QGIS Desktop - a User-friendly Free Geographic Information System (GIS)
QGIS is a user friendly Open Source Geographic Information System (GIS) licensed under the GNU General Public License. QGIS is an official project of the Open Source Geospatial Foundation (OSGeo).
It runs on Linux, Unix, macOS, Windows and Android and supports numerous vector, raster, and database formats and functionalities.
QGIS is developed using the Qt toolkit and C++, since 2002, and has a pleasing, easy to use graphical user interface with multilingual support. It is maintained by an active developer team and supported by vibrant community of GIS professionals and enthusiasts as well as geospatial data publishers and end-users.
Features
1. Flexible and powerful spatial data management
- Support for raster, vector, mesh, and point cloud data in a range of industry-standard formats
- Raster formats include: GeoPackage, GeoTIFF, GRASS, ArcInfo binary and ASCII grids, ERDAS Imagine SDTS, WMS, WCS, PostgreSQL/PostGIS, and other GDAL supported formats.
- Vector formats include: GeoPackage, ESRI shapefiles, GRASS, SpatiaLite, PostgreSQL/PostGIS, MSSQL, Oracle, WFS, Vector Tiles and other OGR supported formats.
- Mesh formats include: NetCDF, GRIB, 2DM, and other MDAL supported formats.
- Point-cloud format: LAS/LAZ and EPT datasets.
- Data abstraction framework, with local files, spatial databases (PostGIS, SpatiaLite, SQL Server, Oracle, SAP HANA), and web services (WMS, WCS, WFS, ArcGIS REST) all accessed through a unified data model and browser interface, and as flexible layers in user-created projects
- Spatial data creation via visual and numerical digitizing and editing, as well as georeferencing of raster and vector data
- On-the-fly reprojection between coordinate reference systems (CRS)
- Nominatim (OpenStreetMap) geocoder access
- Temporal support
2. Beautiful cartography
- Large variety of rendering options in 2D and 3D
- Fine control over symbology, labeling, legends and additional graphical elements for beautifully rendered maps
- Respect for embedded styling in many spatial data sources (e.g. KML and TAB files, Mapbox-GL styled vector tiles)
- In particular, near-complete replication (and significant extension) of symbology options that are available in proprietary software by ESRI
- Advanced styling using data-defined overrides, blending modes, and draw effects
- 500+ built-in color ramps (cpt-city, ColorBrewer, etc.)
- Create and update maps with specified scale, extent, style, and decorations via saved layouts
- Generate multiple maps (and reports) automatically using QGIS Atlas and QGIS Reports
- Display and export elevation profile plots with flexible symbology
- Flexible output direct to printer, or as image (raster), PDF, or SVG for further customization
- On-the-fly rendering enhancements using geometry generators (e.g. create and style new geometries from existing features)
- Preview modes for inclusive map making (e.g. monochrome, color blindness)
3. Advanced and robust geospatial analysis
- Powerful processing framework with 200+ native processing algorithms
- Access to 1000+ processing algorithms via providers such as GDAL, SAGA, GRASS, OrfeoToolbox, as well as custom models and processing scripts
- Geospatial database engine (filters, joins, relations, forms, etc.), as close to datasource- and format-independent as possible
- Immediate visualization of geospatial query and geoprocessing results
- Model designer and batch processing
4. Powerful customization and extensibility
- Fully customizable user experience, including user interface and application settings that cater to power-users and beginners alike
- Rich expression engine for maximum flexibility in visualization and processing
- Broad and varied plugin ecosystem that includes data connectors, digitizing aids, advanced analysis and charting tools, in-the-field data capture, conversion of ESRI style files, etc.
- Style manager for creating, storing, and managing styles
- QGIS style hub for easy sharing of styles
- Python and C++ API for standalone (headless) applications as well as in-application comprehensive scripting (PyQGIS)
5. QGIS Server
Headless map server -- running on Linux, macOS, Windows, or in a docker container -- that shares the same code base as QGIS.
- Industry-standard protocols (WMS, WFS, WFS3/OGC API for Features and WCS) allow plug-n-play with any software stack
- Works with any web server (Apache, nginx, etc) or standalone
- All beautiful QGIS cartography is supported with best-in-class support for printing
- Fully customizable with Python scripting support
Resources
GitHub - qgis/QGIS: QGIS is a free, open source, cross platform (lin/win/mac) geographical information system (GIS)
QGIS is a free, open source, cross platform (lin/win/mac) geographical information system (GIS) - qgis/QGIS
qgisWelcome to the QGIS project!
