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Intro To QGIS Workshop

This document provides an introduction to GIS and QGIS. It discusses: 1) Who the instructor is and their GIS experience. 2) What attendees will learn, including familiarity with GIS concepts, project workflow, and self-help resources. 3) An overview of what QGIS is and why you may want to use it. QGIS is free, open source software that can perform many of the same functions as ArcGIS and has additional functionality through custom tools.

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felip
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154 views22 pages

Intro To QGIS Workshop

This document provides an introduction to GIS and QGIS. It discusses: 1) Who the instructor is and their GIS experience. 2) What attendees will learn, including familiarity with GIS concepts, project workflow, and self-help resources. 3) An overview of what QGIS is and why you may want to use it. QGIS is free, open source software that can perform many of the same functions as ArcGIS and has additional functionality through custom tools.

Uploaded by

felip
Copyright
© © All Rights Reserved
We take content rights seriously. If you suspect this is your content, claim it here.
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Download as PPTX, PDF, TXT or read online on Scribd
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Intro to GIS/QGIS

Erich Purpur
[email protected]
434 924 1557
Who am I?
Erich Purpur
Research Librarian for Science & Engineering
Brown Science & Engineering Library

-Serve as Liaison to various engineering departments at UVA


-Help people with research
-information discovery
-python programming
-GIS projects
-Teaching
-For-credit classes and workshops
-both GIS and python
GIS Experience
-BS in Geography w/ GIS concentration

-Worked on wetlands ecology protection projects

-started offering GIS services (similar to Scholar’s Lab) at previous job

-Now:
-teach GIS related classes and workshops
-sometimes help people with research projects
-GIS consulting on the side
-All QGIS all the time
-and other open source tools (python, PostgreSQL)
What will you learn today?
-Familiarity with GIS concepts
-Talk about project workflow
-Self Help
Shortcomings of this workshop

-Limited Time

-Not Specific to your needs


What is QGIS?

-Free and Open Source GIS Software


-An OSGeo project
-packaged with a bunch of other open source libraries and tools

-An alternative to ESRI/ArcGIS


Why use QGIS?
-Because it is free

-Linux and Mac compatible

-Because you are a fan of open source / are a developer

-Maybe you are an ESRI hater?


What can you do with it?
-Pretty much everything you can do with ArcMap, ArcGIS Pro,
or ArcGIS online

-different functionality available as well, because people build


their own

-same file types as ArcGIS, import between them


How are you using maps today?

Bus Routes
Traffic Map

Flight Tracking Map


What is GIS?
-A computer system capable of assembling, storing, manipulating, analyzing, and
displaying geographically referenced information.

What does this mean?


-GIS is a data visualization tool and is useful for looking at spatial relationships and
patterns between objects. You can discover and communicate meaningful patterns
in your data

-GIS is not scary and is not only for geographers. A GIS is a tool which applies to
nearly every field including the sciences, humanities, social sciences.

-The output is a map but the power lies in the data behind the image

-GIS skills are a literacy


What does it look like?
What can you do with GIS?
-Show where things are

-Show change over time/track changing data

-See and communicate meaningful patterns in your data


Properties of Real World Geographic Information
-Location
-Attributes
-Spatial Relationships
Geographic Reality

-Geographic features are recreated on the computer using Data Models

Vector Data Raster Data


-Point, Line, Area (polygon) -breaks the earth down into a grid
-Values can be assigned to each point, line, or area -each cell represents an area in real life
-Spatial resolution
-values are assigned to each grid cell, much like
values are assigned to each vector point
-common examples:
-Satellite images
Spatial Resolution
Low Resolution = large area
High Resolution = small area
Location of Objects
-the absolute location of objects is determined by coordinate systems

Geographic Coordinate System


-a network of intersecting lines
-latitude (North/South)
-longitude (East/West)
-starting point at the intersection of equator
and prime meridian
Map Projections
-Because the earth is round,
displaying it on a flat surface is
problematic

-The image will be somewhat


skewed

-Different projections focus on


different areas of the earth and
attempt to eliminate skew

-Getting data to display in the


same map projection is
sometimes easier said than done.
www.thetruesize.com
Attributes
-Unlimited amount of attributes
can be assigned to an object

-stored in an attribute table


GIS Projects…
Gathering Data
-often times the hardest part!
-Data can be found…
-online data repositories (add more info and images)
-City of Charlottesville has a data portal
-remote sensing
-taken by satellites in space
-Digitizing/Scanning paper objects
-gather it yourself
-with a GPS unit
-sometimes it appears via some form of luck and magic

Data Storage
-occasionally massive amounts of data are used and storage can be an issue
Self Help!
-There are a lot of resources and a huge user community online
-Your question is not unique

-QGIS Documentation
- https://www.qgis.org/en/docs/index.html
-ArcGIS Documentation
- https://doc.arcgis.com/en/
-Stack Exchange – An entire GIS and QGIS arm
- https://gis.stackexchange.com/
-GeoNet – ESRI’s Online Community
- https://community.esri.com/
How to learn more QGIS
-Follow up with my workbook

-Learning QGIS 3rd Edition – Anita Graser


https://search.lib.virginia.edu/catalog/u7237739

-available through UVA library!

-Ask for more help


-me or Scholar’s lab

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