[Gfoss] Fwd: [New post] Announcing QMap: A simple data collection application using QGIS

Paolo Cavallini cavallini a faunalia.it
Lun 10 Set 2012 07:38:04 CEST 

Un semplice strumento per la raccolta di dati sul campo.
Saluti.

-------- Messaggio originale --------
Nathan posted: "I would like to announce QMap: A simple data collection application
built using QGIS and Python. QMap is a QGIS based field data collection application
that was built by myself and a work college at Southern Downs Regional Council.  QMap
is now opened"
Respond to this post by replying above this line


    New post on *Nathans QGIS and GIS blog*

	

<http://woostuff.wordpress.com/author/madmanwoo/> 	


    Announcing QMap: A simple data collection application using QGIS
    <http://woostuff.wordpress.com/2012/09/10/announcing-qmap/>

by Nathan <http://woostuff.wordpress.com/author/madmanwoo/>

I would like to announce QMap: A simple data collection application built using QGIS
and Python.

QMap is a QGIS based field data collection application that was built by myself and a
work college at Southern Downs Regional Council.  QMap is now opened source under the
same licence as QGIS, GPLv2.  The project homepage can be found at
http://nathanw2.github.com/qmap/ and source at https://github.com/NathanW2/qmap.

Before I go into to many more details I will preface with: The application is
currently under active development and as such there might be bugs or little rough
bits that I haven't cleaned up yet. However having said that, the program is
functional and we are using it at work for the purpose it was built.


    Features

  * Simple to use
  * Simple to manage
  * Simple to install
  * Forms built using Qt Designer
  * Loads normal QGIS projects
  * Anything QGIS supports QMap does too (snapping, PostGIS, etc)
  * It's just QGIS with a tablet friendlier interface.
  * Syncing support /(MS SQL 2008 only at the moment)/


    The Story

The program was developed after we looked around and decided that nothing really fit
our needs quite right and to our satisfaction. /(Within budget of course)/

We had a list of, I think simple, requirements:

  * Must be simple to use by field staff
  * Can deal with complex or simple forms
  * Fully offline but with a syncing option
  * GPS support
  * Easy maintenance

The first point for me is a big one.  I have a seen a lot of data collection
applications and unfortunately this is where I feel a lot of them fall down.  Most
seem to be designed with people like me in mind, people who understand computers,
understand menu systems, etc. If you work in local government or with an older age
group of outside workforce you will know that this assumption doesn't hold true.
Most of our field staff are not computer people, a few don't even have home computer,
expecting them to navigate a menu just to enable the GPS, or click on a small 16x16
pixel icon, on a tablet PC is not a option.

I decided to take the same approach as QGIS and use Qt Designer to build the forms.
Why invent another tool? Using Qt Designer can also give us the flexibly of creating
simple or complex forms in our own layout.

We do have pretty good 3G connection coverage over our region however we only have
limited bandwidth to play with and having a solution that is full connected doesn't
really give the best user experience.  I would rather just store everything locally
on the device and then sync when needed.  As all our layers are stored in MS SQL
Server 2008 for the syncing we decided to use .NET Sync framework.  I would love to
have sync support for PostGIS, Spatialite, or any other normal files, but it was out
of scope for the project /(at the moment)/.

For me easy maintenance means two things: not having to deal with crap loads
of configurations; and having the power to change what I don't like. For the first
point I'm a big fan of convention over configuration.  I like to just drop stuff in a
folder with a certain naming convention and it should just pick it up and work.  This
also goes for the form bindings, just name the control the same as the field in the
layer and QMap will bind it for you.  If I can follow a convention for things I have.
Conventions make setup easier and consistent.

Once you have tasted the open source kool aid it can be quite hard to go back.
Knowing that if there is a bug in QGIS I can fix it to make my project better is a
comforting feeling.  There is also the lack of licence fees which makes open source
very attractive for jobs with small budgets.


    How does it work?

At the moment the core of the application is built as a QGIS plugin, however there is
one little trick here that is worth mentioning. QMap is really a script that loads
QGIS and sets the --configpath in order to load all the QGIS settings from a supplied
path, inside the supplied path is the plugin. Think of it as a sandboxed QGIS which
only loads the QMap plugin.  I'm also using the new customization function to remove
all unneeded interface items.


    Notes

Here are some notes worth bring up:

The application is still under development so things might change.
There is only point support at the moment, although adding line and region support
wouldn't be hard.
Syncing only works using MS SQL 2008 and the code is a bit rough. Will be cleaned up
over time.
The build script only works on Windows and there is some win32 stuff for
power management in the code. This is not because I don't want to support the other
platforms just that it was out of scope at work.
You need to be using the latest development build of QGIS /(qgis-dev for those using
OSGeo4W) /this is because there have been a few bug fixes
<https://github.com/qgis/Quantum-GIS/commit/4a9a9f7dbb97d12f2b29237ec97fb7f93a9f2535>
that make the application work as expected that aren't in 1.8.

*Nathan <http://woostuff.wordpress.com/author/madmanwoo/>* | September 10, 2012 at
7:50 am | Tags: FOSSGIS <http://woostuff.wordpress.com/?tag=fossgis>, qgis
<http://woostuff.wordpress.com/?tag=qgis>, Quantum GIS
<http://woostuff.wordpress.com/?tag=quantum-gis> | Categories: Open Source
<http://woostuff.wordpress.com/?cat=25>, qgis
<http://woostuff.wordpress.com/?cat=534019> | URL: http://wp.me/pjIwZ-iA

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