This blog post will introduce QField’s brand new plugin framework and walk through the creation of a plugin to support bird watchers in need of a quick way to digitize photos of spotted birds onto a point vector layer. A plugin framework is born! As announced recently, QField now empowers users through a brand new plugin framework allowing for simple customization on the way the application behaves or looks all the way through to creating completely new functionalities. ...

QField 3.3 has been released, and with it, we are proud to introduce a brand new plugin framework that empowers users to customize and add completely new functionalities to their favourite field application. That’s on top of a bunch of new features and improvements added during this development cycle. What preceded this moment was just the beginning! Main highlights One of the biggest feature additions of this version is a brand new drawing tool that allows users to sketch out important details over captured photos or annotate drawing templates. This was a highly requested feature, which we are delighted to bring to all supported platforms (Android, iOS, Windows, macOS, and, of course, Linux) with the financial support of the Swiss QGIS user group. ...

We are thrilled to announce that the Best of Swiss Apps Enterprise winner 2022, QField, has been officially recognized as a Digital Public Good by the UN-endorsed Digital Public Goods Alliance . This prestigious recognition highlights QField’s significant contributions to six key Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs): SDG 6 (Clean Water and Sanitation), SDG 9 (Industry, Innovation, and Infrastructure), SDG 11 (Sustainable Cities and Communities), SDG 13 (Climate Action), SDG 15 (Life on Land), and SDG 16 (Peace, Justice, and Strong Institutions). The “Swiss Made Software” QField is the leading fieldwork application with almost 1 Million downloads worldwide. ...

Focused on stability and usability improvements, most users will find something to celebrate in QField 3.2 Main highlights This new release introduces project-defined tracking sessions, which are automatically activated when the project is loaded. Defined while setting up and tweaking a project on QGIS, these sessions permit the automated tracking of device positions without taking any action in QField beyond opening the project itself. This liberates field users from remembering to launch a session on app launch and lowers the knowledge required to collect such data. For more details, please read the relevant QField documentation section. ...

The launch of QField 3.0 was a big deal, but now we’re back to focusing on smaller, more frequent updates. Don’t let the shorter change log for 3.1 trick you – there are lots of cool new features in this update! Main highlights One of the main improvements in this release is the brand-new functionality to enable snapping to common angles while digitizing. When enabled, the coordinate cursor will snap to configured angles alongside a visual guideline. This comes in handy when adding new geometries while surveying features with regular angles (e.g. buildings, parking lots, etc.). As QField gets more digitizing functionalities, we’ve taken the time to implement a nifty UI that collapses digitizing toggle buttons into a drawer, leaving extra space for the map canvas to shine through. ...

Years ago, the QField community and its users showed their love for their favourite field app by supporting a successful crowdfunding to improve camera handling. Since then, OPENGIS.ch has continued to lead the development of QField with the regular support of sponsors. We couldn’t be prouder of the progress we have made, with plenty of new features added in every major release. This includes major improvements to positioning including location tracking, integration of external GNSS receivers through not only Bluetooth but TCP/UDP and serial port connections, accuracy indicator and constraints, and most recently sensors reading to list a few. ...

The latest version of QField is out, featuring as its main new feature sensor handling alongside the usual round of user experience and stability improvements. We simply can’t wait to see the sensor uses you will come up with! The main highlight: sensors QField 2.8 ships with out-of-the-box handling of external sensor streams over TCP, UDP, and serial port. The functionality allows for data captured through instruments – such as geiger counter, decibel sensor, CO detector, etc. - to be visualized and manipulated within QField itself. ...

A brand new version of QField has been released, packed with features that will make you fall in love with this essential open source tool all over again with a focus on capturing more while you are in the field. QField 2.7 nicknamed “Heroic Hedgehog” also includes a number of worthy fixes making it a crucial update to get. New recording capabilities The highlight of QField 2.7 is the new audio and video recording capability straight from the feature form. In addition to preexisting still photo capture, this functionality allows for video motion and audio clips to be added as attachments to feature attributes. ...

It’s only been a few weeks into the new year, but we’ve got great news for you: a brand new QField 2.6 “Geeky Gecko ?” has been released with a focus on positioning improvements, including Bluetooth support for Windows. And with that, we are delighted to remove the ‘beta’ status from QField for Windows. New positioning features Let’s open with a bang: QField 2.6 now supports NMEA streaming from external GNSS devices over TCP, UDP, and serial ports, in addition to preexisting Bluetooth connectivity. This new functionality means that QField is now compatible with a much larger range of GNSS devices out there. ...

QField is a community-driven open-source project. It is free to share, use and modify and it will stay like that. The very essence of a community is to help and support each other. And that’s where YOU come into play. To make it work we need your support! For those who don’t know much about the concept of open source projects, a bit of background. Investing in open-source projects is a technical and ethical decision for OPENGIS.ch. Open source is a technological advantage, as we receive input from many developers worldwide who are motivated to work out the best possible software. It prevents our customers from vendor lock-in and allows complete ownership and control of the developed software. And finally, not only financially independent businesses and people should benefit from professional software but also those who might not have the financial means to pay for features, and licences. ...