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Announcing QGIS Tools and Processing

June 29, 2021 by rjhale

Hey it has a title finally.

Hey it has chapters…..finally. It’s mostly done.

I’ve talked about this class more than I should have. I just searched back through the blog and realized how much I had mentioned this class and how little I’ve gotten done.

Over the last month I’ve been pouring more time into this more advanced class to get it wrapped up – and I’m close. The first hurdle was “what do I cover” and the next has been “how do I blend it all together”. It has to blend together and has to build on the previous topic. It can’t have exercises that stop you from moving forward if you’re having a problem – in other words you can’t start chapter 3 unless you’re done chapter 2. That won’t happen – BUT you will see me referring back to chapter 2 from chapter 5. The knowledge base builds. If you had the pleasure of taking the intro class I’ll be pointing back to that quite a bit also.

There are 6 sections:

Introduction
Field Calculator and Expressions
Processing Tools and Model Designer
Editing
Forms
SQL

I’ve finished most of it and I need to review it and test it out on some people. So I’m looking at a Early August date to roll this out. It’s also going to be about 12 hours in length I think. It doesn’t cover everything I want – BUT – it’s enough for a more advanced offering. If I ever go back to “in person” training I may add the missing sections.

I will offer this class less than the intro class. So it will probably get offered once a quarter. Limited to 10 people. Maybe a few more due to the infrequent offerings. Don’t know on Price but I’m working on that and will have that when I schedule the class.

So where do we go from here? We have an intro class. We have an Advanced class….or Intermediate…..depending on what you want to call it. Well I started a third class because things work better in threes.

The final class will be an Enterprise scaled offering of sorts. It’s the “I really need to know if I can do some complicated work with this Open Source Stuff”. So I’m dragging PostGIS into the mix. I’m unsure what else I need to drag into it to be honest. I have an outline out and a few sections written.

WHY

Having now taught 30 people in the Intro class (and conferences and other things) I ask as many that will talk “So what are you doing here” and there are a wide range of answers. The common answer is “we need to get work done” and in some cases the work is simple and in some it’s complicated. They need more software than they have – most cases they X copies of commercial software. They need a database and better data management. So a third class – Anyway – I want to finish that up more quickly than I’ve been moving. Granted this last class will be software specific – BUT I’m going to preach Data Awareness and Data Cleanliness.

Watch for the announcement on Tools and Processing.

More news coming on Part 3 – Revenge of QGIS.

Intro to QGIS classes scheduled the rest of the 2021

June 29, 2021 by rjhale

More training news and this will be a two part post.

The Intro to QGIS class had it’s third outing the other day – overall it worked and worked pretty well. Three classes finished well and left the grand total of people getting trained from this class at 30 and that has raised about $600 dollars for the QGIS organization.

Anyway – I made a few adjustments to the class after the third outing and this class will stand as supporting 3.16 through 3.2x and have a set number of exercises and finish up with a certificate.

The classes are set up to be (and should be held rain or shine) since it’s all virtual:

Class	Dates	Price
Intro to QGIS	July 27-28 2021 12 PM EST 4PM EST	$175
Intro to QGIS	August 24th 25th 2021 12 PM EST 4PM EST	$175
Intro to QGIS	September 21 22 2021 12 PM EST 4PM EST	$175
Intro to QGIS	October 26 27th 2021 12 PM EST 4PM EST	$175

Each class is held to 10 people. That’s it. I could do more but 10 lets me hassle people individually and we can look at other things if someone has a specific question. The three classes have run right at 7.5 hours on average – so we have some buffer if something goes wrong and it’s 4 hours a day so it’s nothing strenuous.

Here is the offer moving forward – If you’re in a non-profit (conservation, humanitarian, etc) and you’re doing Geo related work and need software and some training: I am suggesting QGIS and send me an email. NRGS can discount your attendance (you’d be surprised how much). The examples I’m using are all open data from Chattanooga – BUT you should be able to make this work for whatever data you have after the class.

With all of that – Sign up for a class. Each class is recorded. I’m around to answer questions. You get some great software and you get to deal with a fun global community moving forward.

NOW – one more part to the Intro Class. I occasionally am asked (and volunteer) to do workshops at conferences. I’ve done two or three this year. I’ve shrunk the class into a 4 hour and a 2 hour outing. How much can we cover in 2 hours – Not that much but it is fun. So if you’re virtual and want to do something different at a conference – Give me a shout. I’ll do what I can.

Intro to QGIS Class June 22- 23rd 2021

May 17, 2021 by rjhale

It’s happening again:

Intro to QGIS Class
June 22nd-23rd
4 hours each day starting at 12 PM EST
Cost: $175 US
Registration: https://www.eventbrite.com/e/qgis-workshop-introduction-tickets-153817302693

Here is a bit more “behind the scenes” on training and life. When covid was causing me massive issues last year (and it still is – just to a much lesser degree), I was fighting the idea of teaching online. I had taken and had done online classes and it was (for me) harder than I wanted. Coming out of 2020 I made the decision to do 2 to 3 QGIS classes and see what would happen.

Overall it’s not been too bad. Any difficulties that have been encountered were just the normal human error on my part or the participants. I’ve gotten about 24 people trained and raised 560 dollars for the QGIS Organization. Which not that many people or not that much money BUT – this was never attainable holding in person classes. I did decide to bump the class up 25 dollars to cover certificates. Each QGIS certificate is 22 to 24.50 and having that little bit extra helps.

With that I’m in the middle of finishing up the next class with a “final” one being draft out. The problem with the next few classes is time. The Intro class is pretty much 7 hours and 45 minutes. The next one is looking like 16 hours or longer. The last class will be 8 to 12.

Anyway – all of that to say that training is actually going well. Come take a class!

All Dogs go to Heaven

May 11, 2021 by rjhale

Probably.

Hopefully.

I’ve not had a dog in years. It bugs me – I’ve never made the room or the time because there always is something else happening.

There was one unfinished bit from a blog 6 years ago and that story ended this week. Actually it ended on Mother’s Day of all days for things to wrap up.

There were always three things my Uncle had around him at all times: A collection of guns, a collection of motorcycles, and a dog of some sort. So when he passed away, mom ended up with all three. The only thing of any concern with her was the dog – Claudette. She was a Claude originally but apparently the original owner was confused by the bits or lack thereof that a male dog comes with….

Mom and Dad had two dogs already. They made room for the latest one. For 6 years Mom and Dad took care of the dog. Two years ago a heart condition flared up out of nowhere one night. As it turned out this dog was a lifelong sufferer of these small episodes where she would her heart would hiccup and she would have to slow down a bit. Probably when she was younger it was maybe a minute or 2. As she got older it was 5 minutes. My parents noticed when it was taking hours to recover. So heart medicine. The hours turned into half days which turned into days and last year it was declared the days would be permanent at some point as she wouldn’t snap out of it.

Then the tumors appeared. What were benign issues got harder to deal with and one got out of hand. One vet trip later and the dog had another strike against her. That strike wouldn’t re-appear until January when one small lump didn’t stop growing.

Anyway – it all wrapped up Sunday. I assume we will carry out the original orders my Uncle had given. As he was getting sicker he had declared that if not for financial reasons he would drive out in the field and end it all. Shoot the dog. Shoot Himself. And have the whole affair end with cremation. Knowing him he would have planned a giant bonfire with some elaborate contraption to make sure he and the dog both died and rolled into the fire so all we would have to do is scoop them up and send them off.

I’m guessing in the next week or two me and mom make a trip to the cemetery with a shovel and the ashes of the dog. I’m not sure how that’s going to look with me, mom, and a shovel heading into a cemetery – BUT – I’m pretty sure there will be a lot of laughing from the great beyond as we do it. We tend to have a morbid sense of humor these days and I’m guessing we will be laughing as we’re digging a small hole. Probably the cemetery would be good with it if we asked – BUT – why ask permission when you can ask forgiveness after it’s done.

Anyway – I shall feast on a McDonalds Double Cheeseburger tonight and toast the next great adventure.

Trash and Input

April 26, 2021 by rjhale

I went canoeing. I picked up trash. Which wasn’t all that bad – I should have picked up more BUT it was a nice day to be floating down a creek.

Anytime I get out in the canoe I do some thinking. Today ended up, worrying over the new QGIS class and this map I was making. I’m creating a map of canoe launches for a local county. I’m also using part of the map in the class. Which then led to “What if I find an new launch no one knows about?”. It happens. We found one that a high school had built and a known one that the National Park had closed.

I had talked about Input almost a year ago and left it more or less with “Awesome but slightly complicated” and granted it wasn’t complicated at all but the flow wasn’t quite there. There have been a ton of improvements. The flow is there now.

You have the option of creating a project out in the field. Last time I checked in on Input, the process was to build a project in QGIS and then syncing it through Lutra’s Mergin service. In my canoe (with very little cell service), I opened Input and went to “My Projects” and made a project that collected points. I decided to collect locations where we picked up tires. Luckily this wasn’t anything more than me goofing off because I usually don’t keep my phone out while canoeing. So I did a terrible job of data collection.

From there I collected data and took some pics and started collecting data.

I took some pics. Made some notes. When I finished I synced it to Mergin. So here’s the cool thing. My Mergin Plugin in QGIS shows my project that I just synced. From there I can download it (and the photos) and display it on my desktop. The downloaded project comes as a geopackge.

One of the nicer things about this endeavor is I can still keep collecting and sync back to my desktop at my convenience. If I make edits on the Desktop I can sync those back into Mergin. So you have this really nice back and forth with data collection: Input -> Mergin -> QGIS and QGIS -> Mergin -> Input. Next up is shoving those improvements into PostGIS directly.

Overall – Input has had a ton of changes for the better. Spur of the moment data collection worked. It makes me wonder on what else I can do. Which brings my grizzled old self back to how many options I have for my phone to go out and collect data. Yes in a lot of instances you need high accuracy data collection but in many cases (which is where I am in most of my professional life) a phone is it.