North River Geographic Systems Inc

Spatial Problem Solving

rjhale

FOSS4G SE United States – QGIS Meeting

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Here comes about the most abstract thing I’ve done in a while.

I’ve been having meetings centered around FOSS4G Software in the Southeastern US (Knoxville TN – UTK) for the last 2 years. Over the last 2 we’ve had talks ranging from GRASS to LIDAR to SAGA to QGIS and all points in between. We even have a listserve for email.

Now that we are in the third year I want to shake this up a bit. I’m announcing a QGIS centric meeting for October of 2019. I don’t have a firm date because I have no clue who is interested and who isn’t. I can easily take this to Knoxville or Chattanooga – but my worry with a QGIS centric meeting we may attract more than the normal crows which would be a great thing.

So with that I’m probably going to start some chatter on the QGIS-us users list and a few other places but center it on the southeast-us listserve. SO JOIN THAT MAILING LIST TO HELP ME NOT LOSE MORE HAIR.

  • Cost: As cheap as I can make it
  • Location: Somewhere free
  • Who: You
  • Sponsors: I’ll scream your name out
  • Talks: Yes
  • Workshops: Maybe

With that – prepare to see more noise and a possible website crank up – I’ve got enough lead in time so maybe we can make this a grand adventure. If you want to help email me and you can be part of the insanity.


QGIS Class at TNGIC

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So to break the silence and this is something I should have done much sooner – I’ll be at the TN Geographic Information Council Conference holding a QGIS workshop and possibly talking about QGIS and a client’s implementation of QGIS/PostGIS/Geoserver later in the conference.

Anyway – show up for this:http://www.tngic.org/2019-conference.htm#preconferencetraining if you’ve had questions on QGIS and didn’t know what to do or who to ask or anything else – show up.

QGIS – it’s what all the cool kids are doing.

I will even speak some insanity. Don’t tell anyone but I’ll encourage you to show up up for it even if you didn’t sign up for it. Bring a friend. Sneak in. I will tell no one. Seriously. Bring a laptop and I’ll have QGIS and the data and the presentation on a Thumb Drive. We’ll be using Chattanooga data and making this TN/Chattanooga Centric.

I’ll see you there. We’ll have more crazy to talk about once we shut the door so one can hear us.

Tallahassee FL FOSS4G Meetup on April 3rd 2019

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Florida people – well at least panhandle Florida people – there is a FOSS4G meeting happening in Tallahassee Florida on April 3rd 2019.

For more information I would direct you toward: Seth and Rick

When

  • Wednesday, April 3 2019
  • 6:00 – 8:00 PM

Where

  • Stearns Weaver Miller Weissler Alhadeff & Sitterson, P.A.
  • 106 E. College Avenue, Suite 700, Tallahassee, FL 32301
  • *This is the Highpoint Center off of College and Monroe. Enter from College Avenue and go to the 7th floor. Meeting will be in the boardroom.

Food and Drink Options

  1. The firm of Stearns Weaver Miller et. al. have graciously offered to buy beer for pizza to anyone that wants to take advantage.
  2. I’m running a pizza and beer potluck for anyone that might have conflict of interest concerns about free food and beverage. I’ll pick up a pizza and beer on the way over and you guys can throw me some cash out of pocket to help cover costs.
  3. Bring your own.

Thanks again to everyone for their interest in participating, and a big thanks to Christopher Smith for his help securing a great space for us to meet and talk about FOSS GIS!

Leave a Comment

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So I’ve been neck deep in Postgresql/Postgis which has been a bit fun but a bit maddening.

One problems I ran into was “What is this column?”. Generally if a client hands me the database I start working with it and do a few things but I don’t worry about their columns in the database. People keep weird things for no reason and I’ve learned to stop asking so many questions on why.

In this case the client had a PDF describing the standard they were working toward. They also had some extra fields they needed for other applications. So I found myself constantly cracking open the PDF or emailing them going “Why is this and what is this?”. If only there was some metadata….

…….but they have this in a PDF and it is good:

So the comment command to the rescue. I’m going to attach the definition to the field: comment on column oirid is ‘leave your comment here’;

Command line magic

Yeah I know that was a lot to add for a comment and I did it all from the magic of the psql command. If I take a look at the table from QGIS using DB Manager now:

View Comments in QGIS.

At this point I know what the column is even if this is a bit overkill. The question is now “Can I get this easy enough to get the client to document their database on the columns I don’t know?”

Actually that’s easy with DBmanager. I can go in and edit an existing table:

Edit your columns in DB Manager

From here I can edit a column and make comments. If I write up some directions the client can jump in and start documenting the more scattered things they have the in database. They can even leave a comment on the table to describe why you have the table.

Comment your columns

I’m constantly overlooking DBManager and the things you can do with it. In this case you can edit an existing table and add comments to help with documenting your database/project. You can import data into PostGIS. You can toss SQL against the database.

QGIS 3.6 is out

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So hopefully you’ve noticed that QGIS has moved up to version 3.6. The new release is called Noosa.

Before I Dig into more of the Changelog new features here is the big thing: 2.18 is finally gone as the Long Term Release.

If you’ve been following along QGIS gets released quite a bit. Three times a year we get a new version and once a month we get a “service pack” (to steal from the Arc side of the world) to address bugs and small issues.

I love it when a plan comes together.

As you can see there is a plan. If you’re working in a setting that needs stability then you need to stick with the 3.4 LT Release. If you’re wanting to run on the edge then keep upgrading to 3.6 then 3.8 and onward.

Best part – if you stick with 3.4 – you can stick to worrying about your data and learning about the cool things QGIS will let you do.

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