Getting started with QGIS

Tutorial ID: IGET_GIS_001

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IGET_GIS_001 Getting started with QGIS

Getting started with QGIS

Objective
This tutorial will cover following objectives
• To download Quantum GIS (QGIS)
• Installing Quantum GIS
• Getting familiar with QGIS interface
• Installing a plugin
• Adding Vector and Raster data layers to QGIS map Canvas

Software: Quantum GIS

Level: Beginner

Time required: 4 Hour

Prerequisites and Geospatial Skills

1. Basic knowledge about computer.

2. Internet Connection

Reading
1. Sutton, T., Dassau, O., & Sutton, M. (2009). A gentle introduction to GIS. Chief
Directorate: Spatial Planning & Information, Eastern Cape.

Tutorial Data: Tutorial data can be downloaded from IGET_GIS_001

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Introduction
Quantum GIS is a free and open source GIS application. It was a result of SourceForge project,
QGIS is developed using C++ and Qt toolkit. Initially QGIS developed for displaying the GIS
data, now it evolved as full GIS software package. It is published under GNU Free
Documentation License as an official project of Open Source Geospatial Foundation (OSGeo).
It is compatible with all the operating systems and can very well handle multiple raster, vector
and databases functionalities. QGIS is also serves as a window for assessing numerous other
Open source GIS packages such as SAGA, GRASS, Post GIS, map server and also statistical
package like ‘R’ etc. It also has very easy and convenient access to various tools and plugins. It
is overall a very rich open source Geospatial tool.

Exercise 1: Downloading QGIS

As mentioned earlier, it is free software and can be downloaded from the internet. We will see
how to download QGIS (Windows compatible version) in this section. The only basic
requirement for downloading QGIS on your system is availability of Internet connection. If you
already have QGIS installation file then skip this section and directly proceed to the Exercise
No. 2. If not, the procedure for downloading is as follows:

1. If you want to download the installation file, open the webpage of QGIS, i.e.,
“http://www.qgis.org/” in any of your internet browser like, Internet Explorer or Mozilla
Firefox.

2. The following website will open up in your browser. Click on “Download Now” button.

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3. You will be redirected to new page. Depending on your operating system you have to
select an appropriate set. Here we will consider windows as our operating system.

4. Depending on your computer architecture i.e., 32bit/64bit, select the appropriate

version of QGIS for download. Just click on the button in front of appropriate version
to start the download.

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Note: You can check for this by My Computer
Right click
Properties
System type.

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5. A pop up window as shown below will appear. Click on ‘Save File’
Save the file in an
appropriate location on local hard drive
’OK’.

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6. The file will be saved in your local drive, once it finishes the download. Next step is,
running the setup. We will see this in next exercise.

Exercise 2: Installing QGIS

Once you have the setup file on your local drive next step is to run this setup to install QGIS on
your system.

7. Navigate to downloaded setup file of QGIS. And double click on the icon. If you
prompted by ‘User Account Control’ popup window, click on ‘Yes’.

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8. The setup window will open. Click on ‘Next>’

9. In the next window you will be presented with ‘License Agreement’ read it and then,
click on ‘I Agree’.

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10. Now you have to choose the installation location, you recommended to keep the default
path and click on ‘Next’

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11. In the next window, you prompted to choose the different components of QGIS and
datasets, if you interested you can check the component you want to install or leave as
default. Click on ‘Install’ to proceed to the setup.

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12. Now you can notice the setup will installing QGIS on your computer.

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13. Once the entire installation process is over, you will be prompt to close the setup click
on ‘Finish’ to close.

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14. Now QGIS is ready to use. Navigate to ‘Start
All Praograms
QGIS Dufour
QGIS
Desktop 2.0.1’, to start QGIS Desktop.

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Note: QGIS 2.0.1 a standalone application and a new panel called Quantum GIS Browser
along with the Desktop same as QGIS 1.8.0. Browser help to navigate through the datasets
and also allows you to preview the data while desktop help in creating, visualization and
analysis of data.

15. Both the interfaces are shown below.

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QGIS Desktop QGIS Browser

Exercise 3: QGIS Graphic User Interface

In this exercise we will look into the details of QGIS graphic user interface. This exercise will
make you familiarize with QGIS user interface. As we have already started up with the QGIS
desktop. We will now see different component in it.

Menu Bar
Tool Bar

Map Layer/
Legend

Map View

Status Bar

As seen in the above figure the interface is divided into five main components, they are further
divided into more sub-components which facilitate easy access to the tools. Now we will go
through each component in detail.

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16. Menu Bar: It contains numerous pull down menus to administrate the project files. It
Provides access to various QGIS features.
a. Using Project menu we can open, save and create new quantum GIS projects. We
can also make attractive map compositions using Composer Manager.

b. Edit menu contains editing tools mostly corresponding to vector layers and these
functions are enabled only when layers are toggled, in other words when we
enabled the editing mode.

c. View menu contains tools to map navigation, selecting features, identifying

features, Measurement tools, contains tools to manage bookmarks, toolbars and
panels.

d. Layer menu contains various tools to load layers like Vector layer, Raster layer,
PostGIS layer, spatiaLite layer etc. It also facilitates to create new shapefile layer.
You can query the attribute data using Query feature. Convert layer from one vector
layer format to another using save as feature. You can view layer properties and also
possible to do labeling using Labeling feature and many other tools we can discuss
about them later.

e. Settings menu contains tools to set and manage custom CRS, keyboard shortcuts,
style manager, customization and snapping options.

f. Plugins menu actually makes QGIS more powerful. Plugins are small software
components which add a specific ability to the QGIS application. Various core and
third party plug-ins can be accessed and managed by using this toolbar. We also
have ‘Python Console’ from where we can execute python code.

g. Vector menu contains various Research, Analysis, Geoprocessing, Geometry and

Data management tools using which you can do extensive geospatial analyses on
vector data sets. You can also download Open Street Map data here.

h. Raster menu contains various tools such as Georeferencer, Interpolation, tools for
Terrain analysis, Zonal statistics, defining projection, Analysis tools and very
important Raster calculator to perform raster operations.

i. Database menu contains database manger which is a non official part of QGIS core,
you can drag and drop contents from QGIS browser into the DBmanager. It can
execute SQL queries against spatial database. You can directly import shapefiles to
PostgreSQL using spit.

j. Processing menu is an added up menu in this version of QGIS. It has a very useful
Tool box (facilitates to use various Digital Image processing tools) and Graphical
builder.

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k. Help menu helps to access various help sections of all the functionalities available
in the QGIS.

17. Tool Bar: Provides easy access to all the tools discussed above and with some
additional tools for easy interaction with the map canvas. Each tool in toolbar is
associates a pop up information. Hold the mouse pointer on any of the tool for a while
then you will notice a short description in a small pop up window. Toolbars can be
moved and dropped wherever you wish. We can also enable disable toolbars by right
clicking on toolbar menu. Checking and un-checking the check box in front of tool name
will enable and disable that toolbar respectively.

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18. Map Layers/ Legend component is useful to set visibility of the layers and Z-ordering.
Z-ordering means the layers listed on the top of the layer are drawn over the layers
which are listed below. It is always recommended to place Point layers on Line layers
and Line layers on Polygon layers.

a. The check box in-front of layer name is used to draw and draw off the layer. It is
possible to rearrange the layer order by just dragging and placing it wherever
required.
b. It is also possible to group the different layers. Just right click in Layer bar and click
on ‘Add New group’.
c. You can rename the group by (right click over the group
Rename) and add the
required layer in that group by using simple drag and drop method.

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d. You can enable the context menu by right clicking on any of the layers. Context
menu varies for different type of layers like, it may be different for raster and
different for WMS layer. You can use various functionalities available in context
menu for analysis of the desired layer.

19. Map View: It is very important component in QGIS. This section dedicated for
displaying of vector or raster data. It is also referred as map canvas. Any function/tool
that you perform through Menu bar, Tool bar, or in Legend, the result of the tool will be
reflected in map view/canvas.

20. Status Bar: It displays the current coordinates, where the mouse pointer is pointed in
map canvas. It also shows the scale of the map and map rendering option to enable or
disable map rendering.

a. Using ‘CRS status’ tool in status bar, you can set required coordinate reference
system for the project (Just for visualization).

b. ‘Toggle extent and mouse pointing’ tool button is used to see

the extent of current zoom of the canvas layer.

Exercise 4: Installing QGIS Plugins

As we have discussed earlier, plugins have made QGIS more efficient. This can be easily
downloaded using ‘Plugins’ menu bar. The only requisite for downloading plugin is an internet
connection. Before going to downloading plugins we will learn how to do proxy settings that
may be required for some of the network connections. For example if you are using your
college Wi-Fi or Airport Wi-Fi connections. If there is are no proxy settings for your network
connection then you can directly proceed with the download procedure.

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21. Proxy setting

a. Go to ‘Settings’ in menu bar and click on ‘Options’.

b. Then ‘Option’ window will open up. Navigate using arrow keys at top right corner of the
window to ‘Network’ tab. Click on ‘Network’ and the network setting window will open
up

c. Click on the check box in front of ‘Use proxy for web access.’ So that the fields
which are needed to be filled will be enabled.

d. Provide proper details of host and port, and also username and password if exists in
the respective fields. (This information can be provided by your Network
administrator). Keep the proxy type as HttpProxy.

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c
d

e. Click ‘OK’ to save proxy setting.

22. Downloading Plugins:

a. Go to ‘Plugins’ in menu bar and click on ‘Manage and Install Plugins’.

b. The ‘Fetching Repositories’ window will open up where list of available plugins are
displayed.

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c. If the plugin list is not displayed, go to ‘Settings’ tab in ‘QGIS Python Plugin
Installer’ window.
d. Click on ‘Add’ to add repositories details.
e. Fill up the details as shown in figure below. And enable the check box besides
‘Enable’
f. Click ‘OK’ and the repository will be added this will solve the plugin display.

f d

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g. Once you are connected with the QGIS Repository, the status will turn to
“connected”

h. Once the plugins list is displayed, you can search required plugin in ‘Get More’ by its
name in search window or else directly scroll down the list and select the desired
plugin.

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i. Once you select desired plugin the ‘Install Plugin’ button will be enabled. Just click
on it and the plugin will start downloading and will install into QGIS.

j. Once you finish installing the plugin, following message box will be seen. Click ‘OK’
and close the ‘Plugin Manager’

k. Now installed plugin is ready to use.

Exercise 5: Downloading sample Data

23. Go to the www.iget-dst.in website.

24. Navigate to ‘Tutorials
GIS
Introduction to QGIS’.

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25. Now it will direct to the ‘Getting Started with QGIS’. Now click on ‘Download Data’.

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26. Save the data on your local drive so that you can access it for next exercises.

Exercise 6: Adding data to QGIS

27. Adding Vector data: In this section we will learn how to load a vector layer to the
QGIS.
a. To add vector layer go to ‘Layer
Add Vector Layer’ or else directly click on icon
from the toolbar.

b. Now ‘Add vector layer’ popup window will open up. Click on ‘Browse’. Then you will
be directed to a navigation window. Navigate to the local directory where you have
saved the sample data downloaded in Exercise 5.

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c. Select the file type as ESRI shapefile[OGR], now all the shapefiles in the
corresponding folder will be displayed.
d. Select the ‘Lakes.shp’ file and click ‘Open’ and again ‘Open’ in ‘Add vector layer’
window.

e. Now vector layer will be loaded to your ‘Map canvas’

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28. Adding Raster Layer

a. To add raster layer go to ‘Layer
Add Raster Layer’ or else directly click on icon
from the toolbar.

b. Now ‘open a GDAL supported Raster Data Source’ window will popup, click on
‘Browse’.

c. All the raster format files will be displayed. Select the required file i.e.,
‘Southpune_toposheet.tif’ and click ‘Open’. If ‘Coordinate Reference System Selector’
will window popup, click on ‘OK’.

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d. Now right click on the ‘SouthPune_Toposheet’ layer under Layers
click on ‘Zoom to
layer Extent’ The raster file will be opened in Map View.

e. Now you can see the loaded South Pune Toposheet in the QGIS map canvas

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