North River Geographic Systems Inc

Geospatial Problem Solving

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August 2005

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OK – lets drag up some old memories that are a bit cloudy. Lets flash back to 2005.

Back in 2005 I was working for the Feds. I think at that point I was toying with leaving and doing something else: consulting, working for another company, etc. Really I was in wanderlust mode at that point and the least interesting thing I was doing was my job.

I was watching Hurricane Katrina unfold on television. When at work I was watching all the news websites and when I got home it was news until I went to bed.

New Orleans, UNITED STATES: A plea for help appears on the roof of a home flooded in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina in New Orleans, Louisiana, 04 September 2005. New Orleans began counting its dead 04 September as US troops turned to the gruesome task of harvesting bloated corpses from the hurricane-torn city’s flooded streets and homes. AFP PHOTO/POOL/Robert GALBRAITH (Photo credit should read ROBERT GALBRAITH/AFP/Getty Images)

One question I had when this was happening was “how are they handling this from a GIS perspective?” Web maps were sort of a thing. We had mobile data collectors. You can’t do squat without electricity. Like I said, I was Federal and if I was going out in the field I’m printing maps off and dragging them with me. I didn’t have a smart phone. Were there smart phones? I don’t remember actually. Seems like my first smart phone was 2011 and that one wasn’t that smart and I’m slow to adopt new tech.

Flash forward months, maybe even a year, and two things happened. I was sitting at a conference and a local community college from Mississippi was discussing their Katrina experience: Living in an RV, passing around USB sticks, making maps for rescue, stealing gas for the generator, and taking turns sleeping. It was pretty amazing – amazing enough I remember that talk 16 years later.

Seems like a few months after that we had an ESRI tech on site and we were chatting and he talked about how this new thing called Google Maps had caught them off guard. Google Earth was the one piece of software I remember from Katrina. The news was using it. Search and Rescue was using and it seems like there were some complaints the imagery had some offset – and really the answer was yes there are problems but this wasn’t intended for search and rescue. Imagery was updated while the disaster unfolded.

This morning I’m looking at Google Earth 16 years later.

My group hated Google Earth. Well – not so much hate it just didn’t understand it. We tried to force departments not to use it because the imagery didn’t come from us – and ultimately I think we hated it because it was so easy. We felt we weren’t needed if you could look at data/imagery easily. No one cared about accuracy or data lineage – double click and boom you were looking at something.

I spent this week updating Waverly TN in OpenStreetMap. How does OSM look for New Orleans? It’s pretty good. Waverly was flooded out last week with 17 or 18 inches of rain in a small amount of time. 20 something dead. It was messy.

Anyway – no profound vision or words of wisdom. Get out if you can. Keep an axe in the attic. Lets hope this plays out for the best and plan for the worst. Will it be different or will this be our keynote address at every GIS conference for the next year?

QGIS Advanced Training Aug 31-Sep 2 2021

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The ‘QGIS Advanced Class” makes it’s first outing on August 31st through September 2nd 2021 virtually. We’ll be doing this over zoom.

So what are we doing in this class? I’m taking a deeper dive into:

  • Field Calculator
  • Processing Tools
  • Processing Models
  • Editing
  • Forms
  • SQL

We do this 4 hours a day for 3 days. Why? Because I’d prefer to break this up into digestible chunks. Since this is the first class I’m going to run this cheaper because I expect I’m going to be making a lot of notes.

Anyway – once more final class is coming on this – and I’ll have more or less a week full of QGIS goodness for the masses.

This class provides a certificate which means your participation benefits QGIS financially. Learn and make the software better!

Intro to QGIS Class – August 24-25th 2021

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I’m holding a virtual Intro to QGIS Class (Over Zoom) On August 24th and 25th 2021.

The class is 8 hours spread over 2 days and covers:

  • Interface
  • Editing
  • Data and symbology
  • Layouts

If you’ve considered adding This open source GIS Desktop to your software stack or replacing existing software this is a good introduction. This is also the lead-in class to the QGIS: Tools and Processing class.

  • Class is limited to 10 total participants
  • Cost is $175
  • Registration is here!
  • Class will be using QGIS 3.16 or QGIS 3.20

This class also benefits the Community. When you take it you receive a certificate from the QGIS Community and approximately 25 dollars flows back to help improve the software.

Also – if you’re part of a non-profit and can’t swing the fee – give me a shout.

QGIS Tools and Processing

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It’s ready….mostly.

The first class will be held August 31-Sept 2nd from 12 to 4 EST (12 hours). Cost is $200 dollars and you get a certificate from the QGIS Organization (so part of the money flows back to QGIS). This is an introductory price because the first class out of the gate will be a bit exciting.

Registration: https://www.eventbrite.com/e/qgis-tools-and-processing-tickets-164362441487

Cost is $200 US

The Intro class covers 5ish basic things about QGIS: Interface, Data, Symbology, Editing, and Layouts. The whole goal is you aren’t scared of QGIS and stand a good chance at making a map at the end. You might even see a reason to use Geopackage OR you’re able to pull in some ESRI File Based Geodatabases. Easy Simple.

This one gets more complicated. We cover: Field Calculator, Processing tools, Models, Editing, Forms, and SQL/Virtual Layers. There is a good chance that by the end of August it will contain a section on Layouts. Right now I’m at 12 hours (so this class will be three 4 hour days) but you may end up with 16 hours worth of material.

The assumption is walking into the class you know:

  • Something about Geopackages and data formats in general (You could run this all with Shapefiles or Spatialite – but I’m running with Geopackages for now).
  • Are very familiar with the QGIS Interface
  • Aren’t scared of typing (but I’m giving you the option of copying and pasting code to cut down on confusion)
  • Projections aren’t scary
  • You can symbolize data

If you don’t please take the Intro class – Trust me you’ll have fun.

Essentially you are comfortable with QGIS and you aren’t someone developing plugins or programming QGIS. If you are doing that – you’re good unless you just want to take the class for fun.

The Goal of the Class:

  • Take a hard look at Field Calculator and look at Expressions and Functions.
  • Look at processing tools and building models.
  • We take a look at editing and setting up fields and how field calculator plays a role in this. We also look at data cleanup.
  • Forms come into play and you can set up small tools to help you create and more easily maintain data.
  • We end with virtual layers and dig into SQL
  • **Maybe Layouts and Atlas. Maybe.

What happens next? All good things come in 3s – so there is one more class in the works and it will probably be connecting QGIS up to PostGIS. There is also a good chance there will be a series of small one day classes centered around a few topics I get asked about frequently – like mobile data collection and data cleanup. Maybe. That’s a lot of training and I need to start making some plans on that end. I’m still working with clients and I can’t bog myself down in a ton of training.

QGIS Process Command

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I’m wrapping up the 2nd QGIS Class and have been digging hard into the python/scripting/programming side of QGIS. A programmer I am not and usually I have to pick some sort of path into the software that makes sense to me. Scripting has been coming up more and more as I dive back into the TN 911 Project.

I discovered something that’s been around for the last bit in qgis and I no doubt read the release notes on it……….and immediately forgot about it: qgis_process. You have a command line way to access QGIS Processing tools. My examples will be Linux oriented but it works on <fill in the blank>. Open a shell window and type qgis_process:

If I want a list of tools at my disposal: qgis_process list

If I want to know about a tool in particular: qgis_process help qgis:buffer

What if you want to run a command:

qgis_process run qgis:buffer –INPUT=parks_2274.shp DISTANCE=5000 –OUTPUT=parks_buffer.shp

….and if I check the output using QGIS:

Of course I did it all using shapefiles – I’ve got all the output file types I need at my disposal.

The nice thing is I have this uncomplicated way to access the processing tools and running them. Granted this isn’t Python but still – a command line way to access what you want to access. You could set up a very uncomplicated process to: Buffer -> Clip -> Merge -> Whatever you want without cracking open the desktop.

This points out two problems in my life:

  • Generally just keeping up. QGIS is an exciting side of life for me and one I enjoy. I really enjoy this because I started my life on the desktop with analysis and data cleanup. I’ll most likely end my career still enjoying that side of life – oh yeah Desktop GIS is dead I forgot.
  • Running a business is everything BUT the technical bells and whistles I enjoy. I need to make more time for that even if I have to block off a Friday morning for 2 hours and just buffer parks for no reason.