Supported Data Formats¶

Loading a Shapefile¶

To load a shapefile, start QGIS and click on the ^{Add Vector Layer} toolbar button, or simply press Ctrl+Shift+V. This will bring up a new window (see figure_vector_1).

Figure Vector 1:

Add Vector Layer Dialog

From the available options check File. Click on [Browse]. That will bring up a standard open file dialog (see figure_vector_2), which allows you to navigate the file system and load a shapefile or other supported data source. The selection box Filter allows you to preselect some OGR-supported file formats.

You can also select the encoding for the shapefile if desired.

Figure Vector 2:

Open an OGR Supported Vector Layer Dialog

Selecting a shapefile from the list and clicking [Open] loads it into QGIS. Figure_vector_3 shows QGIS after loading the alaska.shp file.

Figure Vector 3:

QGIS with Shapefile of Alaska loaded

Once a shapefile is loaded, you can zoom around it using the map navigation tools. To change the style of a layer, open the Layer Properties dialog by double clicking on the layer name or by right-clicking on the name in the legend and choosing Properties from the context menu. See section Style Menu for more information on setting symbology of vector layers.

Improving Performance for Shapefiles¶

To improve the performance of drawing a shapefile, you can create a spatial index. A spatial index will improve the speed of both zooming and panning. Spatial indexes used by QGIS have a .qix extension.

Use these steps to create the index:

• Load a shapefile by clicking on the ^{Add Vector Layer} toolbar button or pressing Ctrl+Shift+V.
• Open the Layer Properties dialog by double-clicking on the shapefile name in the legend or by right-clicking and choosing Properties from the context menu.
• In the General tab, click the [Create Spatial Index] button.

Problem loading a shape .prj file¶

If you load a shapefile with a .prj file and QGIS is not able to read the coordinate reference system from that file, you will need to define the proper projection manually within the General tab of the Layer Properties dialog of the layer by clicking the [Specify...] button. This is due to the fact that .prj files often do not provide the complete projection parameters as used in QGIS and listed in the CRS dialog.

For the same reason, if you create a new shapefile with QGIS, two different projection files are created: a .prj file with limited projection parameters, compatible with ESRI software, and a .qpj file, providing the complete parameters of the used CRS. Whenever QGIS finds a .qpj file, it will be used instead of the .prj.

Loading a delimited text file¶

Click the toolbar icon ^{Add Delimited Text Layer} in the Manage layers toolbar to open the Create a Layer from a Delimited Text File dialog, as shown in figure_delimited_text_1.

Figure Delimited Text 1:

Delimited Text Dialog

First, select the file to import (e.g., qgis_sample_data/csv/elevp.csv) by clicking on the [Browse] button. Once the file is selected, QGIS attempts to parse the file with the most recently used delimiter. To enable QGIS to properly parse the file, it is important to select the correct delimiter. You can specify a delimiter by activating Custom delimiters, or by activating Regular expression delimiter and entering text into the Expression field. For example, to change the delimiter to tab, use \t (this is a regular expression for the tab character).

Once the file is parsed, set Geometry definition to Point coordinates and choose the X and Y fields from the dropdown lists. If the coordinates are defined as degrees/minutes/seconds, activate the DMS coordinates checkbox.

Finally, enter a layer name (e.g., elevp), as shown in figure_delimited_text_1. To add the layer to the map, click [OK]. The delimited text file now behaves as any other map layer in QGIS.

There is also a helper option that allows you to trim leading and trailing spaces from fields — Trim fields. Also, it is possible to Discard empty fields. If necessary, you can force a comma to be the decimal separator by activating Decimal separator is comma.

If spatial information is represented by WKT, activate the Well Known Text option and select the field with the WKT definition for point, line or polygon objects. If the file contains non-spatial data, activate No geometry (attribute only table) and it will be loaded as an ordinal table.

Additionaly, you can enable:

• Use spatial index to improve the performance of displaying and spatially selecting features.
• Use subset index.
• Watch file to watch for changes to the file by other applications while QGIS is running.

Loading OpenStreetMap Vectors¶

QGIS integrates OpenStreetMap import as a core functionality.

• To connect to the OSM server and download data, open the menu Vector ‣ Openstreetmap ‣ Load data. You can skip this step if you already obtained an .osm XML file using JOSM, Overpass API or any other source.
• The menu Vector ‣ Openstreetmap ‣ Import topology from an XML file will convert your .osm file into a SpatiaLite database and create a corresponding database connection.
• The menu Vector ‣ Openstreetmap ‣ Export topology to SpatiaLite then allows you to open the database connection, select the type of data you want (points, lines, or polygons) and choose tags to import. This creates a SpatiaLite geometry layer that you can add to your project by clicking on the ^{Add SpatiaLite Layer} toolbar button or by selecting the Add SpatiaLite Layer... option from the Layer menu (see section SpatiaLite Layers).

Creating a stored Connection¶

The first time you use a PostGIS data source, you must create a connection to the PostgreSQL database that contains the data. Begin by clicking on the ^{Add PostGIS Layer} toolbar button, selecting the Add PostGIS Layer... option from the Layer menu, or typing Ctrl+Shift+D. You can also open the Add Vector Layer dialog and select Database. The Add PostGIS Table(s) dialog will be displayed. To access the connection manager, click on the [New] button to display the Create a New PostGIS Connection dialog. The parameters required for a connection are:

• Name: A name for this connection. It can be the same as Database.
• Service: Service parameter to be used alternatively to hostname/port (and potentially database). This can be defined in pg_service.conf.
• Host: Name of the database host. This must be a resolvable host name such as would be used to open a telnet connection or ping the host. If the database is on the same computer as QGIS, simply enter ‘localhost’ here.
• Port: Port number the PostgreSQL database server listens on. The default port is 5432.
• Database: Name of the database.
• SSL mode: How the SSL connection will be negotiated with the server. Note that massive speedups in PostGIS layer rendering can be achieved by disabling SSL in the connection editor. The following options are available:
  • Disable: Only try an unencrypted SSL connection.
  • Allow: Try a non-SSL connection. If that fails, try an SSL connection.
  • Prefer (the default): Try an SSL connection. If that fails, try a non-SSL connection.
  • Require: Only try an SSL connection.
• Username: User name used to log in to the database.
• Password: Password used with Username to connect to the database.

Optionally, you can activate the following checkboxes:

• Save Username
• Save Password
• Only look in the geometry_columns table
• Don’t resolve type of unrestricted columns (GEOMETRY)
• Only look in the ‘public’ schema
• Also list tables with no geometry
• Use estimated table metadata

Once all parameters and options are set, you can test the connection by clicking on the [Test Connect] button.

Loading a PostGIS Layer¶

Once you have one or more connections defined, you can load layers from the PostgreSQL database. Of course, this requires having data in PostgreSQL. See section Importing Data into PostgreSQL for a discussion on importing data into the database.

To load a layer from PostGIS, perform the following steps:

• If the Add PostGIS layers dialog is not already open, selecting the Add PostGIS Layer... option from the Layer menu or typing Ctrl+Shift+D opens the dialog.
• Choose the connection from the drop-down list and click [Connect].
• Select or unselect Also list tables with no geometry.
• Optionally, use some Search Options to define which features to load from the layer, or use the [Build query] button to start the Query builder dialog.
• Find the layer(s) you wish to add in the list of available layers.
• Select it by clicking on it. You can select multiple layers by holding down the Shift key while clicking. See section Query Builder for information on using the PostgreSQL Query Builder to further define the layer.
• Click on the [Add] button to add the layer to the map.

Some details about PostgreSQL layers¶

This section contains some details on how QGIS accesses PostgreSQL layers. Most of the time, QGIS should simply provide you with a list of database tables that can be loaded, and it will load them on request. However, if you have trouble loading a PostgreSQL table into QGIS, the information below may help you understand any QGIS messages and give you direction on changing the PostgreSQL table or view definition to allow QGIS to load it.

QGIS requires that PostgreSQL layers contain a column that can be used as a unique key for the layer. For tables, this usually means that the table needs a primary key, or a column with a unique constraint on it. In QGIS, this column needs to be of type int4 (an integer of size 4 bytes). Alternatively, the ctid column can be used as primary key. If a table lacks these items, the oid column will be used instead. Performance will be improved if the column is indexed (note that primary keys are automatically indexed in PostgreSQL).

If the PostgreSQL layer is a view, the same requirement exists, but views do not have primary keys or columns with unique constraints on them. You have to define a primary key field (has to be integer) in the QGIS dialog before you can load the view. If a suitable column does not exist in the view, QGIS will not load the layer. If this occurs, the solution is to alter the view so that it does include a suitable column (a type of integer and either a primary key or with a unique constraint, preferably indexed).

QGIS offers a checkbox Select at id that is activated by default. This option gets the ids without the attributes which is faster in most cases. It can make sense to disable this option when you use expensive views.

DB Manager¶

QGIS comes with a core plugin named ^{DB Manager}. It can be used to load shapefiles and other data formats, and it includes support for schemas. See section DB Manager Plugin for more information.

shp2pgsql¶

PostGIS includes an utility called shp2pgsql that can be used to import shapefiles into a PostGIS-enabled database. For example, to import a shapefile named lakes.shp into a PostgreSQL database named gis_data, use the following command:

shp2pgsql -s 2964 lakes.shp lakes_new | psql gis_data

This creates a new layer named lakes_new in the gis_data database. The new layer will have a spatial reference identifier (SRID) of 2964. See section Working with Projections for more information on spatial reference systems and projections.

ogr2ogr¶

Besides shp2pgsql and DB Manager, there is another tool for feeding geodata in PostGIS: ogr2ogr. This is part of your GDAL installation.

To import a shapefile into PostGIS, do the following:

ogr2ogr -f "PostgreSQL" PG:"dbname=postgis host=myhost.de user=postgres
password=topsecret" alaska.shp

This will import the shapefile alaska.shp into the PostGIS database postgis using the user postgres with the password topsecret on host server myhost.de.

Note that OGR must be built with PostgreSQL to support PostGIS. You can verify this by typing (in )

ogrinfo --formats | grep -i post

If you prefer to use PostgreSQL’s COPY command instead of the default INSERT INTO method, you can export the following environment variable (at least available on and ):

export PG_USE_COPY=YES

ogr2ogr does not create spatial indexes like shp2pgsl does. You need to create them manually, using the normal SQL command CREATE INDEX afterwards as an extra step (as described in the next section Improving Performance).

Improving Performance¶

Retrieving features from a PostgreSQL database can be time-consuming, especially over a network. You can improve the drawing performance of PostgreSQL layers by ensuring that a PostGIS spatial index exists on each layer in the database. PostGIS supports creation of a GiST (Generalized Search Tree) index to speed up spatial searches of the data (GiST index information is taken from the PostGIS documentation available at http://postgis.refractions.net).

The syntax for creating a GiST index is:

CREATE INDEX [indexname] ON [tablename]
  USING GIST ( [geometryfield] GIST_GEOMETRY_OPS );

Note that for large tables, creating the index can take a long time. Once the index is created, you should perform a VACUUM ANALYZE. See the PostGIS documentation (POSTGIS-PROJECT Literature and Web References) for more information.

The following is an example of creating a GiST index:

gsherman@madison:~/current$ psql gis_data
Welcome to psql 8.3.0, the PostgreSQL interactive terminal.

Type:  \copyright for distribution terms
       \h for help with SQL commands
       \? for help with psql commands
       \g or terminate with semicolon to execute query
       \q to quit

gis_data=# CREATE INDEX sidx_alaska_lakes ON alaska_lakes
gis_data-# USING GIST (the_geom GIST_GEOMETRY_OPS);
CREATE INDEX
gis_data=# VACUUM ANALYZE alaska_lakes;
VACUUM
gis_data=# \q
gsherman@madison:~/current$

Usage¶

• Import data into PostGIS (Importing Data into PostgreSQL) using, for example, the DB Manager plugin.
• Use the PostGIS command line interface to issue the following command (in this example, “TABLE” is the actual name of your PostGIS table): gis_data=# update TABLE set the_geom=ST_Shift_Longitude(the_geom);
• If everything went well, you should receive a confirmation about the number of features that were updated. Then you’ll be able to load the map and see the difference (Figure_vector_5).

Creating a new SpatiaLite layer¶

If you want to create a new SpatiaLite layer, please refer to section Creating a new SpatiaLite layer.

Creating a stored Connection¶

The first time you use an Oracle Spatial data source, you must create a connection to the database that contains the data. Begin by clicking on the ^{Add Orcale Spatial Layer} toolbar button, selecting the Add Orcale Spatial Layer... option from the Layer menu, or typing Ctrl+Shift+O. To access the connection manager, click on the [New] button to display the Create a New Oracle Spatial Connection dialog. The parameters required for a connection are:

• Name: A name for this connection. It can be the same as Database
• Database: SID or SERVICE_NAME of the Oracle instance.
• Host: Name of the database host. This must be a resolvable host name such as would be used to open a telnet connection or ping the host. If the database is on the same computer as QGIS, simply enter ‘localhost’ here.
• Port: Port number the Oracle database server listens on. The default port is 1521.
• Username: Username used to login to the database.
• Password: Password used with Username to connect to the database.

Optionally, you can activate following checkboxes:

• Save Username Indicates whether to save the database username in the connection configuration.
• Save Password Indicates whether to save the database password in the connection settings.
• Only look in meta data table Restricts the displayed tables to those that are in the all_sdo_geom_metadata view. This can speed up the initial display of spatial tables.
• Only look for user’s tables When searching for spatial tables, restrict the search to tables that are owned by the user.
• Also list tables with no geometry Indicates that tables without geometry should also be listed by default.
• Use estimated table statistics for the layer metadata When the layer is set up, various metadata are required for the Oracle table. This includes information such as the table row count, geometry type and spatial extents of the data in the geometry column. If the table contains a large number of rows, determining this metadata can be time-consuming. By activating this option, the following fast table metadata operations are done: Row count is determined from all_tables.num_rows. Table extents are always determined with the SDO_TUNE.EXTENTS_OF function, even if a layer filter is applied. Table geometry is determined from the first 100 non-null geometry rows in the table.
• Only existing geometry types Only list the existing geometry types and don’t offer to add others.

Once all parameters and options are set, you can test the connection by clicking on the [Test Connect] button.

Loading an Oracle Spatial Layer¶

Once you have one or more connections defined, you can load layers from the Oracle database. Of course, this requires having data in Oracle.

To load a layer from Oracle Spatial, perform the following steps:

• If the Add Oracle Spatial layers dialog is not already open, click on the ^{Add Oracle Spatial Layer} toolbar button.
• Choose the connection from the drop-down list and click [Connect].
• Select or unselect Also list tables with no geometry.
• Optionally, use some Search Options to define which features to load from the layer or use the [Build query] button to start the Query builder dialog.
• Find the layer(s) you wish to add in the list of available layers.
• Select it by clicking on it. You can select multiple layers by holding down the Shift key while clicking. See section Query Builder for information on using the Oracle Query Builder to further define the layer.
• Click on the [Add] button to add the layer to the map.