Development Environment / QGIS and Bundled Python

The free and open source QGIS software provides pyQGIS Python libraries to process spatial data. The version of QGIS used for this project is 2.18.1 (TODO smalers 2016-12-11 Emma confirm). QGIS is bundled with Python 2.7 to ensure that Python integration performs as intended.

Download and Install QGIS

Download and install QGIS for Advanced Users for Windows, selecting OsGeo4W Network Installer (64 bit) for Windows 7 or 10 machine.

Run the installer with administrator privileges, which will have a name similar to osgeo4w-setup-x86_64.exe.

As instructed on the website, choose Desktop Express Install and select QGIS to install the latest release.

The following images illustrate the install process on a Windows 10 computer. All of the defaults were accepted.

QGIS install 1

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Run QGIS

To run QGIS use the OSGeo4W start menu shown below:

QGIS install 10

Running QGIS Desktop 2.18.1 displays the user interface similar to below:

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The Help / About menu displays the software version information, which is useful when troubleshooting:

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Next Steps

After installing QGIS it is possible to install and configure PyCharm to use the QGIS version of Python 2.7 and access the pyQGIS libraries for spatial processing. However, installing PyCharm is only needed if doing software development. The operational SNODAS Tools system can be run from the command line or using a scheduled process without needing PyCharm.