Tag: en_gb

Sorry, this entry is only available in French.

QField’s first release of the year comes packed with new features as well as a bundle of improvements and polishing. Let’s jump right into it.

Main highlights

3D

This new version of QField comes with a shiny 3D map view, giving users the ability to render their map content on top of a three-dimensional terrain.

Users can rotate the terrain geometry to get a better understanding of elevation profiles, while also adjusting the plane’s extent by panning and zooming with drag and pinch gestures. When the GNSS positioning service is enabled, the user’s current position, as well as ongoing tracking sessions, will be overlaid on top of the 3D terrain geometry.

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By default, QField relies on Mapzen Global Terrain tiles to determine terrain elevation. As its name indicates, this is a 30-meter digital elevation model covering the globe and hosted online, which allows QField to render 3D views without any user configuration. But it does not stop there. QField supports additional elevation sources, such as disk-based GeoTIFFs, to work in offline areas. This can be configured when setting up a project by changing the terrain type in QGIS.

COGO operations

Moving on to the next major functionality introduced in this new version: a COGO (Coordinate Geometry) framework to support fieldwork through a set of parameter-driven operations to generate vertices. This has been one of the most requested features by professional land surveyors, so we couldn’t be more excited to deliver it and hear back from our community.

QField 4.1 ships with three COGO tools:

• The XYZ parameters operation generates vertices based on a manually entered pair of X and Y coordinates as well as an optional Z value;
• The distance/angle from point operation generates vertices based on distance and angle values from a given point; and
• The circles’ intersection operation generates vertices at the intersection of two circles, each defined by a point and a radius.

Leveraging QField’s capabilities, a COGO operation’s point parameter can be defined in multiple ways: users can enter values manually or automatically fill in the parameter using either the current GNSS position, the geometry of a pre-existing feature within a point layer, or the coordinate cursor’s location. The latter is super useful when coupled with project snapping.

There’s more

Beyond these two flagship features, this new version contains tons of improvements.

We’re happy to report that the background tracking functionality introduced for Android last year is now available on iOS. Users can now save battery by locking their phone while QField continues to track positions. Upon reopening QField, the collected positions will be written into your project. No Apple will be left behind.

The feature form continued to receive improvements during this development cycle. Starting with this version, Remember Last Value pins are hidden by default. Moving away from an always-shown interface, remember last value pin visibility can now be configured per field. Using the latest QGIS (4.0 and above), users can configure the presence of the pin and whether remembrance should be active by default in the vector layer properties’ attribute form panel.

Position tracking has received a lot of attention during this development cycle focused on optimizations. Tracking is now friendlier to your device battery while user interface responsiveness has been improved when tracking sessions are ongoing. We’ve also spent some time making Bluetooth connections to external GNSS devices even more reliable. If this was an issue for you in the past, give this version a try again.

Finally, something to please our advanced users: QField now offers the ability to tunnel network traffic through a proxy that can be enabled and configured in the settings panel.

‘Barents Sea’ release name

The Barents Sea, a marginal sea of the Arctic Ocean bordered by Norway and Russia, is one of the most ecologically and geopolitically significant water bodies on the planet. Home to some of the world’s largest cod and haddock fisheries, it sustains both marine ecosystems and the livelihoods of coastal communities across the high north. Its waters are a barometer for our changing climate: the Barents Sea is the fastest-warming part of the Arctic, making it a critical area of scientific observation and environmental monitoring. The Nansen Legacy project has been tracking these changes closely (factsheet ).

At OPENGIS.ch, we see the Barents Sea as a powerful symbol of why field data collection matters. Understanding and protecting remote, extreme environments like the Arctic requires tools that are reliable, offline-capable, and built for real-world conditions. That is precisely what QField is designed to deliver.

With QField 4.1 ‘Barents Sea’, we continue building on that mission, bringing new capabilities to field workers, researchers, and environmental stewards wherever their work takes them.

Happy field mapping!

We’re genuinely excited to co-organise the upcoming QGIS User Conference together with QGIS User Group Switzerland, and to do so in Laax, right here in the Swiss Alps.

Laax is home to OPENGIS.ch and the place where QField was born. It is a setting that has shaped how we work, how we collaborate, and how we think about building open-source tools that are meant to be used in the real world.

Bringing the global QGIS community together in such a place feels just right. People and ideas come together around open source, with space to exchange, reflect, and collaborate, in an environment that mirrors values that are deeply rooted in our DNA and our close connection to nature.

• Yes, the venue is reached by cable car
• Yes, it comes with breathtaking views
• And yes, there will be plenty of opportunities to hike, bike, fly, or simply enjoy great conversations

The mountains will not just be a backdrop. They will be part of the conference experience.

As Marco, our CEO and Chair of QGIS.org, puts it:

“I’ve never been more excited about a QGIS conference location announcement. Welcoming the community to my hometown in the Swiss Alps feels very special. This is where OPENGIS.ch is based and where QField was born, and it is a perfect place for meaningful exchanges and shared experiences.”

We’re very much looking forward to organising this conference and to welcoming the QGIS community to Laax for what we hope will be a memorable and inspiring QGIS User Conference.

Updates and details can be found at conference.qgis.org

Finally it’s here: Jupyter notebooks inside QGIS. I don’t know about you but I’ve been hoping for someone to get around to doing this for quite a while.

Qiusheng Wu published the first version of the Notebook plugin on 26 Dec 2025. Late Christmas present?!

For the setup, there’s a handy tutorial by Hans van der Kwast and, additionally, Qiusheng published an intro video:

Development is going fast (version 0.3.0 at the time of writing) so there will be new features when you install / update the plugin compared to both the tutorial and the video.

The user interface is pretty stripped down with just a few buttons to add new code or markdown cells and to run them. And there is a neat drop-down menu with all kinds of ready-made code snippets to get you started:

For other functionalities, for example, to delete cells, you need to right-click on the cell to access the function through the context menu. And, as far as I can tell, there is currently no way to rearrange cells (moving them up or down).

I also haven’t quite understood yet what kinds of outputs are displayed and which are not because – quite often – the cell output just stays empty, even though the same code generates output on the console:

Some of the plugin settings I would have liked to experiment with, such as adjusting the font size or enabling line numbers, don’t seem to work yet. So a little more patience seems to be necessary.

I’ll definitely keep an eye on this one :)

Throughout the week, in workshops, presentations, and project showcases, a consistent theme emerged: QField is not just “the mobile companion to QGIS,” it is production infrastructure for complete field-to-cloud-to-desktop workflows.

It was incredible to see how present QField was throughout FOSS4G 2025 in Auckland. With around 20 presentations and workshops featuring QField, the conference showcased a wide range of real-world, production-grade use cases across many sectors.

What stood out was not just the number of talks, but how consistently QField was presented as a trusted, operational tool rather than an experiment.

The QField Ecosystem in Practice

QGIS Desktop for project design, analysis, and quality assurance QField for field capture, with offline-first capabilities when connectivity is limited QFieldCloud for real-time synchronization, team coordination, and project management Plugins and APIs for integration into broader organizational systems

This ecosystem approach transforms field data collection from an isolated task into an integrated workflow. It’s the difference between “collecting points” and “running a programme.”

QField Day: A Community Deep Dive

Early in the conference, QField Day brought together practitioners, developers, and decision-makers for a focused exploration of the platform’s capabilities. The day emphasized practical implementation—what’s possible now, and what organizations are already achieving in production environments.

Workshops

Complete Lifecycle Management

The QField & QFieldCloud workshop covered the full data collection cycle: project setup in QGIS Desktop, field deployment with QField, synchronization through QFieldCloud, and integration back into desktop workflows for analysis and quality control. Participants worked through the entire pipeline, from initial design to final deliverables.

Field-to-Analysis Integration

One workshop demonstrated the speed of modern field-to-cloud-to-analysis workflows by using Auckland itself as a live laboratory. Participants collected ground truth data with QField, then fed it directly into machine learning workflows running in Digital Earth Pacific’s Jupyter environment.

Plugin Development

For developers, the plugin authoring workshop signaled platform maturity. QField’s plugin framework—built on QML and JavaScript—enables organizations to extend core functionality for specific operational requirements. Custom forms, specialized integrations, and domain-specific interfaces can be developed to address the edge cases that real field programmes encounter.

Operational Workflows: Digital Earth Pacific

• QField participatory mapping integration into Digital Earth Pacific demonstrated the technical workflow connecting field data collection to analysis infrastructure, using Digital Earth Pacific’s open data cube and Jupyter tooling.
• Identifying Forest Invasive Species in Fiji and Tonga Using Machine Learning showed this workflow in action. Field teams collect confirmed invasive species locations using QField, then train detection models using time-series satellite data, iterating with domain experts and local partners to refine results.

Production Deployments

Conservation Operations

Zero Invasive Predators showed QField and QFieldCloud integrated into operational fieldwork for predator eradication programmes across New Zealand. Planning happens in QGIS, capture in QField, and coordination through QFieldCloud—enabling systematic management of conservation campaigns across remote terrain.

Government-Scale Implementation

Finland’s National Land Survey presented their use of QField as part of national topographic data production infrastructure, deployed alongside QGIS and PostGIS. This represents enterprise validation: a national mapping agency selecting QField for production topographic surveying.

Precision Agriculture

Smart vineyards with QGIS & QField demonstrated advanced symbology, map themes, and structured capture workflows supporting precision agriculture operations—showing that the platform handles the level of detail and complexity that professional workflows require.

Developer Infrastructure and Sustainability

• QFieldCloud API — programmatic integration for organizations with existing systems, enabling automation, custom integrations, and connection to enterprise infrastructure
• Who Pays Your Bills? — a transparent discussion of sustainable open-source business models
• [Re]discover QField[Cloud] — platform maturity often manifests as steady capability growth driven by real field workflows

Context: Open Tools for Public Good

• Mapping the World, Empowering People: QField’s Vision in Practice connected QField’s technical capabilities to public-good outcomes
• Open-source road infrastructure management and digital twin direction demonstrated that open standards and open tooling are increasingly part of serious infrastructure conversations

Looking Forward

FOSS4G 2025 Auckland was all about the conversations, and our small booth quickly became a popular meeting point — the QField caps were gone within half a day. We demonstrated the tight integration of Happy Mini Q GNSS with QField, showing how sub-centimeter positioning can be used seamlessly in real field workflows. The booth also featured EGENIOUSS , an EU project where QField complements GNSS with visual localisation for accurate positioning in challenging environments like urban canyons.

Thank you to everyone who shared your workflows, challenges, and stories — whether in presentations, workshops, or over coffee. These conversations remind us that we’re building tools for real people doing important work, and that’s what keeps this community moving forward together.