Digital Geography

Short Note: export layers to PostGIS with Processing

When using QGIS along with PostGIS you might want to publish data directly from inside QGIS into your PostGIS database. This is not only convenient as you don’t need to change the software of use but also easier as it only takes a drag and drop in QGIS instead of any commandline/fancytool. Yet it comes with a disadvantage: the number of inserts from QGIS into the db is limited to 200 per transaction. So it will take some time to insert a bigger dataset with 150.000 points or so. So how to overcome this?

Copernicus, Sentinel and your favourite GIS

The Copernicus Program provides an interesting alternative data source for your work with Landsat data… Sentinel images: Copernicus will deliver an unprecedented volume of free data, provide new operational services and foster new business opportunities and job creation. The data itself is collected since 2014 (Sentinel 1A) and the operation is scheduled to deliver data till 2020 at least. But how to get the data into the GIS of your choice.

QGIS 3 officially released

On 24th of February, the QGIS developers have officially released QGIS 3 (codename “Girona”). It is the third major version of the free and open source cross-platform GIS software. In this post, I want to tease you with the most important infos and installation instructions.

Donut Polygons in QGIS, ArcMap, ArcGIS Pro and geoJSON

Donut Polygons were the nightmare in first GIS courses. At the very moment I can’t remember why but the concept of an inner and an outer part makes total sense in the real world (house with a patio, lakes with islands, Rome with the Vatican City) yet the creation of those was never the covered in the basic “how to edit”-classes. So how can we create them with QGIS, ArcMap as well as ArcGIS Pro and geoJSON? In this tutorial I will cover this basic task.

Vagrant: Setup and Share your Digital Geo-Lab

In one of my last posts I described the installation of a git server to improve collaborative work in closed environments. But developing solutions can be a pain in the axxxx if you need deal with user/OS dependent issues all the time. So let me introduce you to Vagrant: Vagrant is an open-source software product for building and maintaining portable virtual development environments.

Short Announcement: QGIS 3.0 is on its way

QGIS 3.0 is the next big release in terms of features and tools. As it is stated in this e-mail chain we could expect this new major release in late 2017 and time is passing fast: retire 2.14 in June 2017 2.18 becomes LTR from June 2017 to 2018 3.0 feature freeze in July 2017 release 3.0 in Sept 2017 release 3.2 as next LTR in release 3.0 + 4 Months (eta June 2018) Yet this timeline is not strict and [was?] under discussion. We might expect a new candidate loaded with some cool and uncool features.

PostgreSQL and PostGIS: A brief introduction

You probably seen this already (maybe on your very own PC as well): A folder with shape files. Well we’re living in the 21st century and I do have and use those folders still. After a talk of Sebastian Meier at Maptime Berlin I was convinced and started to work with a databases instead of folders. So let me show you how to install PostgreSQL along with PostGIS on Ubuntu and Windows, how to get data into it, import OSM data and how to connect it with QGIS/ArcGIS.

From Cloud to GIS: Getting Weather Data.

Introduction In this post we are going to look at how to get weather forecast data and display it as a layer in a desktop geographical information system (GIS). The tools that you need are: A desktop GIS. I am going to use QGIS (free software) but I have done this with ESRI ArcMap as well A spreadsheet application. I will be using MS Excel but I have also tried this with Softmaker Office and I am sure LibreOffice (free software) will work or indeed any other spreadsheet application The Natural Earth Quick Start data set. This is a collection…