UW Geospatial Data Analysis
CEE498/CEWA599
David Shean
These are a set of loosely organized notes, tips, tricks and gotchas for QGIS - a fantastic, free, open-source Geographic Information System (GIS).
If you've spent some time using ArcGIS, you can definitely use QGIS, and I think you'll appreciate it.
If you've never used ArcGIS, you've probably never taken a GIS course in higher ed, and that's not a problem. GIS is great, you can learn with QGIS, and I think you'll appreciate it.
QGIS is an Open Source Geographic Information System. The project was born in May 2002 and was established as a project on SourceForge in June the same year. We have worked hard to make GIS software (which is traditionally expensive proprietary software) available to anyone with access to a personal computer. QGIS currently runs on most Unix platforms, Windows, and macOS. QGIS is developed using the Qt toolkit (https://www.qt.io) and C++. This means that QGIS feels snappy and has a pleasing, easy-to-use graphical user interface (GUI).
QGIS aims to be a user-friendly GIS, providing common functions and features. The initial goal of the project was to provide a GIS data viewer. QGIS has reached the point in its evolution where it is being used for daily GIS data-viewing needs, for data capture, for advanced GIS analysis, and for presentations in the form of sophisticated maps, atlases and reports. QGIS supports a wealth of raster and vector data formats, with new format support easily added using the plugin architecture.
https://docs.qgis.org/3.16/en/docs/user_manual/preamble/foreword.html
Download and install! https://qgis.org/en/site/forusers/download.html
- If you already have some GIS data, you're set!
- Otherwise, download some sample data: https://docs.qgis.org/3.16/en/docs/user_manual/introduction/getting_started.html#downloading-sample-data
Follow the instructions here: https://docs.qgis.org/3.16/en/docs/user_manual/introduction/getting_started.html