QGIS plugin for offline Safecast data viewing etc.

[Jan Helebrant]

Hi all,
our colleagues at OpenGeoLabs finally released the Safecast plugin for QGIS.



You can download current plugin version here:
http://bit.ly/safecastqgisgit

and install it using the tutorial here:
http://bit.ly/safecastqgiseng

(contains also some user tips).

QGIS is free and opensource, get it here:
http://qgis.org/en/site/forusers/download.html

The plugin is still in development. The version linked above is so called stable one but we are currently testing unstable one with more features.

The plugin is not intended to replace the great online solution created by Safecast but rather to provide tool to quickly display LOG data and possibly remove "unwanted" parts of the drive before uploading (useful when you forget to switch off your bGeigie at home for example). With QGIS you can use offline map background so you can be completely offline but still able to view your data and upload them later.

regards

Jan

[Mat Schaffer]

That is very cool, Jan.

Of course, don't feel you have to have to trim your log files. We'll take them either way. :)

But that's really great to have a way to inspect your own data offline.

-Mat

matschaffer.com

[Jan Helebrant]

Hi,
one more update. The plugin installation is much more simple as you can install it from the QGIS plugin manager.
Go to Plugins, choose Manage and Install Plugins:



then in Plugins select Settings:


then click to Add a new repository:


and fill in:

http://opengeolabs.cz/qgis_plugins.xml
as URL in this window:


then click OK to close and reload. After that you should have Safecast plugin available in QGIS plugins selection and you can install it:



then plugin icon appears:



so you can start to play with your data :-)



that is all :-)

enjoy

Jan

[Jan Helebrant]

Hi,
just for your information - together with our colleagues from OpenGeolabs we prepared and also just published plugin documentation / manual here:

QGIS Safecast Plugin Documentation

https://opengeolabs.github.io/qgis-safecast-plugin/index.html

enjoy :-)

[Alberto Villa]

Great. Very well done.

Thanks to you and to all the OpenGeolabs team!

Alberto

[Azby Brown]

Thanks, Jan!  This is very helpful.

Azby

[Alberto Villa]

Hi Jan,

just for your information, I haven't been able to load the plugin in QGIS 2.18 the quick way described in the latest documentation (with the URL http://opengeolabs.cz/qgis_plugins.xml) . I have not understood why, but I am using QGIS for the very first time...

Fortunately it worked well following your initial instructions, copying the downloaded folder in the plugin directory of QGIS in disc C.

Thank you very much again, and best regards,

Alberto

Il giorno martedì 4 aprile 2017 21:07:22 UTC+2, Jan Helebrant ha scritto:

[Jan Helebrant]

Hi all,

the plugin is now available directly from QGIS Plugins repository so in QGIS just go to:

Plugins / Manage and Install Plugins/

write "safecast" in the search field and install the plugin:

no need to add additional repository etc. Just so simple now :-)

Enjoy

Jan

[Mat Schaffer]

👏

-Mat

matschaffer.com

[Louis Bertrand]

Thanks for the plug-in, it works great!
My problem with QGIS is that on a slow network, the display takes a while to update.
Is there a recommended map dataset for offline use? I'm in eastern Canada, if that makes a difference.
Thanks,
--Louis

[Jan Helebrant]

Dear Louis,

in fact, there are many ways. You can try to look whether there are some opengeodata for Canada to download from some government server - QGIS supports variety of formats like GeoTiff, PNG or JPG with so called World File or for example Esri shapefile.

I our case we are using OpenStreetMap data downloaded from http://download.geofabrik.de/index.html and with custom styles applied. Looks this way:

For the Czech Republic it means about 3 GB data but you have vector maps zoomable to almost every scale from country level to small villages. Runs entirely from your machine so it may be slightly slower on weak ones. However I am using it on my Latitude E5510 laptop with Core i3 and 3 GB RAM (but not Windows, I am running 32bit Kubuntu linux on it).

There are tutorials like this one:

https://anitagraser.com/2014/05/31/a-guide-to-googlemaps-like-maps-with-osm-in-qgis/

how to get offline maps with a look similar to Google Streets and you can consult it also here:

https://gis.stackexchange.com

Finally, within the RAMESIS research program I am trying to initiate development of a conversion tool which would prepare those custom styled maps for selected country or region from downloaded OpenStreetMap automatically - without any user interaction needed (just some initial settings if custom region needed). I definitely want this to be universal and released under same license as the QGIS plugin. But this will need some time.

regards

Jan

PS: found some potentially usable links here:

http://www.nrcan.gc.ca/earth-sciences/geography/topographic-information/free-data-geogratis/11042

https://canadiangis.com/data.php