The QGIS developer team has just announced the release of QGIS 1.5. Check the official visual change log featuring a list of the most prominent changes and many screen shots.
QGIS
Customized Attribute Editing in QGIS 1.5
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QGIS 1.5 Attribute Edit Dialog
Creating new datasets can be a tedious task. To make things easier, QGIS enables users to customize the editing dialogue.
Users can choose from one of the following editing widgets:
- Line edit <default> – a simple edit box
- Classification – displays a combo box with the values used for “unique value” classification (symbology tab)
- Range – allows numeric values within a given range, the widget can be either slider or spin box
- Unique values
- editable – displays a line edit widget with auto-completion suggesting values already used in the attribute table
- not editable – displays a combo box with already used values
- File name – adds a file chooser dialog
- Value map – shows a combo box with predefined description/value items
- Enumeration <postgres only> – a combo box with values that can be used within the columns type
- Immutable – read-only
- Hidden – makes the attribute invisible for the user
- Checkbox – a checkbox with customizable representation for both checked and unchecked state
- Text edit – an edit box that allow multiple input lines
- Calendar – a calendar widget to input dates
Data Defined Labeling in QGIS
A useful and powerful way to define layer symbology and labels is using data-defined properties. While many of the options are self-explanatory, others require knowledge about the valid options.
Note: These options are currently only available for the “old” labeling under “Advanced” tab.
Position
Valid options are: left, right, bottom, top, bottom_left, bottom_right, top_left, top_right
Color
I successfully used the color names red, blue, green, black, yellow, and orange. Alternatively, you can enter color hex-codes: red = #ff0000
QGIS SpatiaLite Manager
SpatiaLite Manager connected to example database (additional data from Natural Earth)
SpatiaLite Manager is a plugin for QGIS for managing spatial data in SpatiaLite databases. It’s based on the PostGIS Manager plugin that provides equal functionality for PostGIS.
In the database view, all tables are listed and it’s easy to distinguish between tables, views and spatial tables of different geometry types. On the right, different tabs show table meta data, table and a map preview for geometry tables.
Additionally, there is an SQL window that allows execution of statements from inside QGIS.
While there’s certainly room for additional functions, this is a great start and facilitates working with SpatiaLite databases considerably. Possible enhancements could be:
- Functionality to create new layers from within SpatiaLite Manager (now only available through “Add new layer”).
- SPIT-like importer for shapefiles
QGIS Mapserver
Based on QGIS libraries, Marco Hugentobler an his team are developing a QGIS webserver. It’s a WMS server aiming at ease of use and cartographic richness. The project home page can be found at http://karlinapp.ethz.ch/qgis_wms/index.html.
QGIS libraries are used for the underlying GIS logic and map rendering. QGIS Mapserver supports Linux, WinXP and MacOSX and is licensed under GPL.
QGIS “New SpatiaLite Layer”
14NewLayerOriginally uploaded by linfiniti.com
A new great feature for QGIS 1.5: You can create new layers in SpatiaLite!
Ooop, there’s not even an English Wikipedia article on SpatiaLite … Well, SpatiaLite is the spatial extension for SQLite, like PostGIS is the extension for PostgreSQL. SpatiaLite makes data exchange so much easier. Just copy the database file to some other location and use it there. The database can contain any number of spatial tables, all neatly packaged in one file. No more Shapefiles without .prj or .dbf file. *dream* :)
Also check out Tim’s other latest screenshots: http://www.flickr.com/photos/linfiniti/
Will we really live to see the end of the Shapefile? One can always hope …
Weekly Reports on “QGIS on steroids GSoC 2010″
Martin Dobias’ weekly reports on his project to speed up QGIS [1] are being published on QGIS wiki.
Currently, we’re in week #4 and things look good! Thumbs up!
Speeding up QGIS in Google Summer of Code
During this year’s Google Summer of Code Martin Dobias will work on speeding up QGIS [1]. His goals are:
- Introduce parallelism into rendering
- Improve user experience when browsing map
- Optimization of map rendering
- Miscellaneous optimizations
