Opening And Viewing Data

Opening data in QGIS is pretty easy and can be done in just a few clicks. The main two tools that you will use are Vector Layers and Raster Layers. They both work pretty similar to each other, but they open different file types.

The first tool I’ll be showing is Vector Layers. There are actually a few settings that determine the file type you can open, which I’ll show in the photos down below.

File and Directory are the main Source Types that you will use, I have yet to come across anything that needs one of the other three Source Types

File doesn’t have anything special that needs to be selected, which makes it pretty straightforward and is the primary Source Type for Vector Layers, allowing you to open .shp, .kml and .gpx.

Shapefiles can store all kinds of data, but this is contour lines

Directory is for opening GDB or Geodatabase Folders, which requires a few extra steps to open compare to File, but is still pretty easy.

Geodatabase Folders are very similar to Shapefiles, but it can hold a lot more data

Now I will show you how to open Raster Layers, which are one of the fastest layers to open, and also how to extract contours from them.

Hillshade is an amazing feat of technology

Extracting contours from a Raster Layer isn’t that hard, and doing such yields better contours then if you changed the render type to contours.

Contours are more helpful for knowing elevation changes then hillshade, but both are very useful

And there you have it, all the basics of what to do to get LiDAR data up and running. Now you can start exploring areas and rediscovering waterfalls all over. I plan on adding tips and tricks for QGIS, but it won’t be a high priority thing, so you’ll just have to check occasionally to see if anything has been added. Link for Tips & Tricks.