Posts by QGIS Oslandia

QField 3.0 release : field mapping app, based on QGIS

We are very happy and enthusiasts at Oslandia to forward the QField 3.0 release announcement, the new major update of this mobile GIS application based on QGIS.

Oslandia is a strategic partner of OPENGIS.ch, the company at the heart of QField development, as well as the QFieldCloud associated SaaS offering. We join OPENGIS.ch to announce all the new features of QField 3.0.

Get QField 3.0 now !

QField 3.0 screenshots


 

Shipped with many new features and built with the latest generation of Qt’s cross-platform framework, this new chapter marks an important milestone for the most powerful open-source field GIS solution.

Main highlights

Upon launching this new version of QField, users will be greeted by a revamped recent projects list featuring shiny map canvas thumbnails. While this is one of the most obvious UI improvements, countless interface tweaks and harmonization have occurred. From the refreshed dark theme to the further polishing of countless widgets, QField has never looked and felt better.

The top search bar has a new functionality that allows users to look for features within the currently active vector layer by matching any of its attributes against a given search term. Users can also refine their searches by specifying a specific attribute. The new functionality can be triggered by typing the ‘f’ prefix in the search bar followed by a string or number to retrieve a list of matching features. When expanding it, a new list of functionalities appears to help users discover all of the tools available within the search bar.

QField’s tracking has also received some love. A new erroneous distance safeguard setting has been added, which, when enabled, will dictate the tracker not to add a new vertex if the distance between it and the previously added vertex is greater than a user-specified value. This aims at preventing “spikes” of poor position readings during a tracking session. QField is now also capable of resuming a tracking session after being stopped. When resuming, tracking will reuse the last feature used when first starting, allowing sessions interrupted by battery loss or momentary pause to be continued on a single line or polygon geometry.

On the feature form front, QField has gained support for feature form text widgets, a new read-only type introduced in QGIS 3.30, which allows users to create expression-based text labels within complex feature form configurations. In addition, relationship-related form widgets now allow for zooming to children/parent features within the form itself.

To enhance digitizing work in the field, QField now makes it possible to turn snapping on and off through a new snapping button on top of the map canvas when in digitizing mode. When a project has enabled advanced snapping, the dashboard’s legend item now showcases snapping badges, allowing users to toggle snapping for individual vector layers.

In addition, digitizing lines and polygons by using the volume up/down hardware keys on devices such as smartphones is now possible. This can come in handy when digitizing data in harsh conditions where gloves can make it harder to use a touch screen.

While we had to play favorites in describing some of the new functionalities in QField, we’ve barely touched the surface of this feature-packed release. Other major additions include support for Near-Field Communication (NFC) text tag reading and a new geometry editor’s eraser tool to delete part of lines and polygons as you would with a pencil sketch using an eraser.

Thanks to Deutsches Archäologisches Institut, Groupements forestiers Québec, Amsa, and Kanton Luzern for sponsoring these enhancements.

Quality of life improvements

Starting with this new version, the scale bar overlay will now respect projects’ distance measurement units, allowing for scale bars in imperial and nautical units.

QField now offers a rendering quality setting which, at the cost of a slightly reduced visual quality, results in faster rendering speeds and lower memory usage. This can be a lifesaver for older devices having difficulty handling large projects and helps save battery life.

Vector tile layer support has been improved with the automated download of missing fonts and the possibility of toggling label visibility. This pair of changes makes this resolution-independent layer type much more appealing.

On iOS, layouts are now printed by QField as PDF documents instead of images. While this was the case for other platforms, it only became possible on iOS recently after work done by one of our ninjas in QGIS itself.

Many thanks to DB Fahrwgdienste for sponsoring stabilization efforts and fixes during this development cycle.

Qt 6, the latest generation of the cross-platform framework powering QField

Last but not least, QField 3.0 is now built against Qt 6. This is a significant technological milestone for the project as this means we can fully leverage the latest technological innovations into this cross-platform framework that has been powering QField since day one.

On top of the new possibilities, QField benefited from years of fixes and improvements, including better integration with Android and iOS platforms. In addition, the positioning framework in Qt 6 has been improved with awareness of the newer GNSS constellations that have emerged over the last decade.

Forest-themed release names

Forests are critical in climate regulation, biodiversity preservation, and economic sustainability. Beginning with QField 3.0 “Amazonia” and throughout the 3.X’s life cycle, we will choose forest names to underscore the importance of and advocate for global forest conservation.

Software with service

OPENGIS.ch and Oslandia provides the full range of services around QField and QGIS : training, consulting, adaptation, specific development and core development, maintenance and assistance. Do not hesitate to contact us and detail your needs, we will be happy to collaborate : infos+qfield@oslandia.com

As always, we hope you enjoy this new release. Happy field mapping!

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Strategic partnership agreement between Oslandia and OpenGIS.ch on QField

Who are we?

🤔 For those unfamiliar with Oslandia, OpenGIS.ch, or even QGIS, let’s refresh your memory:

👉 Oslandia is a French company specializing in open-source Geographic Information Systems (GIS). Since our establishment in 2009, we have been providing consulting, development, and training services in GIS, with reknown expertise. Oslandia is a dedicated open-source player and the largest contributor to the QGIS solution in France.

👉 As for OPENGIS.ch, they are a Swiss company specializing in the development of open-source GIS software. Founded in 2011, OPENGIS.ch is the largest Swiss contributor to QGIS. OPENGIS.ch is the creator of QField, the most widely used open-source mobile GIS solution for geomatics professionals.

OPENGIS.ch also offers QFieldCloud as a SaaS or on-premise solution for collaborative field project management.

😲 Some may still be unfamiliar with #QGIS ?

It is a free and open-source Geographic Information System that allows creating, editing, visualizing, analyzing, and publicating geospatial data. QGIS is a cross-platform software that can be used on desktops, servers, as a web application, or as a development library.

QGIS is open-source software developed by multiple contributors worldwide. It is an official project of the OpenSource Geospatial Foundation (OSGeo) and is supported by the QGIS.org association. See https://qgis.org

A Partnership?

🎉 Today, we are delighted to announce our strategic partnership aimed at strengthening and promoting QField, the mobile application companion of QGIS Desktop.

🌟 This partnership between Oslandia and OPENGIS.ch is a significant step for QField and open-source mobile GIS solutions. It will consolidate the platform, providing users worldwide with simplified access to effective tools for collecting, managing, and analyzing geospatial data in the field.

📱 QField, developed by OPENGIS.ch, is an advanced open-source mobile application that enables GIS professionals to work efficiently in the field, using interactive maps, collecting real-time data, and managing complex geospatial projects on Android, iOS, or Windows mobile devices.

↔ QField is cross-platform, based on the QGIS engine, facilitating seamless project sharing between desktop, mobile, and web applications.

🕸 QFieldCloud (https://qfield.cloud), the collaborative web platform for QField project management, will also benefit from this partnership and will be enhanced to complement the range of tools within the QGIS platform.

Reactions

❤ At Oslandia, we are thrilled to collaborate with OPENGIS.ch on QGIS technologies. Oslandia shares with OPENGIS.ch a common vision of open-source software development: a strong involvement in development communities, work in respect with the ecosystem, an highly skilled expertise, and a commitment to industrial-quality, robust, and sustainable software development.

👩‍💻 With this partnership, we aim to offer our clients the highest expertise across all software components of the QGIS platform, from data capture to dissemination.

🤝 On the OpenGIS.ch side, Marco Bernasocchi adds:

The partnership with Oslandia represents a crucial step in our mission to provide leading mobile GIS tools with a genuine OpenSource credo. The complementarity of our skills will accelerate the development of QField and QFieldCloud and meet the growing needs of our users.

Commitment to open source

🙏 Both companies are committed to continue supporting and improving QField and QFieldCloud as open-source projects, ensuring universal access to this high-quality mobile GIS solution without vendor dependencies.

Ready for field mapping ?

🌏 And now, are you ready for the field?

So, download QField (https://qfield.org/get), create projects in QGIS, and share them on QFieldCloud!

✉ If you need training, support, maintenance, deployment, or specific feature development on these platforms, don’t hesitate to contact us. You will have access to the best experts available: infos+mobile@oslandia.com.

 

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How Oslandia invests in OpenSource

You may be wondering where Oslandia’s name is coming from ? Or maybe you already know ? In this article we focus on the “OS” part of Oslandia : OpenSource !

Oslandia positions itself as IT expert in the field of OpenSource geographical information systems. QGIS is namely one of the proheminent opensource softwares for the geospatial industry. This position is a key element of our business model.

But do you know how we work behind the scene ? This article will give you an opportunity to discover some of our contributions to the OpenSource ecosystem.

Principles

Our general business model is based on projects we carry out for our clients. They fund us to design and implement solutions adapted to their needs and requirements. Part of these developments consist in core development of Opensource software. This allows us to contribute actively to FOSS4G components.

But this funding method makes it complicated to fund maintenance, or new exploratory developments, as well as communication, community management or other tasks necessary for healthy opensource projects.

As a consequence, we introduced at Oslandia a mechanism of internal OpenSource project grants.

These grants constitute self-investment from the company into the OpenSource ecosystem, and can be applied to new projects, research and development or existing projects.

This mechanism has multiple interests :

  • For opensource projects : maintenance and new contributions
  • For Oslandia : image and potential new business opportunities
  • For the team : work on projects that matter to them

These OpenSource grants consist in a large range of possible tasks, as we often say : “Opensource projects are not only code”. Instead of developers, we prefer the term contributors. Development, code review, maintenance, documentation, community management, communication, each collaborator can choose the type of task to focus on.

We differentiate software maintenance grants and opensource project grants. We call the latter “OpenSource mini-projects

Software maintenance consists in refactoring, bugfixing, packaging, release management… All these tasks need dedicated time which is difficult to fund directly on client’s project.

Opensource mini-projects grants are specific opensource proposal which can be submitted by any collaborator on any subject. We then vote on the best proposal and the team can start working on the subject within the allocated budget.

Some numbers

We allocate around 5% of the global production time to software maintenance grants. Our Opensource maintenance grant for 2022 is therefore approximately 190 days of work. It mainly focus on QGIS, PostGIS, QWC2, Giro3D and a few other components we actively maintain.

We also allocate 5% of the global production time to opensource mini-projects grants. It represents an additional 190 days of work for 2022.

Oslandia therefore invests almost 400 days of work into the OpenSource ecosystem, outside of direct contributions for client’s projects.

Opensource Mini-projects

OpenSource mini-projects grants are submitted by Oslandia’s collaborators and focus on various task and thematics : innovation, development, design, prototyping, communication or any other kind of Opensource contribution.

Proposals have to define goals, deliverables, planning, team and needed budget. Then we evaluate the proposals given the following criteria :

  • proposal coherency ( e.g. deliverables vs budget )
  • alignment with Oslandia’s strategy
  • innovation level
  • business opportunities
  • fun and motivation
  • impacts in terms of communication
  • links with other projects at Oslandia
  • possibility of extra R&D funding

We then vote on best proposal and manage these mini-projects just as a client project.

Examples

QGIS

The maintenance grant on QGIS allowed us to work on the following tasks :

  • Bugfixing
  • Code review for PRs submitted by other developers
  • Code refactoring
  • Documentation
  • Packaging pipeline
  • OSGeo4W improvement

OpenSource mini-projects grants

During the year of 2022, we worked on the following mini-projects :

In 2023 we will continue to work on these projects, and others ! for example pg_featureserv, py3dtiles, infoclimat website, MapProxypgRouting

Conclusion

This investment mechanism allows Oslandia to be an opensource “pure player” and contribute actively to these OpenSource projects and to the OpenSource ecosystem as a whole.

Should you be interested in our contribution model, or if you have any question regarding our internal OpenSource grant program, do not hesitate to contact us : info@oslandia.com !

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Store and visualize your raster in the Cloud with COG and QGIS

We have recently been working for the French Space Agency ( CNES ) who needed to store and visualize satellite rasters in a cloud platform. They want to access the image raw data, with no transformation, in order to fullfill deep analysis like instrument calibration. Using classic cartographic server standard like WMS or TMS is not an option because those services transform datasets in already rendered tiles.

We chose to use a quite recent format managed by GDAL, the COG (Cloud Optimize Geotiff) and target OVH cloud platform for it provides OpenStack, a open source cloud computing platform.

How it works

A COG file is a GEOTiff file which inner structure is tiled, meaning that the whole picture is divided in fixed size tile (256 x 256 pixels for instance) so you can efficiently retrieve parts of the raster. In addition to the HTTP/1.1 standard feature range request, it is possible to get specific tiles of an image through the network without downloading the entire raster.

We used a service provided by OpenStack, called Object Storage to serve the COG imagery. Object storage allows to store and retrieve file as objects using HTTP GET/POST requests.

Why not WCS ?

Web Coverage Service standard could have been an option. A WCS server can serve raw data according to a given geographic extent. It’s completely possible to deploy a container or a VPS (Virtual Private Server) running a WCS Server in a cloud plateform. The main advantages of the COG solution over WCS Server is that you don’t have to deal with the burden of deploying a server, like giving it ressources, configuring load balancing, handle updates, etc…

The beauty of COG solution is its simplicity. It is only HTTP requests, and everything else (rendering for instance) is done on the client side.

Step by step

Here are the different steps you’d have to go through if you’re willing to navigate in a big raster image directly from the cloud.

First, let’s generate a COG file

gdal_translate inputfile.tif cogfile.tif -co TILED=YES -co COPY_SRC_OVERVIEWS=YES -co COMPRESS=DEFLATE

Install your openstack-client, it can be achieved easily with Python pip install command line

$ pip install python-openstackclient

Next, configure your openstack client in order to generate an athentification token. To do so you need to download your project specific openrc file to setup your environment)

$ source myproject-openrc.sh
Please enter your OpenStack Password for project myproject as user myuser:
**********
$ openstack token issue                                 
+------------+-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------+
| Field      | Value                                                                                                                                                                                   |
+------------+-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------+
| expires    | 2020-07-21T08:15:12+0000                                                                                                                                                                |
| id         | xxxx_my_token_xxxx
| project_id | 97e2e750f1904b41b76f80a50dabde0a                                                                                                                                                        |
| user_id    | 18f7ccaf1a2d4344a4e35f0d84eb065e                                                                                                                                                        |
+------------+-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------+

You are now good to push you COG file to the cloud instance

openstack object create MyContainer cogfile.tif --name cogfile.tif

Before starting QGIS, 2 environment variables need to be set.  (replace xxxx_my_token_xxxx with the token you’d just come to generate)

$ export SWIFT_AUTH_TOKEN=xxxx_my_token_xxxx
$ export SWIFT_STORAGE_URL=https://storage.sbg.cloud.ovh.net/v1/AUTH_$OS_PROJECT_ID

It can also be done directly from the QGIS Python console by setting those variable using the os.environ.

Finally, add a cloud raster data source in in QGIS

You can now navigating into your image directly reading it from the cloud

© CNES 2018, Distribution Airbus DS

Performances

While panning in the map, QGIS will download only few tiles from the image in order to cover the view extent. The display latency that you could see in the video depends essentially on:

  • The number of band of your image
  • The pixel size
  • Your internet connection (mine, the one use for the video, is not an awesome one)

Note that the white flickering that you could see when you move in the map and the raster is refreshed should be removed in next version of QGIS according to this QEP.

What’s next ?

Thanks so much to the GDAL and QGIS contributors for adding such a nice feature ! It brings lots of possibilities for organizations that have to deal with great number of big raster and just want to explore part of it.

We are already thinking about further improvments (ease authentification, better integration with processing…), so if you’re willing to fund them or just want to know more about QGIS, feel free to contact us at infos+data@oslandia.com. And please have a look at our support offering for QGIS.

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Publication de l’extension COVADIS RAPEA pour QWAT et QGEP

QWAT est une application open source de gestion des réseaux d’eau potable émanant des collectivités de Pully, le SIGE à Vevey, Morges et Lausanne.
QGEP est son homologue dédiée à la gestion des eaux usées et pluviales, initiée par le groupe utilisateur QGIS Suisse.

L’échange de données entre institutions est une pierre angulaire des politiques de l’eau. Ces échanges se basent sur des formats d’échanges standardisés. Ainsi les Cantons de Fribourg (format aquaFRI) ou de Vaud (format SIRE) conditionnent certaines subventions publiques à la transmission des données selon des formats pré-définis et permettent à ces échelons administratifs d’avoir une vision globale des réseaux humides.

Dans le cadre d’une expérimentation des outils QWAT (eau potable) et QGEP (eaux usées), Charentes Eaux a souhaité mettre en œuvre des extensions dédiées au standard d’échange de données sur les réseaux d’eau Français, le Géostandard Réseaux d’adduction d’eau potable et d’assainissement (RAEPA) défini par la Commission de validation des données pour l’information spatialisée (COVADIS).

Oslandia a été mandaté pour mettre en œuvre des instances de QWAT et QGEP, réaliser les extensions RAEPA pour chacun de ces outils, et aider Charente Eaux à charger les données des collectivités membres de ce syndicat mixte.

https://charente-eaux.fr/le-syndicat/qui-sommes-nous/

Le travail a été publié pour QWAT sous forme d’une extension standardisée dans le dépôt l’organisation QWAT https://github.com/qwat/extension_fr_raepa/

Pour QGEP, il n’existe pas encore de fonctionnalité pour gérer d’extension, le dépôt https://gitlab.com/Oslandia/qgep_extension_raepa/ contient donc les définitions de données et de vues à rajouter manuellement au modèle de données.

La compatibilité des modèles de données a été évaluée et le choix a été fait de ne faire que des vues dédiées à l’export de données. Il est techniquement possible de faire des vues éditables pour permettre le chargement de données via ces vues depuis des fichiers suivant le gabarit de données RAEPA. Le niveau de simplification et d’agrégation des listes de valeurs rend ce travail peu générique dans l’état actuel du géostandard (v1.1), il est donc plus pertinent à ce stade de réaliser des scripts de chargement sans passer par ce pivot dans le cas de Charente-Eaux

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