[Qgis-user] Question on default file formats
Andreas Neumann
a.neumann at carto.net
Tue Jul 28 12:54:53 PDT 2015
Hi Arni,
I think the QGIS community should start an effort to better support the
Geopackage format (or any OGR format) - and should spend some financial
resources to allow a developer to work several days to improve support
for the Geopackage format. I suggested that to the QGIS PSC, but it
doesn't seem to be a priority at the moment. Other issues seem to be
more pressing (such as bug fixing, infrastructure, developer meetings).
However, any organization can come up and fund development to improve
the situation. Or start a crowd-funding initiative to collect financial
ressources from several organizations/people. It is just that noone had
enough resources (money or time) to get rid of the Shapefiles in many
places.
The most difficult problem to solve is Processing with SAGA, but other
than that, at least the "Save AS" and the vector menu could be improved
to offer e.g. Geopackage as default, or let the user choose any OGR format.
If you would start such an initiative I would very much support it. And
who knows - maybe even the QGIS PSC would partially support such an
initiative (maybe also financially).
Andreas
On 28.07.2015 18:20, Árni Geirsson wrote:
> Thank you Alex - that answers my question completely.
>
> Arni
>
>
> Árni Geirsson
> *Alta ehf* // +354 582 5000 // +354 897 9549
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>
> On Tue, Jul 28, 2015 at 4:15 PM, Alex Mandel
> <tech_dev at wildintellect.com <mailto:tech_dev at wildintellect.com>> wrote:
>
> It's more elaborate than that. Not all applications in the toolbox can
> read Spatialite yet either (e.g. SAGA). So the intermediate is
> something
> all the tools can use. At some point the toolbox might get
> developed to
> were any ogr data source can be used for the intermediates, but it
> isn't
> there yet. I ran into this issue with Postgis a couple of years
> ago, and
> the whole point of using Postgis was to escape the limitations of the
> shapefile (particularly file size).
>
> In some ways if you use Spatialite or Postgis you don't actually
> need a
> lot of the basic tools as those can all be done with SQL via the DB
> Manager or QSpatialite.
>
> As for Geopackage, keep in mind it's an exchange format. Even with 2.8
> I've had no issues reading GPKG files in, though I've been
> creating them
> with ogr2ogr on the command line to convert whole databases at a time
> between Spatialite and other formats.
>
> Shapefile still remains the lowest common denominator. I agree other
> formats should be suggested first by the save dialog since shp can
> cause
> data loss (date/time, field names, etc).
>
> Thanks,
> Alex
>
>
> On 07/28/2015 09:04 AM, Árni Geirsson wrote:
> > Thanks for the answer Jim. I understand that the shapefiles are
> lingua
> > franca but to me that would imply that they should be used when
> exchange
> > with other applications is needed - which is not always. But I
> had not
> > realized that I might be constraining the set of available tools
> if I use
> > SpatiaLite. Does this mean that if I have my date in SpatiaLite,
> many of
> > the tools in the Processing toolbox would not be available to me?
> >
> > Arni
> >
> >
> > Árni Geirsson
> > *Alta ehf* // +354 582 5000 <tel:%2B354%20582%205000> // +354
> 897 9549 <tel:%2B354%20897%209549>
> > www.alta.is <http://www.alta.is> // Alta á Twitter
> <http://twitter.com/alta_ehf> // Alta á
> > Facebook <http://www.facebook.com/pages/Alta/161795813838691?v=wall>
> >
> > On Tue, Jul 28, 2015 at 3:54 PM, James Keener <jim at jimkeener.com
> <mailto:jim at jimkeener.com>> wrote:
> >
> >> More tools support it. Spatialite wasn't supported in esri
> until very
> >> recently and other tools may not support anything but shape
> files. It's
> >> become a lingual franca, and like English: it's terrible, but
> works well
> >> enough.
> >>
> >> Jim
> >>
> >> On July 28, 2015 11:38:24 AM AST, "Árni Geirsson" <arni at alta.is <mailto:arni at alta.is>> wrote:
> >>
> >>> Hello
> >>> I find it interesting that the ancient shapefile format is (or
> at least
> >>> appears to be) the default file format for QGIS when
> SpatiaLite seems to be
> >>> a much more capable format. I have been using mostly
> shapefiles and when
> >>> using for example the tools under the vector menu,
> intermediate results are
> >>> saved as shapefiles, leading to a big pile of files after a
> short session
> >>> of vector processing. Now, I have discovered that by using the
> processing
> >>> tools the intermediates can be temporary files (still
> shapefiles, just
> >>> hidden away in a temporary folder). After saving a temporary
> file as a
> >>> SpatiaLite file, I can enter field names longer than 10
> characters but I
> >>> can not add a text field that accommodates more than 255
> characters.
> >>> So my question is: Why is the shapefile format the default?
> >>>
> >>> I have also noticed that with 2.10 I can save in Geopackage
> format. Does
> >>> that mean that support for this format has improved?
> >>>
> >>> Any insights are highly appreciated.
> >>>
> >>> Arni Geirsson
> >>>
> >>> ------------------------------
> >>>
> >>> Qgis-user mailing list
> >>> Qgis-user at lists.osgeo.org <mailto:Qgis-user at lists.osgeo.org>
> >>>http://lists.osgeo.org/mailman/listinfo/qgis-user
> >>>
> >>>
> >> --
> >> Sent from my Android device with K-9 Mail. Please excuse my
> brevity.
> >>
> >
> >
> >
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