GIS Basics

This post will cover shapefiles, rasters, and WorldClim data in QGIS. Be sure QGIS is installed. Mac users see this post.

Rasters

• Open raster
• WorldClim data- bio1.bil (valid raster format)
• geotiff
• Load actual min/max values
• Visualize with color
• Add hue
• Singleband pseudocolor
• View histogram
• View metadata
• Raster math

Vectors (Shapefiles)

• Open shapefile
• View tabular data
• Declare coordinate reference system/reproject
• Field calculator:
• Add field, calculate geometry
• Be sure layer projection is in desired unit of measurement

Create shapefile from csv (includes lat/lon)

• Import CSV- lat/lon fields
• Project data as needed

QGIS Map Composer

• Add mapp
• Add legend
• Add scalebar
• Export map

Reference Systems

See spatialreference.org for details of each projection.

Sir Nathan Casler’s explanation of reference system’s: SpatialCarpentry.github.io

Raster

Standard global raster projection is plate carrée or known as the equidistant cylindrical projection.

Vector

Web standard is EPSG:3857.

See SpatialCarpentry.github.io for detailed explanations and exercises.