Mergin Maps: a mobile app for surveying

Update: Input has been renamed as Mergin Maps as of May 2022

We are pleased to announce the first public release of Mergin Maps. Mergin Maps is a Free and Open Source mobile application built on top of QGIS.

Why Mergin Maps?

Collecting data is often an essential part of a geo-data management workflow. The problems we have tried to resolve with Mergin Maps:

• A mobile app: to collect the data. The app has an intuitive interface. Similar to Google Maps, you don't need to read a whole bunch of documentation to be able to use the app.
• Data synchronisation: a collaborative way of managing the data. We provide Mergin, a central storage, where data administrators can upload their data/projects for their users to change in the field. Changes made to the data through Mergin Maps will be tracked and can be uploaded to Mergin. Likewise, data administrators can propagate changes to their users by updating the files on Mergin.  

How to use Mergin Maps?

You can set up your projects in QGIS. Mergin Maps is based on QGIS, so it can read all data and services (e.g. Shapefile, Geopackage, TIF, WMS, XYZ tiles, WFS, etc) available in QGIS.

You can customise your forms and identify panel for the layers to be surveyed. Mergin Maps uses Display tags and Map Themes to better view the data.

You can then upload your data and projects to Mergin and share them with your users. Permissions to users to read/write the project can be granted through Mergin.

Mergin Maps can be installed from Google Play Store. Users will be able to log in to the their Mergin account and download the projects.

Within the app, users can capture geometries (e.g. points, lines and polygons). Capturing of data can be free-hand, or it can be achieved by streaming the GPS locations and generating vertices.

Forms can be easily edited based on the widgets users have set up in the QGIS project. For example, you can add photos, notes, dates, etc to the digitised features.

Mergin Maps keeps track of changes and you can upload the changes back to Mergin from within the app.

Feedback

If you'd like to use Mergin Maps and Mergin within your enterprise environment, please contact us so that we can provide you with a dedicated hosting and no data limit.