Hi Tom: >From what I read between the lines of your message, I gather that you have data in a text file, and a separate shape file of towns, with no connection between them. And you want to display the shape file in a map with each town appearing differently, depending on some data from the separate text file. Am I on the right track?
Well, QGIS does not yet have any way to "join" between a GIS layer and a separate data file. All the data must be contained in the shapefile's table of attributes. This table is stored in a "dbf" file with the same name as the shapefile. (You might already know this: each shapefile is composed of at least 3 disk files: i.e. towns.shp, towns.shx and towns.dbf). You can open the shapefile's dbf part in a spreadsheet program like OpenOffice calc (or MS Excel), and then you can add additional columns (attributes) to the dbf from you ascii data file. Next copy-paste the actual data from the ascii file into the proper columns. I *highly suggest* you save a backup copy of the original shapfile dbf file just in case something goes wrong. That way you wan't loose your whole shapefile. Now open the shapefile with the edited dbf in QGIS and you will be able to use the data for displaying, labeling, etc... Cheers, Micha >-----Original Message----- >From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] >[mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] On Behalf Of Tom Sgouros >Sent: Monday, November 26, 2007 4:11 PM >To: [email protected] >Subject: [Qgis-user] getting started for a complete GIS beginner > > >Hello all: > >Can anyone point me to an example of how to get started with >QGIS? I was pointed to QGIS by a number of people who >suggested it was an easy way to get started in GIS. So I >downloaded it, and it works, but I still can't figure out how >to do what I need to get done. > >I have an ESRI shape file for some town boundaries, and I have >some data for those towns. I used the shape file to draw a >nice map of the towns. >It's all blue, and I don't know why yet, but it looks nice, >and that's fine. But for the life of me I can't find the >correctly shaped slot through which to slip the data I want to >display. What I have is an ASCII (ok, UTF-8) table of data, >with different scalar values for each town, and what I want is >a map, with each town colored according to the values of the >data. What do I need to do to get this data onto my map? >What do I call this data in order to make sense of the manual? > Do I need to start a PostGIS server somewhere? I only have a >few dozen towns here. > >(I'm on a Mac, OSX 10.4.9, trying to use QGIS version 0.9, and >the GRASS menus don't appear. I think I understand how I >should have run things to see them, but don't know if that is >essential for what I'm trying to accomplish. The relationship >between GRASS and QGIS remains a little mysterious to me, and >if enlightening me on that point will help me understand my >problem, please do.) > >Because I've been browsing the archives of this list, I have >to suggest that there are a couple of forms of help that I >don't need. One is pointers to the QGIS manual, which I've >looked at, and I'm sure is a great book, once you already >understand the important concepts. For me, I'm beginner >enough that I don't know whether the data I want to chart is >(or should be) a vector layer, raster layer, a PostGIS layer >or something else (none of them sound right to me), so I find >myself unable to make any sense of the help in the book. I >also don't need a pointer to a block diagram or general >overview about how GIS systems work. At this point, I feel I >could draw them in my sleep, but arrows pointing from "data" >icons to little "map" icons don't address the problem I'm >having which is where is the place to start learning about >using this particular GIS system on my data? > >Many thanks in advance for indulging my ignorance on all this, > > -Tom > > >-- > ------------------------ > tomfool at as220 dot org > http://sgouros.com > http://whatcheer.net >_______________________________________________ >Qgis-user mailing list >[email protected] >http://lists.qgis.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/qgis-user > > > >This mail was sent via Kinneret Mail-SeCure System. > > > _______________________________________________ Qgis-user mailing list [email protected] http://lists.qgis.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/qgis-user
