Capturing data from online sources and using it in Quantum GIS

Supported by Wellington City Council, and

Victoria University School of Geography and Earth Sciences.

www.koordinates.comSelect layers from the menu

Select ‘crop’ area. See your layers and costs.

Land cover database chosen, 1.3MB

Download menu – open an account with Koordinates.

Choose a destination on your computer, then extract the files.

A ‘shapefile’ is made up of several files

To visualise a shapefile, add the layer to a map in Quantum GIS. Points, polygons and lines will be ‘vector layers’; background images (jpeg or tif) will be ‘rasters’

The ‘Land-cover’ polygon appears as one colour, we want to see each vegetation type identified.

What is the data in this ‘Land-cover’ file? Right click on the layer name for a menu, open the attribute table.

Double click the name of the layer to open the “Properties”. Edit the style by ‘categorizing’ the name .

A colour ramp can be chosen, or individual colours assigned to each vegetation type.

Add other data layers – here are trap sites

Now add a raster background layer like ‘hillshade’

In order to display labels, choose the Properties ‘display’ option, then the field name to show, and then

choose colour and font.

Use the “i” information tool to see what has been caught by a particular trap. All the records for that trap

are displayed.

Your finished map can carry many layers, which can be turned on and off as required. Save it!

How to print off your project

Select the printer icon – it opens the ‘composer manager. Select ‘composer 1’ and ‘Add’.

Then close that dialogue box.

In the print editor, select the raster image tool, draw a box on the page by ‘click and drag’.

Add text boxes, a photo, the scale, North arrow, Legend, and even a table of results from the toolbar options. Alter the set-up using the right hand pane.