The release of QGIS 2.6 “Brighton” has been announced. This release contains many new features, bugfixes and improvements.
The detailed changelog can be found here. For normal users, it is better to use the visual changelog. The most important and interesting changes are listed below:
implemented support for expression (virtual) fields
actions can now have an associated icon
more expression functions and variables have been added, including $currentfeature and $atlasfeature to get the current feature in different contexts, attribute() and getFeature() to get the attribute value of a feature or a feature with matching attribute, respectively
layer tree overhaul: new API, visibility groups, legend filter and more
syntax highlighting in all code editors (Python, expressions, HTML and CSS)
added support for custom colour palettes
new colour picker dialogue with a wide range of features
Processing Modeler overhaul
online repository for Processing models and scrips
item panel in Print Composer for quick access to all composer items
many properties of various composer items have been made data-defined
support for multiple overview maps for a composer map element
and much more
The source code and binary packages for Windows, Debian, and Ubuntu are available for download. Packages for other distributions and operating systems will appear as they are prepared by the maintainers.
I have finished translating the PyQGIS Developer Cookbook into Ukrainian. It will be available on the QGIS documentation portal soon.
Comments and constructive criticism are welcome. Or even better, create an account and edit directly in Transifex
(although I personally don’t like it much and translate locally: git + Qt Linguist are the best).
At last! QGIS has finally got support for multithreaded rendering, the corresponding changes were merged into master by Martin Dobias just an hour ago. This is basically a revival of the 2010 GSoC project “QGIS on steroids” (successfully completed, but never merged into master), taking into account the latest changes to the QGIS codebase.
By default, multithreaded rendering is disabled, one can enable it in the QGIS settings “Settings → Options → Rendering → Render layers in parallel using all available CPU cores”. It is also possible to set canvas refresh interval during rendering (0 means real-time updates).
The work was done with the financial support from Lutra Consulting and Swiss QGIS User group.
As previously announced, QGIS has moved to a fixed 4-month release cycle. And now the first release on the new schedule has taken place.
This release focuses on bug fixes and performance improvements. Much effort has been put into developing and improving the Print Composer, making it even easier to create printed maps.
The full changelog can be found here. A visual changelog is also available. The most interesting and important changes are listed below:
support for pasting WKT from the clipboard as a new feature in the existing vector layer or as a new memory layer
UI improvements in the expression builder widget. It is now possible to resize various areas, advanced users can hide operator buttons to free up some screen space
The 10th QGIS developer meeting in Brighton (UK) has come to an end. This meeting was the most attended ever. This can be explained by the growing popularity of QGIS and the fact that the hackfest was held just before the FOSS4G conference.
The first day was almost unremarkable, with participants gradually arriving at the University of Sussex, newcomers getting to know each other — in short, an ordinary day before the hackfest itself. Among the notable changes to the code during the day:
copy/paste support for rendering rules
ELSE branch support in rule-based renderer
improvements in the print composer menus
Meanwhile, at Gatwick Airport, Victor Olaya is starting a complete refactoring of the Processing framework…
The QGIS developers are not superstitious people, and Friday the 13th did not affect their work in any way. The list of commits is impressive:
the Plugin Manager got the ability to optionally hide deprecated plugins, as well as highlight them in the plugin list
implemented visualisation of topological information in GRASS layers
Processing framework got a new, more convenient, configuration dialogue
10 new algorithms were added to Processing
and others improvements and bug fixes
There were also several discussions, starting with Richard talking about the new website. This was followed by discussions about refactoring the vector API, support for attribute domains, the possibility of using QML (especially in QGIS Android), the architecture and further development of the Processing framework.
On Saturday, Victor pushed to master the first set of refactoring commits
It’s starting to get fun… now nothing works :-)
Despite the refactoring, the framework continues to grow in functionality: 5 new algorithms have been added, and a few old ones have been improved. The Python console gets support for custom colour schemes (aesthetes will be pleased). There were also several discussions: a unified configuration dialogue, 3D support (Globe plugin, PostGIS, etc.), plugin manager and repository, further development of the WMS client, QGIS Server, QGIS WebClient.
Sunday, the penultimate full day of the hackfest. Another series of discussions, this time on documentation, the abstraction layer for databases, and attribute/geometry indexing. Quite a few commits were also made:
new script editor for Processing
reduced number of data conversions when running SAGA algorithms in QGIS
obsolete settings and related code were removed from Processing
added the ability to save models created in the Graphical Modeler as an image
expressions support in “Graduated” and “Unique values” symbology
More than a year has passed since the release of QGIS 1.8.0. And now, after many months of waiting and several postponements of the release date, QGIS 2.0 “Dufour” is officially announced. This release can be seen as the beginning of a new phase in the life of the project.
So the project is now officially called QGIS. The word “Quantum” in the name never had much meaning, and having two names (Quantum GIS and QGIS) sometimes caused unnecessary confusion. Also, using a shorter and more generic name allows for consistent naming of all components: QGIS Desktop, QGIS Server, QGIS Browser, etc.
Along with the release of version 2.0, the official website has undergone a major overhaul. We hope that the new design will be more convenient and functional, making it easier to find the information you need.
Long-awaited news for Windows users - QGIS is now available in a 64-bit version (both as a standalone installer and via OSGeo4W). Note that *NIX and MacOS users have long been able to use 64-bit packages.
The full list of changes in this release is quite impressive, you can check it out here. The so-called visual changelog is also available. In this post I will only list the most interesting and/or noticeable changes, but there are quite a few of them.
We have made a lot of changes to the QGIS GUI to make it cleaner and easier to use:
the icon theme has been updated to use the “GIS” theme, which is more consistent and professional
the layout of the various dialogues has been standardised with extensive use of vertical tabs and collapsible group boxes
to replace annoying modal message boxes, we have implemented a new non-blocking pop-up notification system with a corresponding API for plugin developers
QGIS 2.0 adds support for even more data sources and many data handling improvements, including:
added Oracle Spatial data provider
new OpenStreetMap data provider that works in read-only mode and uses the Overpass API to load data, downloaded data is stored in the SpatiaLite database
complete overhaul of the raster data provider subsystem. We moved to a “raster pipes” architecture — chains of independent operations (data reading, reprojection, resampling, rendering filters, etc.) that can be combined. One of the results is the ability to export open images in any supported format, while changing image resolution, cropping and reprojecting. In addition, it is now possible to save the raster as it is rendered in the GIS, e.g., if a colour palette has been applied to a singleband raster, it can be saved as a georeferenced RGB raster
Among other changes:
Heatmap plugin optimisations and improvements
SEXTANTE integrated into QGIS as a core plugin and renamed to Processing
unified Plugin Manager that allows you to download, install and manage plug-ins in a single window
new Python console with syntax highlighting, autocompletion, customisable fonts and other improvements
support for custom expression functions
support for project macros
new Python API. QGIS has been migrated to use SIP API v2, Qt types are automatically converted to the corresponding Python types
improved layer tree
many symbology and labelling enhancements: support for blending modes, mode data-defined properties, colour ramp support, etc.
The 9th QGIS developer meeting in Valmiera (Latvia) has come to an end.
Since the QGIS code is already frozen (with some caveats), almost all of the commits were aimed at fixing bugs, improving stability, and shaping the new API.
It’s a thankless task to list everyone by name, there are no idlers at hackfests. I’ll just go through the things that interest me personally (and that affect me to a greater or lesser extent):
Radim continued to improve the raster subsystem (in particular, he fixed a number of problems with the handling of NODATA values)
Jürgen, as always, fixed bug after bug, and also worked on support for different encodings (yes, yes, Frank’s commit to GDAL will have long-lasting consequences)
Borys worked on the new plugin installer
Victor and I worked on SEXTANTE: fixing bugs, writing new tests, updating documentation and help files
Werner, Paolo, Otto, Larissa, Raymond worked on the user manual, cleaning up the wiki and migrating the website
In addition, all hackfest participants were very active in discussing a range of issues:
implementation of GRASS raster algorithms
the documentation creation and translation process
SEXTANTE’s new features and architecture
PSC structure and role
new plugin installer
new website
and other issues
The next developer meeting is scheduled for September (earlier than usual) and will be held in Brighton, UK.
I have finished translating the QGIS 1.8.0 User Guide into Russian. Online and PDF versions should be available tomorrow via links on the official website.
Another of my modest contributions to QGIS is now in the master. I added 4 new tools to customise raster rendering: brightness and contrast controls (raster pipes, once you understand how they work, are cool and flexible thing). In addition to changing the raster rendering on the fly, users can also save the modified image for future use.
TauDEM (Terrain Analysis Using Digital Elevation Models) is a set of Digital Elevation Model (DEM) tools for extracting and analysing hydrological information from the topography represented by a DEM. It was developed at Utah State University (USU) for hydrological analysis of digital elevation models and watershed delineation.
TauDEM has recently been integrated into QGIS as a SEXTANTE provider. This makes it possible to run TauDEM tools directly from QGIS, easily perform complex analysis workflows, and view the generated results.
In this post, I will show how to perform some hydrological analysis tasks in QGIS using TauDEM, namely how to delineate watersheds and extract stream networks.