[QGIS-Developer] Profile plugins

[Paolo Cavallini]

Hi Javier,

On 27/08/19 10:54, Javier Becerra Elcinto wrote:

> (Current maintainers of ProfileTool here.)
> 
> I agree with you that having multiple plugins for the same task (given
> the limited resources available) seems far from an ideal situation, and
> would be glad to collaborate with other developers to join forces in a
> unified solution.

Glad you agree.

> I am not aware of the situation of the other plugins at the moment, (we
> checked on both "VoGIS Profile Tool" and "qProf" and decided to work on
> Profile Tool when we had to make a choice), but here goes my status
> report on Profile Tool codebase/functionality/documentation/support. It
> would be nice if we could get a feature list from the other plugins, see
> what is missing/what users find important in every plugin, and trace a
> 'unification routemap' from there.

Agreed fully, this seems the best approach.

> Codebase:
> 
> -We made quite a refactoring effort during migration to QGis 3 to keep
> ui and calculations mostly separated. There are still some minor changes
> to do, but we are close to get there.

a sane thing to do for sure

> -We have no unit tests, and this is something that should be worked on.
> 
> -Some parts of the code would appreciate a little love to use more
> pythonic/dry constructions.
> 
> -We got rid of most of the stability issues (crashes and python errors),
> though some may still remain.
> 
> Functionality:
> 
> -Profile plotted along an interactively defined path, a polyline
> selected interactively or a vector layer.
> 
> -Elevation information can be taken from raster and mesh layers.
> Multiple layers can be added to obtain several profiles simultaneously.
> 
> -Profile can show height (i.e. the raster value), or slope (in % or deg)
> 
> -Profile can be sampled all along the input line or only on specified
> input points.
> 
> -Profiles can be exported as an image with axes, labels etc in png or
> svg format, and as a 3D polyline / 2D profile on dxf format (using
> pyqtgraph backend) and also PDF and PostScript when using Matplotlib.
> 
> -Profile can be exported in text/csv format (on the table tab).
> 
> -This is experimental and not documented, but thanks to refactoring
> ProfileTool can be controlled from another plugin/algorithm, feeding
> points programatically to create a 'live' profile.
> 
> -Supports PyQtGraph or Matplotlib backend (not really sure on why there
> is a need to support both backends).
> 
> -GUI feels a bit crowded, with many controls and tabs, I think that we
> can do better.

a very thorough description, thanks

> Documentation
> 
> -No user manual, there are however some tutorials available on blogs,
> webs, etc.
> 
> -Not much code documentation.
> 
> Support:
> 
> -We are currently on maintenance mode, fixing bugs and making minor
> modifications/adding small features when possible, but we have less time
> and resources to work on this than we would like. Next year we may be
> able to put some more work on it.

Thanks again, looking forward for other devs' comments.

Cheers.
-- 
Paolo Cavallini - www.faunalia.eu
QGIS.ORG Chair:
http://planet.qgis.org/planet/user/28/tag/qgis%20board/