Monthly Archives: February 2015

Oceancolor Data Downloader v1.0 for QGIS

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Aqua Modis SST 2015-01-13

Sea Surface Temperature data downloaded by Oceancolor Data Downloader.

The Oceancolor Data Downloader is a new plugin for QGIS from the Mapping and Geographic Information Centre of the British Antarctic Survey that downloads Oceancolor and Sea Surface Temperature data from NASA’s Oceancolor website. The plugin currently downloads three datasets:

  • MODIS AQUA chlorophyll concentration
  • SeaWiFS chlorophyll concentration
  • MODIS AQUA night time Sea Surface Temperatures

The data accessed includes daily, 8 day, monthly and yearly composites, all of which can be saved to disk while downloading. Future plans for the plugin include additional access to other datasets such as ocean Net Primary Production, selection by bounding box, the ability to save in other formats, a progress bar etc.

I used the plugin to download global Sea Surface Temperatures for the 13th Jan 2015. I then used shapefiles from Natural Earth to create a simple basemap. I finally chose the IBCAO Polar Stereographic projection (EPSG: 3996) to create a map centred on the North Pole.

If you use the plugin to produce published research, please cite:

10.5281/zenodo.15018

Importing CSV files into PostgreSQL using the DB Manager in QGIS

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There is very useful tool in QGIS that can import very large CSV files into PostgreSQL rapidly and reliably. The DB Manager’s “Import Vector Layer” tool. Contrary to its highly misleading title it can import CSV files as well. Open the DB Manager (menu Database – DB Manager). Then select the database where you want to store your table and click the “Import layer/file” icon.

Icon_to_ClickFrom the Import Vector Layer GUI, locate our CSV file on disk and enter the name of your new table in the Table box and click OK. Yes, it’s that simple. Proceeding this, you may need to select an text encoding scheme, files created on Windows often use ISO-8859-1 (Latin-1) instead of UTF-8 encoding. In my case, I was able to import a large statistical data set describing the energy efficiency of 525,500 Irish homes (432 megabytes) into PostgreSQL in ~15 minutes. After the CSV file is imported, you can optionally add it to your project using the DB Manager, right-click the table and select Add to Canvas. Don’t use the “Add PostGIS Layers” menu, it’s not a PostGIS layer.

Import_GuiAnd one more useful tip. You can convert Tab delimited text to CSV using QGIS. Load a Tab delimited text file into QGIS using the Add Delimited Text Layer GUI, then right click the imported file in the layer panel and save it as a CSV file.

Go2streetview plugin for QGIS

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A very handy plugin for QGIS I use day to day is go2streetview by Enrico Ferreguti. The plugin adds an icon to the tool bar in QGIS and when selected I can click a road or street on a base map and a window will open that displays the Google Street or a Bing Maps Bird’s Eye view of the location. The camera’s direction and location is highlighted by a blue marker. I use the plugin when tracing boundaries of parks, open spaces and foot paths from aerial imagery. If the imagery is blurred or the view is obscured by trees, I click a point on a nearby street to see the location up close. The plugin works wherever Google Street view and Bing Birds Eye has coverage.

For example, in the screen-shot below notice there is a footpath leading to a bus shelter that’s not mapped by OpenStreetMap. I know where it is now, I will add it to my map.

Street View

Plugin: go2streetview