Since it’s a new site with a new address, many of the links to projects I’ve referred to throughout the years on this blog are no longer valid. Redirects are in place, but they won’t last forever. Some notable links to update:

• The homepage for the portal is https://www.baruch.cuny.edu/confluence/display/geoportal/
• The GIS Practicum manual is now at https://www.baruch.cuny.edu/confluence/display/geoportal/GIS+Practicum. I recently updated the manual for QGIS 2.8 Wien, the latest Long Term Service Release. I’ll be using it for the 2015-16 academic year.
• The NYC Geodatabase is now at https://www.baruch.cuny.edu/confluence/display/geoportal/NYC+Geodatabase. This past week I just posted the latest version with updates for several features.

The new site has a dedicated blog that you can follow (via RSS) for the latest updates to the portal. The portal also has a number of relatively new and publicly accessible datasets that we’ve posted over the last year (but that I haven’t had time to post about). These include the NYC Mass Transit Spatial Layers series and population centroids for US census geographies. We’ve been creating ISO spatial metadata for all of our new layers, but we still need to create XML stylesheets to make them more human-readable. That will be one of many projects to do for this academic year.

The tutorial was written using QGIS 2.0 and was tested with version 2.4; thus it’s readily usable with any 2.x version of QGIS. With the rapid progression of QGIS my introductory tutorial for the workshop is becoming woefully outdated, having been written in version 1.8. It’s going to take me quite a while to update (among other things, the image for every darn button has changed) but I plan to have a new version out sometime in the fall, but probably not at the beginning of semester. Since I have a fair amount of work to do any way, I’m going to rethink all of the content and exercises. Meanwhile, Lex Berman at Harvard has updated his wonderfully clear and concise tutorial to Q version 2.x.

The workshops have been successful for turning people on to open source GIS on my campus, to the point were people are using it and coming back to teach me new things – especially when it comes to uncovering useful plugins:

Second, for people who are already familiar with GIS and who have various projects to work on (like me) this saves a lot of duplicated effort, as the db provides a foundation to build on and saves the trouble of starting from scratch each time.

Third, it gave me something new to learn and will allow me to build a second part to my open source GIS workshops. I finally sat down and hammered away with Spatialite (went through the Spatialite Cookbook from start to finish) and learned spatial SQL, so I could offer a resource that’s open source and will compliment my QGIS workshop. I was familiar with the Access personal geodatabases in ArcGIS, but for the most part these serve as simple containers. With the ability to run all the spatial SQL operations, Spatialite expands QGIS functionality, which was something I was really looking for.

My original hope was to create a server-based PostGIS database, but at this point I’m not set up to do that on my campus. I figured Spatialite was a good alternative – the basic operations and spatial SQL commands are relatively the same, and I figured I could eventually scale up to PostGIS when the time comes.

I also created an identical, MS Access version of the database for ArcGIS users. Once I got my features in Spatialite I exported them all out as shapefiles and imported them all via ArcCatalog – not too arduous as I don’t have a ton of features. I used the SQLite ODBC driver to import all of my data tables from SQLite into Access – that went flawlessly and was a real time saver; it just took a little bit of time to figure out how to set up (but this blog post helped).

The databases are focused on NYC features and resources, since that’s what my user base is primarily interested in. I purposefully used the Census TIGER files as the base, so that if people wanted to expand the features to the broader region they easily could. I spent a good deal of time creating generalized layers, so that users would have the primary water / coastline and large parks and wildlife areas as reference features for thematic maps, without having every single pond and patch of grass to clutter things up. I took several features (schools, subway stations, etc) from the City and the MTA that were stored in tables and converted them to point features so they’re readily useable.

Given that focus, it’s primarily of interest to NYC folks, but I figured it may be useful for others who wish to experiment with Spatialite. I assumed that most people who would be interested in the database would not be familiar with this format, so I wrote a tutorial that covers the database and it’s features, how to add and map data in QGIS, how to work with the data and do SQL / spatial SQL in the Spatialite GUI, and how to map data in ArcGIS using the Access Geodb. It’s Creative Commons, Attribution, Non-Commercial, Share-alike, so feel free to give it a try.

I spent a good amount of time building a process rather than just a product, so I’ll be able to update the db twice a year, as city features (schools, libraries, hospitals, transit) change and new census data (American Community Survey, ZIP Business Patterns) is released. Many of the Census features, as well as the 2010 Census data, will be static until 2020.

I also updated the manual for use with QGIS 1.8. I’m thinking that the addition of the Data Browser and the ability to simply select the CRS of the current layer or project when you’re doing a Save As (rather than having to select the CRS from the master list) will save a lot of valuable time in class. With every operation that we perform we’re constantly creating new files as the result of selections and geoprocessing, and I always lose a few people each time we’re forced to crawl through the file system to add new layers we’ve created. These simple changes should speed things up. I’ve updated the manual throughout to reflect these changes, and have also updated the datasets to reflect what’s currently available. I provide a summary of the most salient changes in the introduction.

The scale bar in the map composer automatically takes the units used in the coordinate reference system (CRS) that your layers are in. In order to get a scale bar that makes sense, your layers will need to use a CRS that’s in meters or feet. If you’re using a geographic coordinate system that’s in degrees, like WGS 84 or NAD 83, the result isn’t going to make sense. It’s possible at large scales (covering small areas) to convert degrees to meters or feet but it’s a pain. Most projected coordinate systems for countries, continents, and the globe use meters. Regional systems like UTM also use meters, and in the US you can use a state plane system and choose between meters or feet. Transform your layers to something that’s appropriate for your map.

Once you have layers that are in a CRS that uses meters or feet, you’ll need to convert the units to kilometers or miles using the scale bar’s menu. Let’s say I have a map of the 50 states that’s in the US National Atlas Equal Area Projection, which is a continental projected coordinate system of the US, number 2163 in the EPSG library (this system is also known as the Lambert Azimuthal Equal-Area projection). It’s in meters. In the QGIS Map Composer I select the Add New Scalebar button, and click on the map to add it. The resulting scale bar is rather small and the units are clumped together.

With the scale bar active, in the menus on the right I click on the Item Properties. First, we have to decide how large we want the individual segments on the scale bar to be. I’m making a thematic map of the US, so for my purposes 200 miles would be OK. The conversion factor is 1,609 meters in a mile. Since we want each segment on the scale bar to represent 200 miles, we multiply 1,609 by 200 to get 321,800 meters. In the Item tab, this is the number that I type in the segment size box: 321,800, replacing the default 100,000. Then, in the map units by bar, I change this from 1 to 1,609. Now the units of the scale bar start to make sense. Increase the number of right segments from 2 to 3, so I have a bar that goes from 0 to 600 miles, in 200 mile segments. I like to decrease the height of the bar a bit, from 5mm to 3mm. In the Unit label box I type Miles. Lastly, I switch to the General options tab just below, and turn off the outline for the bar. Now I have a scale bar that’s appropriate for this map!

Most people in the rest of the world will be using kilometers. That conversion is even simpler. If we wanted the scale bar segments to represent 200 km, we would multiply 200 by 1,000 (1,000 meters in a kilometer) to get 200,000 meters. 200,000 goes in the segment size box and 1,000 goes in the map units per bar. Back in the US, if you’re working in a local state plane projection that uses feet, the conversion will be the familiar 5,280 feet to a mile. So, if we wanted a scale bar that has segments of 20 miles, multiply 5,280 by 20 to get 105,600 feet. 105,600 goes in the segment size box, and 5,280 goes in the map units per bar box.

A reality check is always a good idea. Take your scale bar and compare it to some known distance between features on your map. In our first example, I would drag the scale bar over the map of the US and measure the width of Illinois at its widest point, which is just over 200 miles. In the Item Properties tab for the scale bar I turn the opacity down to zero, so the bar doesn’t hide the map features underneath. If the bar matches up I know I’m in good shape. Remember that not all map projections will preserve distance as a property, and distortion becomes an issue for small scale maps that cover large areas (i.e. continents and the globe). On small scale maps distance will be true along standard parallels, and will become less accurate the further away you go.

For full details check out this flier. You can register via the College’s CAPS website; do a search for DEM and register for each session (DEM0003, DEM0004, and DEM0005).

Transforming Projections – In previous versions you would go under Vector – > Data Management Tools > Export to New Projection. In 1.7 this has been dropped from the ftools vector menu. To transform the projection of a file, you select it in the Map Legend (ML), right-click, hit Save As, give it a new name and specify the new CRS there. The QGIS developers have provided some info on how QGIS handles projections that’s worth checking out. You can go in the settings and have QGIS transform projections on the fly, which is fine depending on what you’re going to do. My preference is to play it safe – do the transformations and make sure all your files and the window share the same CRS. It can save you headaches later on.

Table Joins – In previous versions you would also accomplish this under Vector – > Data Management Tools > Join Attributes, where you’d join a DBF or CSV to a shapefile to create a new file with both the geometry and the data. Now that’s out, and QGIS can support dynamic joins, similar to ArcGIS where you couple the attribute table to the shapefile without permanently fusing the two. To do this you must add your DBF or CSV directly to your project; do this the same way you’d add a vector layer. Hit the Add Vector button, and change the drop down at the bottom so you can see all files (not just shapefiles) in your directory. Add your table. Then select your layer in the ML and double click to open the properties menu. You’ll see a new tab for Joins. Hit the tab and hit the plus button to add a new join. You’ll select your table, the table’s join field, and the layer’s join field. Hit OK to join em, and it’s done. Open the attribute table for the layer and you’ll see all columns for the layer and the joined field.

This sounds great, but I had some trouble when I went to symbolize my data. Using the old symbology tab, I couldn’t classify any of my columns from my attribute table using Equal Intervals; it populated each class with zeros. Quantiles worked fine. If I switched to the new symbology, I still couldn’t use Equal Intervals, and Quantiles and Natural Breaks only worked partially – my dataset contained negative values which were simply dropped instead of classified. Grrrrr. I got around this by selecting my layer in the ML (after doing the join), right clicked, and saved it as a new layer. This permanently fused the shapefile with the attributes, and I had no problem classifying and mapping data in the new file. I went to the forum and asked for help to see if this is a bug – will report back with the results.

Here are some other updates worth noting:

• Feature Count – if you right click on a layer in the ML, you can select the Feature Count option and the number of features will be listed under your layer. If you’ve classified your features, it will do a separate count for each classification.



• Measuring Tool – it looks like it’s now able to convert units on the fly, so even if you’re using a CRS with units in degrees, it can convert it to meters and kilometers (you can go into the options menu if you want to switch to feet and miles).
• Labels – it looks like the experimental labelling features have been made default in this verson, and they do work better, especially with polygons.
• Map Composer Undo – undo and redo buttons have been added to the map composer, which makes it much easier to work with.



• Map Composer Symbols – if you go to insert an image in the map composer, you’ll have a number of default SVG symbols you can load, incuding north arrows
• Export to PDF – from the map composer, this was pretty buggy in the past but I was able to export a map today without any problems at all.

The full program is available here, and it looks like it’s chock full of interesting presentations and lots of great learning opportunities via the workshops and tutorials. I’ll be presenting on Weds afternoon, for those interested in my adventures in introducing QGIS on a college campus.

If you’re on the fence about attending, consider this: this is the sixth year for the conference and it’s only the second time that it’s been held in North America (Canada hosted the 2nd conference in 2007) and the first time it’s being hosted in the US. So if you’re in North America and getting funding from your organization for travel is an issue, now’s your best chance to go. This is truly an international conference (was also hosted in Switzerland, South Africa, Australia, and Spain) so it probably won’t be back on these shores for awhile.

Here’s some more motivation – early registration at the discounted rate ends on June 30th!

http://www.baruch.cuny.edu/geoportal/practicum/

I plan on revising the tutorial once a year, and the online version will be one version behind what I use and distribute in class. I’ll be busy this summer tweaking the guide and the class and will offer the in-class version to members of my university again in the 2011-12 academic year.

I held the workshop three times and had 45 participants out of a possible 60. Half were graduate students and the other half were faculty or staff. The top three disciplines that were represented were public health, library and information science, and public administration; I also had a smattering of folks from across the social sciences and a few from the natural sciences. Despite my intention to introduce GIS to novices, about half of the participants had some previous experience using GIS, primarily ArcGIS. All of these folks were pleasantly surprised with how well QGIS performed.

If you have any questions or comments about the tutorial feel free to contact me:

francis DOT donnelly AT baruch DOT cuny DOT edu

There’s also the gothos email address, but to be honest I don’t check it as often as I should – frank

Another possibility is to dump DBF all together; even though the join table option in the fTools menu in QGIS only presents you the option of joining shapfiles or DBF, it turns out if you choose the DBF radio button option you can actually point to DBFs OR CSV files when you’re browsing to point to your data table. The join proceeds the same way, and you get a new shapefile with the data from the CSV joined to it. CSVs can be easily created from any spreadsheet, text editor, or database program in any operating system, so you can prep your attribute data in your program of choice before exporting to CSV and importing to GIS.

The problem with this approach is that all of the fields from the CSV file are automatically saved as text or strings when they’re appended to the shapefile. This means that any numeric data you have can’t be treated numerically; you can’t perform calculations or classify data as value ranges for mapping. You can go into the attribute table, enter the edit mode, and use the field calculator to create new fields where you convert the values to integers, but this adds a bunch of duplicate fields and is rather messy. You can’t delete columns from shapefiles within QGIS; you have to edit the attributes outside the software to remove extra columns.

Here’s an easy work around: you can create a CSVT file to go along with your CSV file. Open a text editor like Notepad or gedit and create a one line file where you specify the data type for each of the fields in your CSV file. Save the CSVT with the SAME NAME as your CSV file. Now when you go to join your CSV to your shapefile in QGIS, it will read the CSVT and save all of your fields properly in the new shapefile.

So for a CSV file like this with six fields:

CODE, ST, ID_NAICS51, EMP_51, ID_TOTAL, TOTAL_EMP
01, AL, ENU0100010551, 27013, ENU0100010510, 1570188
02, AK, ENU0200010551, 6988, ENU0200010510, 237708
04, AZ, ENU 0400010551, 41833, ENU0400010510, 2174919 …

You’d create a CSVT file like this:

“String”, “String”, “String”, “Integer”, “String”, “Integer”

So the 4th and 6th fields that have numeric values are saved as integers. There are a few other field types you can use, like Real for decimal numbers and some Date / Time options, and you can specify length and precision – see this post for details.

Using shapefiles, CSVs, and CSVTs are fine for small to medium projects and for the introductory workshops I’m teaching; geodatabases are another option and are certainly better for medium to large projects, but introducing them in my intro workshop is a little too much.

(NOTE – in QGIS 1.7 the join tool has been dropped from the ftools menu. To join a csv or dbf in 1.7+, you have to add your data table as a vector to your map, and then use the join tab within the properties menu of the feature you want to join it to. See this post for details.)