QGIS

QGIS, 3DEP, and You

I did a demo the other day for some foresters and I almost wanted to walk into traffic by the end of it. Not because of anything with QGIS and LiDAR – but I think I finally got “Virtual Fatigue”.

Part of the demo worked amazingly well. If you’re not familiar with TN’s LiDAR Program most (I think all) of the state is covered in free LiDAR. Yes Free. You can grab a county’s worth of LiDAR data and get to work. Here’s the other thing you need to know – it’s in zLas format. Yes – zLAS – the most annoying of the formats. I have to uncompress it using LAS Liberator. Then there is about 20 minutes of hoping I’m not at the corner of 4 tiles. It’s painful.

PDAL has been the engine that has been making LiDAR viewable in QGIS for a couple of versions now. I don’t tend to use it a lot (because I don’t do a ton of work with LiDAR) but when needed it it’s invaluable. For me the entire crunch of doing anything with lidar has been:

up to a 50 GB Download for an entire county
Conversion from zlas to laz
Define the vertical and horizontal projection of a tile using PDAL.

For the demo I wanted to do something “lidar” for a group of foresters to show them that FOSS4G works and we’re not just some weird hobby. I knew PDAL was being used on the backend of the USGS LiDAR Explorer but had not used it.

You can select an area (this is only for the US) and ONLY GET THAT AREA. I picked a pine plantation that had been partially thinned. I select the area using the interface. Choose my download format and PROJECTION PARAMETERS and then something cool happens. I generate a PDAL Pipeline JSON file and from the command line:

pdal pipeline process.json

I drag and drop the output of the above process into QGIS:

My life just got a lot easier and my blood pressure dropped like 10 points. LiDAR in TN is no longer a multi-hours scripted affair full of yelling. It’s literally pick what you want and then do the thing you want to do. QGIS gets easier. GRASS gets easier. Probably easier for the ESRI users also.

Anyway – check out LiDAR explorer from the USGS (especially if you’re in TN). It’s worth a few minutes of digging to learn about this tool.

Exploring QGIS Schedule

I’ve released the rest of the years training for the exploring QGIS class. There are a lot of things that are the same and a few things that are different – so prepare to be stimulated with this blog update:

This year I’m only going to run with the Long term release for training – so we will be sticking with 3.22 for the rest of the year.
Registration ends one week before the class – so those of you waiting until the last minute…………….Please don’t.
Price stays the same – $175
Class is still Virtual and only 4 hours a day (two days total)
Class supports the QGIS project

Class	Dates	Price
Exploring QGIS	April 27th-28th 2022	$175
Exploring QGIS	July 20th 21st 2022	$175
Exploring QGIS	October 19th 20th 2022	$175

Custom training for companies and conference is still available. I think I have one coming up in Canada and most likely a few other things happening here and there.

You may be saying “Well – that’s only three classes!”. Correct. In May the Intermediate class is making another appearance. In June the final class should be available. So I’ll be teaching every month (in theory). More news on that is coming shortly. I’m in the middle of putting the intermediate class together after the rewrite. The “final” as in advanced is being written. It’s a lot – but I’m happy to finally start getting this finalized.

Come take a class. If you’re doing something cool and can’t afford $175 – give me a shout. You may be eligible for “The NRGS No Thrills Scholarship program.”

Add Geoprocessing Tools to the QGIS Toolbar

I am going to attempt a post a week on something and I’m already behind.

All of my work is falling into one of two categories at the moment: PostGIS and QGIS. At the moment I’m loading data into PostGIS using QGIS. So I’m:

I’m looking at the data going “What the fork is this”
When I figure it out it’s then “I’m going to push this in and toss some permissions on it”.

It’s not like pushing data into PostGIS is a complicated process these days: OGR2OGR, QGIS, and I’m pretty sure GRASS can import – so it’s whatever makes my life easier which is QGIS at the moment. So generally I like the “Export to PostgreSQL” tool in the Processing Toolbox. Once you use it it floats to the top under the Recently Used Geoprocessing tools.

At that point in my existence it’s literally two clicks away. One could really “Type it out” using the locate toolbar so no clicking is involved – BUT – what if I wanted that geoprocessing tool on my toolbar.

While updating one of the two QGIS Classes – I stumbled into this “one really cool trick”. It all is hidden under the options menu. Go to Settings -> Options and navigate to the processing tab.

Scary Right? It’s not that bad. Here is the hardest part of this whole thing – Click on Menus and you’ll see a host of options. Click on QGIS (native c++) and look for Buffer. Click on Buffer and click on the checkbox to “Add Button in Toolbar”. You may need to dig around to find other tools. QGIS keeps them divided into 3 categories.

Close QGIS

Re-Open It.

Hey you have a brand new toolbar called Processing Algorithms and you’ve got a brand new button with a pic on it that looks like an Boomerang (or upside down ‘L’). Press that and you have the buffer geoprocessing tool ready for use.

So – entirely necessary? In my case not really – it is nice to have access to it in one click. It is nice from the standpoint that I can take an inexperienced user and customize the interface to where they don’t need to know where this tool is or how to get to it – just push a button. You can keep adding tools that you want up there – in this case I really only wanted two. When I’m done I’ll “turn them off” but for now I like my extra toolbar.

Exploring QGIS – Jan 25th-26th 2022

First Class of 2022 – with a full schedule preparing to rollout in the next couple of weeks for the first half of 2022.

What will we do? Explore QGIS (which is the revamped Intro class) will walk you through an introduction to the software and it’s capabilities. With any luck you’re making a map at the end of the class.

Things we will cover:

Interface
Community
Data
Symbology
Processing
Layouts.

Part of the proceeds from the class funnel into the QGIS Software.

Dates: Jan 25th-26th 2022 from 12 to 4 EST. Just 4 hours a day for 2 days.
Cost: $175 US
Link: Eventbrite
Location: Zoom – so it’s everywhere and no where.
I’ll be sending out data/PDFS the closer we get to the class.
Seats: 10

Introduction to QGIS Dec 7-8 2021

I should have titled this “Exploring QGIS” – but you may not have read the last blog post. Anyway – I will be rebranding the Intro class into Exploring QGIS for 2022.

So – the last class I will teach of 2021.

What will we do? Explore QGIS and run through all the core functionality. It will be a good introduction to see if this software will work for your organization (Spoiler alert – it will). We have lessons, Q&A, and generally try to be rowdy, and break stuff.

I will be offering a “health check” before we do this. I’d like to see how comfortable you are with everything and how I can make it better/easier/more fun for you as the student.

Things we will cover:

Interface
Community
Data
Symbology
Processing
Layouts.

Part of the proceeds from the class funnel into the QGIS Software.

Dates: December 7th and 8th from 12 to 4 EST. Just 4 hours a day for 2 days.
Cost: $175 US
Link: Eventbrite
Location: Zoom – so it’s everywhere and no where.
I’ll be sending out data/PDFS the closer we get to the class.
Seats: 10

Anyway – come join in for a rowdy final QGIS class that is a good overview for the new user.

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