabu Chain and FALP.

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3.4.7. Attributes Tab

Figure 3.17.: Smart labeling of vector line layers

Figure 3.18.: Smart labeling of vector polygon layers

Furthermore the number of candidates can be defined for point, line and polygon features, and you can define
whether to show all labels (including colliding labels) and label candidates for debugging.

3.4.7. Attributes Tab
tab the attributes of the selected dataset can be manipulated.

Within the Attributes
New Column

andDelete Column

can be used, when the dataset is

The buttons
Editing mode

. At the moment only columns from PostGIS layers can be removed and added. The OGR library supports to
add new columns, but not to remove them, if you have a GDAL version >= 1.6 installed.
edit widget
Within the Attributes tab you also find an edit widget column. This column can be used to define values
or a range of values that are allowed to be added to the specific attribute table column. If you click on theedit widget button, a dialog opens, where you can define different widgets. These widgets are:– Line edit: an edit field which allows to enter simple text (or restrict to numbers for numeric attributes).
– Classification: Displays a combo box with the values used for classification, if you have chosen ’uniquevalue’ as legend type in the symbology tab of the properties dialog.
– Range: Allows to set numeric values from a specific range. The edit widget can be either a slider or aspin box.
– Unique value: The user can select one of the values already used in the attribute table. If editable is

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3.4. The Vector Properties Dialog

Figure 3.19.: Dialog to change label engine settings

Figure 3.20.: Dialog to select an edit widget for an attribute column

activated, a line edit is shown with autocompletion support, otherwise a combo box is used.
– File name: Simplifies the selection by adding a file chooser dialog.
– Value map: a combo box with predefined items. The value is stored in the attribute, the description isshown in the comboo box. You can define values manually or load them from a layer or a CSV file.
– Enumeration: Opens a combo box with values that can be used within the columns type. This is currently
only supported by the postgres provider.
– Immutable: The immutable attribute column is read-only. The user is not able to modify the content.
– Hidden: A hidden attribute column is invisible. The user is not able to see its content.
– Checkbox: Displays a checkbox and you can define what attribute is added to the column when the
checkbox is activated or not.
– Text edit: This opens a text edit field that allows multiple lines to be used.
– Calendar: Opens a calendar widget to enter a date. Column type must be text.

3.4.8. General Tab
The General tab is essentially like that of the raster dialog. It allows you to change the display name, setscale dependent rendering options, create a spatial index of the vector file (only for OGR supported formats
and PostGIS) and view or change the projection of the specific vetor layer.

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3.4.9. Metadata Tab
The Query Builder button allows you to create a subset of the features in the layer - but this button currently
only is available when you open the attribute table and select the ... button next to Advanced search.

3.4.9. Metadata Tab
The Metadata tab contains general information about the layer, including specifics about the type andlocation, number of features, feature type, and the editing capabilities. The Extents section, providing layer
extent information, and the Layer Spatial Reference System section, providing information about the CRS ofthe layer. This is a quick way to get information about the layer, but is not yet editable.

3.4.10. Actions Tab
QGIS provides the ability to perform an action based on the attributes of a feature. This can be used to perform
any number of actions, for example, running a program with arguments built from the attributes of a feature or
passing parameters to a web reporting tool.
Actions are useful when you frequently want to run an external application or view a web page based on one
or more values in your vector layer. An example is performing a search based on an attribute value. This
concept is used in the following discussion.
Defining Actions
Attribute actions are defined from the vector Layer Properties dialog. To define an action, open the vector
Layer Properties dialog and click on the Actions tab. Provide a descriptive name for the action. The
action itself must contain the name of the application that will be executed when the action is invoked. You
can add one or more attribute field values as arguments to the application. When the action is invoked any
set of characters that start with a % followed by the name of a field will be replaced by the value of that field.
The special characters %% will be replaced by the value of the field that was selected from the identify results
or attribute table (see Using Actions below). Double quote marks can be used to group text into a single
argument to the program, script or command. Double quotes will be ignored if preceded by a backslash.
If you have field names that are substrings of other field names (e.g., col1 and col10) you should indicateso, by surrounding the field name (and the % character) with square brackets (e.g., [%col10]). This will
prevent the %col10 field name being mistaken for the %col1 field name with a 0 on the end. The brackets
will be removed by QGIS when it substitutes in the value of the field. If you want the substituted field to be
surrounded by square brackets, use a second set like this: [[%col10]].
The Identify Results dialog box includes a (Derived) item that contains information relevant to the layer
type. The values in this item can be accessed in a similar way to the other fields by using preceeding thederived field name by (Derived).. For example, a point layer has an X and Y field and the value of these canbe used in the action with %(Derived).X and %(Derived).Y. The derived attributes are only available from the
Identify Results dialog box, not the Attribute Table dialog box.
Two example actions are shown below:– konqueror http://www.google.com/search?q=%nam– konqueror http://www.google.com/search?q=%%In the first example, the web browser konqueror is invoked and passed a URL to open. The URL performs
a Google search on the value of the nam field from our vector layer. Note that the application or script calledby the action must be in the path or you must provided the full path. To be sure, we could rewrite the firstexample as: /opt/kde3/bin/konqueror http://www.google.com/search?q=%nam. This will ensure that thekonqueror application will be executed when the action is invoked.
The second example uses the %% notation which does not rely on a particular field for its value. When theaction is invoked, the %% will be replaced by the value of the selected field in the identify results or attributetable.

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3.4. The Vector Properties Dialog
Using Actions
Actions can be invoked from either the Identify Results dialog or an Attribute Table dialog (recall thatthese dialogs can be opened by clicking

Identify Features orOpen Attribute Table ). To invoke

an action, right click on the record and choose the action from the popup menu. Actions are listed in the popup
menu by the name you assigned when defining the actions. Click on the action you wish to invoke.
If you are invoking an action that uses the %% notation, right-click on the field value in the Identify Results
dialog or the Attribute Table dialog that you wish to pass to the application or script.
Here is another example that pulls data out of a vector layer and inserts them into a file using bash and theecho command (so it will only workor perhaps). The layer in question has fields for a species nametaxon_name, latitude lat and longitude long. I would like to be able to make a spatial selection of a localities
and export these field values to a text file for the selected record (shown in yellow in the QGIS map area).
Here is the action to achieve this:bash -c "echo \"%taxon_name %lat %long\" >> /tmp/species_localities.txt"
After selecting a few localities and running the action on each one, opening the output file will show something
like this:Acacia mearnsii -34.0800000000 150.0800000000
Acacia mearnsii -34.9000000000 150.1200000000
Acacia mearnsii -35.2200000000 149.9300000000
Acacia mearnsii -32.2700000000 150.4100000000
As an exercise we create an action that does a Google search on the lakes layer. First we need to determine
the URL needed to perform a search on a keyword. This is easily done by just going to Google and doinga simple search, then grabbing the URL from the address bar in your browser. From this little effort we seethat the format is: http://google.com/search?q=qgis, where QGIS is the search term. Armed with thisinformation, we can proceed:
1. Make sure the lakes layer is loaded.
2. Open theLayer Properties

choose Properties

dialog by double-clicking on the layer in the legend or right-click andI from the popup menu.

3. Click on the Actions tab.
4. Enter a name for the action, for example Google Search.
5. For the action, we need to provide the name of the external program to run. In this case, we can use
Firefox. If the program is not in your path, you need to provide the full path.
6. Following the name of the external application, add the URL used for doing a Google search, up to but
not included the search term: http://google.com/search?q=
7. The text in the Action field should now look like this:firefox http://google.com/search?q=
8. Click on the drop-down box containing the field names for the lakes layer. It’s located just to the left of
the Insert Field button.
9. From the drop-down box, select Field containing label

NAMES

and click Insert Field .

10. Your action text now looks like this:firefox http://google.com/search?q=%NAMES
11. Fo finalize the action click the Insert action button.
This completes the action and it is ready to use. The final text of the action should look like this:firefox http://google.com/search?q=%NAMES
We can now use the action. Close the Layer Properties dialog and zoom in to an area of interest. Make
sure the lakes layer is active and identify a lake. In the result box you’ll now see that our action is visible:

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3.4.11. Diagram Tab

Figure 3.21.: Select feature and choose action
When we click on the action, it brings up Firefox and navigates to the URL http://www.google.com/search?
q=Tustumena. It is also possible to add further attribute fields to the action. Therefore you can add a “+” to theend of the action text, select another field and click on Insert Field . In this example there is just no otherfield available that would make sense to search for.
You can define multiple actions for a layer and each will show up in the Identify Results dialog.
You can think of all kinds of uses for actions. For example, if you have a point layer containing locations ofimages or photos along with a file name, you could create an action to launch a viewer to display the image.
You could also use actions to launch web-based reports for an attribute field or combination of fields, specifying
them in the same way we did in our Google search example.

3.4.11. Diagram Tab
The Diagram tab allows you to add a grahic overlay to a vector layer. To activate this feature, open
the Plugin Manager and select the ’Diagram Overlay’ plugin. After this, there is a new tab in the vector
Layer Properties dialog where the settings for diagrams may be entered (see figure 3.22).
The current implementation of diagrams provides support for piecharts, barcharts, proportional SVG symbols,
and for linear scaling of the diagram size according to a classification attribute. We will demonstrate an
example and overlay the alaska boundary layer a barchart diagram showing some temperature data from a
climate vector layer. Both vector layers are part of the QGIS sample dataset (see Section 1.4.
1. First click on the

Load Vector icon, browse to the QGIS sample dataset folder and load the two

vector shape layers alaska.shp and climate.shp.
2. Double click the climate layer in the map legend to open the Layer Properties dialog.
3. Click on the Diagram Overlay and select Bar chart as Diagram type.
4. In the diagram we want to display the values of the three columns T_F_JAN, T_F_JUL and T_F_MEAN.
First select T_F_JAN as Attributes and click Add attribute , then T_F_JUL and finally T_F_MEAN.
5. For linear scaling of the diagram size we define T_F_JUL as classification attribute.
6. Now click on Find maximum value , choose a size value and unit and click Apply
diagram in the QGIS main window.

to display the

7. You can now adapt the chart size, or change the attribute colors double clicking on the color values in
the attribute field. Figure 3.23 gives an impression.
8. Finally click Ok .

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3.5. Editing

Figure 3.22.: Vector properties dialog with diagram tab

3.5. Editing
QGIS supports various capabilities for editing OGR, PostGIS and Spatialite vector layers. Note - the procedure
for editing GRASS layers is different - see Section 7.7 for details.
QGIS Tip 14 C ONCURRENT E DITS
This version of QGIS does not track if somebody else is editing a feature at the same time as you. The lastperson to save their edits wins.

3.5.1. Setting the Snapping Tolerance and Search Radius
Before we can edit vertices, we must set the snapping tolerance and search radius to a value that allows us
an optimal editing of the vector layer geometries.
Snapping tolerance
Snapping tolerance is the distance QGIS uses to search for the closest vertex and/or segment you are trying
to connect when you set a new vertex or move an existing vertex. If you aren’t within the snap tolerance, QGIS
will leave the vertex where you release the mouse button, instead of snapping it to an existing vertex and/or
segment. The snapping tolerance setting affects all tools which work with tolerance.
1. A general, project wide snapping tolerance can be defined choosing Settings

Options . (OnMac: go to QGIS
Preferences, on Linux: Edit
Options .) In the Digitizing tab you
can select between to vertex, to segment or to vertex and segment as default snap mode. You can also
define a default snapping tolerance and a search radius for vertex edits. The tolerance an be set either
in map units or in pixels. The advantage of choosing pixels, is that the snapping tolerance doesn’t have

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3.5.1. Setting the Snapping Tolerance and Search RadiusFigure 3.23.: Diagram from temperature data overlayed on a map

to be changed after zoom operations. In our small digitizing project (working with the Alaska dataset),
we define the snapping units in feet. Your results may vary, but something on the order of 300ft should
be fine at a scale of 1:10 000 should be a reasonable setting.
2. A layer based snapping tolerance can be defined by choosing

Settings

(or

File

)

Project Properties. . . . In the General tab, section Digitize you can click on Snapping options. . .
to enable and adjust snapping mode and tolerance on a layer basis (see Figure 3.24).

Note that this layer based snapping overrides the global snapping option set in the Digitizing tab. So if you
need to edit one layer, and snap its vertices to another layer, then enable snapping only on the snap to layer,then decrease the global snapping tolerance to a smaller value. Furthermore, snapping will never occur to alayer which is not checked in the snapping options dialog, regardless of the global snapping tolerance. So be
sure to mark the checkbox for those layers that you need to snap to.
Search radius
Search radius is the distance QGIS uses to search for the closest vertex you are trying to move when you
click on the map. If you aren’t within the search radius, QGIS won’t find and select any vertex for editing and it
will pop up an annoying warning to that effect. Snap tolerance and search radius are set in map units or pixels,
so you may find you need to experiment to get them set right. If you specify too big of a tolerance, QGIS may
snap to the wrong vertex, especially if you are dealing with a large number of vertices in close proximity. Set
search radius too small and it won’t find anything to move.
The search radius for vertex edits in layer units can be defined in the Digitizing

tab under Settings

Options . The same place where you define the general, project wide snapping tolerance.

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3.5. Editing

Figure 3.24.: Edit snapping options on a layer basis

3.5.2. Zooming and Panning
Before editing a layer, you should zoom in to your area of interest. This avoids waiting while all the vertex
markers are rendered across the entire layer.
Apart from using the

pan andzoom-in /zoom-out icons on the toolbar with the mouse,navigating can also be done with the mouse wheel, spacebar and the arrow keys.
Zooming and panning with the mouse wheel
While digitizing you can press the mouse wheel to pan inside of the main window and you can roll the mousewheel to zoom in and out on the map. For zooming place the mouse cursor inside the map area and roll it
forward (away from you) to zoom in and backwards (towards you) to zoom out. The mouse cursor position willbe the center of the zoomed area of interest. You can customize the behavior of the mouse wheel zoom using
Options
I menu.
the Map tools tab under the Settings
Panning with the arrow keys
Panning the Map during digitizing is possible with the arrow keys. Place the mouse cursor inside the map area
and click on the right arrow key to pan east, left arrow key to pan west, up arrow key to pan north and downarrow key to pan south.
You can also use the spacebar to temporarily cause mouse movements to pan then map. The PgUp and
PgDown keys on your keyboard will cause the map display to zoom in or out without interrupting your digitisingsession.

Topological editing
Besides layer based snapping options the General tab in menu Settings
also provides some topological functionalities.
In the Digitizing
Enable topological editing and/or activate

Project Properties. . .
option group you can

Avoid intersections of new polygons .

Enable topological editing
The option
Enable topological editing is for editing and maintaining common boundaries in polygon mosaics. QGIS "detects" a shared boundary in a polygon mosaic and you only have to move the vertex once and
QGIS will take care about updating the other boundary.

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3.5.3. Digitizing an existing layer
Avoid intersections of new polygons
The second topological option called
Avoid intersections of new polygons avoids overlaps in polygon
mosaics. It is for quicker digitizing of adjacent polygons. If you already have one polygon, it is possible withthis option to digitise the second one such that both intersect and QGIS then cuts the second polygon to thecommon boundary. The advantage is that users don’t have to digitize all vertices of the common boundary.

3.5.3. Digitizing an existing layer
By default, QGIS loads layers read-only: This is a safeguard to avoid accidentally editing a layer if there is aslip of the mouse. However, you can choose to edit any layer as long as the data provider supports it, and theunderlying data source is writable (i.e. its files are not read-only). Layer editing is most versatile when usedon PostgreSQL/PostGIS data sources.
In general, editing vector layers is divided into a digitizing and an advanced digitizing toolbar, described in
Section 3.5.4. You can select and unselect both under Settings
Toolbars
I . Using the basic
digitizing tools you can perform the following functions:
Icon

Purpose

Icon

PurposeToggle editing

Adding Features: Capture Point

Adding Features: Capture Line

Adding Features: Capture Polygon

Move Feature

Node Tool

Delete Selected

Cut Features

Copy Features

Paste Features

Save edits and continue
Table 3.2.: Vector layer basic editing toolbar

All editing sessions start by choosing the
Toggle editing
after right clicking on the legend entry for that layer.

option. This can be found in the context menu

Toggle editing button from the digitizing toolbar to start or stop the editing

Alternately, you can use themode. Once the layer is in edit mode, markers will appear at the vertices, and additional tool buttons on theediting toolbar will become available.
QGIS Tip 15 S AVE R EGULARLY
Toggle editing

Remember to toggle

off regularly. This allows you to save your recent changes, andalso confirms that your data source can accept all your changes.

Adding Features
You can use theCapture point ,Capture line or

Capture polygon icons on the toolbar

to put the QGIS cursor into digitizing mode.
For each feature, you first digitize the geometry, then enter its attributes. To digitize the geometry, left-click on
the map area to create the first point of your new feature.
For lines and polygons, keep on left-clicking for each additional point you wish to capture. When you have finished adding points, right-click anywhere on the map area to confirm you have finished entering the geometryof that feature.

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3.5. Editing
The attribute window will appear, allowing you to enter the information for the new feature. Figure 3.25
shows setting attributes for a fictitious new river in Alaska. In the Digitising tab under the Settings
Options

I menu, you can also activate theSuppress attributes pop-up windows after each created feature .

Figure 3.25.: Enter Attribute Values Dialog after digitizing a new vector featureWith theMove Feature icon on the toolbar you can move existing features.

QGIS Tip 16 ATTRIBUTE VALUE T YPESAt least for shapefile editing the attribute types are validated during the entry. Because of this, it is not possible
to enter a number into the text-column in the dialog Enter Attribute Values or vica versa. If you need to
do so, you should edit the attributes in a second step within the Attribute table dialog.
Node Tool
For both PostgreSQL/PostGIS and shapefile-based layers, theNode Tool

provides manipulation ca-

pabilites of feature vertices similar to CAD programs. It is possible to simply select multiple vertices at once
and to move, add or delete them alltogether. The node tool also works with ’on the fly’ projection turned on
and supports the topological editing feature. This tool is, unlike other tools in Quantum GIS, persistent, sowhen some operation is done, selection stays active for this feature and tool. If the node tool couldn’t find any
features, a warning will be displayed.
Important is to set the property Settings

Options

Digitizing

Search Radius 10

to a

number greater than zero. Otherwise QGIS will not be able to tell which vertex is being edited.
QGIS Tip 17 V ERTEX M ARKERS
The current version of QGIS supports three kinds of vertex-markers - Semi transparent circle, Cross andNone. To change the marker style, choose
Options from the Settings menu and click on the Digitizing
tab and select the appropriate entry.
Basic operations
Start by activating theNode Tool and selecting some features by clicking on it. Red boxes appear ateach vertex of this feature. This is basic select of the feature. Functionalities are:– Selecting vertex: Selecting is easy just click on vertex and color of this vertex will change to blue. Whenselecting more vertices Shift key can be used to select more vertices. Or also the Ctrl key can

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3.5.3. Digitizing an existing layer
be used to invert selection of vertices (if selected then it will be unselected and when not selected vertex
will be selected). Also more vertices can be selected at once when clicking somewhere outside featureand opening a rectangle where all vertices inside will be selected. Or just click on an edge and bothadjacent vertices should be selected.
– Adding vertex: Adding vertex is simple, too. Just double click near some edge and a new vertex willappear on the edge near to the cursor. Note that vertex will appear on edge not on cursor position, there
it has to be moved if necessary.
– Deleting vertex: After selecting vertices for deletion, click the Delete key and vertices will be deleted.
Note that according to standard Quantum GIS behavior, it will leave a necessary number of vertices forthe feature type you are working on. To delete a complete feature, another tool has to be used.
– Moving vertex: Select all vertices you want to move. All selected vertices are moving in the same
direction as the cursor. If snapping is enabled, the whole selection can jump to the nearest vertex orline.
The Release button stores all changes and a new entry appears in the undo dialog. Remember that all
operations support topological editing when turned on. On the fly projection is also supported.
Cutting, Copying and Pasting Features
Selected features can be cut, copied and pasted between layers in the same QGIS project, as long as destination layers are set to

Toggle editing beforehand.

Features can also be pasted to external applications as text: That is, the features are represented in CSV
format with the geometry data appearing in the OGC Well-Known Text (WKT) format.
However in this version of QGIS, text features from outside QGIS cannot be pasted to a layer within QGIS.
When would the copy and paste function come in handy? Well, it turns out that you can edit more than one
layer at a time and copy/paste features between layers. Why would we want to do this? Say we need to dosome work on a new layer but only need one or two lakes, not the 5,000 on our big_lakes layer. We cancreate a new layer and use copy/paste to plop the needed lakes into it.
As an example we are copying some lakes to a new layer:
1. Load the layer you want to copy from (source layer)
2. Load or create the layer you want to copy to (target layer)
3. Start editing for target layer
4. Make the source layer active by clicking on it in the legend
5. Use theSelect tool to select the feature(s) on the source layer

6. Click on the

Copy Features tool

7. Make the destination layer active by clicking on it in the legend
8. Click on the

Paste Features tool

9. Stop editing and save the changes
What happens if the source and target layers have different schemas (field names and types are not thesame)? QGIS populates what matches and ignores the rest. If you don’t care about the attributes being
copied to the target layer, it doesn’t matter how you design the fields and data types. If you want to make sureeverything - feature and its attributes - gets copied, make sure the schemas match.

QGIS Tip 18 C ONGRUENCY OF PASTED F EATURES
If your source and destination layers use the same projection, then the pasted features will have geometry
identical to the source layer. However if the destination layer is a different projection then QGIS cannot
guarantee the geometry is identical. This is simply because there are small rounding-off errors involved whenconverting between projections.

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3.5. Editing
Deleting Selected Features
If we want to delete an entire polygon, we can do that by first selecting the polygon using the regular
Select Featuresset, use theThetool. You can select multiple features for deletion. Once you have the selection

Delete Selected tool to delete the features.
Cut Features

tool on the digitizing toolbar can also be used to delete features. This effectively

deletes the feature but also places it on a “spatial clipboard". So we cut the feature to delete. We could thenpaste tool to put it back, giving us a one-level undo capability. Cut, copy, and paste work on

use thethe currently selected features, meaning we can operate on more than one at a time.
QGIS Tip 19 F EATURE D ELETION S UPPORTWhen editing ESRI shapefiles, the deletion of features only works if QGIS is linked to a GDAL version 1.3.2
or greater. The OS X and Windows versions of QGIS available from the download site are built using GDAL
1.3.2 or higher.

Saving Edited Layers
When a layer is in editing mode, any changes remain in the memory of QGIS. Therefore they are not committed/saved immediately to the data source or disk. If you want to save edits to the current layer but want tocontinue editing without leaving the editing mode, you can click theediting mode off with theSave Edits button. When you turnToggle editing (or quit QGIS for that matter), you are also asked if you wantto save your changes or discard them.
If the changes cannot be saved (e.g. disk full, or the attributes have values that are out of range), the QGIS
in-memory state is preserved. This allows you to adjust your edits and try again.
QGIS Tip 20 DATA I NTEGRITY
It is always a good idea to back up your data source before you start editing. While the authors of QGIS havemade every effort to preserve the integrity of your data, we offer no warranty in this regard.

3.5.4. Advanced digitizing
Icon

Purpose

Icon

Purpose

Undo

Redo

Simplify Feature

Add Ring

Add Part

Delete Ring

Delete Part

Reshape Features

Split Features

Merge Selected Features

Rotate Point Symbols

Table 3.3.: Vector layer advanced editing toolbar
Undo and Redo
The

Undo andRedo tools allow the user to undo or redo the last or a certain step within thevector editing operations. Basic view of Undo/Redo operations is a widget, where all operations are shown

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3.5.4. Advanced digitizing(see Figure 3.26). This widget is not displayed by default. Widget can be displayed by right clicking on toolbar
and activating the Undo/Redo check box. Undo/Redo is however active, even if the widget is not displayed.
When Undo is hit, the state of all features and attributes are reverted to the state before the reverted operation
happened. Changes which are done elsewhere (for example from some plugin), can show unspecific behavior
for some operations which appears in this box. The operations can be reverted or they stay the same.
An action can be triggered by clicking on Undo or Redo buttons or by clicking directly on the item to which you
want to return to. Another possibility to trigger an undo operation is to click on the undo/redo buttons in theadvanced digitizing tool bar.

Figure 3.26.: Redo and Undo digitizing steps
Simplify Feature
The

Simplify Feature tool allows to reduce the number of vertices of a feature, as long as the geometry

doesn’t change. You need to select a feature, it will be highlighted by a red rubber band and a slider appears.
Moving the slider, the red rubber band is changing its shape to show how the feature is being simplified.
Clicking OK the new, simplified geometry will be stored. If a feature cannot be simplified (e.g. MultiPolygons),
a message shows up.
Add Ring
You can create ring polygons using the

Add Ring

icon in the toolbar. This means inside an existingarea it is possible to digitize further polygons, that will occur as a ’hole’, so only the area in between theboundaries of the outer and inner polygons remain as a ring polygon.
Add Part
add part

You canpolygons to a selected multipolygon. The new part polygon has to be digitizedoutside the selected multipolygon.
Delete Ring
The

Delete Ring tool allows to delete ring polygons inside an existing area. This tool only works withpolygon layers. It doesn’t change anything when it is used on the outer ring of the polygon. This tool can be

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3.5. Editingused on polygon and mutli-polygon features. Before you select the vertices of a ring, adjust the vertex edit
tolerance.
Delete Part
The

Delete Part

tool allows to delete parts from multifeatures (e.g. to delete polygons from a multi-

polygon feature). It won’t delete the last part of the feature, this last part will stay untouched. This tool works
with all multi-part geometries point, line and polygon. Before you select the vertices of a part, adjust the vertex
edit tolerance.
Reshape Features
You can reshape line and polygon features using the

Reshape Features

icon on the toolbar. It re-places the line or polygon part from the first to the last intersection with the original line. With polygons thiscan sometime lead to unintended results. It is mainly useful to replace smaller parts of a polygon, not major
overhauls and the reshapeline is not allowed to cross several polygon rings as this would generate an invalide
polygon.
Note: The reshape tool may alter the starting position of a polygon ring or a closed line. So the point that isrepresented ’twice’ will not be the same any more. This may not be a problem for most applications, but it issomething to consider.
Split Features
Split Features icon on the toolbar. Just draw a line across the feature

You can split features using theyou want to split.
Merge selected features
The

Merge Selected Features

tool allows to merge features that have common boundaries and thesame attributes.
Rotate Point Symbols
The

Rotate Point Symbols

tool allows to change the rotation of point symbols in the map canvas, if

you have defined a rotation column from the attribute table of the point layer in the Symbology

tab of theLayer Properties . Otherwise the tool is inactive.

Figure 3.27.: Rotate Point Symbols

To change the rotation, select a point feature in the map canvas and rotate it holding the left mouse buttonpressed. A red arrow with the rotation value will be visualized (see Figure 3.27). When you release the left
mouse button again, the value will be updated in the attribute table.
Note: If you hold the Ctrl

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3.5.5. Creating a new Shapefile and Spatialite layer

3.5.5. Creating a new Shapefile and Spatialite layer
QGIS allows to create new Shapefile layers and new Spatialite layers. Creation of a new GRASS layer is
supported within the GRASS-plugin. Please refer to section 7.6 for more information on creating GRASS
vector layers.
Creating a new Shapefile layer
To create a new Shape layer for editing, choose new

New Shapefile Layerfrom the Layermenu. The New Vector Layer dialog will be displayed as shown in Figure 3.28. Choose the type of layer(point, line or polygon).

Figure 3.28.: Creating a new Shapefile layer Dialog
Note that QGIS does not yet support creation of 2.5D features (i.e. features with X,Y,Z coordinates) or measurefeatures. At this time, only shapefiles can be created. In a future version of QGIS, creation of any OGR or
PostgreSQL layer type will be supported.
To complete the creation of the new Shapefile layer, add the desired attributes by clicking on the Add buttonand specifying a name and type for the attribute. Only TypeType

stringreal, Typeinteger, andattributes are supported. Additionally and according to the attribute type you can also

define the width and precision of the new attribute column. Once you are happy with the attributes, click OK
and provide a name for the shapefile. QGIS will automatically add a .shp extension to the name you specify.
Once the layer has been created, it will be added to the map and you can edit it in the same way as describedin Section 3.5.3 above.
Creating a new SpatiaLite layer
To create a new SpatiaLite layer for editing, choose new

New SpatiaLite Layer from the Layermenu. The New SpatiaLite Layer dialog will be displayed as shown in Figure 3.29.
First step is to select an existing Spatialite database or to create a new Spatialite database. This can be donewith the browse ... button to the right of the database field. Then add a name for the new layer and define
the layer type and the EPSG SRID. If desired you can select to

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3.5. Editing

Figure 3.29.: Creating a New Spatialite layer Dialog

To define an attribute table for the new Spatialite layer, add the names of the attribute columns you want tocreate with the according column type and click on the Add to attribute list button. Once you are happy withthe attributes, click OK . QGIS will automatically add the new layer to the legend and you can edit it in thesame way as described in Section 3.5.3 above.
The spatialite creation dialog allows to create multiple layers without closing the dialog when you click Apply.

3.5.6. Working with the Attribute Table
The attribute table displays features of a selected layer. Each row in the table represents one map feature with
its attributes shown in several columns. The features in the table can be searched, selected, moved or evenedited.
To open the attribute table for a vector layer, make the layer active by clicking on it in the map legend area.
Then use Layer from the main menu and and choose
Open Attribute Table from the menu. It is also
possible to rightlick on the layer and choose
Open Attribute Table from the dropdown menu. This will
open a new window which displays the attributes for every feature in the layer (figure 3.30). The number offeatures are shown in the attribute table title.
Selecting features in an attribute table
A selected row in the attribute table represents all attributes of a selected feature in the layer. The attributetable reflects any changes in the layer selection in the main window and vice versa. A changed selection in theattribute table also causes a change in the selected feature set in the main window and different layer feature
selection means different rows are to be selected.
Rows can be selected by clicking on the row number on the left side of the row. Selecting a row doesn’tchange the current cursor position. Multiple rows can be marked by holding the Ctrl key. A continuous

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3.5.6. Working with the Attribute Table

Figure 3.30.: Attribute Table for Alaska layer

selection can be made by holding the Shift key and clicking on several row headers on the left side of therows. All rows between the current cursor position and the clicked row are selected.
Each column can be sorted by clicking on its column header. A small arrow indicates the sort order (downward
pointing means descending values from the top row down, upward pointing means ascending values from the
top rown down).
For a simple search by attributes on only one column the Look forfield can be used. Select the field(column) from which the search should be performed from the dropdown menu and hit the Search button.
The number of matching rows will appear in the status bar. For more complex searches use the Advanced
search ... , which will lauch the Search Query Builder described in Section 3.6.
To show selected records only, use the checkbox

Show selected records only . To search selected records

only, use the checkbox
Search selected records only . The other buttons at the bottom left of the attributetable window provide following functionality:–

Remove selection–

Move selected to top–

Invert selection–

Copy selected rows to clipboard also with Ctrl-C–

Zoom map to selected rows also with Ctrl-J–

toggle editing mode to edit single values of attribute table and to enable functionalities described
below.

–

Delete Selected Features–

New Column for PostGIS layers and for OGR layers with GDAL version >= 1.6.

–

Delete Column only for PostGIS layers yet.

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3.6. Query Builder–

Open field calcultor

Save selected features as new layer
The selected features can be saved as any OGR supported vector format and also transformed into another Coordinate Reference System (CRS). Just open the right mouse menu of the layer and click on
Save selection as
I to define the name of the output file, its format and CRS (see Section 2.2.3).
It is also possible to specify OGR creation options within the dialog.
QGIS Tip 21 M ANIPULATING ATTRIBUTE DATA
Currently only PostGIS layers are supported for adding or dropping attribute columns within this dialog. In
future versions of QGIS, other datasources will be supported, because this feature was recently implemented
in GDAL/OGR > 1.6.0
Working with non spatial attribute tables
QGIS allows also to load non spatial tables. This includes currently tables supported by OGR, delimited text
and the PostgreSQL provider. The tables can be used for field lookups or just generally browsed and editedusing the table view. When you load the table you will see it in the legend field. It can be opened e.g. with theOpen Attribute Table tool and is then editable like any other layer attribute table.
As an example you can use columns of the non spatial table to define attribute values or a range of values
that are allowed to be added to a specific vector layer during digitizing. Have a closer look at the edit widget
in section 3.4.7 to find out more.

3.6. Query Builder
The Advanced search. . . button opens the Query Builder and allows you to define a subset of a table usinga SQL-like WHERE clause, display the result in theh main window and save it as a Shapefile. For example, if
you have a towns layer with a population field you could select only larger towns by entering population >100000 in the SQL box of the query builder. Figure 3.31 shows an example of the query builder populated withdata from a PostGIS layer with attributes stored in PostgreSQL. The Fields, Values and Operators sections
help the user to construct the SQL-like WHERE clause easily in the text field SQL where clause window.
The Fields list contains all attributes of the attribute table to be searched. To add an attribute to the SQL
where clause field, double click its name in the Fields list. Generally you can use the various fields, values
and operators to construct the query or you can just type it into the SQL box.
The Values list lists the values of an attribute. To list all possible values of an attribute, select the attribute in
the Fields list and click the All button. To list all values of an attribute that are present in the sample table,
select the attribute in the Fields list and click the Sample button. To add a value to the SQL where clause
field, double click its name in the Values list.
The Operators section contains all usable operators. To add an operator to the SQL where clause field, click
the appropriate button. Relational operators ( = , > , . . . ), string comparison operator ( LIKE ), logical operators( AND , OR , . . . ) are available.
The Clear button clears the text in the SQL where clause text field. The Test button shows a message box
with the number of features satisfying the current query, which is usable in the process of query construction.
The OK button closes the window and selects the features satisfying the query. The Cancel button closes
the window without changing the current selection.
QGIS Tip 22 C HANGING THE L AYER D EFINITION
You can change the layer definition after it is loaded by altering the SQL query used to define the layer. To dothis, open the vector Layer Properties dialog by double-clicking on the layer in the legend and click on theQuery Builder button on the General tab. See Section 3.4 for more information.

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Figure 3.31.: Query Builder
Select by query
With QGIS it is possible also to select features using a similar query builder interface to that used in 3.6. In theabove section the purpose of the query builder is to only show features meeting the filter criteria as a ’virtual
layer’ / subset. The purpose of the select by query function is to highlight all features that meet a particular
criteria. Select by query can be used with all vector data providers.
To do a ‘select by query’ on a loaded layer, click on the button

Open Table to open the attribute tableof the layer. Then click the Advanced... button at the bottom. This starts the Query Builder that allows to
define a subset of a table and display it as described in Section 3.6.
Save selected features as new layer
The selected features can be saved as any OGR supported vector format and also transformed into another Coordinate Reference System (CRS). Just open the right mouse menu of the layer and click on
Save selection as
I to define the name of the output file, its format and CRS (see Section 2.2.3).
It is also possible to specify OGR creation options within the dialog.

3.7. Field Calculator
The

Field Calculator

button in the attribute table allows to perform calculations on basis of existing

attribute values or defined functions, e.g to calculate length or area of geometry features. The results canbe written to a new attribute column or it can be used to update values in an already existing column. The
creation of new attribute fields is currently only possible in PostGIS and with OGR formats, if GDAL version is>= 1.6.0.
You have to bring the vector layer in editing mode, before you can click on the field calculator icon to open the
dialog (see Figure 3.32). In the dialog you first have to select whether you want to update an existing field,
only update selected features or create a new attribute field, where the results of the calculation will be added.
If you choose to add a new field, you need to enter a field name, a field type (integer, real or string), the total

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3.7. Field Calculator

Figure 3.32.: Field Calculator
field width, and the field precision. For example, if you choose a field width of 10 and a field precision of 3 itmeans you have 6 signs before the dot, then the dot and another 3 signs for the precision.
The Fields list contains all attributes of the attribute table to be searched. To add an attribute to the Field
calculator expression field, double click its name in the Fields list. Generally you can use the various fields,
values and operators to construct the calculation expression or you can just type it into the box.
The Values list lists the values of an attribute field. To list all possible values, select the attribute field in the
Fields list and click the All button. To list all values of an attribute field that are present in the sample table,
select the attribute in the Fields list and click the Sample button. The procedure is the same as for the Query
Builder. To add a value to the Field calculator expression box, double click its name in the Values list.
The Operators section contains all usable operators. To add an operator to the Field calculator expressionbox, click the appropriate button. Mathematical calculations ( + , - , * . . . ), trigonometric functions ( sin, cos,tan, . . . ), extract geometric information ( length and area ) are available, together with concatenator (||) androw counter. Stay tuned for more operators to come!
A short example illustrates how the field calculator works. We want to calculate the length of the ’railroads’
layer from the QGIS _example_dataset:
1. Load the Shapefile railroads.shp in QGIS and open the Attribute Table dialog.
2. Click on

Toggle editing mode and open the

3. Unselect theUpdate existing field checkbox to enable the new field box.

Field Calculator dialog.

4. Add ’length’ as output field name, ’real’ as output field type and define output field width 10 and a
precision of 3.
5. Now click on Operator ’length’ to add it as $length into the field calculator expression box and click Ok.

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4. Working with Raster Data
This Section describes how to visualize and set raster layer properties. QGIS supports a number of different
raster formats. Currently tested formats include:– Arc/Info Binary Grid
– Arc/Info ASCII Grid
– GRASS Raster– GeoTIFF– JPEG– Spatial Data Transfer Standard Grids (with some limitations)– USGS ASCII DEM– Erdas Imagine
Because the raster implementation in QGIS is based on the GDAL library, other raster formats implemented
in GDAL are also likely to work - if in doubt try to open a sample and see if it is supported. You find moredetails about GDAL supported formats in Appendix A.2 or at http://www.gdal.org/formats_list.html. If
you want to load GRASS raster data, please refer to Section 7.2.

4.1. What is raster data?
Raster data in GIS are matrices of discrete cells that represent features on, above or below the earth’s surface.
Each cell in the raster grid is the same size, and cells are usually rectangular (in QGIS they will always berectangular). Typical raster datasets include remote sensing data such as aerial photography or satellite
imagery and modelled data such as an elevation matrix.
Unlike vector data, raster data typically do not have an associated database record for each cell. They are
geocoded by its pixel resolution and the x/y coordinate of a corner pixel of the raster layer. This allows QGIS
to position the data correctly in the map canvas.
QGIS makes use of georeference information inside the raster layer (e.g. GeoTiff) or in an appropriate world
file to properly display the data.

4.2. Loading raster data in QGIS
Raster layers are loaded either by clicking on the
View

Add Raster Layer

time by holding down themenu option.
orControl

Shift

Load Rastericon or by selecting theMore than one layer can be loaded at the same
key and clicking on multiple items in the dialog

Open a GDAL Supported Raster Data Source .
Once a raster layer is loaded in the map legend you can click on the layer name with the right mouse button
to select and activate layer specific features or to open a dialog to set raster properties for the layer.
Right mouse button menu for raster layers– Zoom to layer extent

I– Zoom to best scale (100%)

I

71

4.3. Raster Properties Dialog– Show in overview– RemoveI– Properties– RenameI

I
I– Add GroupI– Expand allI– Collapse allI

4.3. Raster Properties Dialog
To view and set the properties for a raster layer, double click on the layer name in the map legend or rightI from the context menu: Figure 4.1 shows the
click on the layer name and choose Properties
Raster Layer Properties dialog. There are several tabs on the dialog:– Symbology– Transparency– Colormap– General– Metadata– Pyramids– Histogram

4.3.1. Symbology Tab
QGIS can render raster layers in two different ways :– Single band - one band of the image will be rendered as gray or in pseudocolors.
– Three band color - three bands from the image will be rendered, each band representing the red, green
or blue component that will be used to create a color image.
Within both render types you can invert the color output using theInvert color map checkbox.

Single Band Rendering
This selection offers you two possibilites to choose. At first you can select which band you like to use forrendering (if the dataset has more than one band).
The second option offers a selection of available colortables for rendering.
The following settings are available through the dropdownbox color map

Grayscale, where grayscaleis the default setting. Also available are– Pseudocolor– Freak Out– Colormap
When selecting the entry color map

Colormap, the tab Colormap becomes available. See moreon that at chapter 4.3.3.

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4.3.2. Transparency Tab

Figure 4.1.: Raster Layers Properties Dialog

QGIS can restrict the data displayed to only show cells whose values are within a given number of standard
deviations of the mean for the layer. This is useful when you have one or two cells with abnormally high values
in a raster grid that are having a negative impact on the rendering of the raster. This option is only available
for pseudocolor images.
Three band color
This selection offers you a wide range of options to modify the appearance of your rasterlayer. For example
you could switch color-bands from the standard RGB-order to something else.
Also scaling of colors are available.
QGIS Tip 23 V IEWING A S INGLE B AND OF A M ULTIBAND R ASTER
If you want to view a single band (for example Red) of a multiband image, you might think you would set theGreen and Blue bands to “Not Set”. But this is not the correct way. To display the Red band, set the image
type to grayscale, then select Red as the band to use for Gray.

4.3.2. Transparency Tab
QGIS has the ability to display each raster layer at varying transparency levels. Use the transparency slider toindicate to what extent the underlying layers (if any) should be visible though the current raster layer. This isvery useful, if you like to overlay more than one rasterlayer, e.g. a shaded relief-map overlayed by a classified
rastermap. This will make the look of the map more three dimensional.

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4.3. Raster Properties Dialog
Additionally you can enter a rastervalue, which should be treated as NODATA. This can be done manually orwith theAdd values from display icon.

An even more flexible way to customize the transparency can be done in the Custom transparency options
section. The transparency of every pixel can be set in this tab.
As an example we want to set the water of our example rasterfile landcover.tif to a transparency of 20%.
The following steps are neccessary:
1. Load the rasterfile landcover
2. Open the properties dialog by double-clicking on the rasterfile-name in the legend or by right-clicking
and choosing Properties

I from the popup meun.

3. select the Transparency tab
Add values manually button. A new row will appear in the pixel-list.

4. Click the

5. enter the raster-value (we use 0 here) and adjust the transparency to 20%
6. press the Apply button and have a look at the map
You can repeat the steps 4 and 5 to adjust more values with custom transparency.
As you can see this is quite easy to set custom transparency, but it can be quite a lot of work. Therefore you canExport to file to save your transparency-list to a file. The button

use the button

Import from fileloads your transparency-settings and applies them to the current rasterlayer.

4.3.3. Colormap
The Colormap

tab is only available, when you have selected a single-band-rendering within the tab

Symbology (see chapt. 4.3.1).
Three ways of color interpolation are available:– Discrete– Linear– Exact
The button Add Entry

adds a color to the individual color-table. Double-Clicking on the value-column lets

you inserting a specific value. Double clicking on the color-column opens the dialog
you can select a color to apply on that value.
Alternatively you can click on the button

Select color

where

Load colormap from Band , which tries to load the table fromthe band (if it has any).
The block Generate new color map allows you to create newly categorized colormaps. You only needto select the number of classes 15

you need and press the button Classify . Currently only one

Classification modeis supported.

Equal Interval

4.3.4. General Tab
The General tab displays basic information about the selected raster, including the layer source and display
name in the legend (which can be modified). This tab also shows a thumbnail of the layer, its legend symbol,
and the palette.
Additionally scale-dependent visability can be set in this tab. You need to check the checkbox and set anappropriate scale where your data will be displayed in the map canvas.
Also the spatial reference system is printed here as a PROJ.4-string. This can be modified by hitting the74

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4.3.5. Metadata Tab
Change button.

4.3.5. Metadata Tab
The Metadata tab displays a wealth of information about the raster layer, including statistics about eachband in the current raster layer. Statistics are gathered on a ’need to know’ basis, so it may well be that agiven layers statistics have not yet been collected.
This tab is mainly for information. You cannot change any values printed inside this tab. To update the statistics
you need to change to tab Histogram and press the button Refresh on the bottom right, see ch. 4.3.7.

4.3.6. Pyramids Tab
Large resolution raster layers can slow navigation in QGIS. By creating lower resolution copies of the data(pyramids), performance can be considerably improved as QGIS selects the most suitable resolution to use
depending on the level of zoom.
You must have write access in the directory where the original data is stored to build pyramids.
Several resampling methods can be used to calculate the pyramides:– Average– Nearest Neighbour
When checking the checkbox

Build pyramids internally if possible QGIS tries to build pyramids internally.

Please note that building pyramids may alter the original data file and once created they cannot be removed. If
you wish to preserve a ’non-pyramided’ version of your raster, make a backup copy prior to building pyramids.

4.3.7. Histogram Tab
The Histogram

tab allows you to view the distribution of the bands or colors in your raster. You must first

generate the raster statistics by clicking the Refresh button. You can choose which bands to display by
selecting them in the list box at the bottom left of the tab. Two different chart types are allowed:– Bar chart– Line graph
You can define the number of chart columns to use and decide whether you want toor display

out of range

Allow approximation

values Once you view the histogram, you’ll notice that the band statistics havebeen populated on the metadata tab.
QGIS Tip 24 G ATHERING R ASTER S TATISTICS
To gather statistics for a layer, select pseudocolor rendering and click the Apply button. Gathering statistics
for a layer can be time consuming. Please be patient while QGIS examines your data!

4.4. Raster Calculator
The Raster Calculator in the Layer menu allows to perform calculations on basis of existing raster pixel
values. The results are written to a new raster layer with a GDAL supported format.
The Fields list contains all loaded raster layers that can be used. To add a raster to the raster calculator
expression field, double click its name in the Fields list. You can then use the operators to construct calculation
expressions or you can just type it into the box.

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4.4. Raster Calculator

Figure 4.2.: Raster Calculator
In the Result layer section you have to define an output layer. You can then define the extent of the calculation
area based on an input raster layer or based on X,Y coordinates and on Columns and Rows to set theresolution of the output layer. If the input layer has a different resolution, the values will be resampled withnearest neighbor algorithm.
The Operators section contains all usable operators. To add an operator to the raster calculator expressionbox, click the appropriate button. Mathematical calculations ( + , - , * . . . ) and trigonometric functions ( sin,cos, tan, . . . ) are available. Stay tuned for more operators to come!
With theResult to project checkbox the result layer will automatically added to the legend area and canbe visualized.

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5. Working with OGC Data
QGIS supports WMS and WFS as data sources. WMS-support is native; WFS and WFS-T is implemented asa plugin.

5.1. What is OGC Data
The Open Geospatial Consortium (OGC), is an international organization with more than 300 commercial,governmental, nonprofit and research organisations worldwide. Its members develop and implement standards for geospatial content and services, GIS data processing and exchange.
Describing a basic data model for geographic features an increasing number of specifications are developed
to serve specific needs for interoperable location and geospatial technology, including GIS. Further information
can be found under http://www.opengeospatial.org/.
Important OGC specifications are:
– WMS - Web Map Service– WFS - Web Feature Service– WCS - Web Coverage Service– CAT - Web Catalog Service– SFS - Simple Features for SQL– GML - Geography Markup Language
OGC services are increasingly being used to exchange geospatial data between different GIS implementations
and data stores. QGIS can now deal with three of the above specifications, being SFS (through support of the
PostgreSQL / PostGIS data provider, see Section 3.2), WFS and WMS as a client.

5.2. WMS Client
5.2.1. Overview of WMS Support
QGIS currently can act as a WMS client that understands WMS 1.1, 1.1.1 and 1.3 servers. It has particularly
been tested against publicly accessible servers such as DEMIS and JPL OnEarth.
WMS servers act upon requests by the client (e.g. QGIS) for a raster map with a given extent, set of layers,
symbolisation style, and transparency. The WMS server then consults its local data sources, rasterizes themap, and sends it back to the client in a raster format. For QGIS this would typically be JPEG or PNG.
WMS is generically a REST (Representational State Transfer) service rather than a fully-blown Web Service.
As such, you can actually take the URLs generated by QGIS and use them in a web browser to retrieve thesame images that QGIS uses internally. This can be useful for troubleshooting, as there are several brands of
WMS servers in the market and they all have their own interpretation of the WMS standard.
WMS layers can be added quite simply, as long as you know the URL to access the WMS server, you have aserviceable connection to that server, and the server understands HTTP as the data transport mechanism.

5.2.2. Selecting WMS Servers
The first time you use the WMS feature, there are no servers defined. You can begin by clicking the
Add WMS layer button inside the toolbar, or through the Layer

Add WMS Layer... menu.

775.2. WMS Client
The dialog Add Layer(s) from a Server for adding layers from the WMS server pops up. Fortunately you
can add some servers to play with by clicking the Add default servers button. This will add at least three
WMS servers for you to use, including the NASA (JPL) WMS server. To define a new WMS server in theLayers , select New . Then enter the parameters to connect to your desired WMS server, as listed in table
5.1:
Name

URL

Username
Password

A name for this connection. This name will be used in the Server Connections drop-down box so that you can distinguish it from other WMS
Servers.
URL of the server providing the data. This must be a resolvable hostname; the same format as you would use to open a telnet connection
or ping a host.
Username to access a secured WMS-server. This parameter is optional
Password for a basic authentificated WMS-server. This parameter is
optional.
Table 5.1.: WMS Connection Parameters

If you need to set up a proxy-server to be able to receive WMS-services from the internet, you can add yourproxy-server in the options. Choose menu Settings
Options and click on the Network & Proxytab. There you can add your proxy-settings and enable them by setting theMake sure that you select the correct proxy-type from the Proxy type

Use proxy for web access .

I dropdown menu.

Once the new WMS Server connection has been created, it will be preserved for future QGIS sessions.
QGIS Tip 25 O N WMS S ERVER URL S
Be sure, when entering in the WMS server URL, that you have the base URL. For example, you shouldn’t
have fragments such as request=GetCapabilities or version=1.0.0 in your URL.

5.2.3. Loading WMS Layers
Once you have successfully filled in your parameters you can select the Connect button to retrieve thecapabilities of the selected server. This includes the Image encoding, Layers, Layer Styles and Projections.
Since this is a network operation, the speed of the response depends on the quality of your network connection
to the WMS server. While downloading data from the WMS server, the download progress is visualized in theleft bottom of the WMS Plugin dialog.
Your screen should now look a bit like Figure 5.1, which shows the response provided by the NASA JPL
OnEarth WMS server.
Image Encoding
The Image encoding section now lists the formats that are supported by both the client and server. Choose
one depending on your image accuracy requirements.
QGIS Tip 26 I MAGE E NCODING
You will typically find that a WMS server offers you the choice of JPEG or PNG image encoding. JPEG is alossy compression format, whereas PNG faithfully reproduces the raw raster data.
Use JPEG if you expect the WMS data to be photographic in nature and/or you don’t mind some loss in picture
quality. This trade-off typically reduces by 5 times the data transfer requirement compared to PNG.
Use PNG if you want precise representations of the original data, and you don’t mind the increased datatransfer requirements.

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5.2.3. Loading WMS Layers

Figure 5.1.: Dialog for adding a WMS server, showing its available layers
Options
The Options section provides a text-field where you can add a name for the WMS-layer. This name will bepresented in the legend after loading the layer.
If the OnlineRessource-URL from the GetCapabilities-document is different from the given URL inside
the connection-parameters, QGIS will ask you which URL it should use. Depending on your answer
QGIS will check the checkboxes for yourself based on your answere. This can also be tweaked with aIgnore GetMap URL

checkbox and a

Ignore GetFeatureInfo URL

checkbox separately, also lateron.
LayersThe Layers tab lists the layers available from the selected WMS server. You may notice that some layers
are expandible, this means that the layer can be displayed in a choice of image styles.
You can select several layers at once, but only one image style per layer. When several layers are selected,
they will be combined at the WMS Server and transmitted to QGIS in one go.
QGIS Tip 27 WMS L AYER O RDERINGIn this version of QGIS, WMS layers rendered by a server are overlaid in the order listed in the Layers section,from top to bottom of the list. If you want to change the overlay order, you can use the Layer Order tab.

Transparency
In this version of QGIS, the transparency setting is hard-coded to be always on, where available.
QGIS Tip 28 WMS L AYER T RANSPARENCY
The availability of WMS image transparency depends on the image encoding used: PNG and GIF support
transparency, whilst JPEG leaves it unsupported.
Coordinate Reference System
A Coordinate Reference System (CRS) is the OGC terminology for a QGIS Projection.

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5.2. WMS Client
Each WMS Layer can be presented in multiple CRSs, depending on the capability of the WMS server. You
may notice that the x changes in the Coordinate Reference System (x available) header as you select anddeselect layers from the Layers section.
To choose a CRS, select Change... and a screen similar to Figure 6.2 in Section 6.3 will appear. The maindifference with the WMS version of the screen is that only those CRSs supported by the WMS Server will beshown.
QGIS Tip 29 WMS P ROJECTIONS
For best results, make the WMS layer the first layer you add to your project. This allows the project projection
to inherit the CRS you used to render the WMS layer. On-the-fly projection (see Section 6.2) can then be used
to fit any subsequent vector layers to the project projection. In this version of QGIS, if you add a WMS layer
later, and give it a different CRS to the current project projection, unpredictable results can occur.

5.2.4. Server-SearchWithin QGIS you can search for WMS-servers. Figure 5.2 shows the newly created search -tab with the
Add Layer(s) from a Server -dialog.

Figure 5.2.: Dialog for searching WMS servers after some keywords
As you can see it is possible to enter a search-string in the textfield an hit the Search button.
After a short while the search result will be populated into the tab below the textfield.
Browse the result list and inspect your searchresults within the table. To visualize the results, select an tableentry, press the Add selected row to WMS-list button and change back to the server tab.
QGIS automatically has updated your server list and the selected searchresult is already enabled in the list of
saved WMS-servers.
You only need to request the list of layers by clicking the Connect button.
This option is quite handy when you want to search maps by specific keywords.
Basically this option is a frontend to the API of http://geopole.org.

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5.2.5. Tilesets

5.2.5. Tilesets
When using WMS-C (Cached WMS) Services like http://labs.metacarta.com/wms-c/Basic.py you areable to browse through the tiles -tab given by the server. Additional information like tilesize, formats andsupported CRS are listed in this table.
In combination with this feature you can use the tile scale slider from the View
, which gives you the available scales from the tileserver with nice slider docked in.

tile scale slider

I

5.2.6. Using the Identify Tool
Once you have added a WMS server, and if any layer from a WMS server is queryable, you can then use
theIdentify

tool to select a pixel on the map canvas. A query is made to the WMS server for eachselection made.
The results of the query are returned in plain text. The formatting of this text is dependent on the particular
WMS server used.
Viewing Properties
Once you have added a WMS server, you can view its properties by right-clicking on it in the legend, andselecting Properties .
Metadata Tab
The Metadata tab displays a wealth of information about the WMS server, generally collected from the
Capabilities statement returned from that server.
Many definitions can be gleaned by reading the WMS standards [6], [7], but here are a few handy definitions:– Server Properties– WMS Version - The WMS version supported by the server.
– Image Formats - The list of MIME-types the server can respond with when drawing the map.
QGIS supports whatever formats the underlying Qt libraries were built with, which is typically atleast image/png and image/jpeg.
– Identity Formats - The list of MIME-types the server can respond with when you use the Identify
tool. Currently QGIS supports the text-plain type.
– Layer Properties– Selected - Whether or not this layer was selected when its server was added to this project.
– Visible - Whether or not this layer is selected as visible in the legend. (Not yet used in this version
of QGIS.)– Can Identify - Whether or not this layer will return any results when the Identify tool is used on it.
– Can be Transparent - Whether or not this layer can be rendered with transparency. This version of
QGIS will always use transparency if this is Yes and the image encoding supports transparency .
– Can Zoom In - Whether or not this layer can be zoomed in by the server. This version of QGIS
assumes all WMS layers have this set to Yes. Deficient layers may be rendered strangely.
– Cascade Count - WMS servers can act as a proxy to other WMS servers to get the raster data
for a layer. This entry shows how many times the request for this layer is forwarded to peer WMS
servers for a result.
– Fixed Width, Fixed Height - Whether or not this layer has fixed source pixel dimensions. Thisversion of QGIS assumes all WMS layers have this set to nothing. Deficient layers may be rendered
strangely.
– WGS 84 Bounding Box - The bounding box of the layer, in WGS 84 coordinates. Some WMS
servers do not set this correctly (e.g. UTM coordinates are used instead). If this is the case, thenthe initial view of this layer may be rendered with a very “zoomed-out” appearance by QGIS. The

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5.3. WMS Server
WMS webmaster should be informed of this error, which they may know as the WMS XML elements
LatLonBoundingBox, EX_GeographicBoundingBox or the CRS:84 BoundingBox.
– Available in CRS - The projections that this layer can be rendered in by the WMS server. These
are listed in the WMS-native format.
– Available in style - The image styles that this layer can be rendered in by the WMS server.

5.2.7. WMS Client Limitations
Not all possible WMS Client functionality had been included in this version of QGIS. Some of the more notable
exceptions follow:
Editing WMS Layer SettingsOnce you’ve completed the

Add WMS layer procedure, there is no ability to change the settings.

A workaround is to delete the layer completely and start again.
WMS Servers Requiring Authentication
Currently public accessible and secured WMS-services are supported. The secured WMS-servers can beaccessed by public authentification. You can add the (optional) credentials when you add a WMS-server. See
section 5.2.2 for details.
QGIS Tip 30 ACCESSING SECURED OGC- LAYERS
If you need to access secured layers with other secured methods than basic authentification, you could use
InteProxy as a transparent proxy, which does supports several authentification methods. More information canbe found at the InteProxy-manual found on the website http://inteproxy.wald.intevation.org.

5.3. WMS Server
QGIS mapserver is an open source WMS 1.3 implementation which, in addition, implements advanced cartographic features for thematic mapping. The QGIS mapserver is a FastCGI/CGI (Common Gateway Interface)application written in C++ that works together with a webserver (e.g. Apache, Lighttpd).
It uses QGIS as backend for the GIS logic and for map rendering. Furthermore the Qt library is used forgraphics and for platform independent C++ programming. In contrast to other WMS software, the QGIS
mapserver uses cartographic rules in SLD/SE as a configuration language, both for the server configurationand for the user-defined cartographic rules.
Moreover, the QGIS mapserver project provides the “Publish to Web” plugin, a plugin for QGIS desktop which
exports the current layers and symbology as a web project for QGIS mapserver (containing cartographic
visualisation rules expressed in SLD).
As QGIS desktop and QGIS mapserver use the same visualization libraries, the maps that are published on
the web look the same as in desktop GIS. The Publish to Web plugin currently supports basic symbolization,with more complex cartographic visualisation rules introduced manually. As the configuration is performed with
the SLD standard and its documented extensions, there is only one standardised language to learn, which
greatly simplifies the complexity of creating maps for the Web.
Further information is available at:
http://karlinapp.ethz.ch/qgis_wms/
http://www.qgis.org/wiki/QGIS_mapserver_tutorial
http://linfiniti.com/2010/08/qgis-mapserver-a-wms-server-for-the-masses/

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5.4. WFS and WFS-T Client
In QGIS, a WFS layer behaves pretty much like any other vector layer. You can identify and select features andview the attribute table. Since QGIS 1.6 editing (WFS-T) is also supported, if the server provides this feature.
To start the WFS plugin you need to open Plugins
Plugin Manager... , activate the
WFS plugin
checkbox and click OK .
A new

Add WFS Layer icon appears next to the WMS icon. Click on it to open the dialog. In generaladding a WFS layer is very similar to the procedure used with WMS. The difference is there are no default
servers defined, so we have to add our own.
Loading a WFS Layer
As an example we use the DM Solutions WFS server and display a layer. The URL is:
http://www2.dmsolutions.ca/cgi-bin/mswfs_gmap
1. Make sure the WFS plugin is loaded; if not, open the Plugin Manager and load it
Add WFS Layer tool on the plugins toolbar

2. Click on the
3. Click on New
4. Enter NameDM Solutions

as the name

5. Enter the URL (see previous page)
6. Click OK
7. Choose Server Connections

DM Solutions

from the drop-down box

8. Click Connect
9. Wait for the list of layers to be populated
10. Click on the Parks layer
11. Click Ok to add the layer to the map
12. Wait patiently for the features to appear
Note that the WFS-plugin also recognizes the proxy-settings you have set in your preferences.
Without using the checkbox
Only request features overlapping the current view extent QGIS fetches allfeatures from the WFS-server. If you only want to have a small selection based on your extent, zoom tothe area of interest, request the WFS-layer again and make sure you have checked the checkbox mentioned
above. Basically this addes the BBOX-parameter with the values from you current extent to the WFS-query.
This is extremly usefull when you only want to request some features from a huge WFS-dataset.
You’ll notice the download progress is visualized in the left bottom of the QGIS main window. Once the layer
is loaded, you can identify and select a province or two and view the attribute table.
Remember this plugin works best with MapServer WFS servers. It still could be, that you might experiencerandom behavior and crashes. You can look forward to improvements in a future version of the plugin.
This means that only WFS 1.0.0 is supported. At this point there have not been many test against WFS
versions implemented in other WFS-servers. If you encounter problems with any other WFS-server, please
do not hesitate to contacting the development team. Please refer to Section 13 for further information about
the mailinglists.
QGIS Tip 31 F INDING WFS S ERVERSYou can find additional WFS servers by using Google or your favorite search engine. There are a number oflists with public URLs, some of them maintained and some not.

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5.4. WFS and WFS-T Client

Figure 5.3.: Adding a WFS layer

QGIS Tip 32 ACCESSING SECURE WFS S ERVERS
Within the dialog Create a new WFS-connection QGIS does not support authenficated WFS-connections
yet. Within one of the next releases we expect to also support authenticated WFS-servers. Meanwhile you
could use InteProxy (http://inteproxy.wald.intevation.org) for accessing authenticated WFS-servers.

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6. Working with Projections
QGIS allows users to define a global and project-wide CRS (Coordinate Reference System) for layers without
a pre-defined CRS. It also allows the user to define custom coordinate reference systems and supports onthe-fly (OTF) projection of vector layers. All these features allow the user to display layers with different CRS
and have them overlay properly.

6.1. Overview of Projection Support
QGIS has support for approximately 2,700 known CRS. Definitions for each of these CRS are stored in a
SQLite database that is installed with QGIS. Normally you do not need to manipulate the database directly. In
fact, doing so may cause projection support to fail. Custom CRS are stored in a user database. See Section
6.4 for information on managing your custom coordinate reference systems.
The CRS available in QGIS are based on those defined by EPSG and are largely abstracted from the spatial_references table in PostGIS version 1.x. The EPSG identifiers are present in the database and can beused to specify a CRS in QGIS.
In order to use OTF projection, your data must contain information about its coordinate reference system or
you have to define a global, layer or project-wide CRS. For PostGIS layers QGIS uses the spatial reference
identifier that was specified when the layer was created. For data supported by OGR, QGIS relies on thepresence of a format specific means of specifying the CRS. In the case of shapefiles, this means a file containing the Well Known Text (WKT) specification of the CRS. The projection file has the same base name as
the shapefile and a prj extension. For example, a shapefile named alaska.shp would have a corresponding
projection file named alaska.prj.
Whenever you select a new CRS, the used layer units will automatically be changed in the General tab of
Project Properties dialog under the Edit (Gnome, OSX) or Settings (KDE, Windows) menu.

the6.2. Specifying a Projection
QGIS no longer sets the map CRS to the coordinate reference system of the first layer loaded. When you
start a QGIS session with layers that do not have a CRS, you need to control and define the CRS definition
for these layers. This can be done globally or project-wide in the CRS(Gnome, OSX) or Settings

tab under Edit

Options

Options (KDE, Windows). See Figure 6.1.

–

Prompt for CRS–

Project wide default CRS will be used–

Global default CRS displayed below will be used

The global default CRS proj=longlat +ellps=WGS84 +datum=WGS84 +no_defs comes predefined in QGIS
but can of course be changed, and the new definition will be saved for subsequent QGIS sessions.
If you want to define the coordinate reference system for a certain layer without CRS information, you can also
do that in the General tab of the raster (4.3.4) and vector (3.4.8) properties dialog. If your layer already has
a CRS defined, it will be displayed as shown in Figure 3.6.

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6.3. Define On The Fly (OTF) Projection

Figure 6.1.: CRS tab in the QGIS Options Dialog

6.3. Define On The Fly (OTF) Projection
QGIS does not have OTF projection enabled by default, and this function is currently only supported for vector
layers. To use OTF projection, you must open thethe

Project Properties

dialog, select a CRS and activate

Enable on the fly projection checkbox. There are two ways to open the dialog:

1. Select

Project Properties from the Edit (Gnome, OSX) or Settings (KDE, Windows) menu.

2. Click on the

projector icon in the lower right-hand corner of the statusbar.

If you have already loaded a layer, and want to enable OTF projection, the best practice is to open the
Coordinate Reference System tab of the Project Properties dialog, select the CRS of the currently
loaded layer, and activate theEnable on the fly projection

checkbox. The

projector

icon willshow a green hook and all subsequently loaded vector layers will be OTF projected to the defined CRS.
The Coordinate Reference System tab of the Project Properties dialog contains five important components as shown in Figure 6.2 and described below.
1. Enable on the fly projection - this checkbox is used to enable or disable OTF projection. When off,
each layer is drawn using the coordinates as read from the data source. When on, the coordinates ineach layer are projected to the coordinate reference system defined for the map canvas.
2. Coordinate Reference System - this is a list of all CRS supported by QGIS, including Geographic,
Projected and Custom coordinate reference systems. To use a CRS, select it from the list by expanding
the appropriate node and selecting the CRS. The active CRS is preselected.
3. Proj4 text - this is the CRS string used by the Proj4 projection engine. This text is read-only and provided
for informational purposes.

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Figure 6.2.: Projection Dialog

4. Search - if you know the EPSG code, the identifier or the name for a Coordinate Reference System, you can use the search feature to find it. Enter the identifier and click on Find . Use theHide deprecated CRSs checkbox to show only the currently valid projections.
5. Recently used CRS - if you have certain CRS that you frequently use in your everyday GIS work, thesewill be displayed in the table at the bottom of the Projection Dialog. Click on one of these buttons to
select the associated CRS.
QGIS Tip 33 P ROJECT P ROPERTIES D IALOG
If you open the

Project Properties

dialog from the Edit

(Gnome, OSX) or Settings(KDE, Windows)

menu, you must click on the Coordinate Reference System tab to view the CRS settings. Opening the dialog
from theprojector icon will automatically bring the Coordinate Reference System tab to the front.

6.4. Custom Coordinate Reference System
If QGIS does not provide the coordinate reference system you need, you can define a custom CRS. To definea CRS, selectCustom CRS from the Edit (Gnome, OSX) or Settings (KDE, Windows) menu. Custom
CRS are stored in your QGIS user database. In addition to your custom CRS, this database also contains
your spatial bookmarks and other custom data.
Defining a custom CRS in QGIS requires a good understanding of the Proj.4 projection library. To begin,refer to the Cartographic Projection Procedures for the UNIX Environment - A User’s Manual by Gerald I.
Evenden, U.S. Geological Survey Open-File Report 90-284, 1990 (available at ftp://ftp.remotesensing.
org/proj/OF90-284.pdf). This manual describes the use of the proj.4 and related command line utilities.

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6.4. Custom Coordinate Reference System

Figure 6.3.: Custom CRS Dialog
The cartographic parameters used with proj.4 are described in the user manual, and are the same as thoseused by QGIS.
The Custom Coordinate Reference System Definition
user CRS:

dialog requires only two parameters to define a

1. a descriptive name and2. the cartographic parameters in PROJ.4 format.
To create a new CRS, click theNewbutton and enter a descriptive name and the CRS parameters.

After that you can save your CRS by clicking the button

Save .

Note that the Parameters must begin with a +proj=-block, to represent the new coordinate reference system.
You can test your CRS parameters to see if they give sane results by clicking on the Calculate button inside
the Test block and pasting your CRS parameters into the Parameters field. Then enter known WGS 84 latitude
and longitude values in North and East fields respectively. Click on Calculate and compare the results withthe known values in your coordinate reference system.

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7. GRASS GIS Integration
The GRASS plugin provides access to GRASS GIS [2] databases and functionalities. This includes visualization of GRASS raster and vector layers, digitizing vector layers, editing vector attributes, creating new vector
layers and analysing GRASS 2D and 3D data with more than 300 GRASS modules.
In this Section we’ll introduce the plugin functionalities and give some examples on managing and working
with GRASS data. Following main features are provided with the toolbar menu, when you start the GRASS
plugin, as described in Section 7.1:–

Open mapset–

New mapset–

Close mapset–

Add GRASS vector layer–

Add GRASS raster layer–

Create new GRASS vector–

Edit GRASS vector layer–

Open GRASS tools–

Display current GRASS region–

Edit current GRASS region

7.1. Starting the GRASS plugin
To use GRASS functionalities and/or visualize GRASS vector and raster layers in QGIS, you must select andManage Plugins ,load the GRASS plugin with the Plugin Manager. Therefore click the menu Plugins
select GRASS

I and click OK .

You can now start loading raster and vector layers from an existing GRASS LOCATION (see Section 7.2). Or
you create a new GRASS LOCATION with QGIS (see Section 7.3.1) and import some raster and vector data
(see Section 7.4) for further analysis with the GRASS Toolbox (see Section 7.9).

7.2. Loading GRASS raster and vector layers
With the GRASS plugin, you can load vector or raster layers using the appropriate button on the toolbar
menu. As an example we use the QGIS alaska dataset (see Section 1.4). It includes a small sample GRASSLOCATION with 3 vector layers and 1 raster elevation map.
1. Create a new folder grassdata, download the QGIS alaska dataset qgis_sample_data.zip from http://download.osgeo.org/qgis/data/ and unzip the file into grassdata.
2. Start QGIS.

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3. If not already done in a previous QGIS session, load the GRASS plugin clicking on Plugins
Manage Plugins and selecting GRASS
4. In the GRASS toolbar, click the

I . The GRASS toolbar appears on the toolbar menu.

Open mapset icon to bring up the MAPSET wizard.

5. For Gisdbase browse and select or enter the path to the newly created folder grassdata.
6. You should now be able to select the LOCATION alaska and the MAPSET demo.
7. Click OK . Notice that some previously disabled tools in the GRASS toolbar are now enabled.
8. Click on

Add GRASS raster layer , choose the map name gtopo30 and click OK . The elevation

layer will be visualized.
9. Click on

Add GRASS vector layer , choose the map name alaska and click OK . The alaska

boundary vector layer will be overlayed on top of the gtopo30 map. You can now adapt the layer properties as described in chapter 3.4, e.g. change opacity, fill and outline color.
10. Also load the other two vector layers rivers and airports and adapt their properties.
As you see, it is very simple to load GRASS raster and vector layers in QGIS. See following Sections forediting GRASS data and creating a new LOCATION. More sample GRASS LOCATIONs are available at the
GRASS website at http://grass.osgeo.org/download/data.php.
QGIS Tip 34 GRASS DATA L OADING
If you have problems loading data or QGIS terminates abnormally, check to make sure you have loaded the
GRASS plugin properly as described in Section 7.1.

7.3. GRASS LOCATION and MAPSETGRASS data are stored in a directory referred to as GISDBASE. This directory often called grassdata, must
be created before you start working with the GRASS plugin in QGIS. Within this directory, the GRASS GIS
data are organized by projects stored in subdirectories called LOCATION. Each LOCATION is defined by its
coordinate system, map projection and geographical boundaries. Each LOCATION can have several MAPSETs(subdirectories of the LOCATION) that are used to subdivide the project into different topics, subregions, or as
workspaces for individual team members (Neteler & Mitasova 2008 [4]). In order to analyze vector and rasterlayers with GRASS modules, you must import them into a GRASS LOCATION. 1

7.3.1. Creating a new GRASS LOCATIONAs an example here is how the sample GRASS LOCATION alaska, which is projected in Albers Equal Area
projection with unit feet was created for the QGIS sample dataset. This sample GRASS LOCATION alaska will
be used for all examples and exercises in the following GRASS GIS related chapters. It is useful to download
and install the dataset on your computer 1.4).
1. Start QGIS and make sure the GRASS plugin is loaded
2. Visualize the alaska.shp Shapefile (see Section 3.1.1) from the QGIS alaska dataset 1.4.
3. In the GRASS toolbar, click on theOpen mapset icon to bring up the MAPSET wizard.

4. Select an existing GRASS database (GISDBASE) folder grassdata or create one for the new LOCATION
using a file manager on your computer. Then click Next .
5. We can use this wizard to create a new MAPSET within an existing LOCATION (see Section 7.3.2) or tocreate a new LOCATION altogether. Click on the radio button

Create new location(see Figure

1 This is not strictly true - with the GRASS modules r.external and v.external you can create read-only links to external GDAL/OGR-

supported data sets without importing them. But because this is not the usual way for beginners to work with GRASS, this functionality
will not be described here.

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7.3.1. Creating a new GRASS LOCATION

Figure 7.1.: GRASS data in the alaska LOCATION (adapted from Neteler & Mitasova 2008 [4])7.2).
6. Enter a name for the LOCATION - we used alaska and click Next
7. Define the projection by clicking on the radio button

Projection

to enable the projection list

8. We are using Albers Equal Area Alaska (feet) projection. Since we happen to know that it is represented
by the EPSG ID 2964, we enter it in the search box. (Note: If you want to repeat this process for another
LOCATION and projection and haven’t memorized the EPSG ID, click on the

projector icon in thelower right-hand corner of the status bar (see Section 6.3)).
9. Click Find to select the projection
10. Click Next
11. To define the default region, we have to enter the LOCATION bounds in north, south, east, and west
direction. Here we simply click on the button Set current QGIS extent , to apply the extend of theloaded layer alaska.shp as the GRASS default region extend.
12. Click Next
13. We also need to define a MAPSET within our new LOCATION. You can name it whatever you like - we used
demo. 2
14. Check out the summary to make sure it’s correct and click Finish
15. The new LOCATION alaska and two MAPSETs demo and PERMANENT are created. The currently opened
working set is MAPSET demo, as you defined.
16. Notice that some of the tools in the GRASS toolbar that were disabled are now enabled.
If that seemed like a lot of steps, it’s really not all that bad and a very quick way to create a LOCATION. The
LOCATION alaska is now ready for data import (see Section 7.4). You can also use the already existing vector
and raster data in the sample GRASS LOCATION alaska included in the QGIS alaska dataset 1.4 and moveon to Section 7.5.
2 When creating a new LOCATION, GRASS automatically creates a special MAPSET called PERMANENT designed to store the core data forthe project, its default spatial extend and coordinate system definitions (Neteler & Mitasova 2008 [4]).

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7.4. Importing data into a GRASS LOCATION

Figure 7.2.: Creating a new GRASS LOCATION or a new MAPSET in QGIS

7.3.2. Adding a new MAPSET
A user has only write access to a GRASS MAPSET he created. This means that besides access to his own
MAPSET, each user can read maps in other user’s MAPSETs, but he can modify or remove only the maps in
his own MAPSET. All MAPSETs include a WIND file that stores the current boundary coordinate values and thecurrently selected raster resolution (Neteler & Mitasova 2008 [4], see Section 7.8).
1. Start QGIS and make sure the GRASS plugin is loaded
2. In the GRASS toolbar, click on the

New mapset icon to bring up the MAPSET wizard.

3. Select the GRASS database (GISDBASE) folder grassdata with the LOCATION alaska, where we wantto add a further MAPSET, called test.
4. Click Next .
5. We can use this wizard to create a new MAPSET within an existing LOCATION or to create a new LOCATION
altogether. Click on the radio button

Select location(see Figure 7.2) and click Next .

6. Enter the name text for the new MAPSET. Below in the wizard you see a list of existing MAPSETs and its
owners.
7. Click Next , check out the summary to make sure it’s all correct and click Finish

7.4. Importing data into a GRASS LOCATIONThis Section gives an example how to import raster and vector data into the alaska GRASS LOCATION provided
by the QGIS alaska dataset. Therefore we use a landcover raster map landcover.img and a vector GML Filelakes.gml from the QGIS alaska dataset 1.4.
1. Start QGIS and make sure the GRASS plugin is loaded.
2. In the GRASS toolbar, click theOpen MAPSET icon to bring up the MAPSET wizard.

3. Select as GRASS database the folder grassdata in the QGIS alaska dataset, as LOCATION alaska, as
MAPSET demo and click OK .
4. Now click the

92

Open GRASS tools icon. The GRASS Toolbox (see Section 7.9) dialog appears.

QGIS 1.6.0 User Guide5. To import the raster map landcover.img, click the module r.in.gdal in the Modules Tree tab. ThisGRASS module allows to import GDAL supported raster files into a GRASS LOCATION. The module
dialog for r.in.gdal appears.
6. Browse to the folder raster in the QGIS alaska dataset and select the file landcover.img.
7. As raster output name define landcover_grass and click Run .
In the Output
tab
you see the currently running GRASS command r.in.gdal -o input=/path/to/landcover.img
output=landcover_grass.
8. When it says Succesfully finished click View output . The landcover_grass raster layer is now
imported into GRASS and will be visualized in the QGIS canvas.
9. To import the vector GML file lakes.gml, click the module v.in.ogr in the Modules Tree tab. ThisGRASS module allows to import OGR supported vector files into a GRASS LOCATION. The module dialog
for v.in.ogr appears.
10. Browse to the folder gml in the QGIS alaska dataset and select the file lakes.gml as OGR file.
11. As vector output name define lakes_grass and click Run . You don’t have to care about the otheroptions in this example. In the Output tab you see the currently running GRASS command v.in.ogr-o dsn=/path/to/lakes.gml output=lakes_grass.
12. When it says Succesfully finished click View output . The lakes_grass vector layer is now imported
into GRASS and will be visualized in the QGIS canvas.

7.5. The GRASS vector data model
It is important to understand the GRASS vector data model prior to digitizing. In general, GRASS uses a
topological vector model. This means that areas are not represented as closed polygons, but by one or moreboundaries. A boundary between two adjacent areas is digitized only once, and it is shared by both areas.
Boundaries must be connected and closed without gaps. An area is identified (and labeled) by the centroidof the area.
Besides boundaries and centroids, a vector map can also contain points and lines. All these geometry elements can be mixed in one vector and will be represented in different so called ’layers’ inside one GRASS
vector map. So in GRASS a layer is not a vector or raster map but a level inside a vector layer. This isimportant to distinguish carefully. 3
It is possible to store several ’layers’ in one vector dataset. For example, fields, forests and lakes can be stored
in one vector. Adjacent forest and lake can share the same boundary, but they have separate attribute tables.
It is also possible to attach attributes to boundaries. For example, the boundary between lake and forest is aroad, so it can have a different attribute table.
The ’layer’ of the feature is defined by ’layer’ inside GRASS. ’Layer’ is the number which defines if there are
more than one layer inside the dataset, e.g. if the geometry is forest or lake. For now, it can be only a number,in the future GRASS will also support names as fields in the user interface.
Attributes can be stored inside the GRASS LOCATION as DBase or SQLITE3 or in external database tables,for example PostgreSQL, MySQL, Oracle, etc.
Attributes in database tables are linked to geometry elements using a ’category’ value. ’Category’ (key, ID) is
an integer attached to geometry primitives, and it is used as the link to one key column in the database table.
QGIS Tip 35 L EARNING THE GRASS V ECTOR M ODELThe best way to learn the GRASS vector model and its capabilities is to download one of the many GRASS
tutorials where the vector model is described more deeply. See http://grass.osgeo.org/gdp/manuals.php
for more information, books and tutorials in several languages.

3 Although it is possible to mix geometry elements, it is unusual and even in GRASS only used in special cases such as vector network

analysis. Normally you should prefere to store different geometry elements in different layers.

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7.7. Digitizing and editing a GRASS vector layer

7.6. Creating a new GRASS vector layer
To create a new GRASS vector layer with the GRASS plugin click theCreate new GRASS vector

toolbar icon. Enter a name in the text box and you can start digitizing point, line or polygon geometries,
following the procedure described in Section 7.7.
In GRASS it is possible to organize all sort of geometry types (point, line and area) in one layer, because
GRASS uses a topological vector model, so you don’t need to select the geometry type when creating a
new GRASS vector. This is different from Shapefile creation with QGIS, because Shapefiles use the Simple
Feature vector model (see Section 3.5.5).
QGIS Tip 36 C REATING AN ATTRIBUTE TABLE FOR A NEW GRASS VECTOR LAYER
If you want to assign attributes to your digitized geometry features, make sure to create an attribute table withcolumns before you start digitizing (see Figure 7.7).

7.7. Digitizing and editing a GRASS vector layer
The digitizing tools for GRASS vector layers are accessed using theEdit GRASS vector layer

icon

on the toolbar. Make sure you have loaded a GRASS vector and it is the selected layer in the legend before
clicking on the edit tool. Figure 7.4 shows the GRASS edit dialog that is displayed when you click on the edit
tool. The tools and settings are discussed in the following sections.
QGIS Tip 37 D IGITIZING POLYGONS IN GRASS
If you want to create a polygon in GRASS, you first digitize the boundary of the polygon, setting the modeto No category. Then you add a centroid (label point) into the closed boundary, setting the mode to Next
not used. The reason is, that a topological vector model links attribute information of a polygon always to thecentroid and not to the boundary.
ToolbarIn Figure 7.3 you see the GRASS digitizing toolbar icons provided by the GRASS plugin. Table 7.1 explains
the available functionalities.

Figure 7.3.: GRASS Digitizing Toolbar
Category Tab
The Category tab allows you to define the way in which the category values will be assigned to a newgeometry element.
– Mode: what category value shall be applied to new geometry elements.
– Next not used - apply next not yet used category value to geometry element.
– Manual entry - manually define the category value for the geometry element in the ’Category’-entry
field.
– No category - Do not apply a category value to the geometry element. This is e.g. used for areaboundaries, because the category values are connected via the centroid.
– Category - A number (ID) is attached to each digitized geometry element. It is used to connect eachgeometry element with its attributes.
– Field (layer) - Each geometry element can be connected with several attribute tables using different
GRASS geometry layers. Default layer number is 1.

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Icon

Tool

PurposeNew Point

Digitize new point

New Line

Digitize new line (finish by selecting new tool)

New Boundary

Digitize new boundary (finish by selecting new tool)

New Centroid

Digitize new centroid (label existing area)

Move vertex

Move one vertex of existing line or boundary and identify new position

Add vertex

Add a new vertex to existing line

Delete vertex

Delete vertex from existing line (confirm selected vertex
by another click)Move element

Move selected boundary, line, point or centroid andclick on new position

Split line

Split an existing line to 2 parts

Delete element

Delete existing boundary, line, point or centroid (confirm selected element by another click)

Edit attributes

Edit attributes of selected element (note that one element can represent more features, see above)

Close

Close session and save current status (rebuilds topology afterwards)
Table 7.1.: GRASS Digitizing Tools

Settings Tab
The Settings tab allows you to set the snapping in screen pixels. The threshold defines at what distance new
points or line ends are snapped to existing nodes. This helps to prevent gaps or dangles between boundaries.
The default is set to 10 pixels.
Symbology Tab
The Symbology tab allows you to view and set symbology and color settings for various geometry types andtheir topological status (e.g. closed / opened boundary).
Table Tab
The Table tab provides information about the database table for a given ’layer’. Here you can add newcolumns to an existing attribute table, or create a new database table for a new GRASS vector layer (seeSection 7.6).

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7.9. The GRASS toolbox

Figure 7.4.: GRASS Digitizing Category Tab
QGIS Tip 38 C REATING AN ADDITIONAL GRASS ’ LAYER ’ WITH QGIS
If you would like to add more layers to your dataset, just add a new number in the ’Field (layer)’ entry box andpress return. In the Table tab you can create your new table connected to your new layer.

7.8. The GRASS region tool
The region definition (setting a spatial working window) in GRASS is important for working with raster layers.
Vector analysis is by default not limited to any defined region definitions. But all newly-created rasters will
have the spatial extension and resolution of the currently defined GRASS region, regardless of their originalextension and resolution. The current GRASS region is stored in the $LOCATION/$MAPSET/WIND file, and it
defines north, south, east and west bounds, number of columns and rows, horizontal and vertical spatial
resolution.
It is possible to switch on/off the visualization of the GRASS region in the QGIS canvas using the
Display current GRASS region button. .
With theEdit current GRASS region

icon you can open a dialog to change the current region andthe symbology of the GRASS region rectangle in the QGIS canvas. Type in the new region bounds andresolution and click OK . It also allows to select a new region interactively with your mouse on the QGIS
canvas. Therefore click with the left mouse button in the QGIS canvas, open a rectangle, close it using the left
mouse button again and click OK . The GRASS module g.region provide a lot more parameters to define
an appropriate region extend and resolution for your raster analysis. You can use these parameters with the
GRASS Toolbox, described in Section 7.9.

7.9. The GRASS toolbox
The

Open GRASS Tools

box provides GRASS module functionalities to work with data inside a se-lected GRASS LOCATION and MAPSET. To use the GRASS toolbox you need to open a LOCATION and MAPSET
where you have write-permission (usually granted, if you created the MAPSET). This is necessary, because
new raster or vector layers created during analysis need to be written to the currently selected LOCATION and
MAPSET.

7.9.1. Working with GRASS modules
The GRASS Shell inside the GRASS Toolbox provides access to almost all (more than 300) GRASS modules
in a command line interface. To offer a more user friendly working environment, about 200 of the available

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7.9.1. Working with GRASS modules

Figure 7.5.: GRASS Digitizing Settings Tab

Figure 7.6.: GRASS Digitizing Symbolog Tab
GRASS modules and functionalities are also provided by graphical dialogs. These dialogs are grouped in
categories, but are searchable as well.
A complete list of GRASS modules available in the graphical Toolbox in QGIS version 1.6.0 is available in the
GRASS wiki ( http://grass.osgeo.org/wiki/GRASS-QGIS_relevant_module_list.
It is also possible to customize the GRASS Toolbox content. This procedure is described in Section 7.9.4.
As shown in Figure 7.8, you can look for the appropriate GRASS module using the thematically grouped
Modules Tree or the searchable Modules List tab.
Clicking on a grapical module icon a new tab will be added to the toolbox dialog providing three new sub-tabs
Options , Output and Manual . In Figure 7.9 you see an example for the GRASS module v.buffer.

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7.9. The GRASS toolbox

Figure 7.7.: GRASS Digitizing Table Tab

QGIS Tip 39 GRASS E DIT P ERMISSIONS
You must be the owner of the GRASS MAPSET you want to edit. It is impossible to edit data layers in a MAPSET
that is not yours, even if you have write permissions.

(a) Modules Tree(b) Searchable Modules List

Figure 7.8.: GRASS Toolbox and searchable Modules List

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7.9.1. Working with GRASS modules(a) Module Options(b) Modules Output(c) Module Manual

Figure 7.9.: GRASS Toolbox Module Dialogs

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7.9. The GRASS toolbox
Options
The Options tab provides a simplified module dialog where you can usually select a raster or vector layer
visualized in the QGIS canvas and enter further module specific parameters to run the module. The provided module parameters are often not complete to keep the dialog clear. If you want to use further moduleparameters and flags, you need to start the GRASS Shell and run the module in the command line.
A new feature in QGIS 1.6.0 is the support for a show advanced options » button below the simplified module
dialog in the Options tab. At the moment it is only added to the module v.in.ascii as an example use, but willprobably be part of more / all modules in the GRASS toolbox in future versions of QGIS. This allows to use
the complete GRASS module options without the need to switch to the GRASS Shell.
OutputThe Output

tab provides information about the output status of the module. When you click the Run

button, the module switches to the Output tab and you see information about the analysis process. If all
works well, you will finally see a Successfully finished message.
ManualThe Manual tab shows the HTML help page of the GRASS module. You can use it to check further moduleparameters and flags or to get a deeper knowledge about the purpose of the module. At the end of each
module manual page you see further links to the Main Help index, the Thematic index and the Full index.
These links provide the same information as if you use the module g.manual
QGIS Tip 40 D ISPLAY RESULTS IMMEDIATELY
If you want to display your calculation results immediately in your map canvas, you can use the ’View Output’
button at the bottom of the module tab.

7.9.2. GRASS module examples
The following examples will demonstrate the power of some of the GRASS modules.
Creating contour lines
The first example creates a vector contour map from an elevation raster (DEM). Assuming you have the Alaska
LOCATION set up as explained in Section 7.4.
Open mapset button and choosing the Alaska location.

– First open the location by clicking the

Add GRASS raster layer– Now load the gtopo30 elevation raster by clicking

and selecting the

gtopo30 raster from the demo location.
– Now open the Toolbox with theOpen GRASS tools button.

– In the list of tool categories double click Rasterlines.

Surface Management

Generate vector contour– Now a single click on the tool r.contour will open the tool dialog as explained above 7.9.1. The gtopo30
gtopo30 .
raster should appear as the Name of input raster– Type into the Increment between Contour levels
at intervals of 100 meters.)– Type into the Name for output vector map

100

ctour_100

the value 100. (This will create contour lines
the name ctour_100.

– Click Run to start the process. Wait for several moments until the message Successfully finishedappears in the output window. Then click View Output and close .

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7.9.2. GRASS module examples(a) r.contour Options(b) r.contour Output

Figure 7.10.: GRASS Toolbox r.contour module
Since this is a large region, it will take a while to display. After it finishes rendering, you can open the layer
properties window to change the line color so that the contours appear clearly over the elevation raster, as in
3.4.
Next zoom in to a small mountainous area in the center of Alaska. Zooming in close you will notice that thecontours have sharp corners. GRASS offers the v.generalize tool to slightly alter vector maps while keeping
their overall shape. The tool uses several different algorithms with different purposes. Some of the algorithms(i.e. Douglas Peuker and Vertex reduction) simplify the line by removing some of the vertices. The resulting
vector will load faster. This process will be used when you have a highly detailed vector, but you are creatinga very small scale map, so the detail is unnecessary.
QGIS Tip 41 T HE SIMPLIFY TOOL
Note that the QGIS fTools plugin has a Simplify geometries
v.generalize Douglas-Peuker algorithm.

I

tool that works just like the GRASS

However, the purpose of this example is different. The contour lines created by r.contour have sharp angles
that should be smoothed. Among the v.generalize algorithms there is Chaikens which does just that (also
Hermite splines). Be aware that these algorithms can add additional vertices to the vector, causing it to load
even more slowly.
– Open the GRASS toolbox and double click the categories Vector
then click on the v.generalize module to open its options window.

Develop map– Check that the ctour_100 vector appears as the Name of input vector

Generalization,

ctour_100 .

– From the list of algorithms choose Chaiken’s. Leave all other options at their default, and scroll down toctour_100_smooth , and click Run .
the last row to enter the Name for output vector map– The process takes several moments. Once Successfully finished appears in the output windows,

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7.9. The GRASS toolbox
click View output and then close .
– You may change the color of the vector to display it clearly on the raster background and to contrast
with the original contour lines. You will notice that the new contour lines have smoother corners than theoriginal while staying faithful to the original overall shape.

Figure 7.11.: GRASS module v.generalize to smooth a vector map
QGIS Tip 42 OTHER USES FOR R . CONTOUR
The procedure described above can be used in other equivalent situations. If you have a raster map ofprecipitation data, for example, then the same method will be used to create a vector map of isohyetal (constantrainfall) lines
Creating a Hillshade 3D effect
Several methods are used to display elevation layers and give a 3D effect to maps. The use of contour lines
as shown above is one popular method often chosen to produce topographic maps. Another way to display
a 3D effect is by hillshading. The hillshade effect is created from a DEM (elevation) raster by first calculating
the slope and aspect of each cell, then simulating the sun’s position in the sky and giving a reflectance value
to each cell. Thus you get sun facing slopes lighted and the slopes facing away from the sun (in shadow) are
darkened.
– Begin this example by loading the gtopo30 elevation raster. Start the GRASS toolbox and under the
Raster category double click to open Spatial analysis
Terrain analysis.
– Then click r.shaded.relief to open the module.
– Change the azimuth angle
click run .

270

to 315. Enter gtopo30_shade for the new hillshade raster, and– When the process completes, add the hillshade raster to the map. You should see it displayed ingrayscale.

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7.9.2. GRASS module examples– To view both the hill shading and the colors of the gtopo30 together shift the hillshade map below theI window of gtopo30, switch to
gtopo30 map in the table of contents, then open the Properties
the transparency tab and set its transparency level to about 25%.
You should now have the gtopo30 elevation with its colormap and transparency setting displayed above thegrayscale hillshade map. In order to see the visual effects of the hillshading, turn off the gtopo30_shade map,then turn it back on.
Using the GRASS shell
The GRASS plugin in QGIS is designed for users who are new to GRASS, and not familiar with all the modules
and options. As such, some modules in the toolbox do not show all the options available, and some modules do
not appear at all. The GRASS shell (or console) gives the user access to those additional GRASS modules
that do not appear in the toolbox tree, and also to some additional options to the modules that are in the
toolbox with the simplest default parameters. This example demonstrates the use of an additional option in
the r.shaded.relief module that was shown above.

Figure 7.12.: The GRASS shell, r.shaded.relief module
The module r.shaded.relief can take a parameter zmult which multiplies the elevation values relative to the
X-Y coordinate units so that the hillshade effect is even more pronounced.
– Loadthegtopo30
elevation
rasterasabove,
then
start
the
box and click on the GRASS shell.
In the shell window typer.shaded.relief map=gtopo30 shade=gtopo30_shade2 azimuth=315 zmult=3
and press Enter .

GRASS
toolthe command:– After the process finishes shift to the Browse tab and double click on the new gtopo30_shade2 raster

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7.9. The GRASS toolbox
to display in QGIS.
– As explained above, shift the shaded relief raster below the gtopo30 raster in the Table of Contents, thencheck transparency of the colored gtopo30 layer. You should see that the 3D effect stands out morestrongly compared to the first shaded relief map.

Figure 7.13.: Displaying shaded relief created with the GRASS module r.shaded.relief

Raster statistics in a vector map
The next example shows how a GRASS module can aggregate raster data and add columns of statistics foreach polygon in a vector map.
– Again using the Alaska data, refer to 7.4 to import the trees shapefile from the vmap0_shapefiles directory into GRASS.
– Now an intermediary step is required: centroids must be added to the imported trees map to make it acomplete GRASS area vector (including both boundaries and centroids).
– From the toolbox choose Vector

Manage features, and open the module v.centroids.

– Enter as the output vector map

forest_areas

and run the module.

– Now load the forest_areas vector and display the types of forests - deciduous, evergreen, mixed - in
I window, symbology tab, choose
different colors: In the layer Properties
Legend type

Unique value

and set the Classification field

VEGDESC

to VEGDESC.

(Refer to the explanation of the symbology tab 3.4.1 in the vector section).
– Next reopen the GRASS toolbox and open Vector

Vector update by other maps.

– Click on the v.rast.stats module. Enter gtopo30, and forest_areas.
– Only one additional parameter is needed: Enter column prefix
elev , and click run . This is acomputationally heavy operation which will run for a long time (probably up to two hours).
– Finally open the forest_areas attribute table, and verify that several new columns have been added
including elev_min, elev_max, elev_mean etc. for each forest polygon.

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7.9.3. Working with the GRASS LOCATION browser

7.9.3. Working with the GRASS LOCATION browser
Another useful feature inside the GRASS Toolbox is the GRASS LOCATION browser. In Figure 7.14 you can
see the current working LOCATION with its MAPSETs.
In the left browser windows you can browse through all MAPSETs inside the current LOCATION. The right browser
window shows some meta information for selected raster or vector layers, e.g. resolution, bounding box, data
source, connected attribute table for vector data and a command history.

Figure 7.14.: GRASS LOCATION browser

The toolbar inside the Browser tab offers following tools to manage the selected LOCATION:–

Add selected map to canvas–

Copy selected map–

Rename selected map–

Delete selected map–

Set current region to selected map–

Refresh browser window

The

Rename selected map

andDelete selected map

only work with maps inside your currently

selected MAPSET. All other tools also work with raster and vector layers in another MAPSET.

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7.9. The GRASS toolbox

7.9.4. Customizing the GRASS Toolbox
Nearly all GRASS modules can be added to the GRASS toolbox. A XML interface is provided to parse thepretty simple XML files which configures the modules appearance and parameters inside the toolbox.
A sample XML file for generating the module v.buffer (v.buffer.qgm) looks like this:<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?><!DOCTYPE qgisgrassmodule SYSTEM "http://mrcc.com/qgisgrassmodule.dtd"><qgisgrassmodule label="Vector buffer" module="v.buffer"><option key="input" typeoption="type" layeroption="layer" /><option key="buffer"/><option key="output" /></qgisgrassmodule>
The parser reads this definition and creates a new tab inside the toolbox when you select the module. A moredetailed description for adding new modules, changing the modules group, etc. can be found on the QGIS
wiki athttp://wiki.qgis.org/qgiswiki/Adding_New_Tools_to_the_GRASS_Toolbox.

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8. Print Composer
The print composer provides growing layout and printing capabilities. It allows you to add elements such as
the QGIS map canvas, legend, scalebar, images, basic shapes, arrows and text labels. You can size, group,align and position each element and adjust the properties to create your layout. The layout can be printed orexported to image formats, Postscript, PDF or to SVG 1 and you can save the layout as template and load it
again in another session. See a list of tools in table 8.1:
Icon

Purpose

Icon

PurposeLoad from template

Save as template

Export to an image format

Export as PDF

Export print composition to SVG

Print or export as Postscript

Zoom to full extend

Zoom in

Zoom out

Refresh view

Add new map from QGIS map canvas

Add Image to print composition

Add label to print composition

Add new legend to print composition

Add new scalebar to print composition

Add basic shape to print composition

Add arrow to print composition

Add attribute table to print composition

Select/Move item in print composition

Move content within an item

Group items of print composition

Ungroup items of print composition

Raise selected items

Lower selected items

Move selected items to top

Move selected items to bottom

Align selected items left

Align selected items right

Align selected items center

Align selected items center vertical

Align selected items top

Align selected items bottom

Table 8.1.: Print Composer Tools
All Print Composer tools are availabe in menus and as icons in a toolbar. The toolbar can be switched off andon using the right mouse button holding the mouse over the toolbar.
1 Export to SVG supported, but it is not working properly with some recent QT4 versions. You should try and check individual on yoursystem107

8.2. Using Print Composer

8.1. Open a new Print Composer Template
Before you start to work with the print composer, you need to load some raster and vector layers in the QGIS
map canvas and adapt their properties to suite your own convenience. After everything is rendered and
New Print Composer

symbolized to your liking you click theicon in the toolbar or choose File

New Print Composer .

8.2. Using Print Composer

Figure 8.1.: Print Composer
Opening the print composer provides you with a blank canvas to which you can add the current QGIS map
canvas, legend, scalebar, images, basic shapes, arrows and text. Figure 8.1 shows the initial view of the printcomposer with an activatedprovides two tabs:– The General

Snap to grid modus but before any elements are added. The print composer

tab allows you to set paper size, orientation, the print quality for the output file in dpi

and to activate snapping to a grid of a defined resolution. Please note, theSnap to gridfeatureonly works, if you define a grid resolution > 0. Furthermore you can also activate thePrint as rastercheckbox. This means all elements will be rastered before printing or saving as Postscript of PDF.

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– The Item tab displays the properties for the selected map element. Click the

Select/Move item

icon to select an element (e.g. legend, scalebar or label) on the canvas. Then click the Item tab andcustomize the settings for the selected element.
You can add multiple elements to the composer. It is also possible to have more than one map view or legend
or scalebar in the print composer canvas. Each element has its own properties and in the case of the map, its
own extent. If you want to remove an elements from the composer canvas. you can do that with the deleteor the backspacekey.

8.3. Adding a current QGIS map canvas to the Print Composer
To add the QGIS map canvas, click on the

Add new map from QGIS map canvas

button in the printcomposer toolbar and drag a rectangle on the composer canvas with the left mouse button to add the map.
To display the current map, you can choose between three different modes in the map Item tab:
– Previewis the default setting. It only displays an empty box with a message "Map

Rectangle

will be printed here".
– Preview

Cacherenders the map in the current screen resolution. If case you zoom in or out

the composer window, the map is not rendered again but the image will be scaled.
– Preview

Rendermeans, that if you zoom in or out the composer window, the map will berendered again, but for space reasons, only up to a maximum resolution.
Cache is default preview mode for newly added print composer maps.
You can resize the map element by clicking on the

Select/Move item

button, selecting the element,

and dragging one of the blue handles in the corner of the map. With the map selected, you can now adapt
more properties in the map Item tab.
To move layers within the map element select the map element, click theMove item content icon andmove the layers within the map element frame with the left mouse button. After you found the right place foran element, you can lock the element position within the print composer canvas. Select the map element andclick on the right mouse button tolock the map element also activating theItem tab.

lock the element position and again to unlock the element. You canLock layers for map item checkbox in the Map dialog of the Map

Note: QGIS 1.6.0 is now able to show labels from the new labeling plugin also in the map composer, but it is
not yet scaled correctly. So it might be necessary to switch back to the standard labeling in some cases.

8.3.1. Map item tab - Map and Extents dialog
Map dialog
The Map dialog of the map item tab provides following functionalities (see Figure 8.2a)):– The Preview area allows to define the preview modes Rectangle, Cache and Render, as describedabove. Click on the Update preview button to apply changes to the map view.
– The Map area allows to resize the map element specifying the width and height or the scale. The
Rotation0

field allows to rotate the map element content clockwise in degrees. Note, a coor-dinate frame can only be added with the default value 0.

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8.3. Adding a current QGIS map canvas to the Print Composer(a) Map dialog(b) Extents dialog

Figure 8.2.: Print Composer map item tab - Map and Extents dialog

If you change the view on the QGIS map canvas by zooming or panning or changing vector or raster properties,
you can update the print composer view selecting the map element in the print composer and clicking theUpdate preview button.
Extents dialog
The Extents dialog of the map item tab provides following functionalities (see Figure 8.2b)):– The Map extent area allow to specify the map extent using Y and X min/max values or clicking the
Set to map canvas extent button.
If you change the view on the QGIS map canvas by zooming or panning or changing vector or raster properties,
you can update the print composer view selecting the map element in the print composer and clicking theUpdate preview button in the map Item tab (see Figure 8.2a)).

8.3.2. Map item tab - Grid and General options dialog
Grid dialog
The Grid dialog of the map item tab provides following functionalities (see Figure 8.3a)):– The
Show grid checkbox allows to overlay a grid to the map element. As grid type you can specify
to use solid line or cross. Furthermore you can define an interval in X and Y direction, an X and Y offset,
and the width used for cross or line grid type.
– The
Draw annotation checkbox allows to add coordinates to the map frame. The annotation canbe drawn inside or outside the map frame. As annotation direction can be defined horizontal, vertical,
horizontal and vertical or boundary direction. And finally you can define the grid color, the annotation
font, the annotation distance from the map frame and the precision of the drawn coordinates.
General options dialog
The General options dialog of the map item tab provides following functionalities (see Figure 8.3b)):– Here you can define color and outline width for the element frame, set a background color and opacity
for the map canvas. The Position button opens the Set items position dialog and allows to set the110

QGIS 1.6.0 User Guide(a) Grid dialog(b) General options dialog

Figure 8.3.: Print Composer map item tab - Grid and General options dialog

map canvas position using reference points or coordinates. Furthermore you can select or unselect todisplay the element frame with theShow frame checkbox.

8.4. Adding other elements to the Print Composer
Besides adding a current QGIS map canvas to the Print Composer, it is also possible to add, position, moveand customize legend, scalebar, images and label elements.

8.4.1. Label item tab - Label and General options dialog
To add a label, click the

Add labelicon, place the element with the left mouse button on the printcomposer canvas and position and customize their appearance in the label item tab.

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8.4. Adding other elements to the Print Composer(a) label options dialog(b) general options dialog

Figure 8.4.: Print composer label item tab - Label options and General options dialog
Label dialog
The Label dialog of the label item tab provides following functionalities (see Figure 8.4a)):– The Label dialog offers to add text labels to the composer canvas. You can define the horizontal andvertical alignment, select font and fontcolor for the text and it is possible to define a text margin im mm.
General options dialog
The General options dialog of the label item tab provides following functionalities (see Figure 8.4b)):– Here you can define color and outline width for the element frame, set a background color and opacity
for the label. The Position button opens the Set items position dialog and allows to set the map
canvas position using reference points or coordinates. Furthermore you can select or unselect to display
the element frame with theShow frame checkbox.

8.4.2. Image item tab - Picture options and General options dialog
To add an image, click the

Add image icon, place the element with the left mouse button on the printcomposer canvas and position and customize their appearance in the image item tab.
Picture options dialog
The Picture options dialog of the image item tab provides following functionalities (see Figure 8.5a)):– The Search directories area allows to add and remove directories with images in SVG format to the
picture database.
– The Preview field then shows all pictures stored in the selected directories.
– The Options area shows the current selected picture and allows to define width, height and clockwise rotation of the picture. It is also possible to add a user specific SVG path. Activating theSync from map
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8.4.3. Legend item tab - General, Legend items and Item option dialog(a) Picture options dialog(b) General options dialog

Figure 8.5.: Print composer image item tab - Picture options and General options
the appropriate print composer image.
General options dialog
The General options dialog of the image item tab provides following functionalities (see Figure 8.5b)):– Here you can define color and outline width for the element frame, set a background color and opacity
for the picture. The Position button opens the Set items position dialog and allows to set the map
canvas position using reference points or coordinates. Furthermore you can select or unselect to display
the element frame with theShow frame checkbox.

8.4.3. Legend item tab - General, Legend items and Item option dialog
To add a map legend, click the

Add new legend icon, place the element with the left mouse button on

the print composer canvas and position and customize their appearance in the legend item tab.
General dialog
The General dialog of the legend item tab provides following functionalities (see Figure 8.6a)):– Here you can adapt the legend title. You can change the font of the legend title, layer and item name.
You can change width and height of the legend symbol and you can add layer, symbol, icon label andbox space.
Legend items dialog
The Legend items dialog of the legend item tab provides following functionalities (see Figure 8.6b)):– The legend items window lists all legend items and allows to change item order, edit layer names, remove
and restore items of the list. After changing the symbology in the QGIS main window you can click on

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8.4. Adding other elements to the Print Composer(a) General dialog(b) Legend item dialog(c) Item options dialog

Figure 8.6.: Print composer legend item tab - General, Legend items and Item option dialog
Updateto adapt the changes in the legend element of the print composer. The item order can bechanged using the Up and Down buttons or with Drag and Drop functionality.
Item options dialog
The Item options dialog of the legend item tab provides following functionalities (see Figure 8.6c)):– Here you can define color and outline width for the element frame, set a background color and opacity
for the legend. The Position button opens the Set items position dialog and allows to set the map
canvas position using reference points or coordinates. Furthermore you can select or unselect to display
the element frame with theShow frame checkbox.

8.4.4. Scalebar item tab - Scalebar and General options dialog
To add a scalebar, click the

Add new scalebar icon, place the element with the left mouse button on

the print composer canvas and position and customize their appearance in the scalebar item tab.
Scalebar dialog
The Scalebar dialog of the scalebar item tab provides following functionalities (see Figure 8.7a)):– The scalebar dialog allows to define the segment size of the scalebar in map units, the map units used
per bar units, and how many left and right segments units from 0 should be used.
– You can define the scalebar style, available is single and double box, line ticks middle, up and down anda numeric style.

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QGIS 1.6.0 User Guide(a) scalebar options dialog(b) general options dialog

Figure 8.7.: Print composer scalebar item tab - Scalebar and General options dialog– Furthermore you can define height, line width, label and box space of the scale bar. Add a unit label anddefine the scalebar font and color.
General options dialog
The General options dialog of the scalebar item tab provides following features (see Figure 8.7b)):– Here you can define color and outline width for the element frame, set a background color and opacity
for the scalebar. The Position button opens the Set items position dialog and allows to set themap canvas position using reference points or coordinates. Furthermore you can select or unselect todisplay the element frame with theShow frame checkbox.

8.5. Navigation tools
For map navigation the print composer provides 4 general tools:–

Zoom in ,–Zoom out ,–Zoom to full extend and–Refresh the view , if you find the view in an inconsistent state.

8.6. Add Basic shape and Arrow
It is possible to add basic shapes (Ellipse, Rectangle, Triangle) and arrows to the print composer canvas.

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8.7. Add attribute table values(a) shape dialog(b) arrow dialog

Figure 8.8.: Print composer basic shape and arrow item tab - Shape and Arrow options dialog– The Shape dialog allows to draw an ellipse, rectangle, or triangle in the print composer canvas. You candefine its outline and fill color, the outline width and a clockwise rotation.
– The Arrow dialog allows to draw an arrow in the print composer canvas. You can define color, outline
and arrow width and it is possible to use a default marker and no marker and a SVG marker. For the
SVG marker you can additionally add a SVG start and end marker from a directory on your computer.

8.7. Add attribute table values
It is possible to add parts of a vector attribute table to the print composer canvas.

(a) table dialog(b) general options dialog

Figure 8.9.: Print composer attribute table item tab - Table and General options dialog

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QGIS 1.6.0 User GuideTable dialog
The Table dialog of the attribute table item tab provides following functionalities (see Figure 8.9a)):– The Table dialog allows to select the vector layer and columns of the attribute table. Attribute columns
can be sorted and you can define to show its values ascending or descending.
– You can define the maximum number of rows to be displayed and if attributes are only shown for visible
features of the current composer canvas.
– Additionally you can define the grid characteristics of the table and the header and content font.
General options dialog
The General options dialog of the attribute table item tab provides following functionalities (see Figure 8.9b)):– Here you can define color and outline width for the element frame, set a background color and opacity
for the table. The Position button opens the Set items position dialog and allows to set the map
canvas position using reference points or coordinates. Furthermore you can select or unselect to display
the element frame with theShow frame checkbox.

8.8. Raise, lower and align elements
Raise or lower functionalities for elements are inside theRaise selected items

pulldown menu.

Choose an element on the print composer canvas and select the matching functionality to raise or lower
the selected element compared to the other elements (see table 8.1).
There are several alignment functionalities available within the

Align selected items

pulldown menu

(see table 8.1). To use an alignment functionality , you first select some elements and then click on thematching alignment icon. All selected will then be aligned within to their common bounding box.

8.9. Creating Output
Figure 8.10 shows the print composer with an example print layout including each type of map element described in the sections above.
The print composer allows you to create several output formats and it is possible to define the resolution (print
quality) and paper size:– The

Print icon allows to print the layout to a connected printer or a Postscript file depending on

installed printer drivers.
– The

Export as image icon exports the composer canvas in several image formats such as PNG,

BPM, TIF, JPG, . . .
– TheExport as PDF saves the defined print composer canvas directly as a PDF.

– The

Export as SVG icon saves the print composer canvas as a SVG (Scalable Vector Graphic).

Note: Currently the SVG output is very basic. This is not a QGIS problem, but a problem of the underlaying Qt library. This will hopefully be sorted out in future versions.

8.10. Saving and loading a print composer layout
With theSave as template andLoad from template icons you can save the current state of a

print composer session as a *.qpt template and load the template again in another session.

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8.10. Saving and loading a print composer layout

Figure 8.10.: Print Composer with map view, legend, scalebar, coordinates and text added

The

Composer Manager

button in the toolbar and in File

Composer Manager

allows to

manage add new composer template or to manage already existing templates.

Figure 8.11.: Composer Manager

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9. QGIS Plugins
QGIS has been designed with a plugin architecture. This allows many new features/functions to be easily
added to the application. Many of the features in QGIS are actually implemented as either core or external
plugins.
– Core Plugins are maintained by the QGIS Development Team and are automatically part of every QGIS
distribution. They are written in one of two languages: C++ or Python. More information about coreplugins are provided in Section 10.
– External Plugins are currently all written in Python. They are stored in external repositories and maintained by the individual authors. They can be added to QGIS using the Plugin Installer. Moreinformation about external plugins are provided in Section 12.

9.1. Managing Plugins
Managing plugins in general means loading or unloading them using the Plugin Manager. External plugins
can be installed and directly activated or uninstalled using the Python Plugin Installer. To deactivate andreactivate external plugins, the Plugin Manager is used again.

9.1.1. Loading a QGIS Core Plugin
Loading a QGIS Core Plugin is done from the main menu Plugins

Manage Plugins... .

Figure 9.1.: Plugin Manager
The Plugin Manager lists all the available plugins and their status (loaded or unloaded), including all coreplugins and all external plugins that have been installed and automatically activated using the Python Plugin

1199.1. Managing Plugins
Installer (see Section 12). Those plugins that are already loaded have a check mark to the left of theirname. Figure 9.1 shows the Plugin Manager dialog.
To enable a particular plugin, click on the checkbox to the left of the plugin name, and click OK . Whenyou exit the application, a list of loaded plugins is retained, and the next time you run QGIS these plugins areautomatically loaded.
QGIS Tip 43 C RASHING P LUGINS
If you find that QGIS crashes on startup, a plugin may be at fault. You can stop all plugins from loading byediting your stored settings file (see 2.7 for location). Locate the plugins settings and change all the plugin
values to false to prevent them from loading.
For example, to prevent the Delimited text plugin fromloading, the entry in $HOME/.config/QuantumGIS/qgis.conf on Linux should look like this: Add Delimited
Text Layer=false. Do this for each plugin in the [Plugins] section. You can then start QGIS and add theplugins one at a time from the Plugin Manager to determine which plugin is causing the problem.

9.1.2. Loading an external QGIS Plugin
There is only one step required to integrate external plugins into QGIS:– Download an external plugin from a repository using the Python Plugin Installer (Section 9.1.3).
The new external plugin will be added to the list of available plugins in the Plugin Manager and is
automatically loaded.

9.1.3. Using the QGIS Python Plugin Installer

Figure 9.2.: Installing external python plugins
In order to download and install an external Python plugin,

click the menu

Plugins

Fetch Python Plugins... . The Plugin Installer window will appear (figure 9.2) with the tab Plugins, containing a list of all locally installed Python plugins, as well as plugins available in remote repositories.
Each plugin can be either:– not installed - this means the plugin is available in the repository, but is not installed yet. In order toinstall it, select the plugin from the list and click the Install plugin button.

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9.1.3. Using the QGIS Python Plugin Installer– new - this means that the plugin is newly available in the repository.
– installed - this indicates that the plugin is already installed. If it is also available in any repository theReinstall plugin button will be enabled. If the available version is older than the installed version, theDowngrade plugin button will appear instead.
– upgradeable - this means that the plugin is installed, but there is an updated version available. In thiscase, the Upgrade plugin button will be enabled.
– invalid - this means that the plugin is installed, but is unavailable or broken. The reason will be explainedin the plugin description field.
Plugins tab
To install a plugin, select it from the list and click the Install plugin button. The plugin is then activated andinstalled in its own directory.
–

Linux and other unices:./share/qgis/python/plugins/home/$USERNAME/.qgis/python/plugins–

Mac OS X:./Contents/MacOS/share/qgis/python/plugins/Users/$USERNAME/.qgis/python/plugins–

Windows:
C:\Program Files\QGIS\python\plugins
C:\Documents and Settings\$USERNAME\.qgis\python\plugins

If the installation is successful, a confirmation message will appear.
If the installation fails, the reason for the failure will be displayed in a warning dialog. Most often, errors are
the result of connection problems and/or missing Python modules. In the former case you will likely need
to wait before trying the install again, in the latter case, you should install the missing modules relevant toyour operating system prior to using the plugin.

For Linux, most required modules should be available

For install instructions in Windows visit the module home page. If you areusing a proxy, you may need to configure it under Edit
Options (Gnome, OSX) or Settings

via a package manager.

Options (KDE, Windows) on the Proxy tab.
The Uninstall plugin button is enabled only if the selected plugin is installed and is not a core plugin. Notethat if you have installed an update to a core plugin, you can uninstall this update with the Uninstall plugin
and revert to the version shipped with Quantum GIS. This default version however, cannot be uninstalled.
Repositories tab
The second tab Repositories , contains a list of plugin repositories available for the Plugin Installer.
By default, only the QGIS Official Repository is enabled. You can add several user-contributed repositories, including the central QGIS Contributed Repository and other external repositories by clicking theAdd 3rd party repositories button. The added repositories contain a large number of useful plugins which
are not maintained by the QGIS Development Team. As such, we cannot take any responsibility for them. You
can also manage the repository list manually, that is add, remove, and edit the entries. Temporarily disablinga particular repository is possible by clicking the Edit... button.
Options tab
The

Optionstab is where you can configure the settings of the Plugin Installer.

Check for updates on startup

The

checkbox tells QGIS to automatically look for plugin updates and news.

By default, if this feature is enabled all repositories listed and enabled in the Repositories tab are checked
for updates each time the program is started. The frequency of update checking can be adjusted using the

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dropdown menu, and may be adjusted from once a day right up to once a month. If a new plugin or update isavailable for one of the installed plugins, a notification will appear in the Status Bar. If the checkbox is disabled,
looking for updates and news is performed only when the Plugin Installer is manually launched from themenu.
Although the plugin installer update can handle ports different from 80, some internet connections will cause
problems when attempting to automatically check for updates. In these cases, a Looking for new plugins...
indicator will remain visible in the Status Bar during your entire QGIS session, and may cause a program crashwhen exiting. In this case please disable the checkbox.
In addition, you may specify the type of plugins that are displayed by the Plugin Installer. Under Allowed
plugins, you can specify whether you would like to:– Only show plugins from the official repository,– Show all plugins except those marked as experimental,– or Show all plugins, even those marked as experimental.
QGIS Tip 44 U SING EXPERIMENTAL PLUGINS
Experimental plugins are generally unsuitable for production use. These plugins are in the early stages ofdevelopment, and should be considered ’incomplete’ or ’proof of concept’ tools. The QGIS development teamdoes not recommend installing these plugins unless you intend to use them for9.2. Data Providers
Data Providers are "special" plugins that provides access to a data store. By default, QGIS supports PostGIS
layers and disk-based data stores supported by the GDAL/OGR library (Appendix A.1). A Data Provider plugin
extends the ability of QGIS to use other data sources.
Data Provider plugins are registered automatically by QGIS at startup. They are not managed by the Plugin
Manager but used behind the scenes when a data type is added as a layer in QGIS.

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Table 10.1.: 22 QGIS Core Plugins
Icon

PluginDescription

Add Delimited Text Layer

Loads and displays delimited text files containing x,y coordinates

Coordinate Capture

Capture mouse coordinate in different CRS

Copyright Label

Draws a copyright label with information

Diagram Overlay

Place charts (pie or bar) or proportional symbols over vector layers

DXF2Shape Converter

Converts from DXF to SHP file format

eVis

Event Visualization Tool

fToolsA suite of analysis, geometry, geoprocessing, and research tools

GDAL Tools

Raster tools: simplified graphical interface for most commonly used programs

GPS Tools

Tools for loading and importing GPS data

GRASS

Activates the mighty GRASS Toolbox

Georeferencer GDAL

Adding projection info to Rasterfiles using GDAL

Interpolation plugin

Interpolation on base of vertices of a vector layer

Raster Terrain Modelling

Compute slope, aspect, ruggedness and total curvature of DEMs

MapServer Export Plugin

Export a saved QGIS project file to a MapServer map file

North Arrow

Displays a north arrow overlayed onto the map

OGR Layer Converter

Translate vector layers between OGR suported formats

OpenStreetMap

Visualize and edit OpenStreetMap data

Oracle Georaster

Access Oracle Spatial GeoRasters

Plugin Installer

Downloads and installs QGIS python plugins

SPIT

Shapefile to PostgreSQL/PostGIS Import Tool

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Icon

PluginDescription

Quick Print

Quickly print a map with minimal effort

ScalebarDraws a scale bar

WFS

Load and display WFS layer

10.1. Coordinate Capture Plugin
The coordinate capture plugin is easy to use and provides the ability to display coordinates on the map canvas
for two selected Coordinate Reference Systems (CRS).

Figure 10.1.: Coordinate Cature Plugin

1. Start QGIS, selectProject Properties from the Settings (KDE, Windows) or File (Gnome, OSX)

menu and click on the Projection tab. As an alternative you you can also click on the

projector

icon in the lower right-hand corner of the statusbar.
2. Click on the
Enable on the fly projection checkbox and select a projected coordinate system of yourchoice (see also Section 6).
3. Load the coordinate capture plugin in the Plugin Manager (see Section 9.1.1) and ensure that the dialog
is visible by going to View > Panels
I and ensuring that
The cordinate capture dialog appears as shown in Figure 10.1.
4. Click on the

Coordinate Capture is enabled.

Click to the select the CRS to use for coordinate display icon and select a different

CRS from the one you selected above.
5. To start capturing coordinates, click on Start capture . You can now click anywhere on the map canvas
and the plugin will show the coordinates for both of your selected CRS.
6. To enable mouse coordinate tracking click themouse tracking icon.

7. You can also copy selected coordinates to the clipboard.

10.2. Decorations Plugins
The Decorations Plugins includes the Copyright Label Plugin, the North Arrow Plugin and the Scale Bar Plugin.
They are used to “decorate” the map by adding cartographic elements.

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10.2.1. Copyright Label Plugin
The title of this plugin is a bit misleading - you can add any random text to the map.

Figure 10.2.: Copyright Label Plugin
1. Make sure the plugin is loaded
2. Clickon

Plugins

Decorations

or

Copyright Label

I

use

the

Copyright Label button from the Toolbar.
3. Enter the text you want to place on the map. You can use HTML as shown in the example
4. Choose the placement of the label from the Placement
5. Make sure the

Bottom Rightdrop-down box

Enable Copyright Label checkbox is checked

6. Click OK
In the example above (default) places a copyright symbol followed by the date in the lower right hand cornerof the map canvas.

10.2.2. North Arrow Plugin
The North Arrow plugin places a simple north arrow on the map canvas. At present there is only one styleavailable. You can adjust the angle of the arrow or let QGIS set the direction automatically. If you choose to let
QGIS determine the direction, it makes its best guess as to how the arrow should be oriented. For placementof the arrow you have four options, corresponding to the four corners of the map canvas.

10.2.3. Scale Bar Plugin
The Scale Bar plugin adds a simple scale bar to the map canvas. You control the style and placement, as wellas the labeling of the bar.
QGIS only supports displaying the scale in the same units as your map frame. So if the units of your layers
are in meters, you can’t create a scale bar in feet. Likewise if you are using decimal degrees, you can’t createa scale bar to display distance in meters.
To add a scale bar:
1. Click on Plugins

Decorations

I

Scale Baror use the

Scale Barbuttonfrom the Toolbar.

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Figure 10.3.: North Arrow Plugin

2. Choose the placement from the Placement
3. Choose the style from the Scale bar style

Bottom Left
Tick Down

4. Select the color for the bar Color of bar

drop-down list
list
or use the default black color

5. Set the size of the bar and its label Size of bar 30 degrees
6. Make sure theEnable scale bar checkbox is checked

7. Optionally choose to automatically snap to a round number when the canvas is resized
Automatically snap to round number on resize
8. Click OK

Figure 10.4.: Scale Bar Plugin

QGIS Tip 45 P LUGINS S ETTINGS S AVED TO P ROJECT
When you save a .qgs project, any changes you have made to NorthArrow, ScaleBar and Copyright plugins
will be saved in the project and restored nexttime you load the project.

10.3. Delimited Text Plugin
The Delimited Text plugin allows you to load a delimited text file as a layer in QGIS.
Requirements
To view a delimited text file as layer, the text file must contain:

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1. A delimited header row of field names. This must be the first line in the text file.
2. The header row must contain an X and Y field. These fields can have any name.
3. The x and y coordinates must be specified as a number. The coordinate system is not important.
As an example of a valid text file we import the elevation point data file elevp.csv coming with the QGIS
sample dataset (See Section 1.4):
X;Y;ELEV-300120;7689960;13-654360;7562040;52
1640;7512840;3[...]
Some items of note about the text file are:
1. The example text file uses ; as delimiter. Any character can be used to delimit the fields.
2. The first row is the header row. It contains the fields X, Y and ELEV.
3. No quotes (") are used to delimit text fields.
4. The x coordinates are contained in the X field.
5. The y coordinates are contained in the Y field.
Using the Plugin
To use the plugin you must first enable it as described in Section 9.1.
Click the new toolbar icon

Add Delimited Text Layer

to open the Delimited Text dialog as shown in

Figure 10.5.

Figure 10.5.: Delimited Text Dialog
First select the file (e.g., qgis_sample_data/csv/elevp.csv) to import by clicking on the Browse button.
Once the file is selected, the plugin attempts to parse the file using the last used delimiter, in this case asemi-colon (;). To properly parse the file, it is important to select the correct delimiter. To change the delimiterto tab use \t (this is a regular expression for the tab character). After changing the delimiter, click Parse .
Once you have parsed the file, choose the X and Y fields from the drop down lists and enter a Layer name(e.g., elevp ) as shown in Figure 10.5. To add the layer to the map, click Add Layer . The delimited text file
now behaves as any other map layer in QGIS.

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10.4. Dxf2Shp Converter Plugin
The dxf2shape converter plugin can be used to convert vector data from DXF to Shapefile format. It requires
the following parameters to be specified before running:• Input DXF file: Enter path to the DXF file to be converted• Output Shp file: Enter desired name of the Shapefile to be created• Output file type: Specify the geometry type of the output Shapefile. Currently supported types arepolyline, polygon, and point.
• Export text labels: When this checkbox is enabled, an additional Shapefile point layer will be created,
and the associated dbf table will contain information about the "TEXT" fields found in the dxf file, and thetext strings themselves.

Figure 10.6.: Dxf2Shape Converter Plugin
Using the Plugin
1. Start QGIS, load the Dxf2Shape plugin in the Plugin Manager (see Section 9.1.1) and click on the
Dxf2Shape Converter

icon which appears in the QGIS toolbar menu. The Dxf2Shape plugin

dialog appears as shown in Figure 10.6.
2. Enter input DXF file, a name for the output Shapefile and the Shapefile type.
3. Enable theExport text labels checkbox if you want to create an extra point layer with labels.

4. Click Ok .

10.5. eVis Plugin
The Biodiversity Informatics Facility at the American Museum of Natural History’s (AMNH) Center for Biodiversity and Conservation (CBC) 1 has developed the Event Visualization Tool (eVis), another software tool to add
to the suite of conservation monitoring and decision support tools for guiding protected area and landscapeplanning. This plugin enables users to easily link geocoded (i.e., referenced with latitude and longitude or X
and Y coordinates) photographs, and other supporting documents, to vector data in QGIS.
eVis is now automatically installed and enabled in new versions of QGIS, and as with all plugins, it can bedisabled and enabled using the Plugin Manager (See Section 9.1).
The eVis plugin is made up of three modules: the Database Connection tool, Event ID tool, and the Event
Browser. These work together to allow viewing of geocoded photographs and other documents that are linked
1 This section is derived from Horning, N., K. Koy, P. Ersts.

2009. eVis (v1.1.0) User’s Guide. American Museum of Natural History,
Center for Biodiversity and Conservation. Available from http://biodiversityinformatics.amnh.org/, and released under the
GNU FDL.

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to features stored in vector files, databases, or spreadsheets.

10.5.1. Event Browser
The Event Browser module provides the functionality to display geocoded photographs that are linked to vector
features displayed in the QGIS map window. Point data, for example, can be from a vector file that can be input
using QGIS or it can be from the result of a database query. The vector feature must have attribute information
associated with it to describe the location and name of the file containing the photograph and, optionally, thecompass direction the camera was pointed when the image was acquired. Your vector layer must be loaded
into QGIS before running the Event Browser.
Launch the Event Browser module
To launch the Event browser module either click on theeVis

IeVis Event Browser

Event Browser icon or click on Plugins

I . This will open the Generic Event Browser window.

The Generic Event Browser window has three tabs displayed at the top of the window. The Display tab is used
to view the photograph and its associated attribute data. The Options tab provides a number of settings thatcan be adjusted to control the behavior of the eVis plugin. Lastly, the Configure External Applications tab isused to maintain a table of file extensions and their associated application to allow eVis to display documents
other than images.
Understanding the Display window
To see the Display window click on the Display tab in the Generic Event Browser window. The Display
window is used to view geocoded photographs and their associated attribute data.
– Display window: A window where the photograph will appear.
– Increase zoom button: Zoom in to see more detail. If the entire image cannot be displayed in thedisplay window, scroll bars will appear on the left and bottom sides of the window to allow you to panaround the image.
– Reduce zoom button: Zoom out to see more area.
– Zoom to full extent button: Displays the full extent of the photograph.
– Attribute information window: All of the attribute information for the point associated with the photograph being viewed is displayed here. If the file type being referenced in the displayed record is not animage but is of a file type defined in the Configure External Applications tab then when you double-clickon the value of the field containing the path to the file the application to open the file will be launched toview or hear the contents of the file. If the file extension is recognized the attribute data will be displayedin green.
– Navigation buttons: Use the Previous and Next buttons to load the previous or next feature when morethan one feature is selected.
– Feature indicator: This heading indicates which feature is being displayed and how many features areavailable for display.
Understanding the Options window– File location: A dropdown list to specify the attribute field that contains the directory path or URL for
the photographs or other documents being displayed. If the location is a relative path then the checkbox
to the right of the dropdown menu must be clicked. The base path for a relative path can be entered in
the Base Path text box below. Information about the different options for specifying the file location are
noted in the section 10.5.1 below.
– Compass bearing display field: A dropdown list to specify the attribute field that contains the compass
bearing associated with the photograph being displayed. If compass bearing information is available itis necessary to click the checkbox to the left of the dropdown menu title.
– Compass offset setting: Compass offsets can be used to compensate for declination (adjust bearings
collected using magnetic bearings to true north bearings). Click the Manual radio-button to enter theoffset in the text box or click the From Attribute radio-button to select the attribute field containing the

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Figure 10.7.: The eVis display window
offsets. For both of these options east declinations should be entered using positive values and west
declinations should use negative values.
– Directory base path: The base path onto which the relative path defined in Figure 10.8 (A) will beappended.
– Replace path: If this check-box is checked, only the file name from the A will be appended to the BasePath.
– Apply rule to all documents: If checked, the same path rules that are defined for photographs will be
used for non-image documents such as movies, text documents, and sound files. If not checked thepath rules will only apply to photographs and other documents will ignore the Base Path parameter.
– Save settings: If the check-box is checked the values for the associated parameters will be saved forthe next session when the window is closed or when the Save button below is pressed.
– Reset values: Resets the values on this line to the default setting.
– Restore faults: This will reset all of the fields to their default settings. It has the same effect as clicking
all of the Reset buttons.
– Save: This will save the settings without closing the Options pane.
Understanding the Configure External Applications window– File reference table: A table containing file types that can be opened using eVis. Each file type needs
a file extension and the path to an application that can open that type of file. This provides the capabilityof opening a broad range of files such as movies, sound recordings, and text documents instead of only
images.

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Figure 10.8.: The eVis Options window– Add new file type: Add a new file type with a unique extension and the path for the application that can
open the file.
– Delete current row: Delete the file type highlighted in the table and defined by a file extension and apath to an associated application.
Specifying the location and name of a photograph
The location and name of the photograph can be stored using an absolute or relative path or a URL if thephotograph is available on a web server. Examples of the different approaches are listed in Table 10.2.
Table 10.2.: Example format using absolute path, relative path, and a URL
X780596780596780819780596

Y
1784017
1784017
1784015
1784017FILE
BEARING
C:\Workshop\eVis_Data\groundphotos\DSC_0168.JPG
275/groundphotos/DSC_0169.JPG
80
http://biodiversityinformatics.amnh.org/evis_test_data/DSC_0170.JPG10
pdf:http://www.testsite.com/attachments.php?attachment_id-12
76

Specifying the location and name of a other supporting documents
Supporting documents such as text documents, videos, and sound clips can also be displayed or played byeVis. To do this it is necessary to add an entry in the file reference table that can be accessed from theConfigure External Applications window in the Generic Event Browser that matches the file extension to an

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10.5. eVis Plugin

Figure 10.9.: The eVis External Applications window

application that can be used to open the file. It is also necessary to have the path or URL to the file in theattribute table for the vector layer. One additional rule that can be used for URLs that don’t contain a fileextension for the document you want to open is to specify the file extension before the URL. The format is - fileextension:URL. The URL is preceded by the file extension and a colon, and is particularly useful for accessing
documents from Wikis and other web sites that use a database to manage the web pages (see Table 10.2).
Using the Generic Event Browser
When the Event Browser window opens a photograph will appear in the display window if the document
referenced in the vector file attribute table is an image and if the file location information in the Options window
is properly set. If a photograph is expected and it does not appear it will be necessary to adjust the parametersin the Options window.
If a supporting document (or an image that does not have a file extension recognized by eVis) is referenced
in the attribute table the field containing the file path will be highlighted in green in the attribute information
window if that file extension is defined in the file reference table located in the Configure External Applications
window. To open the document double-click on the green-highlighted line in the attribute information window.
If a supporting document is referenced in the attribute information window and the file path is not highlighted
in green then it will be necessary to add an entry for the file’s filename extension in the Configure External
Applications window. If the file path is highlighted in green but does not open when double-clicked it will benecessary to adjust the parameters in the Options window so the file can be located by eVis.
If no compass bearing is provided in the Options window a red asterisk will be displayed on top of the vector
feature that is associated with the photograph being displayed. If a compass bearing is provided then an arrow
will appear pointing in the direction indicated by the value in the compass bearing display field in the Generic
Event Browser window. The arrow will be centered over the point that is associated with the photograph orother document.
To close the Generic Event Browser window click on the Close button from the Display window.

10.5.2. Event ID Tool
The Event ID module allows you to display a photograph by clicking on a feature displayed in the QGIS map
window. The vector feature must have attribute information associated with it to describe the location andname of the file containing the photograph and optionally the compass direction the camera was pointed
when the image was acquired. This layer must be loaded into QGIS before running the Event ID tool.
Launch the Event ID module
To launch the Event ID module either click on the

Event ID

icon or click on Plugins

eVis
I
Event ID Tool
I . This will cause the cursor to change to an arrow with an“i”
on top of it signifying that the ID tool is active.
To view the photographs linked to vector features in the active vector layer displayed in the QGIS map window,
move the Event ID cursor over the feature and then click the mouse. After clicking on the feature, the Generic
Event Browser window is opened and the photographs on or near the clicked locality are available for display
in the browser. If more than one photograph is available, you can cycle through the different features using

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the Previous and Next buttons. The other controls are described in the Event Browser section of this guide.

10.5.3. Database connection
The Database Connection module provides tools to connect to and query a database or other ODDBC resource, such as a spreadsheet.
eVis can directly connect to four types of databases: Microsoft Access, PostgreSQL, MySQL, SQLITE, andcan also read from ODBC connections. When reading from an ODBC database (such as an Excel spreadsheet) it is necessary to configure your ODBC driver for the operating system you are using.
Launch the Database Connection module
To launch the Database Connection module either click on the appropriate icon
eVis

I

Database Connection

or click on Plugins

I . This will launch the Database Connection window.

The window has three tabs: Predefined Queries , Database Connection , and SQL Query . The Output
Console window at the bottom of the window displays the status of actions initiated by the different sections of
this module.
Connect to a database
Click on the Database Connection

tab to open the database connection interface. Next, click on the

Database TypeI dropdown menu to select the type of database that you want to connect to. If a
password or username is required, that information can be entered in the Username and Password textboxes.
Enter the database host in the Database Host textbox. This option is not available if you selected “MSAccess”
as the database type. If the database resides on your desktop you should enter “localhost.”
Enter the name of the database in the Database Name textbox. If you selected “ODBC” as the database type,
you need to enter the data source name.
When all of the parameters are filled in, click on the Connect button. If the connection is successful, a message
will be written in the Output Console window stating that the connection was established. If a connection was
not established you will need to check that the correct parameters were entered above.
– Database Type: A dropdown list to specify the type of database that will be used.
– Database Host: The name of the database host.
– Port The port number if a MYSQL or PostgreSQL database type is selected.
– Database Name The name of the database.
– Connect A button to connect to the database using the parameters defined above.
– Output Console The console window where messages related to processing are displayed.
– Username: Username for use when a database is password protected.
– Password: Password for use when a database is password protected.
– Predefined Queries: Tab to open the “Predefined Queries” window.
– Database Connection: Tab to open the “Database Connection” window.
– SQL Query: Tab to open the “SQL Query” window.
– Help: Displays the on line help.
– OK: Close the main “Database Connection” window.
Running SQL queries
SQL queries are used to extract information from a database or ODBC resource. In eVis the output from these
queries is a vector layer added to the QGIS map window. Click on the SQL Query tab to display the SQL
query interface. SQL commands can be entered in this text window. A helpful tutorial on SQL commands isavailable at http://www.w3schools.com/sql/. For example, to extract all of the data from a worksheet in an
Excel file, “select * from [sheet1$]” where“sheet1” is the name of the worksheet.
Click on the Run Query button to execute the command. If the query is successful a Database File Selection

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Figure 10.10.: The eVis Database connection window
window will be displayed. If the query is not successful an error message will appear in the Output Console
widow.
In the Database File Selection window, enter the name of the layer that will be created from the results of thequery in the Name of New Layer textbox.
– SQL Query Text Window: A screen to type SQL queries.
– Run Query: Button to execute the query entered in the SQL Query Window.
– Console Window: The console window where messages related to processing are displayed.
– Help: Displays the on line help.
– OK: Closes the main “Database Connection” window.
Use the X Coordinate
I and Y Coordinate
I dropdown menus to select the field from thedatabase that store the “X” (or longitude) and “Y” (or latitude) coordinates. Clicking on the OK button causes
the vector layer created from the SQL query to be displayed in the QGIS map window.
To save this vector file for future use, you can use the QGIS “Save as...” command that is accessed by rightclicking on the layer name in the QGIS map legend and then selecting “Save as shapefile.”
Running predefined queriesWith predefined queries you can select previously written queries stored in XML format in a file. This isparticularly helpful if you are not familiar with SQL commands. Click on the Predefined Queries tab to134

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10.5.3. Database connection

Figure 10.11.: The eVis SQL query tab

display the predefined query interface.
Open File icon. This opens the Open File window
To load a set of predefined queries click on thewhich is used to locate the file containing the SQL queries. When the queries are loaded their titles, asOpen File icon, thedefined in the XML file, will appear in the dropdown menu located just below thefull description of the query is displayed in the text window under the dropdown menu.
Select the query you want to run from the dropdown menu and then click on the SQL Query tab to see thatthe query has been loaded into the query window. If it is the first time you are running a predefined query or
are switching databases, you need to be sure to connect to the database.
Click on the Run Query button in the SQL Query tab to execute the command. If the query is successful a
Database File Selection window will be displayed. If the query is not successful an error message will appear
in the Output Console window.
– Open Query File: Launches the “Open File” file browser to search for the XML file holding the predefinedqueries.
– Predefined Queries: A dropdown list with all of the queries defined by the predefined queries XML file.
– Query description: A short description of the query. This description is from the predefined queries
XML file.
– Console Window: The console window where messages related to processing are displayed.

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Figure 10.12.: The eVis Perdefined queries tab

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10.5.3. Database connection
QGIS Tip 46 C REATING A VECTOR LAYER FROM A M ICROSOFT E XCEL W ORKSHEETWhen creating a vector layer from a Microsoft Excel Worksheet you might see that unwanted zeros (“0”) havebeen inserted in the attribute table rows beneath valid data.This can be caused by deleting the values forthese cells in Excel using the “backspace” key. To correct this problem you need to open the Excel file (you’ll
need to close QGIS if there if you are connected to the file to allow you to edit the file) and then use Edit
Delete to remove the blank rows from the file. To avoid this problem you can simply delete several rows in the
Delete before saving the file.
Excel Worksheet using Edit

– Help: Displays the on line help.
– OK: Closes the main “Database Connection” window.
XML format for eVis predefined queries
Table 10.3.: The XML tags read by eVis
Tag
query
shortdescription
description
databasetype
databaseport
databasename
databaseusername
databasepassword
sqlstatement
autoconnect

Description
Defines the beginning and end of a query statement.
A short description of the query that appears in the eVis dropdown menu.
A more detailed description of the query displayed in the Predefined Query
text window.
The database type as defined in the Database Type dropdown menu in the
Database Connection tab.
The port as defined in the Port textbox in the Database Connection tab.
The database name as defined in the Database Name textbox in the Database
Connection tab.
The database username as defined in the Username textbox in the Database
Connection tab.
The database password as defined in the Password textbox in the Database
Connection tab.
The SQL command.
A flag (“true” or “false”) to specify if the above tags should be used to automatically connect to database without running the database connection routine in
the Database Connection tab.

A complete sample XML file with three queries is displayed below:<?xml version="1.0"?><doc><query><shortdescription>Import all photograph points</shortdescription><description>This command will import all of the data in the SQLite database to QGIS</description><databasetype>SQLITE</databasetype><databasehost /><databaseport /><databasename>C:\textbackslash Workshop/textbackslash
eVis\_Data\textbackslash PhotoPoints.db</databasename><databaseusername /><databasepassword /><sqlstatement>SELECT Attributes.*, Points.x, Points.y FROM Attributes LEFT JOIN
Points ON Points.rec_id=Attributes.point_ID</sqlstatement><autoconnect>false</autoconnect></query><query><shortdescription>Import photograph points "looking across Valley"</shortdescription><description>This command will import only points that have photographs "looking across

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a valley" to QGIS</description><databasetype>SQLITE</databasetype><databasehost /><databaseport /><databasename>C:\Workshop\eVis_Data\PhotoPoints.db</databasename><databaseusername /><databasepassword /><sqlstatement>SELECT Attributes.*, Points.x, Points.y FROM Attributes LEFT JOIN
Points ON Points.rec_id=Attributes.point_ID where COMMENTS=’Looking acrossvalley’</sqlstatement><autoconnect>false</autoconnect></query><query><shortdescription>Import photograph points that mention "limestone"</shortdescription><description>This command will import only points that have photographs that mention"limestone" to QGIS</description><databasetype>SQLITE</databasetype><databasehost /><databaseport /><databasename>C:\Workshop\eVis_Data\PhotoPoints.db</databasename><databaseusername /><databasepassword /><sqlstatement>SELECT Attributes.*, Points.x, Points.y FROM Attributes LEFT JOIN
Points ON Points.rec_id=Attributes.point_ID where COMMENTS like ’%limestone%’</sqlstatement><autoconnect>false</autoconnect></query></doc>

10.6. fTools Plugin
The goal of the fTools python plugin is to provide a one-stop resource for many common vector-based GIS
tasks, without the need for additional software, libraries, or complex workarounds. It provides a growing suiteof spatial data management and analysis functions that are both fast and functional.
fTools is now automatically installed and enabled in new versions of QGIS, and as with all plugins, it can bedisabled and enabled using the Plugin Manager (See Section 9.1). When enabled, the fTools plugin adds
a Vector menu to QGIS, providing functions ranging from Analysis and Research Tools to Geometry andGeoprocessing Tools, as well as several useful Data Management Tools.
fTools functions
Tables 10.4 through 10.8 list the functions available via the fTools plugin, along with a brief description of eachfunction. For further information on an individual fTools function, please click the fTools InformationImenu item in the Vector menu.

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Analysis tools available via the fTools plugin
PurposeMeasure distances between two point layers, and output
results as a) Square distance matrix, b) Linear distance
Distance Matrix
matrix, or c) Summary of distances. Can limit distances to
the k nearest features.
Calculate the total sum of line lengths for each polygon of
Sum line lengtha polygon vector layer.
Count the number of points that occur in each polygon of
Points in polygon
an input polygon vector layer.
Tool

List unique values

List all unique values in an input vector layer field.

Basic statistic
Nearest NeighboranalysisMeannate(s)coordi-Line intersections

Compute basic statistics (mean, std dev, N, sum, CV) on
an input field.
Compute nearest neighbour statistics to assess the levelof clustering in a point vector layer.
Compute either the normal or weighted mean center of an
entire vector layer, or multiple features based on a unique
ID field.
Locate intersections between lines, and output results asa point shapefile. Useful for locating road or stream intersections, ignores line intersections with length > 0.

Table 10.4.: fTools Analysis tools

Icon

Research tools available via the fTools plugin
PurposeRandomly select n number of features, or n percentage ofRandom selection
featuresRandom selection Randomly select features within subsets based on awithin subsets
unique ID field.
Tool

Random points

Generate pseudo-random points over a given input layer.

Regular points
Vector grid
Select by location
Polygon from layer
extentGenerate a regular grid of points over a specified region
and export them as a point shapefile.
Generate a line or polygon grid based on user specified
grid spacing.
Select features based on their location relative to anotherlayer to form a new selection, or add or subtract from thecurrent selection.
Create a single rectangular polygon layer from the extent
of an input raster or vector layer.

Table 10.5.: fTools Research tools

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Icon

Geoprocessing tools available via the fTools plugin
PurposeCreate minimum convex hull(s) for an input layer, or based
Convex hull(s)on an ID field.
Create buffer(s) around features based on distance, or disBuffer(s)tance field.
Overlay layers such that output contains areas where bothIntersectlayers intersect.
Overlay layers such that output contains intersecting andUnion
non-intersecting areas.
Symetrical differ- Overlay layers such that output contains those areas of theence
input and difference layers that do not intersect.
Overlay layers such that output contains areas that interClip
sect the clip layer.
Overlay layers such that output contains areas not interDifference
secting the clip layer.
Merge features based on input field. All features with inDissolve
dentical input values are combined to form one single feature.
Tool

Table 10.6.: fTools Geoprocessing tools

Icon

Geometry tools available via the fTools plugin
PurposeCheck polygons for intersections, closed-holes, and fix
Check geometry
node ordering.
Add vector layer geometry info to point (XCOORD, YCOExport/Add geomORD), line (LENGTH), or polygon (AREA, PERIMETER)
etry columns
layer.
Calculate the true centroids for each polygon in an input
Polygon centroids
polygon layer.
Delaunay triangu- Calculate and output (as polygons) the delaunay triangulation
lation of an input point vector layer.
Generalise lines or polygons with a modified DouglasSimplify geometry
Peucker algorithm.
Multipart to sin- Convert multipart features to multiple singlepart features.
gleparts
Creates simple polygons and lines.
Singleparts to mul- Merge multiple features to a single multipart feature based
tiparton a unique ID field.
Convert polygons to lines, multipart polygons to multiple
Polygons to lines
singlepart lines.
Extract nodes from line and polygon layers and output
Extract nodes
them as points.
Tool

Table 10.7.: fTools Geometry tools

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Tool

Data management tools available via the fTools plugin
PurposeExport to projection
Define projection

Join attributes

Join attributes by
location
Split vector layer
Merge shapefiles

Project features to new CRS and export as new shapefile.
Specify the CRS for shapefiles whose CRS has not been
defined.
Join additional attributes to vector layer attribute tablebased on a dbf or csv file and output results to a newshapefile. Additional attributes can be from a vector layeror stand-alone dbf table.
Join additional attributes to vector layer based on spatial
relationship. Attributes from one vector layer are appended
to the attribute table of another layer and exported as ashapefileSplit input layer into multiple separate layers based on input field.
Merge several shapefiles within a folder into a new shapefile based on the layer type (point, line, area)

Table 10.8.: fTools Data management tools

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10.7. GDAL Tools Plugin
10.7.1. What is GDALTools?
The GDAL Tools plugin offers a GUI to the collection of tools in the Geospatial Data Abstraction Library,
http://gdal.osgeo.org. These are raster management tools to query, re-project, warp, merge a wide variety
of raster formats. Also included are tools to create a contour (vector) layer, or a shaded relief from a raster
DEM, and to make a vrt (Virtual Raster Tile in XML format) from a collection of one or more raster files. These
tools are available when the plugin is installed and activated.

10.7.2. The GDAL Library
The GDAL library consists of a set of command line programs, each with a large list of options. Users comfortable with running commands from a terminal may prefer the command line, with access to the full set of
options. The GDALTools plugin offers an easy interface to the tools, exposing only the most popular options.

Table 10.9.: List of GDAL tools
Build Virtual Raster

This program builds a VRT (Virtual Dataset) that is a mosaic of the list of input gdal
datasets.

ContourThis program generates a vector contour file from the input raster elevation model(DEM).

Rasterize

This program burns vector geometries (points, lines and polygons) into the rasterband(s) of a raster image. Vectors are read from OGR supported vector formats.
Note that the vector data must in the same coordinate system as the raster data; on
the fly reprojection is not provided.

Polygonize

This utility creates vector polygons for all connected regions of pixels in the rastersharing a common pixel value. Each polygon is created with an attribute indicating
the pixel value of that polygon. The utility will create the output vector datasource if
it does not already exist, defaulting to ESRI shapefile format.

Merge

This utility will automatically mosaic a set of images. All the images must be in thesame coordinate system and have a matching number of bands, but they may beoverlapping, and at different resolutions. In areas of overlap, the last image will becopied over earlier ones.

Sieve

The gdal_sieve.py script removes raster polygons smaller than a provided thresholdsize (in pixels) and replaces replaces them with the pixel value of the largest neighbour polygon. The result can be written back to the existing raster band, or copied
into a new file.

Proximity

The gdal_proximity.py script generates a raster proximity map indicating the distancefrom the center of each pixel to the center of the nearest pixel identified as a target
pixel. Target pixels are those in the source raster for which the raster pixel value is in
the set of target pixel values.

Near Black

This utility will scan an image and try to set all pixels that are nearly black (or nearly
white) around the collar to exactly black (or white). This is often used to "fix up"
lossy compressed airphotos so that color pixels can be treated as transparent whenmosaicing.

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Warp

The gdalwarp utility is an image mosaicing, reprojection and warping utility. The
program can reproject to any supported projection, and can also apply GCPs storedwith the image if the image is "raw" with control information.

Grid

This program creates regular grid (raster) from the scattered data read from the
OGR datasource. Input data will be interpolated to fill grid nodes with values, you
can choose from various interpolation methods.

Translate

The gdal_translate utility can be used to convert raster data between different
formats, potentially performing some operations like subsettings, resampling, andrescaling pixels in the process.

Information

The gdalinfo program lists various information about a GDAL supported rasterdataset.

Assign Projection

The gdalwarp utility is an image mosaicing, reprojection and warping utility. The program can reproject to any supported projection, and can also apply GCPs storedwith the image if the image is "raw" with control information. -s_srs srs def: source
spatial reference set. The coordinate systems that can be passed are anything supported by the OGRSpatialReference.SetFromUserInput() call, which includes EPSG
PCS and GCSes (ie. EPSG:4296), PROJ.4 declarations (as above), or the name ofa .prf file containing well known text. -t_srs srs_def: target spatial reference set. The
coordinate systems that can be passed are anything supported by the OGRSpatialReference.SetFromUserInput() call, which includes EPSG PCS and GCSes (ie.
EPSG:4296), PROJ.4 declarations (as above), or the name of a .prf file containing
well known text.

Build Overviews

The gdaladdo utility can be used to build or rebuild overview images for most supported file formats with one over several downsampling algorithms.

ClipperThis utility will automatically mosaic a set of images. All the images must be in thesame coordinate system and have a matching number of bands, but they may beoverlapping, and at different resolutions. In areas of overlap, the last image will becopied over earlier ones. -ul_lr ulx uly lrx lry: The extents of the output file. If not
specified the aggregate extents of all input files will be used.

RGB to PCTThis utility will compute an optimal pseudo-color table for a given RGB image using
a median cut algorithm on a downsampled RGB histogram. Then it converts theimage into a pseudo-colored image using the color table. This conversion utilizes
Floyd-Steinberg dithering (error diffusion) to maximize output image visual quality.

PCT to RGBThis utility will convert a pseudocolor band on the input file into an output RGB file ofthe desired format.

10.7.3. Examples
Below are some examples of use of the tools.

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Figure 10.13.: The GDALTools menu list

Getting information about a raster
Creating contour lines
This example will create contour lines from an SRTM elevation tile. and the result:
Using GDALwarp to reproject a raster
Here’s the dialog window for reprojecting a landcover image, originally in the Albers Equal Area projection for
Alaska (from the QGIS sample dataset) into Lon/Lat WGS84 (EPSG:4326).

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Figure 10.14.: The Information dialog window

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Figure 10.15.: The Contours dialog window

Figure 10.16.: The resulting contours layer

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Figure 10.17.: The GDAL warp dialog window

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10.8. Georeferencer Plugin
The Georeferencer Plugin is a tool for generating world files for rasters. It allows you to reference rasters togeographic or projected coordinate systems by creating a new GeoTiff or by adding a world file to the existing
image. The basic approach to georeferencing a raster is to locate points on the raster for which you canaccurately determine their coordinates.
Features

Icon

Purpose

Icon

PurposeOpen rasterStart georeferencing

Generate GDAL script

Load GCP Points

Save GCP Points asTransformation settings

Add Point

Delete Point

Move GCP Point

Pan

Zoom in

Zoom out

Zoom to layer

Zoom Last

Zoom Next

Link Georeferencer to QGIS

Link QGIS to Georeferencer
Table 10.10.: Georeferencer Tools

Usual procedure
As X and Y coordinates (DMS (dd mm ss.ss), DD (dd.dd) or projected coordinates (mmmm.mm) which correspond with the selected point on the image, two alternative procedures can be used:
1. The raster itself sometimes provides crosses with coordinates ‘written’ on the image. In this case youcan enter the coordinates manually.
2. Using already georeferenced layers, this can be either vector or raster data that contain the same objects/features that you have on the image that you want to georeference and the projection you want tohave your image. In this case you can enter the coordinates by clicking on the reference dataset loadedin QGIS map canvas.
The usual procedure for georeferencing an image involves selecting multiple points on the raster, specifying
their coordinates, and choosing a relevant transformation type. Based on the input parameters and data, theplugin will compute the world file parameters. The more coordinates you provide, the better the result will be.
The first step is to start QGIS, load the Georeferencer Plugin (see Section 9.1.1) and click on theGeoreferencer

148

icon which appears in the QGIS toolbar menu. The Georeferencer Plugin dialog

QGIS 1.6.0 User Guideappears as shown in Figure 10.18.
For this example, we are using a topo sheet of South Dakota from SDGS. It can later be visualized together
with the data from the GRASS spearfish60 location. You can download the topo sheet here: http://grass.
osgeo.org/sampledata/spearfish_toposheet.tar.gz

Figure 10.18.: Georeferencer Plugin Dialog

Entering ground control points (GCPs)
1. To start georeferencing an unreferenced raster, we must load it using the
button. The raster willshow up in the main working area of the dialog. Once the raster is loaded, we can start to enter reference
points.
2. Using the

Add Point

button, add points to the main working area and enter their coordinates(See Figure 10.19). For this procedure you have two options:a) Click on a point in the raster image and enter the X and Y coordinates manuallyb) Click on a point in the raster image and choose the button

from map canvas to add the X

and Y coordinates with the help of a georeferenced map already loaded in the QGIS map canvas.
c) With the

button, you can move the GCPs in both windows, if they are at the wrong place.

3. Continue entering points. You should have at least 4 points, and the more coordinates you can provide,the better the result will be. There are additional tools on the plugin dialog to zoom and pan the working
area in order to locate a relevant set of GCP points.

Figure 10.19.: Add points to the raster image

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The points that are added to the map will be stored in a separate text file ([filename].points) usually together
with the raster image. This allows us to reopen the Georeferencer plugin at a later date and add new points
or delete existing ones to optimize the result. The points file contains values of the form: mapX, mapY, pixelX,’Load GCP Points’ and’Save GCP Points’ buttons to manage the files.
pixelY. You can use theWithin the GCP table you can click on a column header and therewith enable e.g. numerical sorting. The
GCP list is automatically updated.
Defining the transformation settings
After you have added your GCPs to the raster image, you need to define the transformation settings for thegeoreferencing process.

Figure 10.20.: Defining the georeferencer transformation settings
Available Transformation algorithms
Depending on how many ground control point you have captured, you may want to use different transformation
algorithms. Choice of transformation algorithm is also dependent on the type and quality of input data and theamount of geometric distortion that you are willing to introduce to final result.
Currently, following algorithms are available:– The Linear algorithm is used to create a world-file, and is different from the other algorithms, as it does
not actually transform the raster. This algorithm likely won’t be sufficient if you are dealing with scannedmaterial.
– The Helmert transformation performs simple scaling and rotation transformations.
– The Polynomial algorithms 1-3 are among the most widely used algorithms for georeferencing, andeach one differs by the degree of distortion introduced to match source and destination ground control
points. The most widely used polynomial algorithm is the second order polynomial transformation, whichallows some curvature. First order polynomial transformation (affine) preserves colliniarity and allows
scaling, translation and rotation only.
– The Thin plate spline (TPS) algorithm is a more modern georeferencing method, which is able tointroduce local deformations in the data. This algorithm is useful when very low quality originals arebeing georeferenced.
Define the Resampling method
The type of resampling you choose will likely depending on your input data and the ultimate objective of theexercise. If you don’t want to change statistics of the image, you might want to choose Nearest neighbour,
whereas a Cubic resampling will likely provide a more smoothed result.
It is prossible to choose between five different resampling methods.
1. Nearest neighbour
2. Linear
3. Cubic

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5. Lanczos
Define the transformation settings
There are several options that need to be defined for the georeferenced output raster.
– The checkbox
Create world file is only available, if you decide to use the linear transformation type,because this means that the raster image actually won’t be transformed. In this case, the field Output
raster is not activated, because only a new world-file will be created.
– For all other transformation type you have to define an Output raster. As default a new file ([filename]_modified) will be created in the same folder together with the original raster image.
– As a next step you have to define the Target SRS (Spatial Reference System) for the georeferenced
raster (see section 6).
– If you like, you can generate a pdf map and also a pdf report. The report ncludes information about
the used transformation parameters. An image of the residuals and a list with all GCPs and their RMS
errors.
– Furthermore you can activate theSet Target Resolution checkbox and define pixel resolution of theoutput raster. Default horizontal and vertical resolution is 1,– The
Use 0 for transparency when needed can be activated, if pixels with the value 0 shall be visualized transparent. In our example toposheet all white areas would be transparent.
– Finally
Load in QGIS when done
when the transformation is done.

loads the output raster automatically into the QGIS map canvas

Show and adapt raster properties
Clicking on the Raster properties dialog in the Settings
layer that you want to georeference.

I menu opens the raster properties of theConfigure the georeferencer– You can define if you want to show GCP coordiniates and/or IDs.
– As residual units pixels and map units can be chosen.
– For the PDF report a left and right margin can be defined and you can also set the paper size for the
PDF map.
– Finally you can activate toshow georeferencer window docked .

Running the transformation
After all GCPs have been collected and all transformation settings are defined, just press the button
georeferencing’ to create the new georeferenced raster.

’Start10.9. GPS Plugin
10.9.1. What is GPS?
GPS, the Global Positioning System, is a satellite-based system that allows anyone with a GPS receiver tofind their exact position anywhere in the world. It is used as an aid in navigation, for example in airplanes, inboats and by hikers. The GPS receiver uses the signals from the satellites to calculate its latitude, longitude
and (sometimes) elevation. Most receivers also have the capability to store locations (known as waypoints),
sequences of locations that make up a planned route and a tracklog or track of the receivers movement overtime. Waypoints, routes and tracks are the three basic feature types in GPS data. QGIS displays waypoints inpoint layers while routes and tracks are displayed in linestring layers.

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10.9. GPS Plugin

10.9.2. Loading GPS data from a file
There are dozens of different file formats for storing GPS data. The format that QGIS uses is called GPX(GPS eXchange format), which is a standard interchange format that can contain any number of waypoints,routes and tracks in the same file.
To load a GPX file you first need to load the plugin. Plugins
Plugin Manager...
GPS Tools .
When this plugin is loaded a button with a small handheld GPS device will show up in the toolbar. An example
GPX file is available in the QGIS sample dataset: /qgis_sample_data/gps/national_monuments.gpx. See
Section 1.4 for more information about the sample data.
1. Click on the

GPS Tools icon and open the Load GPX file tab (see figure ??).

2. Browse to the folder qgis_sample_data/gps/, select the GPX file national_monuments.gpx and click
Open .

Figure 10.21.: The GPS Tools dialog window
Use the browse button . . . to select the GPX file, then use the checkboxes to select the feature types you
want to load from that GPX file. Each feature type will be loaded in a separate layer when you click OK . The
file national_monuments.gpx only includes waypoints.

10.9.3. GPSBabel
Since QGIS uses GPX files you need a way to convert other GPS file formats to GPX. This can be done
for many formats using the free program GPSBabel, which is available at http://www.gpsbabel.org. This
program can also transfer GPS data between your computer and a GPS device. QGIS uses GPSBabel to dothese things, so it is recommended that you install it. However, if you just want to load GPS data from GPX
files you will not need it. Version 1.2.3 of GPSBabel is known to work with QGIS, but you should be able touse later versions without any problems.

10.9.4. Importing GPS data
To import GPS data from a file that is not a GPX file, you use the tool Import other file in the GPS Tools
dialog. Here you select the file that you want to import (and the file type), which feature type you want toimport from it, where you want to store the converted GPX file and what the name of the new layer should be.
Note that not all GPS data formats will support all three feature types, so for many formats you will only beable to choose between one or two types.

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10.9.5. Downloading GPS data from a device

10.9.5. Downloading GPS data from a device
QGIS can use GPSBabel to download data from a GPS device directly as new vector layers. For this we use
the Download from GPS tab of the GPS Tools dialog (see Figure 10.22). Here, we select the type of GPS
device, the port that it is connected to (or usb if your GPS supports this), the feature type that you want todownload, the GPX file where the data should be stored, and the name of the new layer.

Figure 10.22.: The download tool
The device type you select in the GPS device menu determines how GPSBabel tries to communicate withyour GPS device. If none of the available types work with your GPS device you can create a new type (seesection 10.9.7).
The port may be a file name or some other name that your operating system uses as a reference to thephysical port in your computer that the GPS device is connected to. It may also be simply usb, for usb enabled
GPS units.
COM2.

On Linux this is something like /dev/ttyS0 or /dev/ttyS1 and on

Windows it’s COM1 orWhen you click OK the data will be downloaded from the device and appear as a layer in QGIS.

10.9.6. Uploading GPS data to a device
You can also upload data directly from a vector layer in QGIS to a GPS device using the Upload to GPS tabof the GPS Tools dialog. To do this you simply select the layer that you want to upload (which must be a GPX
layer), your GPS device type, and the port (or usb) that it is connected to. Just as with the download tool you
can specify new device types if your device isn’t in the list.
This tool is very useful in combination with the vector editing capabilities of QGIS. It allows you to load a map,
create waypoints and routes, and then upload them and use them on your GPS device.

10.9.7. Defining new device types
There are lots of different types of GPS devices. The QGIS developers can’t test all of them, so if you have
one that does not work with any of the device types listed in the Download from GPS and Upload to GPS
tools you can define your own device type for it. You do this by using the GPS device editor, which you startby clicking the Edit devices button in the download or the upload tabs.
To define a new device you simply click the New device button, enter a name, a download command and an
upload command for your device, and click the Update device button. The name will be listed in the device
menus in the upload and download windows, and can be any string. The download command is the commandthat is used to download data from the device to a GPX file. This will probably be a GPSBabel command,
but you can use any other command line program that can create a GPX file. QGIS will replace the keywords%type, %in, and %out when it runs the command.

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10.10. Interpolation Plugin%type will be replaced by “-w” if you are downloading waypoints, “-r” if you are downloading routes and “-t”
if you are downloading tracks. These are command line options that tell GPSBabel which feature type todownload.
%in will be replaced by the port name that you choose in the download window and %out will be replacedby the name you choose for the GPX file that the downloaded data should be stored in. So if you create adevice type with the download command “gpsbabel %type -i garmin -o gpx %in %out” (this is actually the
download command for the predefined device type GPS device:)and then use it toGarmin serial

download waypoints from port “/dev/ttyS0” to the file “output.gpx”, QGIS will replace the keywords and run
the command “gpsbabel -w -i garmin -o gpx /dev/ttyS0 output.gpx”.
The upload command is the command that is used to upload data to the device. The same keywords areused, but %in is now replaced by the name of the GPX file for the layer that is being uploaded, and %out is
replaced by the port name.
You can learn more about GPSBabel and it’s available command line options at http://www.gpsbabel.org
Once you have created a new device type it will appear in the device lists for the download and upload tools.

10.10. Interpolation Plugin
The Interplation plugin can be used to generate a TIN or IDW interpolation of a point vector layer. It is very
simple to handle and provides an intiuitive graphical user interface for creating interpolated raster layers (SeeFigure 10.23). The plugin requires the following parameters to be specified before running:– Input vector layer: Specify the input point vector layer(s) from a list of loaded point layers. If several
layers are specified, then data from all layers is used for interpolation. Note: It is possible to insert lines
or polygons as constraints for the triangulation, by specifying either “structure lines” or “break lines” inI dropdown menu.
the Type– Interpolation attribute: Select attribute column to be used for interpolation or enable theUse Z-Coordinate checkbox to use the layers stored Z values.
– Interpolation

Method:SelectTriangulated Irregular Network (TIN)

interpolation...

method.

This

can

be

eitheror Inverse Distance Weighted (IDW)...

.

– Number of columns/rows: Specify the number row and colums for the output raster file.
– Output file: Specify a name for the output raster file.

Figure 10.23.: Interpolation Plugin

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Using the plugin
1. Start QGIS and load an point vector layer (e.g., elevp.csv).
2. Load the Interpolation plugin in the Plugin Manager (see Section 9.1.1) and click on theInterpolation

icon which appears in the QGIS toolbar menu. The Interpolation plugin dialog
appears as shown in Figure 10.23.
3. Select an input layer (e.g., elevp...

4. Select an interpolation method (e.g.

) and column (e.g. ELEV) for interpolation.

Triangular interpolation...

), and specify a cellsize of5000 as well as the raster output filename (e.g., elevation_tin).
5. Click Ok .
6. For the current example, double click elevation_tin in the layer list to open the Raster Layer Properties
dialog and select Pseudocolor...

as Color Map in the Symbology tab. Or you can define a

new color table as described in Section 4.3.
In Figure 10.24 you see the TIN interpolation result with a 998 cols x 812 rows (5 km) resolution for the
elevp.csv data visualized using the Pseudocolor color table. The processing only takes a few minutes, andcovers the northern part of Alaska.

Figure 10.24.: Interpolation of elevp data using TIN method

10.11. MapServer Export Plugin
DISCLAIMER: This section of the user guide has not yet been updated for consistency with Quantum GIS
v1.6.0. Read at your own risk!
You can use QGIS to “compose” your map by adding and arranging layers, symbolizing them, customizing thecolors and then creating a map file for MapServer.

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10.11.1. Creating the Project File
The MapServer Export Plugin operates on a saved QGIS project file and not on the current contents of themap canvas and legend. This has been a source of confusion for a number of users. As described below,
before you start using the MapServer Export Plugin, you need to arrange the raster and vector layers you want
to use in MapServer and save this status in a QGIS project file.

Figure 10.25.: Arrange raster and vector layers for QGIS project fileIn this example, we demonstrate the four steps required to create a simple project file which can be used tocreate the MapServer map file. We use raster and vector files from the QGIS sample dataset 1.4.
1. Add the raster layer landcover.tif clicking on the

Add Raster Layer icon.

2. Add the vector Shapefiles lakes.shp, majrivers.shp and airports.shp from the QGIS sample
dataset clicking on the

Add Vector Layer icon.

3. Change the colors and symbolize the data as you like (For example see Figure ??)4. Save a new project named mapserverproject.qgs using File

Save Project .

10.11.2. Creating the Map File
The tool msexport to export a QGIS project file to a MapServer map file is installed in your QGIS binary directory and can be used independently of QGIS. To use it from within QGIS, you need to enable the MapServer
Export Plugin first using the Plugin Manager (see Section 9.1.1).
Map fileEnter the name for the map file to be created. You can use the button at the right to browse for the
directory where you want the map file created.
Qgis project file
Enter the full path to the QGIS project file (.qgs) you want to export. You can use the button at the rightto browse for the QGIS project file.

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Figure 10.26.: Export to MapServer Dialog

Map Name
A name for the map. This name is prefixed to all images generated by the mapserver.
Map Width
Width of the output image in pixels.
Map Height
Height of the output image in pixels.
Map Units
Units of measure used for output
Image type
Format for the output image generated by MapServer
Web Template
Full path to the MapServer template file to be used with the map fileWeb Header
Full path to the MapServer header file to be used with the map file
Web Footer
Full path to the MapServer footer file to be used with the map file
Only the Map file and QGIS project file inputs are required to create a map file, however by omitting
the other parameters, you may end up creating a non-functional map file, depending on your intended use.
Although QGIS is good at creating a map file from your project file, it may require some tweaking to get theresults you want. For this example, we will create a map file using the project file mapserverproject.qgs wejust created (see Figure 10.26):
1. Start the MapServer dialog (see Figure 10.26) by clicking the

MapServer Export

icon in the

toolbar menu.
2. Enter the name (e.g., qgisproject.map) for your new map file.
3. Browse and find the QGIS project file (e.g., mapserverproject.qgs) you previously saved.
4. Enter a name (e.g., MyMap) for the map.
5. Enter the width and height (e.g., 600 for the width and 400 for the height) for your output image.
6. For this example, the layers are in meters, so we change the units to meters.
7. Choose “png” for the image type.
8. Click OK to generate the new map file qgisproject.map. QGIS displays the success of your efforts.

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You can view the map file in any text editor or visualizer. If you take a look, you’ll notice that the export tool
adds the metadata needed to enable our map file for WMS.

10.11.3. Testing the Map File
We can now test our work using the shp2img tool to create an image from the map file. The shp2img utility ispart of MapServer and FWTools. To create an image from our map:
– Open a terminal window– If you didn’t save your map file in your home directory, change to the folder where you saved it.
– Run shp2img -m qgisproject.map -o mapserver_test.png and display the image
This creates a PNG with all the layers included in the QGIS project file. In addition, the extent of the PNG willbe the same as when we saved the project. As you can see in Figure 10.27, all information except the airport
symbols are included.

Figure 10.27.: Test PNG created by shp2img with all MapServer Export layers
If you plan to use the map file to serve WMS requests, you probably don’t have to tweak anything. If you plan
to use it with a mapping template or a custom interface, you may have a bit of manual work to do. To see howeasy it is to go from QGIS to serving maps on the web, take a look at Christopher Schmidt’s 5 minute flash
video. He used an older version of QGIS (version 0.8), but the demo applies equally well to newer versions. 2

10.12. OGR Converter Plugin
The OGR Layer Converter plugin adds the ability to convert vector data from one OGR-supported vector
format to another. The plugin is very simple to run, and only requires a few parameters to be specified before
running:– Source Format/Datset/Layer: Enter OGR format and path to the vector file to be converted– Target Format/Datset/Layer: Enter OGR format and path to the vector output file
Using the Plugin
1. Start QGIS, load the OGR converter plugin in the Plugin Manager (see Section 9.1.1) and click on the
OGR Layer Converter icon which appears in the QGIS toolbar menu. The OGR Layer Converter
plugin dialog appears as shown in Figure 10.28.
2 http://openlayers.org/presentations/mappingyourdata/
2 Supported formats may vary according to the installed GDAL/OGR package.

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Figure 10.28.: OGR Layer Converter Plugin

2. Select the OGR-supported format (e.g., ESRI Shapefile...

) and the path to the vector input

file (e.g., alaska.shp) in the Source area.
3. Select the OGR-supported format (e.g., GML...

) and define a path and the vector output

filename (e.g., alaska.gml) in the Target area.
4. Click Ok .

10.13. Oracle GeoRaster Plugin
In Oracle databases, raster data can be stored in SDO_GEORASTER objects available with the Oracle Spatial
extension. In QGIS, theOracle GeoRaster Plugin

is supported by GDAL, and depends on Oracle’s

Database product being installed and working on your machine. While Oracle is proprietary software, they
provide their software free for development and testing purposes. Here is one simple example of how to loadraster images to GeoRaster:$ gdal_translate -of georaster input_file.tif geor:scott/tiger@orcl
This will load the raster into the default GDAL_IMPORT table, as a column named RASTER.

10.13.1. Managing connectionsFirstly, the Oracle GeoRaster Plugin must be enabled using the Plugin Manager (see Section 9.1.1). The firsttime you load a GeoRaster in QGIS, you must create a connection to the Oracle database that contains thedata. To do this, begin by clicking on the

Select GeoRaster toolbar button, it will open the Select Ora-cle Spatial GeoRaster dialog window. Click on New to open the dialog window, and specify the connection
parameters (See Figure 10.29):– Name: Enter a name for the database connection.
– Database instance: Enter the name of the database that you will connect to.
– Username: Specify your own username that you will use to access the database.

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10.13. Oracle GeoRaster Plugin– Password: The password associated with your username that is required to access the database.

Figure 10.29.: Create Oracle connection dialog
Now, back on the main Oracle Spatial GeoRaster dialog window (See Figure 10.30), use the drop-down list
to choose one connection, and use the Connect button to establish a connection. You may also Edit theconnection by opening the previous dialog and making changes to the connection information, or use theDelete button to remove the connection from the drop-down list.

10.13.2. Selecting a GeoRasterOnce a connection has been established, the sub-datasets window will show the names of all the tables that
contains GeoRaster columns in that database in the format of a GDAL subdataset name.
Click on one of the listed subdatasets and then click on Select to choose the table name. Now another listof subdatasets will show with the names of GeoRaster columns on that table. This is usually a short list, sincemost users will not have more than one or two GeoRaster columns on the same table.
Click on one of the listed subdatasets and then click on Select to choose one of the the table/column
combination. The dialog will now show all the rows that contains GeoRaster objects. Note that the subdataset
list will now show the Raster Data Table and Raster Id’s pairs.
At anytime the Selection entry can be edited in order to go directly to a known GeoRaster or to go back to thebeginning and select another table name.
The Selection data entry can also be used to enter a Where clause at the end of the identification string,e.g., “geor:scott/tiger@orcl,gdal_import,raster,geoid=”. See http://www.gdal.org/frmt_georaster.html
for more information.

10.13.3. Displaying GeoRaster
Finally, by selecting a GeoRaster from the list of Raster Data Table and Raster Id’s, the raster image will be
loaded into QGIS.
The Select Oracle Spatial GeoRaster dialog window can be closed now and next time it opens it will keep thesame connection, and will show the same previous list of subdataset making it very easy to open up anotherimage from the same context.
Note: GeoRasters that contains pyramids will display much faster but the pyramids need to be generated
outside of QGIS using Oracle PL/SQL or gdaladdo.
The following is example using gdaladdo:
gdaladdo georaster:scott/tiger@orcl,georaster\_table,georaster,georid=6 -r

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Figure 10.30.: Select Oracle GeoRaster dialog

nearest 2 4 6 8 16 32
This is an example using PL/SQL: cd ..
$ sqlplus scott/tiger
SQL> DECLAREgr sdo_georaster;
BEGIN
SELECT image INTO gr FROM cities WHERE id = 1 FOR UPDATE;
sdo_geor.generatePyramid(gr, ’rLevel=5, resampling=NN’);
UPDATE cities SET image = gr WHERE id = 1;
COMMIT;
END;/

10.14. OpenStreetMap Plugin
In recent years the OpenStreetMap project has gained popularity because in many countries no free geo datasuch as digital roadmaps are available. Target of the OSM project is to create a free editable map of the worldfrom GPS data, aerial photography or simply from local knowledge. To support this idea QGIS provides aplugin that enables its users to work with OSM data.
The plugin provides all basic functionalities for OSM data manipulation, such as data loading, importing,saving, downloading, editing and uploading data back to the OpenStreetMap server. While implementing
OSM plugin an inspiration was taken from existing OSM data editors. The purpose was to combine theirfunctionalities to get the best possible result.
The following section gives a brief introduction to principles of the OSM project. If you are not interested
in information on OSM just skip the next section. Parts of the following paragraphs are copied from the
OpenStreetMap web site at http://www.openstreetmap.org.

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The OpenStreetMap project
OpenStreetMap is a project to create a free editable map of the world. The maps are created using data fromportable GPS devices, aerial photography, other free sources or simply from local knowledge. The project wasstarted because most maps have legal or technical restrictions on their use, holding back people from using
them in creative, productive, or unexpected ways. Both rendered images and the vector dataset of OSM areavailable for download under a Creative Commons Attribution ShareAlike 2.0 licence.

Figure 10.31.: OpenStreetMap data in the web
OpenStreetMap was inspired by sites such as Wikipedia - the map display (see Figure 10.31) features aprominent Edit tab and a full revision history is maintained. Registered users can upload GPS track logs
and edit the vector data using the given editing tools.
OSM data primitive is an object class that can be stored via the API in the server. The three supported typesof data are: Node, Way and Relation.
– A node is a latitude/longitude pair of coordinates. It is used as building a block for other features and asa feature itself (Points Of Interest), if they are tagged as required.
– A way is a list of at least two nodes that describe a linear feature such as a street, or similar. Nodes canbe members of multiple ways.
– A relation is a group of zero or more primitives with associated roles. It is used to specify relationships
between objects, and may also model an abstract object.
Several different logical features in a common map (’Point Of Interest’, ’Street’, ’Tram Line’, ’Bus Stop’ etc.) aredefined by these primitives. Map features are well-known in the OSM community and are stored as tags, basedof a key and a value. OSM is usually distributed in XML format. XML payload is used for the communication
with the OSM server as well.
QGIS - OSM Connection
The first part of this section describes how OSM data primitives are displayed in QGIS vector layers. As written
above, OSM data consist of Nodes, Ways and Relations. In QGIS they are displayed in three different layer
types: Point layer, Line layer and Polygon layer. It’s not possible to remove any of these layers and work withthe other ones.
– A Point layer displays all features of type Node that stands alone. That means that only Nodes that are
not included in any Way belongs to the Point layer.
– A Line layer displays those OSM features of type Way that are not closed. That means, none of theseWays starts and ends with the same Node.
– A Polygon layer displays all Ways that are not included in Line layer.
OpenStreetMap has one more data primitive except for the three mentioned above. This is called Relation.
There is purposely no vector layer to display Relations. A Relation defines relation between any number of

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data primitives. After Point, Line or Polygon is identified on a map, the plugin shows a list of all relations, theidentified feature is part of.
Challenging was to design the connection between OSM data and the standard QGIS editing tools. These
tools are made to edit a single vector layer at a time, no matter of what feature types it displays. This meansthat if OSM data are loaded to QGIS through the plugin, you could (theoretically) edit Point layer, Line layer or
Polygon layer with these standard tools separately.
The problem is, that Line layer consists of two different types of OSM features - Ways and Nodes. Why?
Because in OSM format a Way is composed of Nodes. If you start editing a Line layer and change the shapeof some line, your action must affect not only the OSM Way but also the OSM Nodes that are part of it.
QGIS standard editing tools cannot tell the OSM provider, which members of which line has changed andhow. It can tell only what’s the new geometry of which line, and that’s not enough to propagate changes to
the OSM database correctly. The Line layer does also not know the identifiers of the line members. The sameproblem occurs when you try to edit the Polygon layer.
For this reason, the OSM plugin need its own tools for editing OSM data. While they are used, the OSM layers
can be changed correctly. The Plugin editing tools consists of tools for Point, Line, Polygon and Relation
creation, deletion and moving.
Note: To create a connection between the OSM plugin and standard editing tools, changes in QuantumGIS
core code would be necessary.

10.14.1. Installation
The OpenStreetMap plugin is a core plugin inside QGIS. If you have python support enabled, the ’OpenStreetMap’ plugin can be selected in the Plugin Manager as described in section 9.1.1).

10.14.2. Basic user interface
The first time the OSM plugin is started (and after the first data are loaded), several new OSM plugin icons
appear in the QGIS toolbar menu together with new graphical components as shown in Figure 10.32:

Figure 10.32.: OSM plugin user interface

OSM Features widget
The OSM Feature widget helps to identify OSM features. It shows basic information on feature type andidentifier as well as info on who has when changed a feature. The OSM Feature widget also provides all
editing tools (in the top part of it). More information on those tools can be found in the sections below. The
widget is initially disabled. It activates itself after successful loading some OSM data.

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OSM Undo/Redo widget
This Undo/Redo widget is used to undo and redo edit actions. It consists not only of a classical Undo and Redobutton, it also shows a list with a brief description of the edit actions that were done. The OSM Undo/Redowidget is initially closed. You can show it using a button on OSM Feature widget.
Toolbar menu icons
Load OSM from file : is used to load data from a special OpenStreetMap XML file.
Show/Hide OSM Feature Manager

is used to show or hide the OSM Feature widget. The OSM

Feature widget is a panel that helps with OSM feature identification and with OSM data editing.
Download OSM data is used to download data from the OpenStreetMap server.
Upload OSM data is used to upload changes (on current data).
Import data from a layer is used to import data from a vector layer. At least one vector layer must be
loaded and current OSM data must be selected.
Save OSM to file is used to save OSM data back to an XML file.
More detailed information on all the widgets, buttons and dialogs can be found in appropriate sections of thisplugin section according to their functionality (editing, identification, etc.).

10.14.3. Loading OSM data
The first action that should be done after starting the OSM Plugin is opening data from an OSM file. OSM data
can be import as shapefile or downloaded directly from the OpenStreetMap server. Here we are focusing on
the first mentioned method.
To load data from a file use theLoad OSM from file icon. If there is no such button, maybe someone

disabled OpenStreetMap toolbar in your QGIS installation. You can enable it again selecting Settings
Toolbars

OpenStreetMap

I .

Figure 10.33.: Load OSM data dialog
Purpose of its elements is explained below.
OpenStreetMap file to load: Click on the button to select the .osm file you want to load data from.
Add columns for tags: This option determines a connection between OSM and QGIS data. Each featureof OSM data has some tags (pairs of key and value), that define the feature properties. Each feature

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QGIS 1.6.0 User Guide10.14.4. Viewing OSM dataof a QGIS vector layer also has its attributes (key and value). With this option you can define which
properties of OSM objects should be visible when displaying detailed information about QGIS features.
Replace current data: Checking this option means that new data should replace current data the user isworking with. Layers of current data will be removed and new ones will be loaded. When loading OSM
data for the first time, this option is not active, because there is nothing to replace.
Use custom renderer: This option determines how many details of the map will be used. There are three
pre-defined OSM styles for map displaying. Use Small scale if you want to view OSM data at low level,
to see all details and to edit something. If not you can use Medium scale or Large scale . QGIS 1.6.0
doesn’t support changing the renderer style dynamically.
Click Ok to load your data. If this is the first time OSM file is loaded, the plugin must first parse the database.
This may take few seconds or minutes - it depends on the amount of loaded data.

10.14.4. Viewing OSM data
After OSM data are loaded, you can identify map features using the appropriate tool.
Identify feature

Use thebutton on the top-left of OSM Feature widget. Using this tool you can easily ex-

plore all map objects. When the mouse cursor is placed over an object, you can see all information on it
directly in the OSM Feature widget. There is also a dynamic rubberband displayed on the map so that theuser is able to determine which feature is currently identified.
The Properties tab of the widget contains of all feature tags. Clicking on the Relation tab shows you a listof all relations connected with identified feature.
If you want to hold a feature for a while to be able to read its properties and relations, move the mouse cursor
at the same time, try left-clicking while you are over the feature. Identification process will stop until next
left-clicking.
Sometimes there are more than one feature at a point where left-clicking was performed. This happens
especially when clicking on cross-roads or if you didn’t zoom enough into the map. In this situation only oneof such features is identified (and marked with the rubberband) but the plugin remembers all of them. Then(still in the pause mode) you can change identified features cyclical with right-clicking.

10.14.5. Editing basic OSM data
In the title of this section ’basic data’ means non-relation OSM features - nodes and ways. If you prefer reading
information on relation editing, just skip this section and read the next one.
Basic data editing is a key part of OSM Plugin. You can change property, position or shape of any existing basic
feature. You can remove features or add new ones. All such changes on nodes and ways are remembered for
comfortable usage of Undo/Redo operations and for easy upload of all changes to OpenStreetMap server.
Changing feature tags
Changing the property/tag of an OSM feature can be done directly in the table of feature tags. The Tags tableof basic features can be found on the OSM Feature widget. Don’t forget to identify feature first.
If you want to change a tag value, just double-click in the appropriate row of column ’Value’ and type or selecta new value. If you want to remove a tag, click in its row, then use button Remove selected tags on the rightbottom under the table.
To add new tags just type its key and value into the last row of the table - where ’<next tag value>’ is written.
Notice that you cannot change the key of an existing tag pair. For comfortable usage, there are some combo
boxes of all existing tag keys and their typical values.
Point creation
For point creation there is a

Create point button on the OSM Feature widget. To create some points

just click on the button and start clicking on the map. If your cursor is over some map feature, the feature is

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Figure 10.34.: Changing an OSM feature tag

marked/identified immediately. If you click on the map when a line or polygon is marked, a new point is createddirectly on such line or polygon - as its new member. If your cursor is over an existing point, new point cannot
be created. In such case the OSM plugin will show following message:

Figure 10.35.: OSM point creation message
The mechanism of helping a user to hit the line or polygon is called snapping and is enabled by default. If you
want to create a point very close to some line (but not on it) you must disable snapping by holding the Ctrl
key first.
Line creation
For line creation there is a

Create line

button on the OSM Feature widget. To create a line just click

the button and start left-clicking on the map. Each of your left-clicks is remembered as a member vertex of the
new line. Line creation ends when first right-click is performed. The new line will immediately appear on themap.
Note: A Line with less than two members cannot be created. In such case the operation is ignored.
Snapping is performed to all map vertices - points from Point vector layer and all Line and Polygon members.
Snapping can be disabled by holding the Ctrl key.
Polygon creation
For polygon creation there is a

Create polygon

button on the OSM Feature widget. To create apolygon just click the button and start left-clicking on the map. Each of your left-clicks is remembered as amember vertex of the new polygon. The Polygon creation ends when first right-click is performed. The newpolygon will immediately appear on the map. Polygon with less than three members cannot be created. Insuch case operation is ignored. Snapping is performed to all map vertexes - points (from Point vector layer)
and all Line and Polygon members. Snapping can be disabled by holding the Ctrl key.

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Map feature moving
If you want to move a feature (no matter what type) please use theMove feature button from the OSM

Feature widget menu. Then you can browse the map (features are identified dynamically when you go overthem) and click on the feature you want to move. If a wrong feature is selected after your click, don’t moveit from the place. Repeat right-clicking until the correct feature is identified. When selection is done and you
move the cursor, you are no more able to change your decision what to move. To confirm the move, click on
the left mouse button. To cancel a move, click another mouse button.
If you are moving a feature that is connected to another features, these connections won’t be damaged. Other
features will just adapt themselves to a new position of a moved feature.
Snapping is also supported in this operation, this means:– When moving a standalone (not part of any line/polygon) point, snapping to all map segments andvertices is performed.
– When moving a point that is a member of some lines/polygons, snapping to all map segments andvertices is performed, except for vertices of point parents.
– When moving a line/polygon, snapping to all map vertices is performed. Note that the OSM Plugin tries
to snap only to the 3 closest-to-cursor vertices of a moved line/polygon, otherwise the operation wouldby very slow. Snapping can be disabled by holding Ctrl key during the operation.
Map feature removing
If you want to remove a feature, you must identify it first.
Remove this feature

To remove an identified feature, use thebutton on the OSM Feature widget.

When removing a line/polygon, theline/polygon itself is deleted, so are all its member points that doesn’t belong to any other line/polygon.
When removing a point that is member of some lines/polygons, the point is deleted and the geometries ofparent lines/polygons are changed. The new parent geometry has less vertices than the old one.
If the parent feature was a polygon with three vertexes, its new geometry has only two vertexes. And because there cannot exist polygon with only two vertices, as described above, the feature type is automaticallychanged to Line.
If the parent feature was a line with two vertexes, its new geometry has only one vertex. And because there
cannot exist a line with only one vertex, the feature type is automatically changed to Point.

10.14.6. Editing relations
Thanks to existence of OSM relations we can join OSM features into groups and give them common properties- in such way we can model any possible map object: borders of a region (as group of ways and points), routesof a bus, etc. Each member of a relation has its specific role. There is a pretty good support for OSM Relations
in our plugin. Let’s see how to examine, create, update or remove them.
Examining relation
If you want to see relation properties, first identify one of its members. After that open the Relations tabon the OSM Feature widget. At the top of the tab you can see a list of all relations the identified feature ispart of. Please choose the one you want to examine and look at its information below. In the first table called’Relation tags’ you find the properties of the selected relation. In the table called ’Relation members’ you see
brief information on the relation members. If you click on a member, the plugin will make a rubberband on it in
the map.
Relation creation
There are 2 ways to create a relation:
1. You can use theCreate relation button on OSM Feature widget.

2. You can create it from the Relation tab of OSM Feature widget using the

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In both cases a dialog will appear. For the second case, the feature that is currently identified is automaticallyconsidered to be the first relation member, so the dialog is prefilled a little. When creating a relation, please
select its type first. You can select one of predefined relation types or write your own type. After that fill the
relation tags and choose its members.
If you have already selected a relation type, try using theGenerate tags button. It will generate typicaltags to your relation type. Then you are expected to enter values to the keys. Choosing relation members canbe done either by writing member identifiers, types and roles or using themap.

identify tool and clicking on

Finally when type, tags and members are chosen, the dialog can be submitted. In such case the plugin createsa new relation for you.
Changing relation
If you want to change an existing relation, identify it first (follow steps written above in Section ’Examining
relation’). After that click on the

Edit relation

button. You will find it on the OSM Feature widget. A

new dialog appears, nearly the same as for the ’create relation’ action. The dialog is pre-filled with information
on given relations. You can change relation tags, members or even its type. After submitting the dialog yourchanges will be committed.

10.14.7. Downloading OSM data
To download data from OpenStreetMap server click on the

Download OSM data button. If there is nosuch button, the OSM toolbar may be disabled in your QGIS instalation. You can enable it again at Settings
Toolbarsfunctionalities:

OpenStreetMap

I . After clicking the button a dialog occurs and provides following

Figure 10.36.: OSM download dialog
Extent: Specifies an area to download data from intervals of latitude and longitude degrees. Because there
is some restriction of OpenStreetMap server on how much data can be downloaded, the intervals mustnot be too wide. More detailed info on extent specification can is shown after clicking the

help

button on the right.
Download to: Here you are expected to write a path to the file where data will be stored. If you can’t
remember the structure of your disk, don’t panic. The browse button will help you.
Open data automatically after download: Determines, if the download process should be followed byloading the data process or not. If you prefer not to load data now, you can do it later by using theLoad OSM from file button.

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Replace current data: This option is active only if

Open data automatically after download

ischecked. Checking this option means that downloaded data should replace current data we are working
with now. Layers of the current data will be removed and new ones will be loaded. When starting QGIS
and downloading OSM data for the first time, this option is initially inactive, because there is nothing to
replace.
Use custom renderer: This option is active only if theOpen data automatically after download

checkbox is checked. It determines how many details will be in the map. There are three predefined
OSM styles for map displaying. Use Small scale if you want to view OSM data at low level, to see alldetails and to edit something. If not you can use Medium scale
not support changing the renderer style dynamically.

or Large scale . QGIS 1.6.0 does

Click the Download button to start the download process.
A progress dialog will continuously inform you about how much of data is already downloaded. When anerror occurs during the download process, a dialog tells you why. When action finishes successfully both theprogress dialog and download dialog will close themselves.

10.14.8. Uploading OSM data
Note that the upload is always done on current OSM data. Before opening the OSM Upload dialog, please be
sure that you really have the right active layer OSM data.
To upload current data to the OSM server click on the

Upload OSM data

button. If there is no such

button, OSM toolbar in your QGIS installation is disabled. You can enable it again in Settings
OpenStreetMap

Toolbars

I . After clicking the upload button a new dialog will appear.

Figure 10.37.: OSM upload dialog
At the top of the dialog you can check, if you are uploading the correct data. There is a short name of a current
database. In the table you find information on how many changes will be uploaded. Statistics are displayed
separately for each feature type.

QGIS 1.6.0 User Guide16910.14. OpenStreetMap Plugin
In the ’Comment on your changes’ box you can write brief information on meaning of your upload operation.
Just write in brief what data changes you’ve done or let the box empty. Fill ’OSM account’ arrays so that theserver could authenticate you. If you don’t have an account on the OSM server, it’s the best time to create one
at http://www.openstreetmap.org. Finally use Upload to start an upload operation.

10.14.9. Saving OSM data
To save data from a current map extent to an XML file click on the

Save OSM to filebutton. If there

is no such button, the OSM toolbar in your QuantumGIS installation is probably disabled. You can enable it
OpenStreetMap
I . After clicking on the button a new dialog
again in Settings
Toolbars
appears.

Figure 10.38.: OSM saving dialog
Select features you want to save into XML file and the file itself. Use the Ok button to start the operation.
The process will create an XML file, in which OSM data from your current map extent are represented. The
OSM version of the output file is 0.6. Elements of OSM data (<node>, <way>, <relation>) do not contain
information on their changesets and uids. This information are not compulsory yet, see DTD for OSM XML
version 0.6. In the output file OSM elements are not ordered.
Notice that not only data from the current extent are saved. Into the output file the whole polygons and lines
are saved even if only a small part of them is visible in the current extent. For each saved line/polygon all its
member nodes are saved too.

10.14.10. Import OSM data
To import OSM data from an opened non-OSM vector layer follow this instructions: Choose current OSM databy clicking on one of their layers. Click on the

Import data from a layer

button. If there is no such

button, someone has probably disable the OpenStreetMap toolbar in your QGIS installation. You can enable
OpenStreetMap
I .
it again in Settings
Toolbars
After clicking on the button following message may show up:

Figure 10.39.: OSM import message dialog
In such case there is no vector layer currently loaded. The import must be d one from a loaded layer - please

170

QGIS 1.6.0 User Guideload a vector layer from which you want to import data. After a layer is opened, your second try should give
you a better result (don’t forget to mark the current OSM layer again):

Figure 10.40.: Import data to OSM dialog
Use the submit dialog to start the process of OSM data importing. Reject it if you are not sure you want toimport something.

10.15. Raster Terrain Modelling Plugin
The Raster Terrain Modelling plugin can be used to calculate the slope, aspect, ruggedness, and total curvature for digital elevation models (DEM). It is very simple to handle and provides an intiuitive graphical userinterface for creating new raster layers (See Figure 10.41). The plugin requires the following parameters to be
specified before running:– Analysis: Can be one of slope, aspect, ruggedness, or total curvature– Input layer: Specify the input raster from a list of loaded raster layers.
– Output layer: Specify a name and path for the output raster file.
– Output format: Specify a format type for the output raster file (Default is GeoTiff).
Slope: Calculates slope angle for each cell in degrees (based on first order derivative estimation).
Aspect: Exposition (starting with 0 for north direction, in degrees counterclockwise).
Ruggedness factor: A quantitative measurement of terrain heterogeneity.
Total curvature: A curvature measure that combines plan- and profile curvature.
Using the plugin
1. Start QGIS and load a DEM raster layer.
2. Load the Raster Terrain Modelling plugin in the Plugin Manager (see Section 9.1.1) and click on the
Raster Terrain Modelling

icon which appears in the QGIS toolbar menu. The Raster Terrain

Modelling plugin dialog appears as shown in Figure 10.41.
3. Select an analysis method (e.g. SlopeI ).

4. Specify an output file path, and an output file type.
5. Click Ok .

QGIS 1.6.0 User Guide

171

10.16. Quick Print Plugin

Figure 10.41.: Raster Terrain Modelling Plugin

10.16. Quick Print Plugin
The

Quick Print Plugin makes it possible to export the current map canvas to PDF format quickly andeasily, with minimal effort. The only parameters that need to be specified are a Map Title, a Map Name, and
the Paper Size (See Figure 10.42). If you require additional control over the map layout, please use the printcomposer plugin, described in Section 8.

Figure 10.42.: Quick Print Dialog

172

QGIS 1.6.0 User Guide

Figure 10.43.: Quick Print result as DIN A4 PDF using the alaska sample dataset

QGIS 1.6.0 User Guide173

11. Other core plugins
The remaining core plugins are listed in Table 11.1, along with references to the chapters in this manual which
cover their usage.

Icon

PluginManual Reference

Diagram Overlay

Chapter 3.4.11

GRASS

Chapter 7 and Appendix B

Plugin Installer

Chapter 9.1.3

SPIT

Chapter 3.2.4

WFS

Chapter 5.4
Table 11.1.: Other Core Plugins

175

12. Using external QGIS Python Plugins
External QGIS plugins are written in Python. They are stored in either the ’Official’ or ’User contributed’ QGIS
Repostories, or in various other external repositories maintained by individual authors. Table 12.1 shows alist of currently available ’Official’ plugins, with a short description. Detailed documentation about the usage,
minimum QGIS version, homepage, authors, and other important information are provided with the external
plugins themselves and is not included in this manual. 1 2
You will find an up-to-date list of ’Official’ plugins in the Official QGIS Repository at http://qgis.osgeo.org/
download/plugins.html. This list is also available automatically from the Plugins installer via
Fetch Python Plugins... .

Icon

External Plugin

Description

Zoom To Point

Zooms to a coordinate specified in the input dialog.
You can specify the zoom level as well to control theview extent.

Plugin Installer

The most recent Python Plugin Installer.

Table 12.1.: Current moderated external QGIS Plugins
A detailed description of the installation procedure for external python plugins can be found in Section 9.1.2.
QGIS Tip 47 A DD MORE REPOSITORIESTo add the ’User contributed’ repository and/or several external author repositories, open the Plugin Installer ( Plugins
tab, and click
Fetch Python Plugins... ), go to the Repositories
Add 3rd party repositories . If you do not want one or more of the added repositories, they can be disabled
via the Edit... button, or completely removed with the Delete button.

1 Updates of core plugins may be available in this repository as external overlays.
2 fTools, Mapserver Export, and the Plugin Installer are Python plugins, but they are also part of the QGIS sources, and are automaticallyloaded and enabled inside the QGIS Plugin Manager (see Section 9.1.2).

177

13. Help and Support
13.1. Mailinglists
QGIS is under active development and as such it won’t always work like you expect it to. The preferred way
to get help is by joining the qgis-users mailing list. Your questions will reach a broader audience and answers
will benefit others.
qgis-users
This mailing list is used for discussion of QGIS in general, as well as specific questions regarding its installation
and use. You can subscribe to the qgis-users mailing list by visiting the following URL:
http://lists.osgeo.org/mailman/listinfo/qgis-user
fossgis-talk-liste
For the german speaking audience the german FOSSGIS e.V. provides the fossgis-talk-liste mailing list. This
mailing list is used for discussion of open source GIS in general including QGIS. You can subscribe to thefossgis-talk-liste mailing list by visiting the following URL:
https://lists.fossgis.de/mailman/listinfo/fossgis-talk-liste
qgis-developer
If you are a developer facing problems of a more technical nature, you may want to join the qgis-developer
mailing list here:
http://lists.osgeo.org/mailman/listinfo/qgis-developer
qgis-commit
Each time a commit is made to the QGIS code repository an email is posted to this list. If you want to be up
to date with every change to the current code base, you can subscribe to this list at:
http://lists.osgeo.org/mailman/listinfo/qgis-commit
qgis-trac
This list provides email notification related to project management, including bug reports, tasks, and feature
requests. You can subscribe to this list at:
http://lists.osgeo.org/mailman/listinfo/qgis-trac
qgis-community-team
This list deals with topics like documentation, context help, user-guide, online experience including web sites,
blog, mailing lists, forums, and translation efforts. If you like to work on the user-guide as well, this list is agood starting point to ask your questions. You can subscribe to this list at:
http://lists.osgeo.org/mailman/listinfo/qgis-community-teamqgis-release-team
This list deals with topics like the release process, packaging binaries for various OS and announcing newreleases to the world at large. You can subscribe to this list at:
http://lists.osgeo.org/mailman/listinfo/qgis-release-teamqgis-tr
This list deals with the translation efforts. If you like to work on the translation of the manuals or the graphicaluser interface (GUI), this list is a good starting point to ask your questions. You can subscribe to this list at:
http://lists.osgeo.org/mailman/listinfo/qgis-tr

17913.5. Wikiqgis-edu
This list deals with QGIS education efforts. If you like to work on qgis education materials, this list is a goodstarting point to ask your questions. You can subscribe to this list at:
http://lists.osgeo.org/mailman/listinfo/qgis-edu
qgis-psc
This list is used to discuss Steering Committee issues related to overall management and direction of Quantum
GIS. You can subscribe to this list at:
http://lists.osgeo.org/mailman/listinfo/qgis-psc
You are welcome to subscribe to any of the lists. Please remember to contribute to the list by answering
questions and sharing your experiences. Note that the qgis-commit and qgis-trac are designed for notification
only and not meant for user postings.

13.2. IRC
We also maintain a presence on IRC - visit us by joining the #qgis channel on irc.freenode.net. Please wait
around for a response to your question as many folks on the channel are doing other things and it may takea while for them to notice your question. Commercial support for QGIS is also available. Check the website
http://qgis.org/en/commercial-support.html for more information.
If you missed a discussion on IRC, not a problem! We log all discussion so you can easily catch up. Just go
to http://logs.qgis.org and read the IRC-logs.

13.3. BugTracker
While the qgis-users mailing list is useful for general ’how do I do xyz in QGIS’ type questions, you may
wish to notify us about bugs in QGIS. You can submit bug reports using the QGIS bug tracker at https://trac.osgeo.org/qgis/. When creating a new ticket for a bug, please provide an email address where we
can request additional information.
Please bear in mind that your bug may not always enjoy the priority you might hope for (depending on its
severity). Some bugs may require significant developer effort to remedy and the manpower is not always
available for this.
Feature requests can be submitted as well using the same ticket system as for bugs. Please make sure toselect the type enhancement.
If you have found a bug and fixed it yourself you can submit this patch also. Again, the lovely trac ticketsystem
at https://trac.osgeo.org/qgis/ has this type as well. Select patch from the type-menu. Someone of thedevelopers will review it and apply it to QGIS.
Please don’t be alarmed if your patch is not applied straight away - developers may be tied up with othercommittments.

13.4. Blog
The QGIS-community also runs a weblog (BLOG) at http://blog.qgis.org which has some interestingarticles for users and developers as well. You are invited to contribute to the blog after registering yourself!

13.5. Wiki
Lastly, we maintain a WIKI web site at http://www.qgis.org/wiki where you can find a variety of useful
information relating to QGIS development, release plans, links to download sites, message translation-hints
and so on. Check it out, there are some goodies inside!

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QGIS 1.6.0 User Guide

A. Supported Data Formats
QGIS uses the GDAL/OGR library to read and write vector and raster data formats. Note that not all of theformat listed below may work in QGIS for various reasons. For example, some require external commercial
libraries or the GDAL installation of your OS was not build to support the format you want to use. Only thoseformats that have been well tested will appear in the list of file types when loading a vector or raster into QGIS.
Other untested formats can be loaded by selecting *.*.

A.1. OGR Vector Formats
At the date of this document, the following formats are supported by the OGR library [5]. A complete is alsoavailable at http://www.gdal.org/ogr/ogr_formats.html.
• Arc/Info Binary Coverage• Comma Separated Value (.csv)• DODS/OPeNDAP• ESRI Personal GeoDatabase• ESRI ArcSDE• ESRI Shapefile• FMEObjects Gateway• GeoJSON• Geoconcept Export• GeoRSS
• GML
• GMT
• GPX
• GRASS Vector 1• Informix DataBlade• INTERLIS• IHO S-57 (ENC)• Mapinfo File
• Microstation DGN• OGDI Vectors• ODBC• Oracle Spatial• PostgreSQL2• SDTS• SQLite• UK .NTF• U.S. Census TIGER/Line• VRT - Virtual Datasource
1 GRASS support is supplied by the QGIS GRASS data provider plugin
2 QGIS implements its own PostgreSQL functions. OGR should be built without PostgreSQL support

181

A.2. GDAL Raster Formats• X-Plane/Flighgear aeronautical data

A.2. GDAL Raster Formats
At the date of this document, the following formats are supported by the GDAL library [1]. A complete is alsoavailable at http://www.gdal.org/formats_list.html.
• Arc/Info ASCII Grid
• ADRG/ARC Digitilized Raster Graphics• Arc/Info Binary Grid (.adf)• Magellan BLX Topo (.blx, .xlb)• Microsoft Windows Device Independent Bitmap (.bmp)• BSB Nautical Chart Format (.kap)• VTP Binary Terrain Format (.bt)• CEOS (Spot for instance)• First Generation USGS DOQ (.doq)• New Labelled USGS DOQ (.doq)• Military Elevation Data (.dt0, .dt1)• ERMapper Compressed Wavelets (.ecw)• ESRI .hdr Labelled• ENVI .hdr Labelled Raster• Envisat Image Product (.n1)• EOSAT FAST Format• FITS (.fits)• Graphics Interchange Format (.gif)• GMT compatible netCDF• GRASS Rasters 3• Golden Software Binary Grid
• TIFF / BigTIFF / GeoTIFF (.tif)• Hierarchical Data Format Release 4 (HDF4)• Hierarchical Data Format Release 5 (HDF5)• ILWIS Raster Map (.mpr,.mpl)• Intergraph Raster• Erdas Imagine (.img)• Atlantis MFF2e• Japanese DEM (.mem)• JPEG JFIF (.jpg)• JPEG2000 (.jp2, .j2k)• NOAA Polar Orbiter Level 1b Data Set (AVHRR)• Erdas 7.x .LAN and .GIS
• In Memory Raster• Vexcel MFF• Vexcel MFF2
• Atlantis MFF
3 GRASS support is supplied by the QGIS GRASS data provider plugin

182

QGIS 1.6.0 User Guide• Multi-resolution Seamless Image Database MrSID• NITF• NetCDF• OGDI Bridge• Oracle Spatial Georaster• OGC Web Coverage Server• OGC Web Map Server• PCI .aux Labelled• PCI Geomatics Database File
• PCRaster• Portable Network Graphics (.png)• Netpbm (.ppm,.pgm)• USGS SDTS DEM (*CATD.DDF)• SAR CEOS
• USGS ASCII DEM (.dem)• X11 Pixmap (.xpm)

QGIS 1.6.0 User Guide

183

B. GRASS Toolbox modules
The GRASS Shell inside the GRASS Toolbox provides access to almost all (more than 330) GRASS modules
through a command line interface. To offer a more user friendly working environment, about 200 of theavailable GRASS modules and functionalities are also provided by graphical dialogs within the GRASS plugin
Toolbox.

B.1. GRASS Toolbox modules
A complete list of available GRASS modules from within QGIS is found in the GRASS wiki: http://grass.
osgeo.org/wiki/GRASS-QGIS_relevant_module_list

185

C. GNU General Public License
GNU GENERAL PUBLIC LICENSE
Version 2, June 1991
Copyright (C) 1989, 1991 Free Software Foundation, Inc. 59 Temple Place - Suite 330, Boston, MA 02111-1307, USA
Everyone is permitted to copy and distribute verbatim copies of this license document, but changing it is not allowed.
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When we speak of free software, we are referring to freedom, not price. Our General Public Licenses are designed tomake sure that you have the freedom to distribute copies of free software (and charge for this service if you wish), that you
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0. This License applies to any program or other work which contains a notice placed by the copyright holder saying it
may be distributed under the terms of this General Public License. The "Program", below, refers to any such program orwork, and a "work based on the Program" means either the Program or any derivative work under copyright law: that is tosay, a work containing the Program or a portion of it, either verbatim or with modifications and/or translated into anotherlanguage. (Hereinafter, translation is included without limitation in the term "modification".) Each licensee is addressed as"you".
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B.1. GRASS Toolbox modulesa) You must cause the modified files to carry prominent notices stating that you changed the files and the date of any
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C.1. Quantum GIS Qt exception for GPL
In addition, as a special exception, the QGIS Development Team gives permission to link thecode of this program with the Qt library, including but not limited to the following versions (both freeand commercial): Qt/Non-commerical Windows, Qt/Windows, Qt/X11, Qt/Mac, and Qt/Embedded(or with modified versions of Qt that use the same license as Qt), and distribute linked combinations
including the two. You must obey the GNU General Public License in all respects for all of the codeused other than Qt. If you modify this file, you may extend this exception to your version of the file,
but you are not obligated to do so. If you do not wish to do so, delete this exception statement fromyour version.

QGIS 1.6.0 User Guide

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D. GNU Free Documentation License
Version 1.3, 3 November 2008
Copyright c 2000, 2001, 2002, 2007, 2008 Free Software Foundation, Inc.
<http://fsf.org/>
Everyone is permitted to copy and distribute verbatim copies of this license document, but changing it is notallowed.

Preamble
The purpose of this License is to make a manual, textbook, or other functional and useful document “free”
in the sense of freedom: to assure everyone the effective freedom to copy and redistribute it, with or without
modifying it, either commercially or noncommercially. Secondarily, this License preserves for the author andpublisher a way to get credit for their work, while not being considered responsible for modifications made byothers.
This License is a kind of “copyleft”, which means that derivative works of the document must themselves be
free in the same sense. It complements the GNU General Public License, which is a copyleft license designed
for free software.
We have designed this License in order to use it for manuals for free software, because free software needs
free documentation: a free program should come with manuals providing the same freedoms that the software
does. But this License is not limited to software manuals; it can be used for any textual work, regardless ofsubject matter or whether it is published as a printed book. We recommend this License principally for works
whose purpose is instruction or reference.

1. APPLICABILITY AND DEFINITIONSThis License applies to any manual or other work, in any medium, that contains a notice placed by the copyrightholder saying it can be distributed under the terms of this License. Such a notice grants a world-wide, royaltyfree license, unlimited in duration, to use that work under the conditions stated herein. The “Document”,
below, refers to any such manual or work. Any member of the public is a licensee, and is addressed as “you”.
You accept the license if you copy, modify or distribute the work in a way requiring permission under copyrightlaw.
A “Modified Version” of the Document means any work containing the Document or a portion of it, either
copied verbatim, or with modifications and/or translated into another language.
A “Secondary Section” is a named appendix or a front-matter section of the Document that deals exclusively
with the relationship of the publishers or authors of the Document to the Document’s overall subject (or to
related matters) and contains nothing that could fall directly within that overall subject. (Thus, if the Document
is in part a textbook of mathematics, a Secondary Section may not explain any mathematics.) The relationshipcould be a matter of historical connection with the subject or with related matters, or of legal, commercial,philosophical, ethical or political position regarding them.
The “Invariant Sections” are certain Secondary Sections whose titles are designated, as being those ofInvariant Sections, in the notice that says that the Document is released under this License. If a section does
not fit the above definition of Secondary then it is not allowed to be designated as Invariant. The Document
may contain zero Invariant Sections. If the Document does not identify any Invariant Sections then there arenone.
The “Cover Texts” are certain short passages of text that are listed, as Front-Cover Texts or Back-Cover Texts,
in the notice that says that the Document is released under this License. A Front-Cover Text may be at most
5 words, and a Back-Cover Text may be at most 25 words.

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C.1. Quantum GIS Qt exception for GPL
A “Transparent” copy of the Document means a machine-readable copy, represented in a format whose
specification is available to the general public, that is suitable for revising the document straightforwardly withgeneric text editors or (for images composed of pixels) generic paint programs or (for drawings) some widely
available drawing editor, and that is suitable for input to text formatters or for automatic translation to a variety
of formats suitable for input to text formatters. A copy made in an otherwise Transparent file format whose
markup, or absence of markup, has been arranged to thwart or discourage subsequent modification by readers
is not Transparent. An image format is not Transparent if used for any substantial amount of text. A copy thatis not “Transparent” is called “Opaque”.
Examples of suitable formats for Transparent copies include plain ASCII without markup, Texinfo input format,
LaTeX input format, SGML or XML using a publicly available DTD, and standard-conforming simple HTML,PostScript or PDF designed for human modification. Examples of transparent image formats include PNG,
XCF and JPG. Opaque formats include proprietary formats that can be read and edited only by proprietary
word processors, SGML or XML for which the DTD and/or processing tools are not generally available, andthe machine-generated HTML, PostScript or PDF produced by some word processors for output purposes
only.
The “Title Page” means, for a printed book, the title page itself, plus such following pages as are needed tohold, legibly, the material this License requires to appear in the title page. For works in formats which do nothave any title page as such, “Title Page” means the text near the most prominent appearance of the work’s
title, preceding the beginning of the body of the text.
The “publisher” means any person or entity that distributes copies of the Document to the public.
A section “Entitled XYZ” means a named subunit of the Document whose title either is precisely XYZ orcontains XYZ in parentheses following text that translates XYZ in another language. (Here XYZ stands for a
specific section name mentioned below, such as “Acknowledgements”, “Dedications”, “Endorsements”, or“History”.) To “Preserve the Title” of such a section when you modify the Document means that it remains asection “Entitled XYZ” according to this definition.
The Document may include Warranty Disclaimers next to the notice which states that this License applies tothe Document. These Warranty Disclaimers are considered to be included by reference in this License, but
only as regards disclaiming warranties: any other implication that these Warranty Disclaimers may have is
void and has no effect on the meaning of this License.

2. VERBATIM COPYING
You may copy and distribute the Document in any medium, either commercially or noncommercially, provided
that this License, the copyright notices, and the license notice saying this License applies to the Document
are reproduced in all copies, and that you add no other conditions whatsoever to those of this License. You
may not use technical measures to obstruct or control the reading or further copying of the copies you makeor distribute. However, you may accept compensation in exchange for copies. If you distribute a large enoughnumber of copies you must also follow the conditions in section 3.
You may also lend copies, under the same conditions stated above, and you may publicly display copies.

3. COPYING IN QUANTITY
If you publish printed copies (or copies in media that commonly have printed covers) of the Document, numbering more than 100, and the Document’s license notice requires Cover Texts, you must enclose the copies
in covers that carry, clearly and legibly, all these Cover Texts: Front-Cover Texts on the front cover, and BackCover Texts on the back cover. Both covers must also clearly and legibly identify you as the publisher of thesecopies. The front cover must present the full title with all words of the title equally prominent and visible. You
may add other material on the covers in addition. Copying with changes limited to the covers, as long as theypreserve the title of the Document and satisfy these conditions, can be treated as verbatim copying in otherrespects.
If the required texts for either cover are too voluminous to fit legibly, you should put the first ones listed (asmany as fit reasonably) on the actual cover, and continue the rest onto adjacent pages.
If you publish or distribute Opaque copies of the Document numbering more than 100, you must either include
a machine-readable Transparent copy along with each Opaque copy, or state in or with each Opaque copy a

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computer-network location from which the general network-using public has access to download using publicstandard network protocols a complete Transparent copy of the Document, free of added material. If you use
the latter option, you must take reasonably prudent steps, when you begin distribution of Opaque copies inquantity, to ensure that this Transparent copy will remain thus accessible at the stated location until at least
one year after the last time you distribute an Opaque copy (directly or through your agents or retailers) of that
edition to the public.
It is requested, but not required, that you contact the authors of the Document well before redistributing anylarge number of copies, to give them a chance to provide you with an updated version of the Document.

4. MODIFICATIONS
You may copy and distribute a Modified Version of the Document under the conditions of sections 2 and 3
above, provided that you release the Modified Version under precisely this License, with the Modified Version
filling the role of the Document, thus licensing distribution and modification of the Modified Version to whoever
possesses a copy of it. In addition, you must do these things in the Modified Version:
A. Use in the Title Page (and on the covers, if any) a title distinct from that of the Document, and from thoseof previous versions (which should, if there were any, be listed in the History section of the Document).
You may use the same title as a previous version if the original publisher of that version gives permission.
B. List on the Title Page, as authors, one or more persons or entities responsible for authorship of themodifications in the Modified Version, together with at least five of the principal authors of the Document(all of its principal authors, if it has fewer than five), unless they release you from this requirement.
C. State on the Title page the name of the publisher of the Modified Version, as the publisher.
D. Preserve all the copyright notices of the Document.
E. Add an appropriate copyright notice for your modifications adjacent to the other copyright notices.
F. Include, immediately after the copyright notices, a license notice giving the public permission to use theModified Version under the terms of this License, in the form shown in the Addendum below.
G. Preserve in that license notice the full lists of Invariant Sections and required Cover Texts given in theDocument’s license notice.
H. Include an unaltered copy of this License.
I. Preserve the section Entitled “History”, Preserve its Title, and add to it an item stating at least the title,
year, new authors, and publisher of the Modified Version as given on the Title Page. If there is no
section Entitled “History” in the Document, create one stating the title, year, authors, and publisher of theDocument as given on its Title Page, then add an item describing the Modified Version as stated in theprevious sentence.
J. Preserve the network location, if any, given in the Document for public access to a Transparent copy of
the Document, and likewise the network locations given in the Document for previous versions it was
based on. These may be placed in the “History” section. You may omit a network location for a work thatwas published at least four years before the Document itself, or if the original publisher of the version it
refers to gives permission.
K. For any section Entitled “Acknowledgements” or “Dedications”, Preserve the Title of the section, andpreserve in the section all the substance and tone of each of the contributor acknowledgements and/or
dedications given therein.
L. Preserve all the Invariant Sections of the Document, unaltered in their text and in their titles. Section
numbers or the equivalent are not considered part of the section titles.
M. Delete any section Entitled “Endorsements”. Such a section may not be included in the Modified Version.
N. Do not retitle any existing section to be Entitled “Endorsements” or to conflict in title with any Invariant
Section.
O. Preserve any Warranty Disclaimers.
If the Modified Version includes new front-matter sections or appendices that qualify as Secondary Sections
and contain no material copied from the Document, you may at your option designate some or all of these
sections as invariant. To do this, add their titles to the list of Invariant Sections in the Modified Version’s license
notice. These titles must be distinct from any other section titles.

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C.1. Quantum GIS Qt exception for GPL
You may add a section Entitled “Endorsements”, provided it contains nothing but endorsements of your Modified Version by various parties—for example, statements of peer review or that the text has been approved byan organization as the authoritative definition of a standard.
You may add a passage of up to five words as a Front-Cover Text, and a passage of up to 25 words as a BackCover Text, to the end of the list of Cover Texts in the Modified Version. Only one passage of Front-CoverText and one of Back-Cover Text may be added by (or through arrangements made by) any one entity. If theDocument already includes a cover text for the same cover, previously added by you or by arrangement madeby the same entity you are acting on behalf of, you may not add another; but you may replace the old one, on
explicit permission from the previous publisher that added the old one.
The author(s) and publisher(s) of the Document do not by this License give permission to use their names for
publicity for or to assert or imply endorsement of any Modified Version.

5. COMBINING DOCUMENTS
You may combine the Document with other documents released under this License, under the terms defined in
section 4 above for modified versions, provided that you include in the combination all of the Invariant Sectionsof all of the original documents, unmodified, and list them all as Invariant Sections of your combined work in
its license notice, and that you preserve all their Warranty Disclaimers.
The combined work need only contain one copy of this License, and multiple identical Invariant Sections may
be replaced with a single copy. If there are multiple Invariant Sections with the same name but different
contents, make the title of each such section unique by adding at the end of it, in parentheses, the name ofthe original author or publisher of that section if known, or else a unique number. Make the same adjustment
to the section titles in the list of Invariant Sections in the license notice of the combined work.
In the combination, you must combine any sections Entitled “History” in the various original documents, forming one section Entitled “History”; likewise combine any sections Entitled “Acknowledgements”, and any sections Entitled “Dedications”. You must delete all sections Entitled “Endorsements”.

6. COLLECTIONS OF DOCUMENTS
You may make a collection consisting of the Document and other documents released under this License, andreplace the individual copies of this License in the various documents with a single copy that is included in thecollection, provided that you follow the rules of this License for verbatim copying of each of the documents inall other respects.
You may extract a single document from such a collection, and distribute it individually under this License,
provided you insert a copy of this License into the extracted document, and follow this License in all otherrespects regarding verbatim copying of that document.

7. AGGREGATION WITH INDEPENDENT WORKS
A compilation of the Document or its derivatives with other separate and independent documents or works,
in or on a volume of a storage or distribution medium, is called an “aggregate” if the copyright resulting fromthe compilation is not used to limit the legal rights of the compilation’s users beyond what the individual works
permit. When the Document is included in an aggregate, this License does not apply to the other works in theaggregate which are not themselves derivative works of the Document.
If the Cover Text requirement of section 3 is applicable to these copies of the Document, then if the Document
is less than one half of the entire aggregate, the Document’s Cover Texts may be placed on covers that bracket
the Document within the aggregate, or the electronic equivalent of covers if the Document is in electronic form.
Otherwise they must appear on printed covers that bracket the whole aggregate.

8. TRANSLATION
Translation is considered a kind of modification, so you may distribute translations of the Document under
the terms of section 4. Replacing Invariant Sections with translations requires special permission from their
copyright holders, but you may include translations of some or all Invariant Sections in addition to the original

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versions of these Invariant Sections. You may include a translation of this License, and all the license notices
in the Document, and any Warranty Disclaimers, provided that you also include the original English version ofthis License and the original versions of those notices and disclaimers. In case of a disagreement between
the translation and the original version of this License or a notice or disclaimer, the original version will prevail.
If a section in the Document is Entitled “Acknowledgements”, “Dedications”, or “History”, the requirement(section 4) to Preserve its Title (section 1) will typically require changing the actual title.

9. TERMINATION
You may not copy, modify, sublicense, or distribute the Document except as expressly provided under thisLicense. Any attempt otherwise to copy, modify, sublicense, or distribute it is void, and will automaticallyterminate your rights under this License.
However, if you cease all violation of this License, then your license from a particular copyright holder isreinstated (a) provisionally, unless and until the copyright holder explicitly and finally terminates your license,and (b) permanently, if the copyright holder fails to notify you of the violation by some reasonable means prior
to 60 days after the cessation.
Moreover, your license from a particular copyright holder is reinstated permanently if the copyright holder
notifies you of the violation by some reasonable means, this is the first time you have received notice of
violation of this License (for any work) from that copyright holder, and you cure the violation prior to 30 days
after your receipt of the notice.
Termination of your rights under this section does not terminate the licenses of parties who have received
copies or rights from you under this License. If your rights have been terminated and not permanently reinstated, receipt of a copy of some or all of the same material does not give you any rights to use it.

10. FUTURE REVISIONS OF THIS LICENSE
The Free Software Foundation may publish new, revised versions of the GNU Free Documentation Licensefrom time to time. Such new versions will be similar in spirit to the present version, but may differ in detail toaddress new problems or concerns. See http://www.gnu.org/copyleft/.
Each version of the License is given a distinguishing version number. If the Document specifies that a particular numbered version of this License “or any later version” applies to it, you have the option of following theterms and conditions either of that specified version or of any later version that has been published (not as adraft) by the Free Software Foundation. If the Document does not specify a version number of this License,
you may choose any version ever published (not as a draft) by the Free Software Foundation. If the Document specifies that a proxy can decide which future versions of this License can be used, that proxy’s publicstatement of acceptance of a version permanently authorizes you to choose that version for the Document.

11. RELICENSING“Massive Multiauthor Collaboration Site” (or “MMC Site”) means any World Wide Web server that publishes
copyrightable works and also provides prominent facilities for anybody to edit those works. A public wiki thatanybody can edit is an example of such a server. A “Massive Multiauthor Collaboration” (or “MMC”) containedin the site means any set of copyrightable works thus published on the MMC site.
“CC-BY-SA” means the Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 license published by Creative Commons Corporation, a not-for-profit corporation with a principal place of business in San Francisco, California,
as well as future copyleft versions of that license published by that same organization.
“Incorporate” means to publish or republish a Document, in whole or in part, as part of another Document.
An MMC is “eligible for relicensing” if it is licensed under this License, and if all works that were first publishedunder this License somewhere other than this MMC, and subsequently incorporated in whole or in part into
the MMC, (1) had no cover texts or invariant sections, and (2) were thus incorporated prior to November 1,
2008.
The operator of an MMC Site may republish an MMC contained in the site under CC-BY-SA on the same site
at any time before August 1, 2009, provided the MMC is eligible for relicensing.

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ADDENDUM: How to use this License for your documents
To use this License in a document you have written, include a copy of the License in the document and put
the following copyright and license notices just after the title page:
Copyright c YEAR YOUR NAME. Permission is granted to copy, distribute and/or modify thisdocument under the terms of the GNU Free Documentation License, Version 1.3 or any later
version published by the Free Software Foundation; with no Invariant Sections, no Front-CoverTexts, and no Back-Cover Texts. A copy of the license is included in the section entitled “GNU Free
Documentation License”.
If you have Invariant Sections, Front-Cover Texts and Back-Cover Texts, replace the “with . . . Texts.” line with
this:
with the Invariant Sections being LIST THEIR TITLES, with the Front-Cover Texts being LIST, andwith the Back-Cover Texts being LIST.
If you have Invariant Sections without Cover Texts, or some other combination of the three, merge those twoalternatives to suit the situation.
If your document contains nontrivial examples of program code, we recommend releasing these examples inparallel under your choice of free software license, such as the GNU General Public License, to permit theiruse in free software.

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Index%%, 53
Actions, 53
actions
defining, 53
examples, 53
using, 54
advanced digitizing
an existing layer, 62
Allow Editing, 59
Analysis tools, 139
annotations, 28
Attributes, 51
bookmarks, 30
command line options, 13Context help, 22
coordinate reference system, 79
crashes, 120
CRS, 79
data
sample, 9Data management tools, 141data providers, 122delimited text, 33
digitizing
an existing layer, 59
documentation, 1
editing, 56
copying features, 61
creating a new shapefile layer, 65
creating a new shape layer, 65
creating a new spatialite layer, 65
cutting features, 61
icons, 59
pasting features, 61
save selection as new layer, 68
saving changes, 62
working with non spatial tables, 68
working with the attribute table, 66
EPSG, 85
ESRI
shapefiles, 33
Field Calculator
getting all values, 70
field calculator

OGR, 69
PostGIS, 69
PostgreSQL, 69
Field Calcultor
generating sample list, 70
form annotation,
seeannotations28
GDAL
supported formats, 182
Geometry tools, 140
Geoprocessing tools, 140
Georeferencer
tools, 148
GRASS, 89
attribute linkage, 93
attribute storage, 93
category settings, 94
digitizing, 93
digitizing tools, 94, 95
display results, 100, 101
edit permissions, 98
loading data, 89
region, 96
display, 96
editing, 96
snapping tolerance, 95
starting QGIS, 89
symbology settings, 95
table editing, 95
toolbox, 96, 100, 102
Browser, 105
customize, 106
modules, 185
topology, 93
vector data model, 93
identify
WMS, 81
installation, 9
Keyboard shortcuts, 21
layervisibility, 19
layersinitial visibility, 23
layouttoolbars, 19
legend, 19

197

Indexlicenseexception, 189
FDL, 191
GPL, 187
main window, 14
map
overview, 21
view, 20
MapInfo
MIF files, 33
TAB files, 33
measure, 23
measure:angles, 23
measure:areas, 23
measure:line length, 23
menus, 15
Metadata, 53
MIF files, 33
New labeling, 50
OGC
Authentication, 82
coordinate reference system, 79
CRS, 79
introduction, 77
search, 80
WMSclient, 77
OGR, 33
field calculator, 69
supported formats, 181
panarrow keys, 21
plugingeoreferencer, 123
grass toolbox, 123, 175
plugins, 119, 177
coordinate capture, 123
copyright, 123core, 123delimited text, 123
diagram, 123, 175
DXF2Shape, 123evis, 131, 137
ftools, 123
gdaltools, 123
georaster, 123
gps, 123
installing, 120
Interpolation, 123
manager, 119
managing, 119
MapServer Export, 123
north arrow, 123
OGR converter, 123
Plugin Installer, 123, 175, 177

198

Python Plugin Installer, 120
quick print, 124
Raster Terrain Modelling, 123
scalebar, 124spit, 123, 175
types, 119
upgrading, 120
Zoom To Point, 177
plugins settings, 126
PostGIS, 33, 85
Exporting, 38
field calculator, 69
layers, 35
spatial index, 39
GiST, 39
SPIT, 38
editing field names, 38
importing data, 38
loading, 38
reserved words, 38
PostgreSQL
connection, 35, 36
testing, 36
connection manager, 36
connection parameters, 37
database, 37
field calculator, 69
host, 37
layer details, 37
loading layers, 35, 37
password, 37
port, 37
PostGIS, 33
sslmode, 37
username, 37
Print composer
tools, 107
Projections
coordinate reference system, 79
CRS, 79
custom, 87
enabling, 86
specifying, 85
SRS, 79
WMS, 79
working with, 85
projects, 24
Query Builder, 68changing layer definitions, 68
generating sample list, 68
getting all values, 68
save selection as new layer, 69
Rasterraster calculator, 75
Raster calculator, 75
raster layerclassify, 74

QGIS 1.6.0 User Guide

Indexraster layers, 71
context menu, 72
data formats, 71
definition, 71
GDAL implementation, 71
georeferenced, 71
histogram, 75
loading, 71
metadata, 75
metadata), 75
properties, 74
pyramids, 75
resolution pyramids, 75
standard deviation, 73
statistics, 75
supported channels, 72
supported formats, 182
transparency, 73
rasters
metadata, 81
properties, 81
WMS, 77
rendering, 22
options, 23
quality, 23
scale dependent, 22
suspending, 23
update during drawing, 23
Research tools, 139
scale, 22calculate, 21
security, 36settings, 36
shapefileformat, 33
loading, 33
specification, 33
shapefiles, 33
SHP files, 33
spatial bookmarks,
seebookmarks30
spatial index
shapefiles, 34
SpatiaLite
layers, 40
SpatiaLite layers
properties dialog, 40
SRS, 79
symbologychanging, 41
TAB files, 33
text annotation,
seeannotations28
Toggle Editing, 59
toolbars, 19
vector layers, 33

QGIS 1.6.0 User Guide

addpart, 63
ring, 63
addingfeature, 59
advanced digitizing, 62
advanced editing tools, 62
ArcInfo Binary Coverage, 35
basic editing tools, 59
copy
feature, 61crossing, 39
cut
feature, 61
deletepart, 64
ring, 63
deletingfeature, 62
diagram, 55
digitizing, 59
ESRI shapefiles, 33
MapInfo, 34
merge
features, 64
movefeature, 59
node
tool, 60
Node Tool, 60
pastefeature, 61
PostGIS, see PostGIS
properties dialog, 41
redo, 62renderers
continuous color, 41
graduated symbol, 41
single symbol, 41
unique value, 41
reshapefeature, 64
rotatesymbol, 64
simplify, 63
SpatlaLIte, see SpatiaLite
split
feature, 64
styles, 41
symbology, 41transparency, 42
undo, 62
WFS
authenticate remote server, 84
remote server, 83
secured WFS server, 84
Transactional, 83

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IndexWFS-T, 83
WKT, 85WMS
authentification, 78
capabilites, 81
client, 77
about, 77
connection parameters, 78
layers, 78
limits, 82
coordinate reference system, 79
CRS, 79
GetFeatureInfo, 81
identify, 81
image encoding, 78
layer settings
editing, 82
layer transparency, 79
metadata, 81
properties, 81
remote server
authentication, 82
basic authentification, 82
layer ordering, 79
selection, 77
URL, 78
search, 80
secured layers, 82
server, 82
serversearch, 80
tileset, 81
URL, 78
WMS-C, 81
zoom
mouse wheel, 20

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Literature and Web References[1] GDAL-S OFTWARE -S UITE. Geospatial data abstraction library. http://www.gdal.org, 2010.
[2] GRASS-P ROJECT. Geographic ressource analysis support system. http://grass.osgeo.org, 2010.
[3] M ITCHELL , T. Web mapping illustrated, 2005.
[4] N ETELER , M., AND M ITASOVA , H. Open source gis: A grass gis approach, 2008.
[5] OGR-S OFTWARE -S UITE. Geospatial data abstraction library. http://www.gdal.org/ogr, 2010.
[6] O PEN -G EOSPATIAL -C ONSORTIUM. Web map service (1.1.1) implementation specification.
portal.opengeospatial.org, 2002.

http://[7] O PEN -G EOSPATIAL -C ONSORTIUM. Web map service (1.3.0) implementation specification.
portal.opengeospatial.org, 2004.

http://[8] P OST GIS-P ROJECT. Spatial support for postgresql. http://postgis.refractions.net/, 2010.

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