Book Image

QGIS Python Programming Cookbook, Second Edition - Second Edition

By : Joel Lawhead
Book Image

QGIS Python Programming Cookbook, Second Edition - Second Edition

By: Joel Lawhead

Overview of this book

QGIS is a desktop geographic information system that facilitates data viewing, editing, and analysis. Paired with the most efficient scripting language—Python, we can write effective scripts that extend the core functionality of QGIS. Based on version QGIS 2.18, this book will teach you how to write Python code that works with spatial data to automate geoprocessing tasks in QGIS. It will cover topics such as querying and editing vector data and using raster data. You will also learn to create, edit, and optimize a vector layer for faster queries, reproject a vector layer, reduce the number of vertices in a vector layer without losing critical data, and convert a raster to a vector. Following this, you will work through recipes that will help you compose static maps, create heavily customized maps, and add specialized labels and annotations. As well as this, we’ll also share a few tips and tricks based on different aspects of QGIS.
Table of Contents (16 chapters)
QGIS Python Programming Cookbook - Second Edition
Credits
About the Author
About the Reviewer
www.PacktPub.com
Customer Feedback
Preface

Adding a set of attributes to a vector layer


Each QGIS feature has two parts: the geometry and the attributes. In this recipe, we'll add an attribute for a layer from an existing dataset.

Getting ready...

We will use a point shapefile with museum data for New York City, which you can download as a ZIP file from the following URL:

https://github.com/GeospatialPython/Learn/raw/master/NYC_MUSEUMS_GEO.zip

Extract this shapefile to the following directory: /qgis_data/nyc

How to do it...

While you can add a geometry to a feature without attributes, you must have at least a geometry in order to add attributes. So, we will create a new feature, add some attributes, and then add everything to the layer:

  1. Start QGIS.

  2. From the Plugins menu, select Python Console.

  3. First, load the layer and validate it:

            vectorLyr =  QgsVectorLayer('/qgis_data/nyc/NYC_MUSEUMS_GEO.shp',
                                        'Museums' , "ogr") 
            vectorLyr.isValid() 
    
  4. Next, access the layer's data provider...