Tag: en_gb

We’ve overhauled the project creation flow in QFieldCloud to make getting your field data campaigns off the ground faster than ever. Along with a clean new web interface, we are introducing two highly requested features to boost your team’s productivity: more advanced project creation, with native XLSForm imports and 1-click project cloning! 🚀

Revamped basic project creation

When creating a new project, you can now define the initial extent field right away. You can also configure a basemap using OSM or a custom XYZ layer. What is more, you can set whether you prefer to keep the original color, or convert the basemap into dark or light themes.

XLSForm imports: a new path of survey creation

We are also thrilled to introduce a completely new way to generate projects: XLSForm support.

If your team designs surveys using the industry standard XLSForm spreadsheet format, you no longer have to manually recreate those schemas as QGIS layers. You can now bootstrap a fully functional geospatial project directly from your spreadsheet.

Simply select the XLSForm option during project creation, upload your .xls file into the designated field, and QFieldCloud will translate your survey logic, constraints, and questions into a ready to use field project.

Need inspiration before building your base project? Explore this repository of community form templates to get started.

Want the full details? Head over to the XLSForms plugin documentation .

Project cloning: replicate your field setup in seconds

Setting up a new data collection project that shares the same structure as an existing one used to be a manual chore. If a team wanted to replicate a workflow for a different region or phase, they had to create a new project from scratch, configure it in QGIS, and re-upload all the base maps, datasets, and project files.

That changes today. With our new cloning feature, you can duplicate an entire project environment with just a couple of clicks:

1. Click the Create Project button.
2. From the three new options, select Clone an existing project.
3. Use the search input to find and select the target project.

That’s it! QFieldCloud will generate a 1:1 clone of the original project. All your underlying QGIS project files (.qgs/.qgz), layers and styling are instantly carried over to the new project. This eliminates repetitive desktop-to-cloud syncing and ensures standard data collection practices across your entire organization.

Ready to try it out?

Ready to streamline your field collection workflows? Create your free QFieldCloud Community account today and start leveraging these new project creation tools right away.

🚀 CREATE YOUR FREE ACCOUNT

For many years now, we have been enjoying the basemap.at service with it’s various basemap options (color, gray, with/without labels, …) in WMTS and vector tiles.

For a few weeks now, there is an additional service by BEV: Their cartographic models “Kartographischen Modelle (KM)” are now available as raster (KM-R) in COG-TIFF format.

The downloads come with proper instructions:

• KM_QGIS_Anleitung_202603 including tips to switch to bilinear resampling for better rendering:

Some vector (KM-V) in GeoPackages with QGIS projects providing the layer style and label settings are already available for the Stichtag 30.01.2026 downloads. And they look awesome:

KM-V downloads are provided in tiles, so it’s not quite as simple as grabbing the COG URI:

It’s worth noting though, that the KM-V GeoPackages are still a work in progress and not all tiles are available for download yet.

I’ll keep an eye on the downloads to see when the rest of the tiles become available.

Until then, I leave you with a couple of examples of the Großglockner (highest mountain in Austria) area in basemap.at and KM-R side-by-side:

It’s been a couple of busy weeks, with the QGIS 4.2 release and meetings and conferences all over the place before a few, hopefully quieter, weeks of summer break.

QGIS

The Austrian QGIS user group met online on 25 June to exchange experiences with different webmapping solutions, ranging from QGIS+Lizmap to QGIS Cloud.

A few days later, QGIS 4.2 was released on 3 July 2026. This release is named Belém do Pará, after the Brazilian city that hosted both FOSS4G and a QGIS user meeting back in 2024. MundoGEO has the details on the naming, if you’re curious about the backstory. Worth noting: 4.2 “Belém do Pará” will be the next LTR, so if you’re using the long-term release, this is the one to watch for.

What I found interesting while designing the Belém splash screen was that historic maps of Belém don’t have north at the top. Instead, they’re rotated with north pointing either left or right. A nice little reminder that “north-up” is just a convention and not a law of cartography.

AGIT 2026

This week, I made my way to Salzburg for AGIT, my favorite Austrian GIS conference.

On the first day, I took part in the AGEO Podium discussion, together with Andreas Hocevar (the father of OpenLayers), Clemens Portele, and Soyol Marksteiner on the OGC API standards, since many users aren’t even aware of these new standards yet.

Thursday was talk day for me: I presented MobiML, a new Python library designed to streamline the development of machine learning workflows for trajectory data. I hope this library can help make Mobility Data Science more approachable and results more reproducible.

Right after my talk, Michael Szell presented “Assessing the Danish Bicycle Node Network”, building the data and algorithm foundation for active mobility planning and research. If you want to dig into the tools behind it, check out bikenetwork.dk and bikenetkit.org.

Michael is giving a full talk on this on Tuesday at the Complexity Science Hub in Vienna, if you want to hear more.

FOSS4G Europe, from the sidelines

Unfortunately, I missed FOSS4G Europe in Timișoara the week before, so I followed along via the #foss4ge2026 hashtag instead. Iván Sánchez’s talk on the BOSCO ruling, arguing that all government software must be explainable, is just one example of the talks I would have loved to see in person. There was also the already traditional QGIS Feature Frenzy by Kurt Menke and a QGIS hydrological analysis workshop by Hans who also has a full FOSS4G Europe 2026 summary worth reading.

Also relevant: the Birds of a Feather session on AI in OSGeo projects has spilled over onto the OSGeo discuss mailing list. Definitely a thread worth following or getting involved in if you maintain or contribute to open source geospatial projects.

What’s next

Besides MobiML, work also continues on the MovingPandas front. There are a few open pull requests I want to work through ahead of the next release.

After the summer break, the conference season picks back up quickly: FOSS4G 2026 in Hiroshima (30 August–5 September), Spatial Data Science across Languages (SDSL) 2026 in Jena (16–17/18 September), and the QGIS conference 2026 in Switzerland (5–6 October), where I’ll be speaking about AI in the QGIS ecosystem.

For a more complete picture of what is going on in geospatial worldwide, check out (and don’t forget to bookmark) Jakub‘s comprehensive list of geospatial conferences at github.com/Nowosad/geospatial-conferences.

Urban Development Modelling in QGIS

Introducing QCity, a new plugin that brings advanced urban development modeling directly into QGIS. Developed in collaboration with the City of Canning (Perth, Western Australia), QCity enables urban planners to model project areas using predefined frameworks, providing visual 2D/3D insights and detailed statistical reports.

The plugin workflow begins in the “Project Setup” tab, where users either define a new Project Area boundary and input dwelling and parking (both car and bike) parameters, or load a previously saved site or QCity package:

Next, “Development Sites” are created within each Project Area. Development Sites options include:

• Setting the site’s status: constructed, proposed or modelled
• Automatic calculation of the site’s floor space, car and bike parking (based on the specifications defined for the parent project area)
• Setting the parameters for each Development Site

Each Development Site can contain multiple Building Levels, which define the building floorplan and floors. Building Levels contain parameters to determine the composition of each level, such as:

• Usage: percent use for commercial, office and residential purposes
• Residential: percent composition of 1-4+ bedroom dwellings
• The building level height and height above ground
• Based on the entered parameters, the area of Unallocated Residential Floorspace for each building level is automatically calculated

Finally, statistics are calculated for an entire Project Area, such as the total amount of commercial, office and residential floorspace, number of dwellings, and car and bicycle parking availability.

To see the workflow in action, watch the video below where a new project is created with development sites and building levels.

This is the first release of QCity, and accordingly it is currently available as an experimental plugin in the QGIS plugin repository. This initial QCity version is designed for use in Australia only, however future development will enable its use in other parts of the world. On the QCity code repoistory you can see some of the additional capabilities we are thinking of adding. QCity requires QGIS 4.0 or later.

For an in depth overview of the creation of QCity and a demonstration of its capabilities, please join us for the QGIS Australia July webinar where Gabriel Diosan, Senior Strategic Planning Spatial Analyst from the City of Canning will present Urban Development Modelling in QGIS using QCity:

• 1pm (AEST)Thursday 16th July (Meeting link)
• If you can’t make the webinar, subscribe to the QGIS Australia YouTube Channel to watch it later.

For more information:

• QCity Documentation
• QCity Homepage
• Email us at info@north-road.com if you have an idea to enhance QCity, or want to speed up any of its capabilities, or have another plugin or QGIS feature you wish for us to help you with.

At the Swiss QGIS User Group Meeting, Oslandia was pleased to present the latest updates to QGIS.

Watch the video recap with Julien Cabieces, Jean Felder, Benoit De Mezzo, and Loïc Bartoletti :

• NURBS integration
• What’s new in SFCGAL
• Creating a 3D style from a 2D style
• New interface customization features