Here follows the quick overview in reverse chronological order. If any of the names or short descriptions catches your attention, you can find the direct link to the plugin page in the table below:
Трансформація (перерахунок) координат вектороного шару через офіційне API Державної геодезичної мережі. Translation: Transformation of vector layer coordinates through the official API of the State Geodetic Network.
“Route Builder” is a QGIS plugin with a set of tools that calculates shortest routes in street networks using data from OpenStreetMap (OSM) and using the A* (A Star) algorithm. Users can define a region, define origin and destination points (O/D) using the coordinates collected by the plugin, these coordinates of the nodes and thus calculate the shortest route between them.
ActiveBreak is a plugin for QGIS that emits messages at the top of the canvas at time intervals from the start of work, reminding the user to take an active break, take their lunch and/or reminders indicating to save their QGIS project.
This plugin collects xyz points from gsi website. The selection should be within Japan boundary.
We would like this opportunity to highlight two plugins, Viper (QGIS snake Clone) and Active Break.
Viper allows to emulate in QGIS canvas the popular game Snake, providing a fun time and a bit of nostalgia for the “older” users. However it goes further than that, as it serves the purpose of teaching about geospatial concepts such as geometry objects (points, polygons) with their properties and methods, spatial indexing in the form of R-Tree, but also programming in QGIS, as well as other aspects.
On a more serious tone, if it can be said that, we present Active Break, a plugin that “simply” presents messages at specific time intervals, which can be personalized by the user and range from the more technical such as “save your project”, personal or motivational like quotes from hundreds of people on multiple subjects, or perhaps the most important, routinely reminders to take a break, relax or go have lunch. This considering the long hours we spent daily in front of the computer, with all the physical and mental health, as well as social implications. Congratulations on both authors!
QField Rapid Mapper is a project for the QField mobile app, which allows emergency responders, civil protection, military, and citizens to assess and report damages from natural catastrophes by quickly sharing geolocated images, videos and audio. QField Rapid Mapper offers real-time data collection, mapping and sharing to help enhance disaster response and coordination. QField and QFieldCloud are open-source, and OPENGIS.ch is donating the needed QFieldCloud infrastructure and expertise to help map the floods in Ticino in 2024
OPENGIS.ch Supports Flood Mapping Efforts in Ticino
After discussing with the Protezione Civile Locarno e Valle Maggia and the Centro di Competenza per la geoinformazione (CCGEO), we are proud to announce that OPENGIS.ch is donating the necessary QFieldCloud infrastructure and dedicated projects for a rapid crowdsourcing POC to aid in mapping the 2024 floods in Ticino. This crowdsourcing initiative aims to provide essential support to professionals and volunteers working on flood and landslide assessment and recovery.
Photographing damaged houses and infrastructure is the most critical aspect of this mapping initiative. These images provide crucial information for assessing the extent of the damage, planning rescue and reconstruction operations, and ensuring that resources are allocated effectively. It’s also important to document any submerged or damaged vehicles, as they offer additional insights into the disaster’s impact. During these activities, it’s essential to be careful and respect the privacy and property of others, avoiding capturing license plate numbers or entering destroyed buildings without permission. Using QField Rapid Mapper can contribute to a faster and more coordinated emergency response while ensuring respect for those affected.
The QFieldCloud infrastructure enables efficient, real-time data collection and sharing, ensuring that accurate and up-to-date information is available to all stakeholders involved in the flood response. This effort underscores our commitment to leveraging technology for social good and environmental resilience.
By participating, you will have access to powerful tools for field data collection and can contribute valuable information to the ongoing efforts in Ticino. All the data collected will be released under the Creative Commons CC0 1.0 public domain license.
Join the Effort
Using QField and QFieldCloud, you can help create detailed maps crucial for understanding the impact of the floods and planning effective recovery strategies. Your contributions will make a significant difference in managing and mitigating the effects of this natural disaster.
Visit our QField Rapid Mapper project page for more information on how QField and QFieldCloud can assist in flood mapping and other field data collection projects.
Together, we can make a difference. Join us in mapping the floods in Ticino and support the community’s recovery efforts.
Last week, I had the pleasure to meet some of the people behind the OGC Moving Features Standard Working group at the IEEE Mobile Data Management Conference (MDM2024). While chatting about the Moving Features (MF) support in MovingPandas, I realized that, after the MF-JSON update & tutorial with official sample post, we never published a complete tutorial on working with MF-JSON encoded data in MovingPandas.
The current MovingPandas development version (to be release as version 0.19) supports:
Reading MF-JSON MovingPoint (single trajectory features and trajectory collections)
Writing MovingPandas Trajectories and TrajectoryCollections to MF-JSON MovingPoint
This means that we can now go full circle: reading — writing — reading.
Reading MF-JSON
Both MF-JSON MovingPoint encoding and Trajectory encoding can be read using the MovingPandas function read_mf_json(). The complete Jupyter notebook for this tutorial is available in the project repo.
import json
with open('mf5.json', 'w') as json_file:
json.dump(mf_json, json_file, indent=4)
tc = mpd.read_mf_json('mf5.json', traj_id_property='trajectory_id' )
Conclusion
The implemented MF-JSON support covers the basic usage of the encodings. There are some fine details in the standard, such as the distinction of time-varying attribute with linear versus step-wise interpolation, which MovingPandas currently does not support.
If you are working with movement data, I would appreciate if you can give the improved MF-JSON support a spin and report back with your experiences.
With the release of GeoPandas 1.0 this month, we’ve been finally able to close a long-standing issue in MovingPandas by adding support for the explore function which provides interactive maps using Folium and Leaflet.
Explore() will be available in the upcoming MovingPandas 0.19 release if your Python environment includes GeoPandas >= 1.0 and Folium. Of course, if you are curious, you can already test this new functionality using the current development version.
This enables users to access interactive trajectory plots even in environments where it is not possible to install geoviews / hvplot (the previously only option for interactive plots in MovingPandas).
I really like the legend for the speed color gradient, but unfortunately, the legend labels are not readable on the dark background map since they lack the semi-transparent white background that has been applied to the scale bar and credits label.
Speaking of reading / interpreting the plots …
You’ve probably seen the claims that AI will help make tools more accessible. Clearly AI can interpret and describe photos, but can it also interpret MovingPandas plots?
ChatGPT 4o interpretations of MovingPandas plots
Not bad.
And what happens if we ask it to interpret the animated GIF from the beginning of the blog post?
So it looks like ChatGPT extracts 12 frames and analyzes them to answer our question:
Its guesses are not completely off but it made up the facts such as that the view shows “how traffic speeds vary over time”.
The problem remains that models such as ChatGPT rather make up interpretations than concede when they do not have enough information to make a reliable statement.
From February to March of this year, 58 new plugins were published in the QGIS plugin repository.
Here follows the quick overview in reverse chronological order. If any of the names or short descriptions catches your attention, you can find the direct link to the plugin page in the table below:
Dynamic Flow is a QGIS plugin to estimate the spatio-temporal 3D gradient flow from the point observation of the attributes values such as aggregated cell-phone mobility data.
QGIS plugin for adding and modifying zone data in compliance with the GeoZone schema, facilitating sharing with partners or uploading to a central web repository.
Este plugin clasifica las redes hídricas por medio de una etapa de enriquecimiento y otra de lógica difusa. Advertencia: Versión experimental, algunos procesos pueden ser largos de aplicar.
Apply QML style files to new layers. QML files are stored in {qgis_home}\Styles directory. QML files will be applied to a vector layer when the QML file’s basename is found as a substring of the new layer’s name. QML files will be applied to a raster layer when the QML file’s label token is found as a substring of the new layer’s name. The label token is raster_style_{label}.qml.
This plugin connects your QGIS User Profile to many openly hosted web services related to mineral exploration. These include Country and State geological surveys that provide mapped geology and data such as mineral occurence locations, geophysics, geochemistry etc.
NVDB (Norwegian Administration Road Database) it’s a plugin to analyse and manipulate road objects, like (road references, trees, light poles, traffic signs, construction area, smart devices like IP Camera, tunnels, bridges, etc)
HedgeTools is a plugin for QGIS designed to extract and characterize hedges, aiming to streamline field efforts by providing information about hedge health.
Provides Rubber Sheeting and Two Point Transformations, storing to PostGIS, Oracle and MS SQL. The Rubber Sheeting algorithm uses supplied Shift Vectors and calculates the weighted average shift from the 10 nearest Shift Vectors. The Two Point Transformations handles themes with and without a CRS.
Get high-precision elevation profiles in QGIS right from Swisstopo’s official profile service, based on swissALTI3D data!
Swiss elevation profiles are available with QGIS 3.38.
Thanks to this integration, you can take advantage of existing QGIS features, such as exporting 2d/3d features or distance/elevation tables, as well as displaying profiles directly in QGIS layouts.
Tip: Swiss elevation profiles will be available as long as the Swiss Locator plugin is installed and active. Should you need to turn Swiss elevation profiles off to create other profiles with your own data, go to the Plugin manager and deactivate the plugin in the meantime.
For developers
We’re paving the way for adding custom elevation profiles to QGIS. For that, we’ve added a QGIS profile source registry so that plugin developers can register their own profile sources (e.g., based on profile web services, just like we did here) and make them available for QGIS end users. The registry is available from QGIS 3.38. It’s your turn!
Loading Swiss vector tiles is now easier than ever. Just go to the locator bar, type the prefix “chb” (add a white space after that) and you’ll get a list of available and already styled Swiss vector tiles layers. Some of them will even load grouped auxiliary imagery for reference.
Vector tiles will be loaded at the bottom of the QGIS layer tree as base maps, so you will see all your data on top of them.
Vector tiles are optimized for local caching and scale-independent rendering. This also makes it a perfect fit for adding it to your QField project.
There are a couple of different vector tile sets available:
leichte-basiskarte
Light base map
Similar to the leichte-basiskarte layer, but using an older version of the data source and adjusted styles.
leichte-basiskarte-imagery (with WMTS sublayer)
Imagery base map (with WMTS sublayer)
This layer is similar to the leichte-basiskarte-imagery layer, but it uses an older version of the data source and adjusted styles.
Thanks to your feedback, we’ve also fixed some issues. Don’t hesitate to reach out to us at GitHub if you’d like to suggest or report something related to the Swiss Locator plugin.
Between December 2023 and January 2024, 45 new plugins were published in the QGIS plugin repository. On top of those, we also included another 4 from the last week of November.
Here follows the quick overview in reverse chronological order. If any of the names or short descriptions catches your attention, you can find the direct link to the plugin page in the table below:
Analyzes benthic terrain for the purposes of classifying surficial seafloor characteristics that may be used in studies of benthic habitat, geomorphology, prediction of benthic fish species distribution, marine protected area design, and more
Gratis og let adgang til GeoFA (Geografiske Fagdata i GeoDanmark) i QGIS. Free and easy access to GeoFA (Geographical Professional Data in GeoDanmark) in QGIS.
Yahoo!JAPANのYOLP Web APIを利用して、検索した結果の位置を表示します。郵便番号での検索ができます。クレジット:Webサービス by Yahoo! JAPAN (https://developer.yahoo.co.jp/sitemap/) This plugin allows the user to displays the location of search results using Yahoo!JAPAN YOLP Web API.You can search by zip code.
国土地理院のAPIを利用して、住所を検索した結果の地点を表示します。住所検索した結果から選択してポイントを追加することもできます。国土地理院API(https://msearch.gsi.go.jp/address-search/AddressSearch)から取得したデータを加工して利用。This plugin allows the user to search for a address and get its coordinates using GSI API.
This plugin generates a full text search index containing all attributes of all layers of a loaded project. The user then can use a single text-input field to search within all available attributes.
We are introducing a new type of workspace role and project permission called "Editor". Editors in your workspace will be able to work on your projects without the risk of breaking your GeoPackage layers and QGIS project files.
How does it work?
✅ Editors can:
Add, update, and delete features in your projects
Use the mobile app and the QGIS plugin
Add new files, except for QGIS project files
Edit files, except for QGIS project files and GeoPackages (without changing the layer schema)
Remove files, except for QGIS project files and GeoPackages
⛔️ Editors cannot:
Manipulate QGIS project files, including changing symbology, adding/removing layers, or updating forms. Any changes to a QGIS project file will not be synchronized and will be overridden if the server version of the QGIS project file changes.
Remove GeoPackages
Make changes in GeoPackages that would result in creating conflicted copies, such as adding new columns or layers
Who is this new permission type suitable for?
This permission type is ideal for surveyors and others who need to add data without manipulating layer schemas and QGIS project settings.
Next steps
Please upgrade your QGIS plugin to the latest version and head to our dashboard
Editor permission is available on Cloud and Enterprise edition servers.
Agrimotion, an agricultural consultancy in South Africa, specializes in perennial crops. Their IMPI platform, developed with Lutra Consulting and Mergin Maps, simplifies farm management by enhancing data collection and analysis, boosting productivity, and reducing costs.
Feeling unheard in GIS work? Mergin Maps streamlines data collection, collaboration, and sharing QGIS projects with a new Editor role for field surveyors.
During the pandemic, people noticed how well they could work remotely, how productive meetings via video call could be, and how well webinars worked. At OPENGIS.ch, this wasn’t news because we have always been 100% remote. However, we missed the unplanned, in-person interactions that occur during meetups with a or . That’s why we’re very pleased that last week we could join the Swiss QGIS user day for the second time after the pandemic.
OPENGIS.ch has been invested in QGIS since its inception in 2014, actually even before; our CEO Marco started working with QGIS 0.6 in 2004 and our CTO Matthias with version 1.7 in 2012. Since 2019, we have also been the company with the most core committers. We can definitely say that OPENGIS.ch has been one of the main driving forces behind the large adoption of QGIS in Switzerland and worldwide.
Contributions to the QGIS core measured in commit numbers
Looking at the work done in the QGIS code we’re by far the most prolific company in Switzerland and second worldwide only to North Road Consulting. On top of it, we were the first – and still only one of two- companies to sustain QGIS.org at a Large level since 2021.
This makes us very proud and it is why we’re even happier to see how much that is happening around QGIS in Switzerland aligns with the visions and goals we set out to reach years ago.
The morning started with a presentation by our CTO Matthias “What’s new in QGIS” featuring plenty of work sponsored by the Anwendergruppe CH.
Our CTO Matthias answering QGIS questions
DXF Improvements, the release of SwissLocator 3.0 with swissalti3d and vector tiles integration, and an update on the advances towards solid curve handling in QGIS, a prerequisite for properly handling AV data in Switzerland, were only some of the many noteworthy points he touched.
The highlight of Matthias’ presentation was the better OGC API Features support in QGIS, which was also highlighted in a subsequent talk about Kablo, showing how the next generation of industry solutions (Fachschalen) will be implemented.
Following was a short presentation on the project DMAV, Christoph Lauber introduced a project that aims to implement an industry solution for official cadastral surveying with QGIS.
Adrian Wicki of the Federal Office for the Environment (FOEN) and Isabel presented how OPENGIS.ch and the partners Puzzle and Zeilenwerk help the FOEN with the SAM project with assess the hazards of flood, forest fire, or landslides, and warn authorities and the population. With an agile project organisation, the complex project succeeds in fulfilling requirements by applying user-centred development concepts. QGIS is used for visualizing and analyzing data and helping forecasters gain insights into the current situation.
Andreas Neumann from ETH Zurich and Michael presented the qgis-js project. QGIS-js is an effort to port QGIS core to WebAssembly so that it can be run in a web browser. Although still in the early experimentation phase, this project has great potential to leverage interesting new use cases that weren’t even thinkable before.
Olivier Monod from the City of Yverdon presented Kablo, an electricity management proof of concept of the next generation implementation for industry solutions developed in collaboration with OPENGIS.ch.
By applying a middleware based on OGC API Features and Django, Kablo shows how common limitations of current industry solutions (like permission management and atomic operations) can be overcome and how the future brings desktop and web closer together.
Obviously, it wasn’t just OPENGIS.ch. Sandro Mani from Sourcepole presented the latest and greatest improvements on QWC2, like street view integration and cool QGIS features brought to a beautiful web gis. Andreas Schmid from Kt. Solothurn presented how cool cloud-optimized geotiff (COG) is and what challenges come with it. Interested in the topic? Read more in our report about cloud optimized formats. Mattia Panduri from Canton Ticino explained how they used QGIS to harmonise the cantonal building datasets and Timothée Produit from IG Group SA presented how pic2map helps bring photos to maps.
To round up the morning, Nyall Dawson from North Road Consulting did a live session around the world to show the latest developments around elevation filtering in QGIS.
In the afternoon, workshops followed. Claas Leiner led a QGIS expression one while Matthias and Michael showed how to leverage QGIS processing for building geospatial data processing workflows.
The first QGIS model baker user meeting took place in the third room. The participants discussed this fantastic tool we developed to make INTERLIS work smarter and more productive.
First ModelBaker user meeting
It was a very rich and constructive QGIS user day. We came home with plenty of new ideas and a sense of fulfilment, seeing how great the community we observed and helped grow has become.
A big thanks go to the organisers and everyone involved in making such a great event happen. Only the beer in the sunshine was literally watered by the rain. Nevertheless, there were exciting discussions in the station bistro or in the restaurant coaches on the way home.
This blog post will introduce QField’s brand new plugin framework and walk through the creation of a plugin to support bird watchers in need of a quick way to digitize photos of spotted birds onto a point vector layer.
As announced recently, QField now empowers users through a brand new plugin framework allowing for simple customization on the way the application behaves or looks all the way through to creating completely new functionalities.
The plugin framework relies on Qt’s QML engine and JavaScript, allowing for cross-platform support out of the box. This means that plugins will run perfectly fine on all platforms currently supported by QField: Android, iOS, Windows, Linux, and macOS.
App-wide plugin vs. project plugin
First, let’s look at the two types of plugins supported by QField: app-wide plugins and project plugins. As their names imply, the main difference is their scope. An enabled app-wide plugin will remain active as long as QField is running, while project plugins are activated on project load and deactivated when the project tied to the plugin is closed.
Project plugins are shipped alongside a given project file (.qgs/.qgz). Project plugins must share the same name of the project file with a .qml extension. For example, if your project file is birdwatcher.qgz, QField will look for the presence of a birdwatcher.qml to activate the project plugin. For app-wide plugins, installation is done via the plugins manager popup; more on this below.
Distribution of project plugins can be greatly facilitated through QFieldCloud. The presence of project plugins within a cloud project environment will be automatically detected and packaged alongside the project file and its datasets when deployed to QField devices.
Starting with a project plugin
We will start with looking into a simple project plugin that offers a new digitizing mechanism focused on snapping photos as a trigger for point feature addition. This plugin will demonstrate how new functionalities and behaviors can be added to QField to serve specific needs. In this case, the new digitizing mechanism could come in handy for bird watchers and other users in need of a quick way to snap photos!
The project archive consists of a point vector layer (observations.gpkg), a project file (birdwatcher.qgz) as well as a project plugin (birdwatcher.qml) which we will look into below. Please note that the point vector layer’s attribute form is already configured to display captured photos. We will not spend time on attribute form setup in this post; see this relevant documentation page if you are interested in knowing how that was achieved.
We can now test the project plugin by opening the project (birdwatcher.qgz) in QField. Users familiar with QField will notice a new ‘camera’ tool button present on the top-right corner of the map canvas. This button was added by the project plugin. You can press on it, to open the QField camera, take a photo (of yourself, a random object on your table, or with a bit of luck a bird), and witness how that leads to a point feature creation.
Digging into the project plugin file
Let’s open the project plugin file (birdwatcher.qml) in your favorite text editor. The first few lines define the QML imports needed by the plugin:
Beyond the two QtQuick imports, we will make use of QField-specific types and items as well as QGIS ones (registered and declared in this source file), a Theme to retrieve icons and colors as well as QField items such as tool buttons (see this source directory), as well as the QField QML items embedded into the application itself to make use of the camera.
The next line declares an generic Item component which will be used by QField to initiate the plugin. This must be present in all plugins. As this plugin does, you can use the Component.onCompleted signal to trigger code execution. In this case, we are using iface to add a tool button on top of the map canvas:
Just above these lines, the plugin declare a number of properties pointing to items found in the main QField ApplicationWindow:
property var mainWindow: iface.mainWindow()
property var positionSource: iface.findItemByObjectName('positionSource')
property var dashBoard: iface.findItemByObjectName('dashBoard')
property var overlayFeatureFormDrawer: iface.findItemByObjectName('overlayFeatureFormDrawer')
Users can reach through to any items within QField’s ApplicationWindow provided they have an objectName property defined. The string value is used in the iface.findItemByObjectName() function to retrieve the item.
The rest of the file consists of a loader to activate the QField camera, a tool button to snap a photo, and a function to create a new feature within which the current position is used as geometry and the snapped photo is attached to the feature form.
The function itself provides a good example of what can be achieved by using the parts of QGIS exposed through QML, as well as utility functions and user interface provided by QField:
function snap(path) {
let today = new Date()
let relativePath = 'DCIM/' + today.getFullYear()
+ (today.getMonth() +1 ).toString().padStart(2,0)
+ today.getDate().toString().padStart(2,0)
+ today.getHours().toString().padStart(2,0)
+ today.getMinutes().toString().padStart(2,0)
+ today.getSeconds().toString().padStart(2,0)
+ '.' + FileUtils.fileSuffix(path)
platformUtilities.renameFile(path, qgisProject.homePath + '/' + relativePath)
let pos = positionSource.projectedPosition
let wkt = 'POINT(' + pos.x + ' ' + pos.y + ')'
let geometry = GeometryUtils.createGeometryFromWkt(wkt)
let feature = FeatureUtils.createFeature(dashBoard.activeLayer, geometry)
let fieldNames = feature.fields.names
if (fieldNames.indexOf('photo') > -1) {
feature.setAttribute(fieldNames.indexOf('photo'), relativePath)
} else if (fieldNames.indexOf('picture') > -1) {
feature.setAttribute(fieldNames.indexOf('picture'), relativePath)
}
overlayFeatureFormDrawer.featureModel.feature = feature
overlayFeatureFormDrawer.state = 'Add'
overlayFeatureFormDrawer.open()
}
The QGIS API Documentation site is a good resource for learning what parts of the many QGIS classes are exposed to QML. For example, the QgsFeature documentation page contains a Properties section and a Q_INVOKABLE prefix next to functions indicating their availability within a QML/JavaScript environment.
Deployment of a project plugin via QFieldCloud
As mentioned above, QFieldCloud greatly eases the deployment of project plugins to devices in the field. We will now go through the steps required to create a cloud project environment based on the birdwatcher sample project, and witness it handling the project plugin automatically.
This will require you to registered for a freely available QFieldCloud community account if you haven’t done so yet (it takes a minute to do so, what are you waiting for ). We will also need the QFieldSync plugin in QGIS, which can be enabled through the QGIS plugin manager.
Let’s open QGIS, and log into QFieldCloud by clicking on the QFieldSync toolbar’s blue cloud icon. Once logged in, click on the ‘Create New Project’ tool button found at the bottom of the dialog.
In the subsequent panel dialog, choose the ‘Create a new empty QFieldCloud project’ and then hit the ‘Next’ button. Give it a name and a description, and for the local directory, pick the folder within which you had extracted the birdwatcher project, then hit the ‘Create’ button.
QFieldSync will then ask you to upload your newly created cloud project environment to the server. Notice how the project plugin file (birdwatcher.qml) is part of the files to be delivered to the cloud. Confirm by clicking on the ‘Upload to server’ button.
When QFieldSync is finished uploading, you are ready to take your mobile device, open QField, log into your QFieldCloud account and download the cloud project. Once the cloud project is loaded, you will be asked for permission to load the project plugin, which you can grant on a permanent or one-time basis.
Bravo! You have successfully deployed a project plugin through QFieldCloud.
Creating an app-wide plugin directory
Let’s move on to creating a functional app-wide plugin directory. Download this sample app-wide plugin and extract it into a new directory placed in the ‘plugins’ directory, itself found within the QField app directory. The location of the app directory is provided in the ‘About QField’ overlay, take note of it prior to extracting the plugin if you have not done so yet.
As seen in the screenshot above, which demonstrates the directory hierarchy, a given plugin directory must contain at least two files: a main.qml file, which QField will use to activate the plugin, and a metadata.txt file containing basic information on the plugin, such as the plugin name, author details, and version.
Here’s a sample metadata.txt from the birdwatcher project plugin upgraded into an app-wide plugin:
Opening main.qml in your favourite text editor will reveal that it has the exact same content as the above-shared project plugin. The only change is the renaming of birdwatcher.qml to main.qml to take into account this plugin’s app-wide scope.
While currently not as smooth as deploying a project plugin through QFieldCloud, app-wide plugins can be installed onto devices using a URL pointing to a zipped archive file containing the content of a given plugin directory. The zipped archive file can then be hosted on your own website, on a GitHub or GitLab repository, a Dropbox link, etc.
In QField, open the plugins manager popup found in the settings panel, and use the ‘Install plugin from URL’ button to paste a URL pointing to a zipped plugin file.
You should keep the zipped archive file name consistent for a better user experience, as it is used to determine the installation directory. This is an important consideration to take into account when offering plugin updates. If your zipped plugin file name changes, the plugin will not be updated but rather added to a new directory alongside the previously installed plugin.
QField does allow for a version tag to be added to a zipped archive file name, provided it is appended at the end of the file name, preceded by a dash, and includes only numbers and dots. For example, myplugin-0.0.1.zip and myplugin-0.2.1.zip will install the plugin in the myplugin directory.
Empowering users as well as developers
Here at OPENGIS.ch, we believe this new plugin framework empowers not only users but also developers, including our very own ninjas! With plugin support, we now have the possibility to develop answers to specific field scenarios that would not necessarily be fit for QField-wide functionalities. We would love to hear your opinion and ideas.
If you would like to supercharge your fieldwork and need some help, do not hesitate to contact us – your projects are our passion
P.S. If you are developing a cool QField plugin, also let us know!
Oslandia is the main partner of OPENGIS.ch around QField. We are proud today to forward the announcement of the new QField release 3.3 “Darién”. This release introduces a brand new plugin framework that empowers users to customize and add completely new functionalities to their favourite field application.
The plugin framework comes with other new features and improvements for this release, detailed below.
Main highlights
One of the biggest feature additions of this version is a brand new drawing tool that allows users to sketch out important details over captured photos or annotate drawing templates. This was a highly requested feature, which is brought to all supported platforms (Android, iOS, Windows, macOS, and, of course, Linux) with the financial support of the Swiss QGIS user group.
Also landing in this version is support for copying and pasting vector features into and from the clipboard. This comes in handy in multiple ways, from providing a quick and easy way to transfer attributes from one feature to another through matching field names to pasting the details of a captured feature in the field into a third-party messenger, word editing, or email application. Copying and pasting features can be done through the feature form’s menu as well as long pressed over the map canvas. Moreover, a new feature-to-feature attributes transfer shortcut has also been added to the feature form’s menu. Appreciation to Switzerland, Canton of Lucerne, Environment and Energy for providing the funds for this feature.
The feature form continues to gain more functionalities; in this version, the feature form’s value map editor widget has gained a new toggle button interface that can help fasten data entry. The interface replaces the traditional combo box with a series of toggle buttons, lowering the number of taps required to pick a value. The German Archaeological Institut – KulturGutRetter sponsored this feature.
Other improvements in the feature form include support for value relation item grouping and respect for the vector layer attributes’ « reuse last entered value » setting.
Finally, additional features include support for image decoration overlay, a new interface to hop through cameras (front, back, and external devices) for the ‘non-native’ camera, the possibility to disable the 3-finger map rotation gesture, and much more.
User experience improvements
Long-time users of QField will notice the new version restyling of the information panels such as GNSS positioning, navigation, elevation profile, and sensor data. The information is now presented as an overlay sitting on top of the map canvas, which increases the map canvas’ visibility while also achieving better focus and clarity on the provided details. With this new version, all details, including altitude and distance to destination, respect user-configured project distance unit type.
The dashboard’s legend has also received some attention. You can now toggle the visibility of any layer via a quick tap on a new eye icon sitting in the legend tree itself. Similarly, legend groups can be expanded and collapsed directly for the tree. This also permits you to show or hide layers while digitizing a feature, something which was not possible until now. The development of these improvements was supported by Gispo and sponsored by the National Land Survey of Finland.
Plugin framework
QField 3.3 introduces a brand new plugin framework using Qt’s powerful QML and JavaScript engine. With a few lines of code, plugins can be written to tweak QField’s behaviour and add new capabilities. Two types of plugins are possible: app-wide plugins as well as project-scoped plugins. To ensure maximum ease of deployment, plugin distribution has been made possible through QFieldCloud! Amsa provided the financial contribution that brought this project to life.
Our partner OPENGIS.ch will soon offer a webinar to discover how QField plugins can help your field (and business) workflows by allowing you to be even more efficient in the field.
Total Open Station : https://github.com/totalopenstation
An open-source project initiated by Italian and French archaeologists, it is a tool to convert various formats of survey field books.
Topaze : https://gitlab.com/azimut-fr/qgis/topaze
A topometric calculation tool developed with Jean-Marie Arsac (Azimut). It was a proof of concept that such calculations can be done within a GIS.
These plugins can be used at different stages of a project. They can be used all together or only those needed and integrated into workflows.
2- Improvements on QGIS
Oslandia also focuses on improving the core of QGIS. Last years, our teams have worked on:
— Integration of shape tools: circles, ellipses, rectangles, regular polygons, etc.
— Improvement of snapping tools.
— Enhancement of Z and M coordinate support.
— Improvement of topological tools (relationships between geometries).
Coming soon is the possibility to use geometry and topology validation and correction plugins directly in QGIS processing tools, developed by Jacky Volpès and Loïc Bartoletti.
3- Training
Oslandia is QUALIOPI certified and offers a training program around QGIS and QField:
Topography with QGIS (LSCI, Topaze, QompliGIS, Total Open Station)
QField Training
Deployment of QField Cloud
« In 2023, 89 people were trained by Oslandia, who recommend our training at 90.9%.»
4- And QField ?
Since our partnership with OPENGIS.ch, Oslandia offers QField Cloud server deployment services, training, and QField support.
5- Coming Soon!
Several technical posts are being prepared: how to open CAD files in a GIS? What are the differences between QField and LSCI? You will find them on our website in the coming weeks.
Additionally, we are preparing a white paper on the topic of migrating from CAD to QGIS, which we should release in September.