Practical Manual - Malareo

This adds the shapefile to the legend and view.
Next you will add a CAD layer consisting of the Provinces of Zimbabwe.
Add a vector layer and choose DXF as the input type (This is an Autocad Format) Select
Provinces_Zim.dxf from the Directory and select open. Notice it add a layer called entities map legend
and places a series of polygons into the map view. Zoom to full extents to view the layers. Right click on
the layer and open the attribute table. Notice there are no Province names associated with the polygons
(this is a problem with importing CAD to GIS, as each separate layer including text entities are separate
layers and as a result the labels are in this case lost.)
Next you will import a geodatabase file for Mozambique. Start by selecting Add a vector layer and select
the file type ESRI personal Geodatabase [OGR] (*.mdb *.MDB) and select Mozambique.mdb from the
directory. Select open and Open again. This brings up an interface asking you to select a layer, Choose
Provinces_Moz from the list and click on OK.
This loads the Provinces for Mozambique into the Legend and onto your view. If you open the attribute
table, notice the data assosciated with each polygon is still present, unlike with CAD.
Next you will add a comma delimited Text file. There are 2 ways to do this. First as an attribute table by
adding a vector layer and the second is as a spatial layer by Selecting Add delimited text layer from the
layer Menu. This allows you to create a spatial layer from a text file You will undertake both.
Select Add vector Layer and scroll down to the file type CSV and choose the Moz_Places.CSV
Click on Open this add the attribute table to the legend, but does not add the Spatial entities.
Opening Attribute Data
To view the attribute table, Right click on the layer name MOZ_Places and
scroll down the context menu to Open attribute table.
In the Attribute table you will notice the fields and the data populating
them, but there are no spatial entities in this instance as you have merely
added a table to the map legend. Being able to import attribute data only
is useful as it can then at a later stage be linked to a spatial layer using the
QGIS for Malaria Page 19