Free Preview of Mastering QGIS

Mastering QGIS is designed to bring users who want to go beyond the basics of QGIS to an advanced level of QGIS expertise.  The book provides step-by-step examples covering the areas of database integration, geoprocessing tools, Python scripts, advanced cartography, and custom plugins.    Mastering QGIS is written by Kurt Menke, GISP, Dr. Richard Smith Jr., GISP, Dr. Luigi Pirelli, Dr. John Van Hoesen, GISP and was recently published in March of 2015.

You can preview the first chapter of Master QGIS for free below.  The first chapter in the book provides readers with a refresher covering QGIS basics, teaching readers how to create, populate, and manage a spatial database and walk through styling GIS data, from creating custom symbols and color ramps to using blending modes.  

Mastering QGIS – Chapter 1: A Refreshing Look at QGIS

QGIS is a volunteer-led development project licensed under the GNU General Public License. It was started by Gary Sherman in 2002. The project was incubated with the Open Source Geospatial Foundation (OSGeo) in 2007. Version 1.0 was released in 2009. As of this writing QGIS 2.6 is the stable version with new versions being released every four months.

This chapter will review the basic functionality of QGIS that will be assumed knowledge for the remaining chapters in this book. If you need a refresher on QGIS, or a quick-start guide to QGIS, you should read this chapter.

To preview the first chapter, click through the topics covered in A Refreshing Look at QGIS:

• QGIS download and installation
• QGIS graphical user interface
• Loading data in QGIS
• Working with coordinate reference systems
• Working with tables in QGIS
• Editing data in QGIS
• Styling vector and raster data in QGIS
• Composing a map in QGIS
• Finding and installing plugins in QGIS

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Mastering QGIS
By: Kurt Menke, GISP, Dr. Richard Smith Jr., GISP, Dr. Luigi Pirelli, Dr. John Van Hoesen, GISP
Published: March 2015