[Qgis-developer] QGIS + Inkscape

[Larry Shaffer]

Hi Brylie,

On Sun, Mar 18, 2012 at 7:40 PM, Brylie Oxley <brylie at gnumedia.org> wrote:
...
> I would like to make an extension for QGIS and/or Inkscape that would enable
> us to send data from QGIS directly to Inkscape. It would also be nice to be
> able to have Inkscape leverage the QGIS API to import data/layers into a
> cartographic project.

You may want to look at Richard Duivenvoorde's Simple SVG plugin
written in Python [0][1].

He's done an excellent job of getting useable SVG out of QGIS and into
Inkscape. His plugin can be installed via the QGIS Plugin Installer
(aka, Plugins/Fetch Python Plugins... menu item).

There is also some info on Inkscape's wiki [2]. I use the awesome,
though very expensive, MAPublisher Illustrator plugin [3], but would
love to move over to a FOSS solution. If Inkscape had a plugin with
MAPublisher's basic functionality, you wouldn't necessarily need an
export plugin for QGIS; Inkscape would just be able to use GIS data.

> I am glad to get any feedback regarding users' experiences sharing data
> between these two programs. I would also like to know what some of the
> components are that I can leverage to create a bridging extension/improved
> cartographic interface for QGIS.

There is certainly a lot that can be done with integrating the two
projects now. It seems Python would be the best scripting glue[4].
Check out the PyQGIS Cookbook and repositories for more info [5].
Beyond data sharing/syncing via Python, true GUI integration may be
very difficult because Inkscape uses GTK+ and QGIS use Qt.

Another solution might be to write a plugin for Inkscape that works
with a web mapping service to pull in and create features, much like
QGIS's web mapping service layers. Look into QGIS's Server for
creating a test server [6]. Currently you can create PDF output with
QGIS Server, so it seems probable it might be able to be made to
output SVG as well.

I, for one, would be very interested in testing any plugins you make
concerning this.

Regards,

Larry Shaffer
Dakota Cartography
Black Hills, South Dakota

[0] http://www.duif.net/qgis/simplesvg/
[1] http://plugins.qgis.org/plugins/simplesvg/
[2] http://wiki.inkscape.org/wiki/index.php/Geo_Inkscape
[3] http://www.avenza.com/mapublisher
[4] http://wiki.inkscape.org/wiki/index.php/Generating_objects_from_extensions
[5] http://www.qgis.org/pyqgis-cookbook/
[5] http://hub.qgis.org/projects/quantum-gis/wiki/Python_Plugin_Repositories
[6] http://hub.qgis.org/projects/quantum-gis/wiki/QGIS_Server_Tutorial