The QGIS Community Team proudly presents three new QGIS user reports aka Case Studies:

“Working with QGIS in a spatial data infrastructure of Jalisco in Mexico” by Carlos Ruiz

“… I realized that QGIS was the only one which can connect to WMS, WCS and WFS successfully.”

“Quantum GIS and GRASS in Biogeographical Research in Spain” by Marcia Barbosa

“I found that QGIS provided a very intuitive interface for GRASS, hat they complemented each other perfectly, and they provided all the analytical capabilities I needed.”

“QGIS – an interesting instrument for forestry planning concepts at local and regional level in Switzerland” by Raphael Häner

“The most important qualities of QGIS are the intuitive user interface and the compatibility with different file formats. It is an ideal tool for projects that are on one hand based on existing geographic data and on the other hand require the acquisition of new data.”

If you would like to share your own story, just contact the QGIS community team. All contributions welcome!

Release of QGIS 1.5 Announced

By underdark

2010-07-31

GIS, QGIS

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.

Data Defined Labeling in QGIS

By underdark

2010-07-28

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

By underdark

2010-07-12

QGIS, SpatiaLite

3 Comments

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

By underdark

2010-07-10

GIS, QGIS

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”

By underdark

2010-06-25

GIS, QGIS, SpatiaLite

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 …