This project resulted in Mergin Maps!
Crowdfunding Status: Completed
Introduction
Smartphones and tablets are now everywhere and we think the power of QGIS should be available on these devices too. Mobile devices are extremely useful for field work, especially for capturing new data and evaluating and improving existing data. Mobile GIS applications need to be optimised for touch screens with simpler user interfaces than their desktop counterparts.
There has already been some community interest in bringing QGIS to tablets. There is already IntraMaps Roam - a data collection app with a touch-optimised interface. Unfortunately it is limited to devices running MS Windows. There is also an experimental Android port of QGIS, however it features QGIS' full desktop user interface which has various usability issues on touch screens. We believe desktop and mobile apps live in different worlds and therefore need different approaches - just like the full desktop user interface for MS Word or Excel would not work well on mobile devices, neither does GIS' full desktop interface. More recently, there was a substantial amount of work done on the QField application which shows a lot of promise: it is based on QGIS' libraries and uses the Qt Quick framework for its user interface. Qt Quick introduces a new approach to building beautiful and dynamic user interfaces for mobile devices. The downside is that QGIS does not currently have common components (e.g. CRS selector) for the Qt Quick framework, so projects like QField need to reimplement existing QGIS functionality for the Qt Quick framework.
We would like to base our work on existing efforts and build a common QGIS Mobile library. This library would become part of the official QGIS project and would provide what we consider to be some of the missing pieces to custom data collection apps like QField and could even facilitate the development of an "official" touch interface for QGIS. For data collection, we believe a single app cannot satisfy all possible workflows and required customizations, so it is therefore important to have a common framework within the QGIS project facilitating the development of custom mapping apps. Just like QGIS' desktop plugin architecture allows great flexibility to introduce custom functionality, a QGIS Mobile library should provide strong groundwork for mobile mapping apps.
Project Details
We plan to develop a mobile/tablet framework for QGIS. This will include:
- Creating a new QGIS Mobile library (based on the QGIS Core library)
- Featuring touch optimised GUI components based on Qt Quick
- Basic mapping components - map canvas, layer tree (legend), GPS position, scale bar, markers
- Support for capturing new features
- Feature forms for displaying and editing attributes
- Tools for seamless data sync to/from desktop
- Creating a demo app
- For showcasing the new QGIS Mobile library features
- Working on Android and desktop environments
The development will be contributed back to the core QGIS project.
Please note, we will not be able to incorporate any costumisation within the demo app. If you require a bespoke app or would like to run it on another platform (e.g. iOS), this will need to be implemented as a separate project.
If you have a technical question or would like to discuss this project further please contact Martin, the primary project developer.
Crowdfunding
This is a crowdfunded project. Crowdfunding spreads the burden of development costs for projects that benefit the wider QGIS community. Find out more below and on our main crowdfunding page.
| Project Duration* | 3 weeks |
| Project start date* | 01/09/2016 (or as soon as the campaing reached its target fund - depends on the availability) |
| Crowdfunding Started | TBD |
| Crowdfunding Deadline | TBD |
| Crowdfunding Goal (ex. VAT) | £7425 |
| Minimum donation (ex. VAT) | £100 |
* Project start date and duration are indicative.
Support this Project
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