Our second QGIS hackfest is in full swing and we are having a blast! The room is abuzz with discussions of rendering improvements, translations, plugins, R, GRASS, user interface and so on. As well as hacking we have had quite a few discussions and presentations where developers have been able to present their ideas and vision for the future of QGIS, or let others know about interesting work they have been doing. I took an hour out from my hacking activities to do a short interview with each attendee to see what they are up to. Read on to meet the crew!

Regards

Tim Sutton

Stephan has been working improving on the MapServer export plugin with Richard Duivenvoorde. Stephan is from Vienna where he works for EOX where they specialised in providing Earth Observation Services.

Andreas Neumann is interested in improving the quality of QGIS and has been providing great input in the work relating to dynamic database forms and SVG support. Andreas works for the City of Uster in Switzerland.

Marco Hugentobler is working on incorporating interpolation and zonal statistics capabilities into the QGIS Analysis Library. He is also doing QGIS bug fixing and working to improve the map composer implementation. Marco is from Zurich, Switzerland where he runs Hugis, an open source GIS consulting company.

Anita Graser is working on improving the artwork in QGIS with the aim of resolving issues with the GIS theme so that it can become the new default theme for QGIS 2.0. Anita has also been helping with the user interface audit and clean up. She has also been carrying out maintenance on the QGIS web site, getting rid of broken links, cleaning up navigation and translating it to German. Anita is a student of Geographic Information Science at the University of Applied Sciences, Wr. Neustadt, Austria.

Paolo Cavallini has been working on improving the stock graphics shipped with QGIS, cleaning up the bug queue and taking part in design and planning discussions. Paolo lives in Pontedera, Italy where he runs Faunalia, an open source GIS consulting and services company.

Jean Roc has been working on the French translation of the QGIS user interface and the QGIS website. He is working with the documentation team to improve the documentation process. Jean Roc lives in Arras, France and works for Conseil General du Pas-de Calais where he is in charge of the archaeological information system.

Werner Macho is the local organiser for the Vienna hackfest. He organised the venue and all the logistics for the hackfest. Werner is working on the user interface audit and review, doing maintenance on the QGIS website and German translations. Werner lives in Vienna where he works for Flussbau.

Horst Düster is working on a generic WPS (Web Processing Service) client for distributed GIS and other types of analysis over the web. The client is a python plugin that runs in QGIS and is able to display spatial results in the map window. Horst Düster works for Kanton Solothurn in Switzerland as a GIS professional for the Kanton administration.

Cédric Möri is working on a plugin that will allow an event layer to be added to QGIS. The event layer will update itself periodically e.g. from a database view or a GPS. The layer is not shown in the layer list and is drawn on an independent map canvas. Cédric works for Kanton Solothurn in Switzerland as a GIS professional for the Kanton administration.

Richard has been working on the MapServer export plugin, integrating and extending improvements provided by Erik van de Pol. He has also been updating the Dutch translation for the QGIS user interface. Richard lives in Haarlem, the Netherlands where he runs Webmapper, a company specialising in web mapping services.

Anne Ghisla has been working on the Home Range plugin - she has been adding a new method (NNCH) from the R package adehabitat. She has implemented separate threading for the algorithm to improve QGIS responsiveness. She has also been working on updates to the QGIS user guide. Anne lives near Milan, northern Italy where she has just graduated her Masters degree in Natural Sciences.

Johannes Signer has been working on translating the QGIS website to German. Johannes is a student of GeoInformatics at the University of Applied Science, Wr. Neustadt, Austria.

Carson Farmer is working integration of the new QGIS analysis library to trunk. The new library is a port of the fTools plugin to C++, and is designed to address some of the speed limitations of the current Python implementation, as well as provide direct access to many geoprocessing functions from the QGIS API. Carson is originally from Canada, and currently completing his PhD in Ireland with the National Centre for Geocomputation (National University of Ireland Maynooth). To find out what Carson is up to, visit http://www.carsonfarmer.com.

Massimo Di Stefano is working on integration of ossimPlanet Qt into QGIS to provide a 3D synchronised view of the QGIS map canvas. Massimo also presented the tabbed canvas implementation by 'Jack R'. Massimo is from Eboli, Salerno, Italy where he is completing his degree in Environmental Science for Marine Ecosystems.

Jürgen Fischer has been squashing bugs and working on an implementation for dynamically creating data entry forms from QtDesigner UI xml files. The forms will be presented to the user during the digitising / data capture process. They will also be used from the identify results window when a single record match is made. Jürgen is from Norden in Germany where he works for norBIT GIS solutions.

Martin Dobias has been working on preparing the new generation symbology infrastructure for merging into the mainstream QGIS version. He has also been working on adding new features to the symbology-ng branch. He has also been working on improving the python infrastructure. Martin lives in Prague, Czech Republic where he is in the final year of his Masters studies computer science.

Alexander Bruy has been translating the context help to Russian. He has also produced a patch for fTools which improves the layer statistics module. He also created a patch for the shortcut manager that allows saving, sharing and importing saved shortcut profiles. Alex lives in Zaporozhye in the Ukraine where he works for cadastral management department.

Milena Nowotarska has been working on the user interface audit and cleanup. She has also been working on the Polish translation of the user interface. She has also been managing the webcasting via ustream of the presentations and hackfest activities. The recorded presentations are available at http://www.ustream.tv/channel/qgis-hackfest-vienna. Milena lives in Szczecin, Poland where she works for the local government of the West Pomeranian Region. Milena is an active member of the Polish OSGEO chapter.

Borys Jurgiel has been working on creating an organisation structure for plugins so that they can be added into appropriate parts of the user interface instead of a long listing in the plugins menu and toolbar. As part this process he has been carrying out an audit of the 92 (!!!) plugins that now exist for QGIS. He has also been making small improvements to his existing plugins (table manager, point sampling tool, python plugin manager). Borys lives in Warsaw, Poland where he works as a freelance consultant and programmer building desktop and web GIS solutions.