5.10.9.3. SHP + QGIS visualization

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5.10.9.3. SHP + QGIS visualization

 
You can download QGIS from here (1GB download):
 

https://qgis.org/en/site/forusers/download.html
 

The installation wizard is simple and straightforward.

 

 
Let’s now assume that we have two shape files:
 

“SHOPS.shp”: a shape file with the geometry column that contains the coordinates (latitude, longitude) of the shops. One row per shop.
 

“SHOPS_ CATCHMENT_AREA.shp”: a shape file with the geometry column that contains the polygons that defines the catchment area for each shop. One row per shop.

See the section 5.10.13 about the clip1482 Tesselate action for an example on how to compute&create these catchment areas.

 

 
We’ll create a new vizualisation inside QGIS with 3 layers:
 

Bottom layer: the “Open Street Map” Tile layer to have “context”.
 

Middle layer: the catchment areas for all shops (i.e. the geometries from “SHOPS_CATCHMENT_AREA.shp”).
 

Top layer: many dots with the position of the shops and their name/id (i.e. the data from “SHOPS.shp”).

 

 
Here are the steps:
 

1.Run “QGIS Desktop”.
 

2.2. Add the “Open Street Map” layer:
 
2.1 Open the dropdown menu “Layer”, select “Add Layer”, click on “Add XYZ Layer”:
 

clip1483
 
2.2 Select “Open Street Map” number1 (this should be already selected) and click the “Add” button number2:

 

clip1484

 

 

3. Add the layer with the “catchment area” for each shop:

 

 
3.1 Drag&Drop the “SHOPS_ CATCHMENT_AREA.shp” inside the QGis window:

 

clip1496

 
 

clip1487

If you see this error message:
 
clip1488

 

… it means that you have a .shp file but one of the other required accompagnying files (i.e. the .dbf file, the .shx file or the .prj file) is missing.

 
 

3.2 Make this layer semi-transparent:
 

Right-click the new layer number1 and select “Properties” inside the context-menu number2:

 

clip1489

Move the “Opacity” slider to 40%:

 

clip1490

 

 

3.3 Increase the thickness of the border of the geometries: Click on the “Simple Fill” style number1 and increase Stroke width to 0.5 millimeter number2:

 

clip1491

 

 

4. Add the layer with the positions of the shops:

 

4.1 Drag&Drop the “SHOPS.shp” inside the QGis window:
 

clip1497

 

 

4.2 Add Labels to your shops: Right-click the new “SHOPS” layer number1 and select “Show Labels” inside the context-menu number2 (the Labels come from the content of the first column inside the .shp file):

 

clip1494

 

5. (optional) Add decorations: Open the drop-down menu “View”, select “Decorations” and add a “Scale Bar” and a “North Arrow”.

 
6. (optional) Save your design (press [CTRL]+[S]) to be able to reuse your design to quickly produce an updated map with new, updated shape files.

 

 
Here is the final result:

 

clip1495