Lately I’ve been working on adding native GPS support to QGIS on Android, here is a short video showing how it works. A big thanks goes to the municipality of Schoten in Belgium which sponsored the development. This functionality is included in the latest nightly builds as of yesterday.

GPS tracking on QGIS for android from Marco Bernasocchi on Vimeo.


30 Comments

Jared · 2012-01-31 at 18:06

Is this a plugin we can download? Or will this get released into a future nightly build of QGIS?
You’re bridging the gap for a much anticipated feature to make QGIS very usable in the field!

    marco · 2012-01-31 at 18:09

    This functionality is included in the latest nightly builds as of yesterday.

Giovanni Manghi · 2012-01-31 at 20:43

Thanks Marco! Brillant!

AJS · 2012-01-31 at 21:59

Very, very nice. Congratulations! Nice work!

Paulo · 2012-02-02 at 09:55

Brilliant, I am going to try this out a.s.a.p.

Daniele · 2012-02-09 at 21:31

Well done Marco !
Usefull feature for tablet device.

maxion · 2012-02-14 at 15:17

Thanks Marco!
It was really simple to install Qgis. But which is the App for GPS tracking ? Is it the usual GPS layer import ? Then what are the right configurations?

    marco · 2012-02-14 at 15:46

    Just turn on the gps panel and hit connect. Autodetect should work. If not try internal. Ciao

maxion · 2012-02-14 at 20:00

Sorry but i just dont get it. Which panel? In qgis? Maybe ilnstall it again… did it 4 days ago-on trasformer with android 3.2.1. But probably i am just a little bit silly.

    marco · 2012-02-14 at 20:25

    view -> panels -> gps

      nic · 2012-10-18 at 05:34

      it nothing happens when I do this action.
      My tablet is a Lenovo with Android 3.2.1

maxion · 2012-02-14 at 23:12

Danke ich habs einfach nicht gefunden.

Ludo · 2012-07-24 at 12:00

Salut Marco,
J’ai installé QGIS sur ma GalaxyTab 8.9 et je suis entrain de tester les différentes fonctionnalités qui m’intéressent. Après quelques recherches sur l’utilisation d’un raster ECW j’ai compris qu’il ne fallait pas y compter sur Android, donc j’ai transformé mon gros fichier ecw (1.7go) qui est un scan25 de mon département en plusieurs dalles en .tif (je ne peu pas créer une seule dalle puisque je n’ai pas la licence ermapper nécessaire). Malheureusement cette solution augmente encore la taille des dalles et du coup ca rame fort, j’ai essayé avec une couche raster virtuelle mais je crois que cela rame encore plus! Je suis donc obligé de jouer avec le rendu en fonction de l’échelle et donc de n’activer mon Scan25 qu’au dela d’un certain zoom.
En ce qui concerne cette rubrique sur l’utilsation du GPS, j’ai deux soucis. Premièrement, mes couches sont pour la plupart en Lambert 93 (projection officielle pour la France), et je pense bien que les données du GPS sont en WGS84 ce qui me créer des messages d’erreur (ou d’alerte) lorsque je coche les options de recentrage (reprojection à la volée activée ou non). Deuxième problème plus grave je dirais, comment sauvegarder la trace créée par le GPS? je ne peux pas la sélectionner…
Je vais continuer à chercher de mon coté mais si tu as des réponses je suis preneur.
Merci pour tout ton travail.
Ludo

    marco · 2012-07-30 at 16:12

    mmm sorry was in vacation. to save the gps track you need a layer in editing modus. then you can copy it over. for the warnings, check that there is no custom (wrong) crs active.
    ciao

Anatexis · 2012-08-26 at 06:14

This is a great addition but having real problems. It links to my internal GPS (Asus Transformer 300 Tablet), fiunds my tru location but as soon as I try and move the anywhere it comes up with a long string error and then a final message Error:latitude or longitude exceeds limit. Any ideas?

Michael · 2012-10-23 at 22:00

The new version of necessitas (mid October 2012) changed the appearance of qgis and the menu bar moved to the softkeys. Since then it is not possible to make the “view/panels” show up. (GalaxyTab7.7, ICS)
Is there a way to reinstall older versions of necessitas or any other way to access the gps-information-panel?
Many thanks!

    marco · 2012-10-25 at 06:35

    working on it. It is a known issue that should be fixed in the next release of necessitas

      Michael · 2012-10-25 at 10:14

      alright. waiting impatiently…
      thank you for your work on qgis for android. even with its bugs, it’s far ahead of most of the other gis-solutions.
      whom do i have to support, to push forward fixing that necessitas issue? is it you?
      regards

Rick · 2013-01-06 at 00:55

Hi Marco, I tried your latest work (qgis-bug304240-workaround.apk; 25-Nov-2012 09:21 100M) on ASUS Transformer TF300T with 4.1 android OS and I found bugs on GPS Information. Some icons on GPS Information are missing and GPS reading is also missing. FYI. Kudos!

Anne Leschallier · 2013-01-16 at 22:24

Hi Marco,
Thanks a lot for your work and wish you an happy new year full of detected bugs which would mean your App is highly used by people everywhere!
I got a samsung galaxy tab 10.2 with Gps. I installed QGIS for Android last november.
I followed the link: View/Panels, but QGIS doesnt propose me GPS. Nothing happens. I tried also to install the compass plugin, unsuccessfull.
Although it works perfectly on OSMAND, so I m wondering what i should do.
Your work is the beginning of great mapping stories, I hope you’ll reply,
Thanks
Anne

    marco · 2013-01-16 at 22:56

    please install the workaround version found here
    ciao

robin · 2013-01-24 at 00:56

here’s kind of a silly question, but i’m new to this and can’t figure it out…. how do i get the menu bar at the top? it’s not available in anything on my tablet? i can’t even GET to view to turn on the GPS! dying to try this out – looks amazing for some helicopter survey work we’ll be doing!!

marco · 2013-01-24 at 00:59

the latest necessitas libs mimic android menues. so you need to click the android menu button. to get the gps working you’ll need to install the workaround version from this site.

ScottF · 2013-02-04 at 18:55

This looks like a really interesting development. Could this be extended into a data capture tool along the lines of Arcpad or Terrasync? We capture tree data and feel stuck with Windows Mobile 6.5 or Windows 7. We’d really welcome, and would support, an Android-based tool to capture accurate gps points and polygons and create forms.
Anyone else sick of WM 6.5?

azrin · 2013-06-06 at 16:37

Hi, im new with qgis android based. I just noticed that my galaxy tab 10.1 sometimes hard to load shapefile data. Is there a maximum/minimum data size that can be uploaded using qgis android? Is there any suggestion if i intend to upload the state land parcel data (>1gb size data) in qgis android?

Azrin · 2013-06-07 at 06:34

Thank you. It works on my Galaxy Tab 10.1 …

Oleh · 2013-06-28 at 19:09

Good day!
Unfortunately “Add feature” and “Add track point” buttons are inactive even when gps connected. Position cursor disabled as well. Simultaneously gps-position is detected. Tablet Samsung Galaxy Tab 2 7.0, Android 4.0, QGIS version qgis-nightly-bug304240-workaround-armeabi.apk (qgis-nightly-20130124-armeabi.apk had a same problems on my tablet).

Oleh · 2013-07-31 at 11:28

Sorry, I was a stupid! Everything work right! Thank you, Marco!

Scott Close · 2014-06-07 at 22:41

Update to the site, trying to catch as many viewers as possible- QGIS for android works well, but the GPS accuracy will climb to unreasonable accuracies (+/- 50 to 200m!!) after a few minutes. The location *appears* to be accurate, but the accuracies are incorrectly reporting. Thoughts???

glendmar huera · 2014-09-25 at 02:50

HELLO QGIS developers. how about one database ine QGIS and in android? is it possible? what i mean is. if i will update the QGIS . it will also update the android apps? because i made the same MAP in QGIS and android. but in QGIS it is CUSTOMIZED map. then in android its from google map. my main is what will i do to have a one database in QGIS and in android.

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