Datum transformations with grid shift files are used in several countries to convert coordinates between different datums. In Switzerland, datum transformation using the NTv2 method is important because of the upcoming conversion between the LV03 system and the new LV95 system. Up to now, doing coordinate transformations with grid shift files was possible in QGIS, but unconvenient. To use an NTv2 transformation in QGIS, the grid shift file needs to be placed in a directory where proj4 can find it (usually /usr/share/proj on Linux and OSGeo4W\share\proj on Windows). Read on

The city of Winterthur recently launched their new public map portal, based on Mapfish Appserver. Some of the features are outlined in the online help (in German). Mobile users are redirected to the OL3 Mobile Viewer, which is based on OpenLayers 3 and jQuery Mobile. To have a look at it from your desktop browser follow this link. In contrary to the desktop version, most of the background layers are delivered as tiles and only topic layers are full size WMS requests. Read on

Nowadays, most computers have several processor cores. However, most computer programs are still designed to only use one processing unit. As a convenient and portable way of writing software using all the available processing power, Qt provides the excellent QtConcurrent framework. In 2010, a Google Summer of Code project examined the suitabilty of using Qt concurrent for rendering the map image in QGIS using several processor cores. Following that approach, each layer renders its image in a separate thread. Read on

Der OpenSource-Park auf der Intergeo wächst weiter! In diesem Jahr findet die Intergeo vom 8. bis 10. Oktober in Essen statt. Der OpenSource-Park befindet sich in Halle 1, Stand Nr. H1.033. Das OpenStreetMap Projekt ist mit dem Stand H1.040 gleich neben dem OpenSource-Park vertreten.. Auch auf der diesjährigen Hauptmesse der Geo-Informatik-Branche, der Intergeo, wird es wieder eine zentrale Anlaufstelle für alle Besucher geben, die sich über professionelle OpenSource-Anwendungen informieren wollen. Die Zahl der ausstellenden Firmen auf dem OpenSource-Park ist gegenüber dem Vorjahr nochmals um 50% angewachsen. Read on

Printing is always one of the more difficult parts in a web mapping application. There are solutions like the MapFish Print module or the built-in QGIS WYSIWYG PDF printing. But very often users do not want only a map on their print output, but collected information stored in a database with images, etc. - and a matching map. This is the domain of database reporting tools like JasperReports. They provide desktop tools for designing complex reports with texts, graphics, images, tables, etc. Read on