QGIS#

Note

The instructions on this page are written primarily for Windows operating systems. If you are using a different operating system (e.g., MacOS, Linux), you can still download

Note

On Windows, you will need to have administrator rights to your machine in order to install QGIS.

To install QGIS, all you need to do is visit the downloads page and select the installer for your operating system.

Once the file downloads, locate it on your computer (most likely, in your Downloads folder), then double-click on it to start the installer.

If you install QGIS using the Windows installer, it should automatically include both SAGA GIS and GRASS GIS, two additional programs that extend the power of QGIS.

To check this, look at the QGIS Start menu folder (Start > All Apps > QGIS). You should see these programs installed as well:

the QGIS start menu folder, showing that QGIS, GRASS GIS, SAGA GIS, and other programs are installed


If you see QGIS, SAGA GIS, and GRASS GIS in the Start menu folder, you can skip to the qgis plugins section below.

If you do not see these programs, you can follow the instructions in the next two sections below to install them.

saga gis#

To download and install SAGA GIS by itself, visit the downloads page for the project. Download the installer for your operating system (for Windows, this is likely to be saga-{version}_x64_setup.exe, where {version} is the software version).

Once the installer downloads, run the installer, following the instructions given.

grass gis#

To download and install GRASS GIS, visit the downloads page for the project. Find your operating system, then select the Standalone installer for the current version of GRASS GIS.

Warning

Make sure to download the installer for your operating system, and not the source code! You are welcome to try to compile and install the software from source, but it is likely to be much more difficult than using the installer!

qgis plugins#

Once you have downloaded and installed QGIS, and ensured that both GRASS GIS and SAGA GIS are installed, you can finish the setup by installing the plugins for both programs1.

First, open QGIS. You should see something like the following:

the blank QGIS window


To install/manage plugins, open the manager from the Plugins menu (Plugins > Manage and Install Plugins). You should see something like the following:

the qgis plugins manager, showing that 1389 plugins are available (!)


As you can see, there are a huge number of user-created plugins available in QGIS. We’re only going to install two at the moment, but feel free to have a browse to see if you can find anything useful.

To install the SAGA plugin, type “saga” into the search bar at the top of the window. You should see two options - make sure to select Processing Saga NextGen Provider:

the qgis plugin manager, with "saga" as the search term and the "processing saga nextgen provider" plugin selected


Once you have selected the plugin, click Install Plugin to install it. After a moment, you should see the plugin finish installing:

the qgis plugin manager, with the "processing saga nextgen provider" plugin installed


Now, delete “saga” from the search bar, then type in “grass”. Again, you should see a few options here - make sure to select GRASS GIS Processing Provider:

the qgis plugin manager, with the "grass gis processing provider" plugin selected


It may already be installed; if not, you can install it the same way that you did for SAGA, by clicking Install Plugin. Finally, check what plugins you have installed by clicking on the Installed tab in the manager:

the qgis plugin manager, showing all installed plugins


QGIS installs some plugins by default, though it doesn’t necessarily enable them. You can enable (or disable) plugins by checking (or unchecking) the box next to each one. We can see here that both SAGA and GRASS processing are installed and enabled - as long as this is the case, you can close the plugin manager and return to the main window.

To access the functions provided by SAGA, GRASS (and other) plugins, you can open the Processing toolbox (Processing > Toolbox), which will open as a panel on the right side of the window:

the blank QGIS window, with the processing toolbox shown at the right side of the window


You should be able to see the built-in QGIS functions, as well as functions provided by GDAL (for working with rasters), GRASS, and SAGA.

At this point, you can move on to the next step of the setup - installing Orfeo ToolBox.

notes#

1

Both GRASS GIS and SAGA GIS are standalone GIS programs in their own right (as you will see in this module). We can use many of the functions provided by GRASS, SAGA, and other programs provided by other users - you can even write your own!