Kosmo Desktop Quick Start

Kosmo - Desktop is a user friendly, desktop GIS application which allows you to explore, edit and analyse spatial data from a variety of databases, vector and raster formats.

This Quick Start describes how to:

• start the application
• load layers from files, databases and OGC services
• navigate through the map
• apply your styling to the loaded layers

Start Kosmo Desktop

In order to start the application, follow the next steps:

• From the start menu, select Geospatial > Desktop GIS > Kosmo
• The application will take a few seconds to start (a splash screen is shown while loading)
• In the Welcome dialog, select the option Create a new project > With a new view and press the Ok button
• In the Spatial Reference System selection dialog, press the ... button
• Select the option EPSG in the SRS type combobox, insert the text 4236 in the text field and press the Search button
• Select the SRS EPSG:4326 - WSG4 and press the Ok button
• Press the Ok button again to select the SRS loaded. The view will start with EPSG:4326 as the base projection

Tip

You can see which projection has been selected as base for a specific view in the view window title bar, right to the view name

Kosmo Desktop main window

The Kosmo Desktop main window has the following sections:

• Main menus

• Main toolbar

• Layer tree

  Tree that contains the categories and layers that have been loaded in the current view.

• Map

• Status bar

  Shows the application warning messages to the user.

• Current cursor coordinates

Loading layers

Files

To start out, we’re going to load some of the sample data included on the LiveDVD:

1. Choose the option View > Load Dataset... or push the button with the green plus from the main toolbar
2. In the Format combobox, select Shapefile
3. In the file chooser, select the file countries.shp from the directory /home/user/data/udig-data/data-v1.2
4. Press the Ok button to load the selected shapefile
5. In the layer tree, press the visibility checkbox to make the layer visible
6. Choose again the option View > Load Dataset... or push the button with the green plus from the main toolbar
7. In the Format combobox, select Image file
8. In the file chooser, select the file clouds.jpg from the directory /home/user/data/udig-data/data-v1.2
9. Press the Ok button to load the selected image file
10. In the layer tree, press the visibility checkbox to make the layer visible
11. You can see that the layer drawing order is from bottom to top in the layer tree: modify the layer order by dragging them in order to show them properly

Note

The LiveDVD contains some file data examples in the following directories: * ~/data (a short cut to /usr/local/share/data) * /home/user/data/udig-data/data-v1.2

You can try to load more examples from those directories. Remember to select the correct format from the Format combobox

Tip

It’s possible to add all the images from a directory as an unique layer by selecting the parent directory in the Load Dataset... dialog: Kosmo Desktop will load them as a mosaic.

Databases

We’re going to load a database table as an example

1. Choose the option View > Load Dataset... or push the button with the green plus from the main toolbar
2. In the Format combobox, select Database
3. Fill the fields host, port, database name, user name and password with the values:

• Host: localhost
• Port: 5432
• Database name: natural_earth
• User name: user
• Password: user

1. Press the Connect button to load the tables present at the natural_earth database
2. Select the checkbox corresponding to the table 10m_populated_places_simple
3. Press the Ok button to load the selected database table
4. In the layer tree, press the visibility checkbox to make the layer visible

OGC services

1. Start the GeoServer WMS included in the LiveDVD by selecting the option Geospatial > Web Servers > Start GeoServer
2. Press the Load IDE Service button at the main toolbar to open the wizard
3. In the Select SDI service type, select the option WMS Service and press the Next button
4. In the Select Uniform Resource Locator (URL), type the URL http://localhost:8082/geoserver/ows in the corresponding text field and press the Connect button
5. If the connection is successful, press the Next button to go to the next panel.
6. Select the layer North America Sample Imagery and press the > button to move it to the right list. Press Next button.
7. Leave the default options loaded and press the Finish button to start the layer loading
8. In the layer tree, press the visibility checkbox to make the layer visible
9. Select the layer in the layer tree and press the Zoom To Layer button to center the map in the WMS layer view

Note

Kosmo Desktop contains a list of WMS servers by default (most of them are from Spain). If you’re connected to internet, you can use them as described in the example with the local server.

Map navigation tools

You can control where in the world is the map using the navigation tools present at the main toolbar:

1. Zoom In/Out

• It’s the tool selected by default when you start your session
• Use the mouse left button to zoom in a fixed ammount at the clicked map point
• Use the mouse right button to zoom out a fixed amount at the clicked map point
• Press the mouse left button, move the mouse, draw a rectangle and release the button if you want to zoom to that rectangle

2. Pan

• Allows to move around the world without changing the scale
• Press the mouse left button, move the mouse and release it in order to move the map to the desired location

3. Zoom Previous

• Allows to zoom to the previous viewing envelope from the zoom history (if available)

4. Zoom Next

• Allows to zoom to the next viewing envelope from the zoom history (if available)

5. Zoom To Full Extent

• Allows to change the current map envelope to include all the visible layers

6. Zoom To Layer

• Allows to change the current map envelope to adjust to the selected layer

7. Zoom To Selected Items

• Allows to change the current map envelope to adjust to the selected features

8. Pan To Click

• Centers the map in the clicked map point, without changing the current scale

9. Coordinate Localization

• Centers the map in the given X - Y coordinates

Apart from those tools, it’s also available the possibility to zoom in/out by using the mouse wheel.

Note

If any tool/menu option is disabled, you can place the cursor over the button/option to see a tooltip where the reason is shown

Styling

In this section we’re going to style a layer by range using the country population as styling attribute

1. Select the layer countries in the layer tree
2. Right click on it and select the option Simbology > Change Styles...
3. Click on the tab Colour theming
4. Activate the options Enable colour theming and by range
5. Select POP_CNTRY as Attribute, 8 as Range count and RYB (Color Brewer) as Color schema
6. Press the Ok button to apply the changes

Things to Try

• Use the advanced style editor (Symbology > Advanced style editor) to create more complex styles
• Use the query wizard to select those features that accomplish a given criteria
• Activate the layer edition mode and use the available tools to edit it
• Generate a set of topology rules for a layer and try to edit it
• Activate the set of extensions that form part of the application and see the new tools that are present

What Next?

There is a set of manuals and videotutorials available at http://www.opengis.es