Covered Topics:
- QGIS 3.0
- Writing to Esri GeoDB
- Displaying Basemaps and Map Services
The March meeting was held at Interim CDA. Thanks again for their generous use of their conference room.
QGIS 3.0
- There was a group exploration of getting QGIS 3.0 installed on MacOS
- Joel sent notice on our groups list that Kyng Chaos had it compiled the MacOS version of QGIS 3.0
- The install requires:
- GDAL 2.2 - there’s a package on his site.
- Python 3.6
- Peter installed python 3.6.4 for MacOS from the python web site, which left the system version of python2.7 intact.
- Start Python 3.6.4 in terminal with python3.
- A bunch of Python modules that are listed in the readme file from the package.
- Peter tried skipping the package installs and got errors on launch about python module “OSGEO”, but installing the modules listed in the readme resolved the issue.
- Clifford reported that he got it working earlier in the week.
- Taylor was trying to get it installed and having some difficulty.
- The install requires:
- Joel sent notice on our groups list that Kyng Chaos had it compiled the MacOS version of QGIS 3.0
- Joel is having some problems with QGIS 3.0 not starting on windows every single time.
- Peter distributed a QGIS 3.0 shortcuts page created by North Road.
- Taylor asked why someone would want to use QGIS 3.0.
- The group wisdom came up with the following reasons. Clearly we need more research.
- It is supposed to have better performance.
- There is new 3D functionality.
- But, Stu has had trouble getting that to work.
- More answers at GISGeography.com The Hidden Powers of QGIS
- The group wisdom came up with the following reasons. Clearly we need more research.
Installing QGIS on Windows with Esri GeoDB write capability
- Stu demonstrated his recommended method to install OSGEO4W.
- Installs the defaults and then goes into custom install and enables:
- gdal-dev: OGR FileGDB Driver
- gdal-filegdb: OGR FileGDB Driver
- This requires that you agree to Esri’s licensing terms.
- Installs the defaults and then goes into custom install and enables:
Displaying Basemaps
- Stu demonstrated multiple ways of displaying basemap data in QGIS 2.18.16.
- Stu provided a document with details on his demonstration.
- There are some limitations with the OpenLayers plugin, and Stu does not recommended it.
- The QuickMapServices (QMS) plugin is superior.
- It offers the following advantages:
- Works in any projection.
- Works with on the fly reprojection.
- The QMS menu is under the Web menu.
- You will want to customize the list as it has many Russian focused services by default.
- You can off the services you dont want in Settings.
- You can add more US-centric services with Get contributed pack.
- Which doesn’t appear to work with MacOS.
- Layer blending is available.
- Reportedly you can add custom basemaps.
- It offers the following advantages:
- Native support in Browser Panel: Tile Server {XYZ}
- By default this is empty.
- Add a basemap url and name to populate the menu.
- Browser Panel: ArcGIS Feature Server can be used to add Esri format vector data web services.
- Some of the feature services Stu tested worked, and some did not.
- Stu’s experience was that they downloaded very slowly.
- Can use Save As to export to shape files.
- Browser Panel: ArcGIS Map Server can be used to add non-tiled raster image web services.
- Check out King County’s services
- Joel found a python script that you can use to populate Tile Server {XYZ} in QGIS 3.0 with a bunch of basemaps.
- An alternative solution to QMS, which is not available for QGIS 3.0.
- The script doesn not work with QGIS 2.18. The group tried it at some length.
- To use the script:
- Open the Python Console
- Open Editor
- Load the script
- Run the script
If anyone has corrections or additions they would like to make to these notes please let Paul McCombs know, or submit a pull request on github