Book Image

Learning QGIS 2.0

By : Anita Graser
Book Image

Learning QGIS 2.0

By: Anita Graser

Overview of this book

QGIS is a user friendly open source geographic information system (GIS) that runs on Linux, Unix, Mac OSX, and Windows. The popularity of open source geographic information systems and QGIS in particular has been growing rapidly over the last few years. More and more companies and institutions are adopting QGIS and even switching to QGIS as their main GIS. Learning QGIS 2.0 is a practical, hands-on guide that provides you with clear, step-by-step exercises that will help you to apply your GIS knowledge to QGIS. Containing a number of clear, practical exercises, this book will introduce you to working with QGIS, quickly and painlessly. If you want to take advantage of the wide range of functionalities that QGIS offers, then this is the book for you. This book takes you from installing and configuring QGIS, through handling spatial data to creating great maps. You will learn how to load and visualize existing spatial data and how to create data from scratch. You will perform common geoprocessing and spatial analysis tasks and automate them. We will cover how to achieve great cartographic output and print maps. You will learn everything you need to know to handle spatial data management, processing, and visualization tasks in QGIS.
Table of Contents (12 chapters)

Running QGIS for the first time


By default, QGIS will use the operating system's default language. To follow the tutorials in this book, it is advisable to change the language to English by navigating to Settings | Options | Locale. On the first run, the toolbars are arranged in two rows and depending on your screen resolution, this can hide many buttons. To be able to work efficiently, I therefore suggest arranging the toolbars. I like to put some toolbars to the left and right screen borders to save vertical screen estate—especially on wide-screen displays.

Additionally, we activate the file browser by navigating to View | Panels | Browser. It will provide us quick access to our spatial data. In the end, your screen should look similar to the following screenshot:

Next, we activate some must-have plugins by navigating to Plugins | Manage and Install Plugins. Plugins are activated by ticking the checkbox beside their name. To begin with, I recommend the following:

  • Coordinate Capture: This plugin is useful for picking coordinates in the map

  • fTools: This plugin offers vector analysis and management tools

  • GdalTools: This plugin offers raster analysis and management tools

  • Processing: This plugin provides access to many useful raster and vector analysis tools as well as a model builder for task automation

To make it easier to find specific plugins, we can filter the list of plugins using the Search input field at the top of the window, which you can see in the following screenshot: