EDITING KML IN QUANTUM GIS HOW TO
EDITING KML IN QUANTUM GIS INSTALL
EDITING KML IN QUANTUM GIS DOWNLOAD
EDITING KML IN QUANTUM GIS MAC

But you need to know how to change your projection before you publish your project.Ĭlick the Edit Projection button in the bottom-right corner of the status bar. That’s also QGIS’s default coordinate system and it seems to convert easily.

I set all my projects to NAD 83 or WGS84 as a default. There are hundreds if not thousands of projections and some won’t easily convert to others. Most files you get from sources will have a projection assigned to them and they may have to be converted to match your project. Projections distort maps to create a desired result. The Albers projection is a more accurate representation of the size of the United States. Here’s how it compares to a geographic projection: One of the most popular projections in used North America maps is Albers Equal Area Conic Projection. Projected coordinate systems often take a portion of the globe and unwrap it in a way that will more accurately represent either the shape of a boundary or the area of a boundary. To adjust for that, cartographers create projected coordinate systems. government) and WGS84 (used by GPS devices and Google maps).īut the distortion inherent in geographic coordinate systems creates maps that misrepresent the shape and size of geographical areas. There are many versions of geographic coordinate systems but the most common are NAD 83 (used by the U.S. Specifically, it’s referred to as a geographic coordinate system or geographic projection. The example above is one of two types of coordinate systems. In reality, Antarctica is only about 60 percent larger. That’s why Antarctica looks 7 times larger than the contiguous United States in the example below. The closer one gets to the poles, the more the surface is distorted. Latitude and longitude create a coordinate system, which gives us the ability to “unwrap” the the earth’s surface.īut creating a square map out of a globe requires us to distort the geography. GIS generates accurate maps by converting a 3D globe to a 2D plane. That’s where geographic information systems (GIS) come in. The challenge of making public maps is creating a standard that everyone can use.

Satellites, sonar and even the space shuttle have been used to improve our understanding of geography.īut fortunately, many maps are not considered state secrets and governments are a primary source of map files (e.g. Governments are still trying to improve the accuracy of maps. At the time, maps were considered state secrets.

Even though the maps were fairly inaccurate, they helped the Spanish navigate oceans, circumnavigate the globe and amass tremendous wealth. Amerigo Vespucci (the cartographer who named the Americas after himself) used the moon and Mars to calculate the most precise measurements of latitude of his time. One of the great advances during the Age of Discovery was the refinement of latitude and longitude. They have been used to start wars, make fortunes and topple governments. Maps have played a critical role in history for thousands of years. Go to Plugins -> Manage plugins to turn them off or on. QGIS comes with several plugins and you find find some really useful third-party plugins to help your workflow. It’s a good idea to set up your plugins the first time you launch. You can arrange them by clicking and dragging. Toolbars can be controlled in turned off or on in the Toolbars menu. It’s made up of a layout area where the map is drawn surrounded by a toolbar, layers panel and a status bar.

EDITING KML IN QUANTUM GIS INSTALL

The install may take a while so be patient. The wizard will install everything you need, including all the frameworks and GRASS application.

EDITING KML IN QUANTUM GIS DOWNLOAD

Go to the Windows download page and download the QGIS installer. Everything you need to get started is in one exe file. It’s very powerful but more than we need at this point.ĭownload the QGIS package that matches your system and install it. GRASS is another open source GIS application that can give QGIS better data management.

EDITING KML IN QUANTUM GIS MAC

Go to the Mac download page and download the GDAL and GSL frameworks and install them. Simply downloading the QGIS package that matches your operating system will allow you to complete the tutorial but QGIS will not function as well. Installing QGIS on a Mac can be a little complicated since it requires a few support programs to operate efficiently. QGIS Version 1.7 introduced a couple of significant changes. This QGIS tutorial was created using version 1.6. It will also give you the tools to make simple, interactive data maps that work on every platform. This QGIS tutorial will guide you through the basics, covering how GIS files work, how to edit them and how to join them with external data for analysis. Understanding how to visualize map data is an important skill but it can be intimidating. QGIS is a free, open source GIS application for Windows and Mac that provides a great starting point for journalists who want to learn to explore data with maps.

Editing kml in quantum gis