To import Shapefiles into SQL Server without the use of scripts such as Ogr2ogr, we can easily use QGIS instead. Make sure you have SQL Server and SQL Server Management studio installed.

Open QGIS and in the Browser panel add a new connection by right clicking on MSSQL.

Enter a connection name and enter the server name used in SQL Server. Click ‘List Databases’ to see the tables.

Once the SQL server connection has been established, you can drag shapefiles and other GIS formats directly into the SQL server connection.

This function in QGIS allows for CAD-like drafting.

Go to View menu>Panels and show “Advanced Digitizing Panel”

Click the “Add feature” icon and click the start point on the map.

type the “d” key on your keyboard and enter the distance. press enter. This will set the distance.

type the “a” key on your keyboard and enter the angle. press enter. This will set the angle of the line.

When creating a map with an aerial photo as it’s base, it is important to make the text labels stand out as plain text can get easily drowned out by the background colors.

Yellow is often an appropriate color when the aerial photo is mainly made up of darker colors.

However yellow may not be very visible on light colors like white. A text buffer can overcome this issue. In the example above, I have used yellow text with a black buffer but black text with light buffer is just as effective.

When labeling curvy features such as rivers and roads it is better to curve the text so that it sits neatly along the feature. This function in QGIS is found in the placement option in the layer properties as shown below.

These are some tips to make your aerial photography maps easier to read and interpret. If you have any comments please let me know below.

Open composer and click on the “add legend” button as shown below.

Once the legend has been added to the map, you can add and remove map layers from the legend as shown below.

You can also add a frame around the legend box and change the background color to improve the visibility of the legend items if necessary.

To make text standout from other map features we can either add a rectangle background or a buffer behind the text.

To change the properties of the text labels, double click on the layer containing the text > Labels > Background>Draw Background as shown below.

Alternatively you can add a buffer around the text. This option reduces the amount of map features being covered by the text background.

Double click on the layer containing the text > Labels > Buffer>Draw Text Buffer as shown below.

These text backgrounds and buffers can be any color. It is ideal to choose a color which contrasts well with text color.

Open composer and the actual scale of the map can be set by selecting the map area and setting the scale in ‘Item Properties’ shown below.

Click on the “Add new scalebar” button on the left side bar.

Once the scalebar has been added, you can modify the number of segments and height. The units can also be modified in the item properties.

To add a numeric scale click on the “Add new scalebar” button again and place under the first scalebar. Another scalebar will appear. Go to the Item Properties menu again and under main properties change the ‘Style’ to Numeric and uncheck the ‘Background’ box to make the box transparent as shown below.

Open composer > Click on the “Add image” button on the left side bar

Draw a small rectangle where you want the arrow to be placed. Click on ‘Search Directories’ and choose a North arrow.

You may have to adjust the size of the arrow by dragging the handles on the rectangle.

In this example we will be searching for a city in a cities layer. Open the table by clicking the ‘Open Attribute table’ icon shown below.

Below the table click on ‘column filter’ > select the column you want to search through. In this case it is the column called ‘name’

Type in the name of the city you want to find and click apply. Your search can be case sensitive if desired.

In this case our search query came up with 2 results as shown below