Cartography

Create categorized renderer from styles

Sets a vector layer’s renderer to a categorized renderer using matching symbols from a style database. If no style file is specified, symbols from the user’s current symbol library are used instead.

A specified expression or field is used to create categories for the renderer. Each category is individually matched to the symbols which exist within the specified QGIS XML style database. Whenever a matching symbol name is found, the category’s symbol will be set to this matched symbol.

If desired, outputs can also be tables containing lists of the categories which could not be matched to symbols, and symbols which were not matched to categories.

Parameters

Label

Name

Type

Description

Input layer

INPUT

[vector: any]

Vector layer to apply a categorized style to

Categorize using expression

FIELD

[expression]

Field or expression to categorize the features

Style database (leave blank to use saved symbols)

STYLE

[file]

File (.XML) containing the symbols to apply to the input layer categories. The file can be obtained from the Style Manager Share symbols tool. If no file is specified, QGIS local symbols library is used.

Use case-sensitive match to symbol names

CASE_SENSITIVE

[boolean]

Default: False

If True (checked), applies a case sensitive comparison between the categories and symbols names

Ignore non-alphanumeric characters while matching

TOLERANT

[boolean]

Default: False

If True (checked), non-alphanumeric characters in the categories and symbols names will be ignored, allowing greater tolerance during the match.

Non-matching categories

Optional

NON_MATCHING_CATEGORIES

[table]

Default: [Skip output]

Output table for categories which do not match any symbol in the database. One of:

  • Skip output

  • Create Temporary Layer (TEMPORARY_OUTPUT)

  • Save to File…

  • Save to Geopackage…

  • Save to PostGIS Table

The file encoding can also be changed here.

Non-matching symbol names

Optional

NON_MATCHING_SYMBOLS

[table]

Default: [Skip output]

Output table for symbols from the provided style database which do not match any category. One of:

  • Skip output

  • Create Temporary Layer (TEMPORARY_OUTPUT)

  • Save to File…

  • Save to Geopackage…

  • Save to PostGIS Table

The file encoding can also be changed here.

Outputs

Label

Name

Type

Description

Non-matching categories

NON_MATCHING_CATEGORIES

[table]

Lists categories which could not be matched to any symbol in the provided style database

Non-matching symbol names

NON_MATCHING_SYMBOLS

[table]

Lists symbols from the provided style database which could not match any category

Categorized layer

OUTPUT

[same as input]

The input vector layer with the categorized style applied. No new layer is output.

Topological coloring

Assigns a color index to polygon features in such a way that no adjacent polygons share the same color index, whilst minimizing the number of colors required.

The algorithm allows choice of method to use when assigning colors.

A minimum number of colors can be specified if desired. The color index is saved to a new attribute named color_id.

The following example shows the algorithm with four different colors chosen; as you can see each color class has the same amount of features.

../../../../_images/topological_color.png

Topological colors example

Parameters

Label

Name

Type

Description

Input layer

INPUT

[vector: polygon]

The input polygon layer

Minimum number of colors

MIN_COLORS

[number]

Default: 4

The minimum number of colors to assign. Minimum 1, maximum 1000.

Minimum distance between features

MIN_DISTANCE

[number]

Default: 0.0

Prevent nearby (but non-touching) features from being assigned equal colors. Minimum 0.0.

Balance color assignment

BALANCE

[enumeration]

Default: 0

Options are:

  • 0 — By feature count

    Attempts to assign colors so that the count of features assigned to each individual color index is balanced.

  • 1 — By assigned area

    Assigns colors so that the total area of features assigned to each color is balanced. This mode can be useful to help avoid large features resulting in one of the colors appearing more dominant on a colored map.

  • 2 — By distance between colors

    Assigns colors in order to maximize the distance between features of the same color. This mode helps to create a more uniform distribution of colors across a map.

Colored

OUTPUT

[vector: polygon]

Default: [Create temporary layer]

Specify the output layer. One of:

  • Skip output

  • Create Temporary Layer (TEMPORARY_OUTPUT)

  • Save to File…

  • Save to Geopackage…

  • Save to PostGIS Table

The file encoding can also be changed here.

Outputs

Label

Name

Type

Description

Colored

OUTPUT

[vector: polygon]

Polygon vector layer with an added color_id column