New QField User - Help setting up a simple.orchard mapping project

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1

Hi,

I’m completely new to QGIS and QField and would really appreciate some help getting my first project set up.

I’m restoring a traditional damson orchard in Cumbria, UK. Ultimately I want to use QField on my phone to:

  • see the orchard on an aerial/satellite map;
  • record the GPS position of each existing tree;
  • record new trees as we plant them;
  • give each tree an ID and record some basic information about it;
  • potentially add photographs and notes;
  • sync the information back to my laptop.

So it is essentially a fairly simple orchard/tree survey, rather than a complex GIS project.

So far I have:

  • installed QGIS on my Windows laptop;
  • installed QFieldSync;
  • created a QFieldCloud account;
  • created a QFieldCloud project;
  • successfully downloaded/synchronised that project into QGIS;
  • added OpenStreetMap as a basemap.

My difficulty is that I cannot even get QGIS to navigate to the location of my orchard. I have tried entering the postcode and coordinates using the locator/coordinate boxes, but the map remains on the whole-world view.

I’m conscious that I may be making this much more complicated than it needs to be.

Could someone advise me on the simplest way to set up this project from this point, particularly how to get an aerial basemap centred on my orchard and then create a simple point layer for recording the trees?

I’m happy to provide screenshots or the orchard location if that would help.

Many thanks,

Jane

2

hello @janeesenior !

Indeed it should be a pretty simple project even if you don’t have too much knowledge about QGIS and QField. Maybe we can get moving one step at a time to see if everything is setup properly, just to make it less overwhelming. There should be no need to publish the location of the orchard.

Let me ask you some questions to better understand your situation:

  1. Are you familiarised with how to navigate the map view on QGIS?
  2. What about coordinate systems (“CRS”)?
  3. How did you created the project? on the phone, on the qfieldcloud website or on QGIS?

As a head-start, you can try installing some plugins on QGIS that would help you find locations:

  1. First, go to the top menu bar, Plugins > Manage and Install Plugins

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  2. The plugin window should open. Make sure you are on the “All” section (1), then type the name of the plugin on the search field (2), select it from the plugin list (3) and install it using the buttons in the bottom right corner (4, but I already have this plugin installed so I don’t have that option):

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  3. Install the following plugins:

    1. OSM place search
    2. QuickOSM
    3. NextGIS OSMInfo
    4. NextGIS QuickMapServices (this one will allow you to easily add satellite images from various sources).

  4. Maybe when you try to install some of these plugins, a popup window may appear asking to install some “dependency manager” called qpip. Just accept to install it also.

3

Also, you must understand that the coordinates you entered in the box (if they are good), pan to the location but don’t zoom to it. Try to zoom first (anywhere) and then enter your coordinates.
Next, as @cuprico said, we must first know what you master and what you don’t in QGis first to help more.