Contents

Installation of IPTIM Connector        

Log in into IPTIM connector.        

Common editing tasks        

Add a new compartment        

Split compartments        

Expand or shrink existing compartment        

Copy compartments from another layer        

Merge two or more compartments        

Calculate area        

Delete compartments        

Save and upload        

Installation of IPTIM Connector

For QGIS to work with IPTIM a plugin is needed, to install the Ar. The plugin is an archive file, that needs to be extracted and copied to the QGIS plugin folder. The plugin folder varies by operations system and what version of QGIS installed.

For OSgeo4W32 or 64 put the plugin in this directory.

C:\OSGeo4W64\apps\qgis\python\plugins

OS X

~/.qgis2/python/plugins 

Windows standalone install

C:\Users\<username>\.qgis2\python\plugins

After the files are extract into the plugin directory

  1. Start QGIS
  2. Open the menu (plugins > Manage and install)
  3. Activate – then click close.
  4. The IPTIM logo will show on your toolbar.

C:\Users\jsandv\AppData\Local\Temp\IPTIM connect.PNG

Log in into IPTIM connector.

Warning, only one session can be active towards IPTIM. Therefore, make sure you save any work and log out of IPTIM before starting an editing session. If the IPTIM Icon is not on your toolbar, check installation and if the plugin is activated under (Plugins - > Manage and install Plugins). For more details, look at the IPTIM Connector installation.

  1. Click the IPTIM icon
  2. The server and client are the same as IPTIM client
  3. Same username and password as IPTIM.
  4. Click log in.

Figure 1 Iptim connect load

After login, the project will be listed on the left and the data on the right. Select the data set you want to edit and click load selected.  

Figure 2 Iptim connect load or save

After loading the compartment stand, you can add any GIS layer that you needed. This can for example be Google Satellite images using the openlayer plugin, drone images, satellite images or any vector data. It is recommended to load additional GIS data after the QGIS connector has loaded the standing register, this is to eliminate any potential issues with projection and datum

Common editing tasks

This part shows some common editing tasks in QGIS.

Add a new compartment

Use the add feature (Ctrl +) function in QGIS in Editing Tool Bar

  1. Editing must be enabled
  2. Click on the add feature tool and start marking the boundary of the compartment.  
  3. After this is completed, right click and put in the relevant forest information.  (in version 14 of QGIS your edits will temporary disappear while entering stand information.) After this is completed, right click and put in forest information.  Leave “uid” blank. Also look at your compartment structure, some of the information can only be added as numbers. Look at your compartment structure.

C:\Users\jsandv\AppData\Local\Temp\Image.png

Split compartments

Use the split features in the Advance Digitizer Toolbar

  1. Editing must be enabled
  2. Click on the Split features  
  3. If the split is success two compartments are created. Make sure to update with compartment names and calculate area.

Expand or shrink existing compartment

  1. Editing must be enabled
  2. Click on the reshape feature and mark the boundary you want to change.
  3. After this is completed, right click and the boundary goes from red (editing) to white (current) The colour will depend on how you have configured

Copy compartments from another layer

  1. Editing must be enabled for target layer.
  2. Load the layer where you want to copy data from. (use add data)
  3. Select you the compartments you want to copy from using the select tool, after selection copy using ctrl + c or the edit menu.
  4. Select the destination layer and ctrl + v. Only attribute information that is the same as target and source will be copied over.

C:\Users\jsandv\AppData\Local\Temp\Image.png

Merge two or more compartments

  1. Editing must be enabled
  2. Select the stands you want merge, using the select function. (Ctrl + select)
  3. Click on the merge selected features, the line merge is where the information will be

Calculate area

  1. First open the attribute table (right click on the layer and click on attribute table, in the example this is called stand)
  2. The attribute table shows a list of all compartments. Open the field calculator.  
  3. In the field calculator, you are going to update the area which already exists. Click on the “update existing field” and select area from the drop down menu.
  4.  The last step is to write the following expression $area / 10000. $Area calculate area in Square meters to get it in hectare, dividing by 10000. Click ok.
  5. C:\Users\jsandv\AppData\Local\Temp\Image.png

Delete compartments

There are a couple of options when deleting compartments. Keep in mind is that deleting compartments will also delete them in IPTIM. If you delete a compartment by mistake use the undo button or discard editing and start over again.

  1. Use the “Delete selected” in the Editing Toolbar
  2. Open attribute table and “Delete selected Feature”

Save and upload

After updating the GIS data, the next step is to upload the changes. For this to go smoothly the following steps are recommended.

  1. Check that all relevant compartment data is update
  1. Compartment names
  2. Species
  3. Calculate area
  1. Stop editing and save
  2. Open the QGIS connector window and click on “Save and Upload”. If you want to discard the editing, click “Discard and Unload”.
  3. If you get an error message look at the following the error log (View > Panels > Log Message panels). The QGIS Connector has some built in test before uploading data to the server.