Exercise 1: An Introduction to the QGIS Browser

This exercise will familiarise you with the basic functionality of the QGIS Browser. In this
exercise you will:

 Browse data using the QGIS Browser

 Examine the metadata.

A. Copy Exercise Folder to your Local Drive

1. To do the exercises you will need some data.

2. The data will be provided to you in a single ‘zipped’ file. Create a folder called
‘QGISWorkshop’ on the Desktop or on your C:/drive, open the zipped file and copy or
extract everything to this folder.

B. Browse Data using the QGIS Browser

The Param Tab

1. Start the QGIS Browser application

2. On the lefthand side of the browser, you will see that it looks very much like the Windows
File Explorer application. On the right is the Param Tab (or Parameter Tab). Find the
‘GISTraining’ folder you created in step A2 above by clicking on the arrows to expand the
folders and then find the Exercise1 folder.

3. You should see three sub-folders within the Exercise1 folder. Expand the
VectorMap_District_Vector folder. Notice that there are a series of features contained
in individual shapefiles. Can you tell what these features might be?

4. Now open the Windows File Explorer application and look at these same files. What is
the difference between what you see in the QGIS Browser and Windows File Explorer?

The Preview Tab

1. Click on any one of the spatial data files contained within the folders in Exercise1.

2. Switch to the Preview Tab. Which file did you choose and what did you see plotted? Be
patient as this may take some time to plot or ‘render’ on the screen.

3. Repeat this for other files in these folders. Although you cannot do any analysis using the
QGIS Browser, notice how it allows you to preview your data very quickly.

Exercise 1 – An Introduction to the QGIS Browser 1

© University of Leeds, 2015
4. See if you can find a file that contains airports. Click on it. Change tabs from Preview to
Attributes.

5. What kind of information is found in the attribute file? How many airports are there and
what are the names? Repeat this for a few other files to understand what data are stored
with the actual maps.

C. Examine Metadata

The Metadata Tab

1. Find the file that contains glasshouses, click on it and then click on the Metadata Tab.

2. The default setting in the QGIS Browser populates this area with an item description,
letting you view basic information about the dataset.

3. How many glasshouses are there?

4. What type of data does this file contain, i.e. is it points, lines, polygons or rasters?

5. Who created this file?

The data we examined in this exercise are from the UK Ordnance Survey (OS), obtained
through their Open Data website. As a student you have access to OS data through Digimap
(http://digimap.edina.ac.uk/digimap/home). Alternatively you can download the data freely
from their site:

http://www.ordnancesurvey.co.uk/business-and-government/licensing/using-creating-data-
with-os-products/os-opendata.html

https://www.ordnancesurvey.co.uk/opendatadownload/products.html

The OS has some nice, simple tutorials for using their data with QGIS:

http://www.ordnancesurvey.co.uk/innovate/masterclasses/

Exercise 1 – An Introduction to the QGIS Browser 2

© University of Leeds, 2015