QGIS and basemaps: QuickMapServices
To work in QGIS is very often much more convenient if you can use a basemap for your data. In the past we used and promoted OpenLayers plugin quite often but this was not the best out there as you saw often some issues with projections as well as with “lost tiles” in the map composer. So here is the new weapon of choice: the QuickMapServices plugin for QGIS.Getting the QuickMapServices Plugin
Of course you can download the plugin via the plugin manager in QGIS but you can also download the latest version from NextGIS github account. Nextgis is Moscow based GIS company with lots of plugins for QGIS but which also offers some online services to support you with your daily spatial data.
QuickMapServices Plugin
About the QuickMapServices Plugin
Well the plugin works straight forward: Select a basemap and wait for the tiles to load and BAM there is your basemap. The cooles thing: QuickMapServices standard basemaps seems to work in nearly every projection (even custom ones):-
- EPSG:53009 Mollweide
-
- a custom azimuthal equidistant projection
-
- IAU2000: 51118 Carme Noth Pole Stereographic
-
- EPSG:102016 North Pole Azimuthal Aequidistant
-
- EPSG:53029 Van der Grinten Sphere
- eatlas
- landsat by gis-lab.info
- Mapquest
- Mapsurfer
- nasa (only a few Us-centric layers)
- OSM
basic styles in QickMapServices
- ESRI
- mapbox
- stamen
- carto (fka cartodb)
- bing
- …
Thank you for the tip Riccardo! I was still using old-school OpenLayer plugin. I’ll give a try to QMS!