Add support for georeferencing vector layers in georeferencer (Request in QGIS)

[qgis-bot]

Request for documentation

From pull request QGIS/qgis#47577 Author: @nyalldawson QGIS version: 3.26

Add support for georeferencing vector layers in georeferencer

PR Description:

Allows vector layers without spatial referencing to be interactively georeferenced (or layers with referencing to be re-referenced!).

Georeferencing occurs in a task, so it remains nice and responsive even with massive layers.

Sponsored by the Danish QGIS Usergroup

This PR builds on the work started by @roya0045 in https://github.com/qgis/QGIS/pull/41386 -- full credit to Alex for the groundwork here!

Fixes #41300

Commits tagged with [need-docs] or [FEATURE]

"[feature] Add support for georeferencing vector layers in georeferencer\n\nAllows vector layers without spatial referencing to be interactively\ngeoreferenced (or layers with referencing to be re-referenced!)\n\nSponsored by the Danish QGIS Usergroup"

[mikedufty]

Documentation currently says to find Georeferencer in the Raster menu, but it has now moved to the Layer menu. Not sure if this should be part of the same request or a separate one as it might be an easy fix to allow people to find where it has gone.

[kgjenkins]

It looks like the menu name was already updated to "Layer" in https://github.com/qgis/QGIS-Documentation/blob/master/docs/user_manual/working_with_raster/georeferencer.rst

The change can be seen in https://docs.qgis.org/testing/en/docs/user_manual/working_with_raster/georeferencer.html#usual-procedure

But https://docs.qgis.org/latest/en/docs/user_manual/working_with_raster/georeferencer.html#usual-procedure still redirects to version 3.22 docs which has the old menu name "Raster".

How/when does a new documentation version get released?

[DelazJ]

But https://docs.qgis.org/latest/en/docs/user_manual/working_with_raster/georeferencer.html#usual-procedure still redirects to version 3.22 docs

That is what latest is: the latest LTR. We only document LTR; not enough man power for a decent documentation every 4 months

How/when does a new documentation version get released?

When a new LTR is released, i.e. 3.28 in a couple of weeks.

[selmaVH1]

@DelazJ can we consider this description as enough for this PR or it would be good to add a new subsection in this chapter? Or somewhere else, what do you think?

[DelazJ]

@selmaVH1 I'd go with a mix of your suggestions, i.e. a "somewhere else that helps us keep a single place to describe entirely the georeferencer tool for both raster and vector layers". So neither under "working with raster" nor "working with vector" chapters. And in such a case, I think we'd need more changes to the text. E.g. the second sentence refers to images only I think (I've never georeferenced a vector but wouldn't expect a geotiff as output). And I think later in the document there are some references to "raster layer"/"geotiff" that should probably be made generic. Or we clarify earlier that we'll be using a raster layer as example (I didn't read the existing docs in details to tell if that scenario would be easier though, and do not know if same treatments apply to vectors).

The tricky question is what could be that "somewhere else" place for the unified chapter. And TBH I don't really know, no strong idea:

• as its own top level chapter? Then where in the TOC? before "working with vector"?
• as a new page in "Managing data source"?
• another suggestion...?

[selmaVH1]

@DelazJ Considering that georeferencing applies to both raster and vector data, I would expect, as a user, a dedicated section in the documentation explaining this tool comprehensively, so I agree that it shouldn't be in chapters dedicated specifically to vector or raster, although it wouldn't hurt to mention it briefly ( with or without examples) in those chapters. Keeping in mind that Georeferencer is commonly used GIS tool and support for vector layers in this tool is a great thing maybe it deserves its own top-level chapter, but adding a new page within the "Managing data source" chapter seems like the appropriate solution, so yes, it is tricky question... I plan to try out the georeferencer tool for vectors to see if I can come up with any additional suggestions.