QGIS

Creating a COVID-19 Temporal Animation with QGIS

One of the most powerful new features released with QGIS v3.14 is the Temporal Controller, which allows you to enable time in your maps. It can be used to temporally enable vector, raster, mesh and WMS(T) data. The Temporal Controller is now a core part of QGIS and has several variables associated with it that allow you to create powerful visualizations and animations. It contains most of the functionality found in the Time Manager plugin.

Here you will learn how to use it with the New York Times COVID-19 data to produce a county-based animation of the outbreak in the U.S.

Getting the Data

To begin, download the current New York Times live COVID-19 data, a U.S. Counties with population shapefile and a State boundaries layer from the U.S. Census. Unzip the county and state data.

Add the Data to QGIS & do some basic styling

Add all three datasets to QGIS 3.14, then use either the QuickMapServices or MapTiler plugin to add an OpenStreetMap basemap. If you have not installed these, you can do so from the Plugins menu option Manage and Install Plugins.

Next you will symbolize the States with a simple black outline and no fill. Press F7 to open the Layer Styling Panel. Make sure the states layer is the target layer in the panel.

  • Select the Simple fill component.

  • Change the Fill style to No brush.

  • Increase the Stroke width to 0.46.

The NYT data is structured such that there is an entry for each county for each day of the pandemic. For each date it has both the cumulative number of confirmed COVID-19 cases and deaths.

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Processing the Data

The only data processing step is joining the COVID-19 data to the counties layer by FIPS code. This is a 5 digit code (2 for the state and 3 for the county) which is a unique identifier for each county in the country.

You will use the Join Attributes by Field Value processing algorithm. Use the Processing menu to open the Processing Toolbox. Use search box at the top of the Toolbox to search for ‘Join’. This will filter the available tools. Locate the Join Attributes by Field Value processing algorithm in the Vector general section. Fill it out as shown below being careful to select the Join type of Create separate feature for each matching feature (one-to-many).

Warning: This is going to create a very large dataset with over 400,000 features. It may take quite awhile to process depending on the speed of you machine.

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Symbolizing the COVID-19 Data

When the data has been processed you can symbolize it. Again the size of this dataset makes it a bit unwieldy. Since the goal is an animation which builds towards the current total of COVID-19 cases, you want to set up the classes so they make sense for the latest date in the dataset. To figure this out, you will temporarily filter the data for the most current date.

  • Open Layer Properties for the layer.

  • Choose the Source tab.

  • In the Provider Feature Filter section click on the Query Builder button.

  • In the Fields box highlight the date field.

  • In the Values box click All. Again this is a big dataset so it may take a few moments for QGIS to compute a list of all the dates.

  • Form an expression in the Provider Specific Filter Expression box. First double-click on the date field to enter that in the lower box. Then click on the equals operator. Finally double-click on the most current date.

  • Click OK.

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When finished, a small filter icon will appear to the right of the layer in the Layers Panel. If you hover over that filter your expression will appear. Now you will work on styling the filtered dataset.

  • Make sure the correct counties layer is the target layer in the Layer Styling Panel.

  • Where it reads Single symbol, change it to Graduated. The Graduated renderer allows you to symbolize the counties based on a numeric field.

  • You can begin by simply choosing the cases field as the Value.

  • Click the Classify button and you will see the counties classified into the default 5 classes in your default color ramp.

  • Choose Equal Counts as the Mode.

  • Increase the number of Classes to 7.

  • Use the Color ramp selector to find a nice color ramp. Here I’m using the RdYlBu ramp.

  • Right-click on it and choose Invert. This is necessary if using the RdYlBu ramp so that the counties with the highest number of cases are red.

  • Next you will change all the outlines for all the classes to a thin white line. To do this, click on the colored bar next to Symbol.

    • Select Simple fill.

    • Change the Stroke color to white and the Stroke width to 0.06.

    • Click the blue back arrow button to return to the main layer styling options.

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Normalizing the data by population

This is now turning into a nice map. However, it will be more informative to normalize the number of cases against the population. Otherwise we risk making a map of just population centers. In the Value section where you chose cases as the field, click the Expression button. The Expression Dialog window opens with cases as the expression. Here you will divide cases by population and multiply by 1,000,000. This will give you the cases as a rate per 1,000,000 people.

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  • Put your cursor to the right of the word cases and click the / division symbol button.

  • Expand the Field and Values values section. You will see a list of all the attribute columns in the dataset.

  • Double-click on POPULATION to add field to your expression.

  • Next, wrap cases / “POPULATION” in parentheses.

  • Finally, enter a multiplication * symbol followed by the number 1000000 without thousands separators.

  • Click OK.

  • In the Layer Styling Panel click Classify again to see your map as cases per 1,000,000. You can also enter custom values. For example, you can set the upper limit for the first class to an even 2,500 versus the 2,508.62.

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Now that you have the styling set, you will clear your layer filter. Click on the filter icon in the Layers Panel to open the Query Builder. Click Clear and OK.

Working with the Temporal Controller

Now you can work with the Temporal Controller.

  • Open Layer Properties for the counties layer and choose the Temporal tab.

  • Set the Configuration to Single Field with Date/Time and point it to the date column.

  • Set the Event duration to 1 week.

  • Close Layer Properties.

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The layer will likely take awhile to render so you may want to turn it off now that you have it set up.

Decorations

Next you will work on some Decorations to add to the animation. These will allow you to add a title, legend and data source to the map canvas.

From the View menu find Decorations and choose Title Label. Click Enable Title Label and enter COVID-19 Cases per 1M by Date (NYT). Choose a font and a background color and click OK.

To add the legend to the map canvas, you will set one up in the Print Composer. Start a new Print Composition and add just a Legend. Configure it how you’d like and take a screenshot or reduce the size of the composition to fit to the legend and export it as an image.

Back at the main QGIS window revisit View —> Decorations and choose Image. Click Enable Image and load your legend. Use the Size and Horizontal/Vertical settings to place it in a good spot.

You can use the View —> Decorations—> Copyright Label to put the url to the New York Times GitHub repository on the map.

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Labeling Time

Finally you will create a point layer to place the current day on the map. Click on the Layer menu and choose Create Layer —> New Geopackage Layer. Be sure to make it a point layer.

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Put the layer into edit mode and create a point where you’d like the date to appear. Save your edits. Open Layer Properties and select the Temporal tab. Enable Temporal and set the Configuration to Redraw Layer Only. This tells QGIS to redraw this layer each frame.

Now you will symbolize and label this layer. For symbology change the renderer from Single symbol to No symbols. You don’t need to see the point. You will be using this layer to simply label time.

In the Layer Styling Panel switch to the Labels tab. Set labels to Single Labels. Click the Expression button to the right of Value. There are a series of variables tied to the Temporal Controller. Expand the Variables section and double-click on the @map_start_time variable to add it to your expression. This variable represents the start of the map’s time range. As you step through time on the map, this variable will update to represent the current start date for the map. You can use the format_date() function to put this time into your preferred format. If you highlight the format_date() function you will see some help in the right side of the expression window. Reference the example below. Also note that QGIS provides a preview of what your expression returns. Look in the lower left corner of the expression window. You can check this to ensure the expression is formatting the date as you wish. When finished click OK.

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Lastly, choose a font for your time label.

Activating Time

Now you are ready to activate the Temporal Controller panel. Click on the Temporal Controller button on the Map Navigation toolbar, or use View—> Panels to activate it. Once visible, click the Animated Temporal Navigation button (right-most with green arrow) in the Temporal Controller panel.

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Exporting Still Images

Set the Step to 1 days. You can now use the Temporal controls to step through time. However, the data are so large it will probably be awkwardly slow. Notice the Export Animation button to the right of the Step. Click this, and set it up to export out a series of still images, one per day.

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Creating the Final Animation in GIMP

Once the images have exported you can use the open source image editing software GIMP to create the animation. You can install it from the link.

Open GIMP and choose File —> Open as Layers. This will likely take a couple minutes as it loads all the still images.

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Once it has finished loading the layers click Filters —> Animation —> Optimize (for GIF). This step too will take a couple minutes. Finally choose File —> Export As and export as a GIF. Set the File type as GIF and choose a folder for the export. Click Export and in the Export Image as GIF window be sure to check the As animation box. You can also choose the Loop forever option.

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You will end up with something similar to the animation shown below! This same workflow can be used to create similar animations for deaths or for other countries.

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Kurt Menke Interviewed About QGIS on the MapScaping Podcast

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Listen to Kurt Menke of the Community Health Maps program discuss the QGIS project on the latest episode of the MapScaping podcast. QGIS is a core component of the Community Health Maps workflow, and this podcast episode covers material that will be new to many Community Health Mappers.

The episode just dropped this morning. You can give it a listen below, or find the MapScaping podcast via your favorite podcast provider.

Pacific islanders Dive Deep into Community Health Maps Workflow

The First Vector Borne Disease Surveillance Workshop

0607191556-e1560536068216.jpgOn June 8 & 9, 2019, twelve pacific island public health professionals met in Honolulu, HI to participate in a Community Health Maps training specifically designed to demonstrate how to collect and work with geographic data related to vector borne diseases, i.e. those that are transmitted to humans via other animals such as mosquitoes. Attendees represented: American Samoa, the Federated States of Micronesia, Guam, the Commonwealth of the Northern Mariana Islands, the Republic of the Marshall Islands and the Republic of Palau.This was the first of two, two-day, workshops aimed specifically at tackling the spread of diseases like Dengue fever, West Nile and Zika viruses. It was a team effort. The training was organized by the Association of State and Territorial Health Officials (ASTHO). Participants attendance was funded by CDC’s National Center for Environmental Health. Travel for the trainers was funded by the National Library of Medicine, (funding for the workshop is provided under a sub-award from the National Library of Medicine to ICF International). This particular CHM workshop was taught in conjunction with ASTHO’s Insular Area Climate and Health Summit.After an introduction to the Community Health Maps project - it's origins, workflow and examples of past projects - participants learned to create a data collection form and use their smartphones to map features (trees, signs, benches etc...) around the IMG_20190610_214340_314_1_previewconference site using FulcrumParticipants saw how this particular part of the workflow could be applied in their home regions to digitally locate areas of standing water and/ or sand pits that are some examples of breeding habitat for mosquitoes. Others anticipated mapping salt water resistant taro, households where infections have occurred and other geographic factors that contribute to the spread of vector borne diseases.For the remainder of the first day the group took the data they created earlier and imported into QGIS, a sophisticated geographic visualization desktop software. In this section they became familiar with QGIS and how to symbolize layers and make a print map.In addition to the data collected on site, we worked with mosquito data acquired courtesy of Dr. Chris Barker  covering Madera County, CA. The data included mosquito trap results over five years, virus testing, mosquito biting complaints, storm drains, parcel boundaries, roads and a hypothetical case of Dengue fever.IMG_1909_1_previewThe second day focused on generating vector borne disease surveillance products. Kurt Menke developed a curriculum to demonstrate how a GIS can create maps and statistical charts that transform simple text and numbers in a database into intuitive graphics that communicate information quickly and accurately. The previous blog post has more detail about the specific vector borne disease surveillance products participants learn to create.20190607_114226(0)_1_previewThe attendees had a wide range of GIS skills from introductory to advanced capabilities. We experienced many of the common technical difficulties when working in a hotel conference room, older and newer computers and variations with different operating systems (Windows and Macs) as well. Despite all the differences, all of the participants: A) collected data with their smartphones, B) exported their data to a desktop GIS, C) used prepared data to create geographically accurate statistics, D) generated heatmaps of mosquito populations, E) calculated the minimum infection rate per year for West Nile and St. Louis Encephalitis viruses, F) identified potential sources using buffer operations with distances specific species are know to be able to travel, G) identified parcels at risk due to their proximity to a fictional outbreak of Dengue Fever and H) generated trend graphs of mosquito populations through time via the QGIS Data Plotly plugin. All participants received official QGIS certificates.The skills required to complete these tasks are not always simple and straight forward. The participants of this workshop expressed great enthusiasm and persistence in figuring it all out... making mistakes and trying again. Many expressed a need for more training and a desire to have more specialized trainings on site specifically related to projects they are already working on.The second workshop in the series will be taught next week in Providence, RI at the GIS Surveillance Workshop. This will be attended by State based health officials.This vector borne disease surveillance version of the Community Health Maps workflow showcases the analysis and data visualization capabilities of QGIS, as well as, the data collection capabilities of Fulcrum. It represents perhaps the greatest potential for applied use of Community Health Maps to date.These workshop materials will part of the suite of https://communityhealthmaps.nlm.nih.gov/resources/ available through the Community Health Maps program in the near future.If you are interested in having this taught for you or your colleagues contact Kurt Menke (kurt@birdseyeviewgis.com)

Vector Borne Disease Surveillance with QGIS - A Series of Two Day Workshops

This spring, with funding provided by the Association of State and Territorial Health Officials (ASTHO), Kurt Menke developed a two day workshop that combines elements of the standard Community Health Maps workflow with vector borne disease surveillance analyses.The workshop begins with an introduction to Community Health Maps, and learning how to use Fulcrum to develop a data collection form and collect community GIS data with a smartphone. Participants will then be introduced to QGIS. They will learn how to add the field data just collected, and symbolize it. They will then download some open data and create a map.The second day focuses on a suite of mosquito trap data acquired from Madera County, CA, by Dr. Chris Barker at UC Davis. There are 5 years of mosquito trap data and mosquito virus testing data. There are also anonymized data for mosquito biting complaints, mosquito management zones, storm drain locations, parcels and roads.Collectively this provides a rich yet manageable dataset. With it participants will learn to use to create information such as:mosquitosPerYearChart.pngculexquinqheatmap2019-05-23_1731322019-05-23_173733This workshop represents applied real-world workflows. These are many of the standard products needed by public health officials and typically produced by researchers. Having this sort of analysis and data visualization available via an open source package means anyone willing to take a few days to learn can produce them! This is especially true as the needed input data can be collected via Fulcrum if they don't already exist.This workshop will be taught twice in June. Both workshops will be part of the Community Health Maps project and are partly funded by the National Library of Medicine (funding for the workshop is provided under a sub-award from the National Library of Medicine to ICF International). The first iteration will be taught in conjunction with the Insular Area Climate and Health Summit in Honolulu, HI. This will be attended by public health officials from many of the Pacific Territories.The second workshop will be taught in Providence, RI at the GIS Surveillance Workshop. This will be attended by State based health officials.This material really showcases the analysis and data visualization capabilities of QGIS.  It represents perhaps the greatest potential for applied use of Community Health Maps to date. This workshop will part of the suite of Resources available through the Community Health Maps program in the near future.If you are interested in having this taught for you or your colleagues contact Kurt Menke (kurt@birdseyeviewgis.com). 

Discover QGIS 3.x - A Workbook for Classroom or Independent Study

Today Discover QGIS 3.x was published by Locate Press. Authored by Community Health Mapper Kurt Menke, this is an update of the original title, using QGIS v3.6 and covering spatial analysis, data management, and cartography. It is designed to teach mapping and GIS using QGIS. As such it begins with basics. It is a comprehensive up-to-date workbook built for both the classroom and professionals looking to build their skills.It is designed to take advantage of the latest QGIS features, and will guide you in improving your maps and analysis.The book is a complete resource and includes:

  • Lab exercises
  • Challenge exercises
  • All data, discussion questions, and solutions

What's new in this edition:

  • Updated to QGIS 3.6
  • Fifteen new exercises
  • A new section, Advanced Data Visualization, covering:
    • Blending modes
    • Live layer effects
    • Geometry generators
    • Rendering Points
    • Time Manager
    • Native 3D
    • Mesh data
  • Appendices covering:
    • Keyboard shortcuts
    • Useful Plugins
    • Getting involved

To see what's included in the book, download the Table of Contents (PDF). Discover QGIS 3.x is available in color as an ebook or paper back.2nd_ed_draft_covercropped

QGIS 3.6 Noosa Released!

This past weekend QGIS 3.6 Noosa was released as the next stable release. You can visit the QGIS download site to find installers for Windows, Mac and Linux.f335c2ee37b714ad6eec143246d947f09a5ff2f1At the same time QGIS 3.4 Madeira became the latest long-term release. This means that version 3.4 will be supported for a calendar year with bug fixes. This is now the version you should install and  work with for the next year.D0PBNsOXcAAgwDcIf you have not yet worked with the new 3.x line you can look at the visual changelogs here: Version 3.0Version 3.2 - Version 3.4. In general the QGIS 3.x line is a major upgrade from 2.x. I encourage you to install it and make a map!

QGIS 3.4 Released!

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On November 2nd QGIS 3.4 'Madeira' was released. It is the first long-term release in the new 3.x platform.  To install it you can visit the QGIS Download page. Installers are ready for Windows, Max OSX and Linux.QGIS VERSIONSRemember QGIS always has two main versions available. There is the long-term release, which is the most stable because it is supported for one calendar year. In addition there is always a latest release. QGIS 3.4 falls into this former category.QGIS 3.4This is a great time to update your version of QGIS. Especially if you are still using the 2.x line. QGIS 3.x is fast, stable and feature rich. If you are still a 2.x user there is a huge list of new features and useful changes. At this point most of the popular plugins have been migrated over from 2.x to 3.x. The chart below shows the steady migration and growth of 3.x plugins. You can review the visual changelog for this version here. You can also find the changelogs for versions 3.0 and 3.2.Plugins11-1_18

CHM Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ's)

There are some questions I am asked regularly when teaching CHM workshops. This blog post addresses those common questions, many of which deal with data security.Can more than one person collect data at the same time with Fulcrum?Yes it is possible add users to your Fulcrum Organization for team based data collection. You set this up from your Fulcrum Settings page. When adding users you can give them a Role as a Standard User, Manager or Owner. You can also grant member access to your individual data collection apps. At that point those users have the access you granted them via their Role in your organization.2018-03-28_085610Is there an organizational account for Fulcrum?Not really. An organization can have a single account, but that account needs to be associated with a single email address. So the user name and password would then need to be shared with anyone in the organization. This isn’t the way Fulcrum is set up to work and they prefer users not do this. A better way is to create an account and add users to your organization.The exception to this is Fulcrum Community This is a version of Fulcrum for use in humanitarian relief and disaster situations. You need to apply for a Community license. If granted you can invite any number of data collectors via their email address and they don't have to have accounts. The Community license is free and lasts one year. We used this in Miami last fall and the project is features on the Community flood page  (Post-Irma Environment Reporting)!When does Fulcrum record the point? The point is taken when you click "Save". You may have backed up to take a photo. However, when you are ready to save the record, you should have your device as close to the object you want to map as possible.Why do I end up with two datasets from Fulcrum?Photos you take with your mobile device are geotagged. When you download your data from your Fulcrum account you may end up with two datasets. One is based on your data collection app. The other is based on the coordinates embedded in the photos you took. For example, if you backed up to take a photo of a bench and then saved your point standing over the bench, you will be able to see both where the photo was taken and where the bench is located.How accurate are the points collected with my mobile device?There are a number of things that can affect data accuracy such as the quality of the GPS receiver, current satellite configuration, limited sky view, proximity to large buildings, tree cover etc. There is a two part blog post about this you can read here.One thing to keep in mind is that when you are using Fulcrum to collect field data, the point is taken when you click "Save". You may have backed up to take a photo. However, when you are ready to save the record you should have your device as close to the object you are mapping as possible. It is also possible to edit and correct point locations after the fact via Fulcrum, Carto or QGIS.Is my data secure on QGIS?QGIS is simply a piece of desktop software, not a platform for data storage. With QGIS you can map and analyze your spatial data. Data security has more to do with the security of your computer network and your system for backing data up. QGIS has no more bearing on data security than any other piece of desktop software such as ArcGIS or Microsoft Excel.Does Fulcrum have HIPAA compliant security?No. Fulcrum does employ 256-bit SSL connections to keep data safe as it travels to and from your cloud account. As they say, this is the same level of security provided by online banking and e-commerce sites. However, The HIPAA Security Rule requires implementation of three types of safeguards: 1) administrative, 2) physical and 3) technical. So Fulcrum is not HIPAA compliant. However, if they hear from enough users that this is a crucial feature they will likely work on it!What is open source?It is both a software license and a way to create software. There are two main types of software licenses: proprietary and open source. Proprietary licenses tend to restrict your usage of the software in some way:

  • number of computers you can install the software on
  • the number of features available
  • the time period you can use the software (e.g., a year)

On the other hand open sources licenses tend to grant users rights and freedoms around using the software. For example with QGIS, the license grants you the freedom to install the software on any number of computers and access to all the features forever. The software also has no monetary cost, it’s free.Open source is also a software development strategy. The developers work in an open and collaborative way. Many developers feel this is a more efficient way to create software. In an open source project all the source code is available. This last point may not be a hugely important consideration for many. However, access to the source code means that if you have the capability, you can study how the software works and improve it. Because of this feature open source software is not a “black box.” Additionally, even if you cannot program a new feature yourself, you can hire someone who can. Since you are not paying any licensing fees this is often a very viable option.


If you have any other questions about Community Health Maps email them to Kurt Menke and he will try to answer them and add them to this post!

QGIS 3 Released!

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On February 23rd QGIS 3 was formally released. Since then the developers have been working on completing installers for Windows, Mac and Linux. As of yesterday the software is ready to be installed on every operating system! To install it you can visit the QGIS Download page.QGIS VERSIONSQGIS always has two main versions available. There is the long-term release, which is the most stable because it is supported for one calendar year. In addition there is always a latest release. QGIS 3 falls into this latter category, it is the latest release. At the moment the long-term release is version 2.18. The latest release is still considered stable, but a new one comes out every 4 months.WHICH VERSION TO CHOOSE?If you want to have one version of QGIS without having to worry about updates, use the long-term release (2.18). If you want to experience all the new features that come with version 3 you will want the latest release (3.0). As mentioned last month, version 3 is a major new release with a lot of changes and new features.On Windows machines you can have both. You can easily install both versions of QGIS side by side with no conflicts by using the OSGeo4W Network Installer. On Mac and Linux machines you can only have one version, so you need to choose.QGIS 3QGIS 3 is fast, stable and feature rich. The main issue for many users is that not all Plugins have yet  to be ported to QGIS 3. This is because this responsibility falls onto the individual plugin authors. With that said, at last count there were already 117 plugins available for version 3. 

QGIS 3.0 To Be Released in February!

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It's an exciting month for QGIS. On February 23rd there will be a major new release of QGIS: QGIS 3.0. We haven't had a major new release since 2013 when 2.0 came out. The development team has been working on this for a solid year. This version will be faster and have a lot of new features. Kurt Menke has been closely following the development of QGIS3. Over the last few months he has been experimenting with the pre-release version (v2.99). This post will cover some of the highlights that will be useful to Community Health Mappers. In general QGIS is going to be faster, more powerful and more efficient to work with. First off QGIS 3.0 comes with a new logo!qgis-logo_anita02Overall the look of QGIS is very similar.  There are  the Layers and Browser panels to the left, a Map Canvas and lots of buttons and menus above. However, upon closer inspection there are a lot of very useful changes. For example, instead of there being a row of add data buttons down the left side, there is now a Unified Data Source Manager button which opens up a browser.QGIS3red.jpgThe Unified Data Source Manager can be used to access the myriad of data formats QGIS supports and add them to QGIS. This includes vector, raster, database, web services etc. You can even browse within Esri File Geodatabases. Any GIS layer you are interested in, can then be added to QGIS by dragging and dropping it onto the map. DataSourceManager.gif The Processing toolbox was completely redesigned and many tools were rewritten. This means many are now faster, more flexible and stable. There are also many new tools that didn't exist in QGIS v2.x. Additionally processing tasks also now run in the background. This means  you don't have to stop working while a tool runs! Yet another new processing feature is that layers in different projections will automatically be reprojected, so there is no need to reproject beforehand.ProcessingToolbox.gif Map Labels: It now much easier to edit labels. Previously you had to set up attribute columns and set those as data defined overrides. If you don't know what all that means, it's OK. Now all you have to do is simply put the layer into edit mode and edit labels with tools on the Label toolbar. Maps also now redraw more quickly due to cached label renderers.labels.gif There is now a Search bar in the lower left corner that can be used to search for map layers, features and processing tools. This makes finding things in QGIS quick and easy.SearchBar.gif The QGIS print composer was completely redesigned. They are now referred to as Layouts. Map insets can now be in a different map projection than the main map. There is a new and improved system of guides which include settings in any unit of measurement you could want (mm, cm, m, in, ft, pt, pica, pix). There are new controls for choosing fonts which include recently used fonts. When you export a map, a link to the folder shows up making it easy to track down the exported map.2018-01-31_163437.jpg Other notable enhancements include:

  • A fully integrated 3D environment
  • Editing improvements including: a) widgets for layer attributes, b) CAD style digitizing tools that allow you to create perfect rectangles, circles, ellipses etc. and c) a new node editing tool with a lot of behavior improvements
  • Previews of where each map projection can be used. This will be a big help for beginners!2018-01-31_170602.jpg
  • User profiles that allow you to set up QGIS with different panels, plugins and toolbars for different projects or uses.
  • Improved hidpi/retina support

 Where do you go from here?

  • 2.18 will be considered the supported long-term release (LTR) through June.
  • When 3.0 is released in a few weeks it will be considered the latest stable version.
  • 3.2 will become the LTR in June when it is released.
  • Starting on February 23rd you will be able to download and install it. Remember you can have multiple versions installed with no conflicts. I encourage  you to install it in a few weeks and begin to explore it! You won't want to go back.

NOTE: QGIS 3 projects won't be entirely backwards compatible with QGIS 2.x. So if you are going to open an existing project in QGIS 3, be sure to click Project -->Save As and save a new verion of the project for use in QGIS3.