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Quickstart: Visualising Results in QGIS

This quickstart describes how to view and query our geographic map layers using QGIS.

What is QGIS?

We love QGIS. It is an intuitive, powerful, free, and open-source desktop GIS application, used for visualising geospatial maps, running spatial queries, and creating maps to share with others.

1. Setup environment and first map

If you haven't done so already, follow our Pipeline Quickstart to setup your environment and create your first map layers.

2. Install QGIS

Download and install QGIS, per instructions at the QGIS Download page.

3. Load Our Map Layers

  1. Run QGIS on your desktop.
  2. In the QGIS Browser pane, navigate to the data/outputs/suburb_ShotoverCountry directory.
  3. Double-click on the suburb_ShotoverCountry_building_stats.gpkg file to show it's layers.
  4. Right-click on the building_stats layer and select Add Layer to Project.
    1. See the building outlines getting rendered in the Map pane.
    2. See the buildings title get add to the Layers pane.

4. Add a Base Map (OpenStreetMap)

To see where these buildings are located in the real world, you can add OpenStreetMap as a background layer.

  1. In the Browser panel, scroll down to XYZ Tiles.
  2. Double-click on XYZ Tiles to expand it, and see the layers it supports.
  3. Right-click OpenStreetMap and select Add Layer to Project.
  4. Move to Background: In the Layers panel, click and drag the OpenStreetMap layer so it sits under your building stats layer.

5. Query Building Data

We can query the attributes associated with each building.

  1. Select the Identify Features tool from the top toolbar (the icon with a small "i" and a white arrow pointer).
  2. Click on a building polygon in the map pane.
  3. An Identify Results panel will pop up, showing you all attributes for that building.

Things to try

  1. Try adding the shotover_country_merged.vrt layer to your map.