It’s been a couple of busy weeks, with the QGIS 4.2 release and meetings and conferences all over the place before a few, hopefully quieter, weeks of summer break.

QGIS

First, the Austrian QGIS user group met online on 25 June. The topic was webmapping, with multiple users presenting their webmapping solutions, ranging from Lizmap to QGIS Cloud.

A few days later, QGIS 4.2 was released on 3 July 2026. This release is named Belém do Pará, after the Brazilian city that hosted both FOSS4G and a QGIS user meeting back in 2024. MundoGEO has the details on the naming, if you’re curious about the backstory. Worth noting: 4.2 “Belém do Pará” will be the next LTR, so if you’re using the long-term release, this is the one to watch for.

On a side note, while designing the Belém splash screen, it was interesting to see that historic maps of Belém don’t have north at the top. Instead, they’re rotated with north pointing either left or right. A nice little reminder that “north-up” is a convention, not a law of cartography.

AGIT 2026

This week, I made my way to Salzburg for AGIT, my favorite Austrian GIS conference.

On the first day, I took part in the AGEO Podium discussion, together with Andreas Hocevar (the father of OpenLayers), on the OGC API standards, since many users aren’t even aware of these new standards yet.

Thursday was talk day for me: I presented MobiML, a new Python library designed to streamline the development of machine learning workflows for trajectory data. I hope this library can help make Mobility Data Science more approachable and results more reproducible.

Right after my talk, Michael Szell presented “Assessing the Danish Bicycle Node Network”, building the data and algorithm foundation for active mobility planning and research. If you want to dig into the tools behind it, check out bikenetwork.dk and bikenetkit.org.

Michael is giving a full talk on this on Tuesday at the Complexity Science Hub in Vienna, if you want to hear more.

FOSS4G Europe, from the sidelines

Unfortunately, I missed FOSS4G Europe in Timișoara the week before, so I followed along via the #foss4ge2026 hashtag instead. Iván Sánchez’s talk on the BOSCO ruling, arguing that all government software must be explainable, is just one example of the talks I would have loved to see in person. There was also the already traditional QGIS Feature Frenzy by Kurt Menke and a QGIS hydrological analysis workshop by Hans who also has a full FOSS4G Europe 2026 summary worth reading.

Also relevant: the Birds of a Feather session on AI in OSGeo projects has spilled over onto the OSGeo discuss mailing list. Definitely a thread worth following or getting involved in if you maintain or contribute to open source geospatial projects.

What’s next

Besides MobiML, work also continues on the MovingPandas front. There are a few open pull requests I want to work through ahead of the next release.

After the summer break, the conference season picks back up quickly: FOSS4G 2026 in Hiroshima (30 August–5 September), Spatial Data Science across Languages (SDSL) 2026 in Jena (16–17/18 September), and the QGIS conference 2026 in Switzerland (5–6 October), where I’ll be speaking about AI in the QGIS ecosystem.

For a more complete picture of what is going on in geospatial worldwide, check out (and don’t forget to bookmark) Jakub‘s comprehensive list of geospatial conferences at github.com/Nowosad/geospatial-conferences.

Urban Development Modelling in QGIS

Introducing QCity, a new plugin that brings advanced urban development modeling directly into QGIS. Developed in collaboration with the City of Canning (Perth, Western Australia), QCity enables urban planners to model project areas using predefined frameworks, providing visual 2D/3D insights and detailed statistical reports.

The plugin workflow begins in the “Project Setup” tab, where users either define a new Project Area boundary and input dwelling and parking (both car and bike) parameters, or load a previously saved site or QCity package:

Next, “Development Sites” are created within each Project Area. Development Sites options include:

• Setting the site’s status: constructed, proposed or modelled
• Automatic calculation of the site’s floor space, car and bike parking (based on the specifications defined for the parent project area)
• Setting the parameters for each Development Site

Each Development Site can contain multiple Building Levels, which define the building floorplan and floors. Building Levels contain parameters to determine the composition of each level, such as:

• Usage: percent use for commercial, office and residential purposes
• Residential: percent composition of 1-4+ bedroom dwellings
• The building level height and height above ground
• Based on the entered parameters, the area of Unallocated Residential Floorspace for each building level is automatically calculated

Finally, statistics are calculated for an entire Project Area, such as the total amount of commercial, office and residential floorspace, number of dwellings, and car and bicycle parking availability.

To see the workflow in action, watch the video below where a new project is created with development sites and building levels.

This is the first release of QCity, and accordingly it is currently available as an experimental plugin in the QGIS plugin repository. This initial QCity version is designed for use in Australia only, however future development will enable its use in other parts of the world. On the QCity code repoistory you can see some of the additional capabilities we are thinking of adding. QCity requires QGIS 4.0 or later.

For an in depth overview of the creation of QCity and a demonstration of its capabilities, please join us for the QGIS Australia July webinar where Gabriel Diosan, Senior Strategic Planning Spatial Analyst from the City of Canning will present Urban Development Modelling in QGIS using QCity:

• 1pm (AEST)Thursday 16th July (Meeting link)
• If you can’t make the webinar, subscribe to the QGIS Australia YouTube Channel to watch it later.

For more information:

• QCity Documentation
• QCity Homepage
• Email us at [email protected] if you have an idea to enhance QCity, or want to speed up any of its capabilities, or have another plugin or QGIS feature you wish for us to help you with.

QGIS 4.2: DB Manager lascia il core (ma non subito)

Introduzione

Chi usa QGIS da anni conosce bene DB Manager: il pannello che permette di sfogliare, interrogare e gestire i database supportati (PostGIS, SpatiaLite, GeoPackage...) direttamente dall'interfaccia, senza uscire dal programma. Con QGIS 4.2 questo strumento smette di essere parte del core e diventa un plugin di terze parti, con un percorso di transizione più complicato del previsto.

Ne ho parlato in una discussione aperta su OSGeo Discourse: questo post riprende e approfondisce quel filo, incrociando la proposta ufficiale, le pull request e la mailing list degli sviluppatori.

!!! Abstract "In breve" DB Manager viene "degradato" a plugin community per il QEP-426: troppa duplicazione con il Browser Panel, poca copertura di test, manutenzione onerosa. La rimozione completa dal core (PR #66545) è ancora aperta e discussa; per la 4.2 è stato invece mergiato un approccio più graduale (PR #66613): un avviso di deprecazione all'avvio con un pulsante per installare la versione community. Il plugin, però, è al momento bloccato nel repository ufficiale da oltre 100 warning di sicurezza.

QGIS 4.2: novità tra espressioni e tabella attributi

Introduzione

QGIS 4.2 è una release con 59 nuove feature, distribuite su 17 categorie e realizzate da 24 sviluppatori diversi. Il grosso del lavoro si concentra su 3D e Symbology, seguiti da correzioni notevoli e da novità su point cloud e processing:

| Categoria | Feature | |---|--:| | 3D Features | 12 | | Symbology | 10 | | Notable Fixes | 8 | | Point Clouds | 6 | | Processing | 5 | | Print Layouts | 3 | | Data Providers | 3 | | Expressions | 2 | | QGIS Server | 2 | | Breaking Changes | 1 | | User Interface | 1 | | Data Management | 1 | | Application and Project Options | 1 | | Sensors | 1 | | Profile Plots | 1 | | Browser | 1 | | Programmability | 1 |

Buona parte del lavoro porta la firma di Nyall Dawson (North Road), autore di quasi un terzo delle feature:

| # | Sviluppatore | Feature | Azienda | |--:|---|--:|---| | 1 | Nyall Dawson | 19 | North Road | | 2 | Dominik Cindric | 9 | — | | 3 | Jean Felder | 3 | Oslandia | | 4 | Julien Cabieces | 3 | Oslandia | | 5 | Martin Dobias | 3 | Lutra Consulting | | 6 | Stefanos Natsis | 3 | Lutra Consulting | | 7 | Mathieu Pellerin | 2 | OPENGIS.ch |

In questo panorama, le espressioni ricevono "solo" 2 nuove funzioni (categoria Expressions), ma sono entrambe di uso quotidiano nel Field Calc, e la tabella attributi guadagna una scorciatoia molto pratica verso la calcolatrice di campi (categoria Data Management). Sono proprio questi due ambiti il focus di questo post: vediamo nel dettaglio le novità, con particolare attenzione alle espressioni e alla tabella attributi.

!!! Abstract "In breve" 2 nuove funzioni: scale_cubic_bezier (interpolazione con curva di Bézier cubica) e concat_ws (concatenazione con separatore). Tabella attributi: voce "Field Calculator" nel menu delle intestazioni di colonna. Inoltre alcuni fix rilevanti a concat(), all'operatore IN con nodes() e a crash della calcolatrice di campi.

At the Swiss QGIS User Group Meeting, Oslandia was pleased to present the latest updates to QGIS.

Watch the video recap with Julien Cabieces, Jean Felder, Benoit De Mezzo, and Loïc Bartoletti :

• NURBS integration
• What’s new in SFCGAL
• Creating a 3D style from a 2D style
• New interface customization features