Part 1 Understanding and creating a new plugin framework QGIS 3.0 can be extended with a wide range of functionality using plugins. While there are thousands of plugins available in the Plugin manager, it is often necessary or advantageous to create your own plugins to automate common tasks or add extra functionality to a workflow. […]

Developing plugins and other Python scripts can be a daunting task for the uninitiated. Using an IDE (Integrated Development Environment) like PyCharm can help keep everything in one place and even integrates version control systems like Git. Unfortunately, unlike ArcPy you can’t just set the interpreter to the included Python 3.7 installation for QGIS and […]

GeoServer is a Java-based software web-server designed for sharing geospatial data on the web. It uses the Web Map Service (WMS) and Web Feature Servce (WFS) standard for sharing web maps and actual geospatial data sets. This allows simple sharing and editing of geospatial data. This document will record a step by step process for […]

This will cover creating basic vector data in QGIS. Included here will be instructions on how to create shapefile layers, and GeoPackage layers, and creating new geometry tables within a PostGIS Database.   Creating Shapefile Layers Creating Shapefile layers in QGIS is as follows: Open a QGIS project and save the project file in an […]

QGIS natively supports adding XYZ tiles to projects as background layers, from multiple sources. Here is a basic walkthrough as to how to connect XYZ tile services to your QGIS project. Open a QGIS Project and navigate to the ‘XYZ Tiles’ option in the Browser panel. Right click and select ‘New connection…’ In the XYZ […]

Numerical data saved as a string in a PostGIS table column needs to be converted to a numerical data type to be properly analyzed. Below is a process by which to convert string data to real numbers in QGIS. Open the layer with the improper string column in QGIS, and toggle editing mode by selecting […]

Translating geometries involves displacing vector data using a pre-defined offset distance from the current position of the data. In this case, we will be using this data to alter UAV flight paths (vector line data). This will involve shifting the paths to the East, West, North, or South, depending on the orientation of the flight […]

Mapbox has an excellent tiling service that has both a ton of basemaps and an easy-to-use mapping system for web applications. It is possible to use their tiles in QGIS as a basemap. The steps are relatively simple and will be covered below. Create a Mapbox account by going to www.mapbox.com. Login in and create […]

Web based basemaps can provide an excellent context for a mapping project. Map services such as OpenStreetMap and Bing provide tile services that can be used to fill in details such as topography, road networks, hydrography and satellite imagery for a map without having to provide your own set of base features. Quick note on […]

In larger work environments it becomes essential to be able to assign similar permissions to groups of people for the database environment. PostgreSQL has a built in authentication system that easily allows for this. As with the rest of this documentation, this section assumes a PostgreSQL installation on a Debian based Linux distribution. We use […]