GIS

The GIS plugin consists of three parts and some additional settings in the system settings menu.

GIS Tool

While the creation and modification of geo-data can be made in the Interactive Map view, the GIS tool (within the additional tools provides the import and export of geo-data as well as basic visualization tools.

Import of geo-data

Spacialist supports the Import of the following file formats:

• CSV
• KML/KMZ
• Shape
• GeoJSON

For the import click on Import geodata in the upper left, choose the data format and select the file. In the following dialog box, set the the EPSG and – if required by the selected datatype – any other required information (e.g. the separator as well as the columns for the X and Y values in case of CSV).

Hint: The Shape importer supports auto-filling the EPSG-Code if an additional .qpj file is provided

To get an preview of the columns and values, select Show Data Preview (CSV only). In all cases a Parse button will parse the input file and displays the features of the data on a map prior to the import to validate it. If there is something wrong, you can adjust your information (e.g. EPSG-Code) and click on Parse again. To finally import the data, click Confirm Import and close the dialog box. The imported data is now stored in the unlinked layer and can be linked to entities as described in the next section.

Import georeferenced maps

If needed, georeferenced maps could be added as base layers by the Spacialist-Team after personal communication.

Usage

When opening the GIS tool no layer is selected by default and no geo-data is visible on the map. To select one or several of the layers double click on them and they appear in the section Selected layers and their geo-data is loaded on the map.

By right clicking on one of the selected layers it is possible to zoom to that layer, export it, get the count of all geo objects on that layer or change their appearance (style and labelling).

Note: The options for style and labels are based on QGIS.

Style

Within Style there are three options to choose from. All of them change the color of the geo-data according to the settings.

1. color: Simply changes to color of all geo-data to a selected color
2. Categorized: Categorized all geo-data by a specific attribute. All attributes with the same value get the same color.
3. Gradual: Works similar to Categorized, but instead of grouping them by an exact value, they are grouped by a range of values. With the Classes (number of ranges) and Size (number of objects per range) option you can adjust the coloring. This option is only available for numerical attributes.

Labelling

In the Labels tab you can add labels to the geo-data. It supports entity names or any other attribute as label as well as changing the appearance (Font, Background, Outline and position) of the label.

Interactive Map

This map is injected into the tab bar and provides a geopgraphical basemap with all geodata as well as basic GIS-tools to create and edit geo-objects.

• Single layers can be shown or hidden using the layer icon in the upper right corner. The slider for each layer allows to change the transparency.
• To switch to full screen mode use the arrow icon above the layer icon.
• The vertical tool bar in the lower right corner allows to create new points, lines, or polygons. Click the icons to toggle the mode (draw mode and select mode).
• Each geo-object can be linked to an existing entity by selecting the entity and the geo-object. Now a link button appears below the tools in the lower right corner. Unlinking can be done in the same way.
• Geo-objects can be edited in Spacialist using the green edit icon. Activate the edit mode first, than modify the object and save or discard the result using the now appearing save and discard icons.
• To delete geo-objects activate the deletion mode first and then select the objects you want to delete. Confirmation and discard is done the same way as for the edit mode.
• Simple distances can be measured using the scale bar icon.

Layer Editor

The Layer Editor can be found in the general settings menu.

On the left-hand side are two lists of layers. One for Baselayers (only one at a time is visible) and one for Overlays (overlay the Baselayer and each other, all visible at the same time). New layers can be added to both lists using the + Add new layer... button below each of the lists. When creating a new Entity type in the Data Model Editor it automatically adds a layer for it in the Overlays list.

By hovering over a layer it can be deleted. Since Entity type layers are bound to an Entity type, these layers can not be deleted and there is no delete button on hover. To delete them, you have to delete the whole Entity type in the Data Model Editor.

On the right-hand side is a form with all details of the currently selected layer (empty if none is selected).

System Settings

When the plugin is enabled, there is an additional setting in the system settings: Map Projection. As the name suggests, this setting changes the map projection from WGS 84 to any other projection. But, it only affects the projection of data displayed on the map and exported data. The data in the database is always stored in WGS 84.