QGIS Tutorial
Quantum GIS (or QGIS, or Quantum Geographic Information System) is a “free, open source geographic information system.” It provides a way for non-programmers to create maps using GIS information.
This tutorial will walk you through the basics of using QGIS to create SOS- formatted maps, by going through the creation of the Earthquakes and Nuclear Power Plants dataset, the Marine Life dataset, the Global Statistics dataset, and a few maps that are not currently part of the SOS collection.
Further Resources
Permalink to Further ResourcesAn excellent set of general tutorials can be found on qgistutorials.com. Thank you to Ujaval Gandhi for providing these to QGIS users free of charge. Additionally, you should read SOS’s Content Creation Guidelines before creating your map. There is a lot of information in there that can save you from having to redo an entire project.
Tips
Permalink to TipsQGIS can be finicky. Please save your project often.
QGIS often has trouble exporting very high resolution images. The SOS team recommends that users use the lowest resolution images that still look good on the sphere — in most cases, that means a resolution of 2048×1024 pixels for simple maps and 4096×2048 pixels for maps with intricate details.
Links for all the data used in this tutorial are provided. In cases where the links are no longer valid, a copy of all the files used is available here: