Vector rendering which format supports shadows

Surface edges that are behind another surface are visible in the rendered image. This may make certain objects look transparent or make models appear as wireframes. Hidden Edges increases rendered file size because of the extra vector information.

If you are rendering a model with many polygons, avoid turning on Hidden Edges and setting Edge Style to Entire Mesh ; too many lines will likely appear in the rendered image. Sharp edges between polygons are rendered as outlines. The Min Edge Angle controls which polygon edges are rendered as outlines. Edge Detail can help define the shape of a 3D object, especially when the object is composed of few surfaces, but also produces larger file sizes. This option is only available when Edge Style is Outlines.

When you turn this attribute on, an outline appears along the point where two objects intersect. Use the Edge Priority setting to resolve edge outline conflicts when depth does not automatically do so.

This attribute is also located in the Vector Renderer Control section of a material's Attribute Editor. Determines which polygon edges are rendered as outlines when Edge Detail is on. Decreasing the Min Edge Angle produces larger file sizes because of the extra vector information in the rendered file. The Render Optimization setting specifies how the Vector renderer optimizes the current frame to reduce file sizes.

You can select one of the following types of optimizations:. Removes redundant geometry in areas of high detail, especially geometry that is only visible by zooming in on the area. Redundant edges occur on the at the intersection of the visible and invisible areas of the scene, and are always safe to remove. Removes redundant geometry in areas of high detail, and removes sub-pixel geometry that is not visible unless zooming into a high detail area.

Removes redundant geometry, sub-pixel geometry, and geometry that is slightly above the single pixel level, in high detail areas. Using Aggressive optimization makes it possible to visibly detect the missing geometry without zooming in on the area. It may also result in inconsistent geometry like unclosed shapes. Note: You must have the Flash browser plug-in installed on your system in order to display the rendered image or animation.

Appearance Options Curve Tolerance A value from 0 to 15 that determines how object outlines are represented with either curved lines or a series of straight line segments. Note: Adjusting the Curve Tolerance value may have no apparent effect on file size when another setting for example, Fill Style is the dominant factor affecting file size.

Note: Doubling the Detail Level value produces twice as much detail in the rendered image. Setting Detail Level less than 4 is not recommended. Fill Style The style of shading used to fill surfaces in the rendered image.

Note: Surface fills are re-calculated for each frame and may appear to change, shift or jump during an animation. Note: The Single Color fill color is actually based on the surface material color and an ambient light located at the camera that is automatically created during rendering and removed after rendering. Tip: For better definition of surface edges, turn on Edges. Tip: For geometric objects that consist of many flat planes for example, a cube , Two Color may produce unnatural looking results that is, each flat surface is filled with two solid colors.

Tip: For geometric objects that consist of many flat planes for example, a cube , Four Color may produce unnatural looking results that is, each flat surface is filled with four solid colors. Tip: If you want to produce a high level of detail, and file size is not an issue, Mesh Gradient usually produces better results than Full Color.

Tip: For objects that are divided into surfaces with hard edges, Average Color often produces the best combination of 3D effect and modest file size, especially when the object is animated. Tip: For scenes that contain faceted objects objects composed of many distinctly defined surfaces , Area Gradient produces very good results.

For scenes that contain a combination of flat and smooth surfaces, Area Gradient produces a nice balance of fills. The smooth surfaces are filled with gradients, and the flat surfaces are filled with a more even color. For scenes that contain only smooth surfaces, Area Gradient may produce an overwhelming number of gradient fills. Note: Surfaces with normals facing away from the camera may not be visible, even if Show Back Faces is on, if another surface is between it and the camera.

Tip: Turning off Show Back Faces may decrease rendering times and file size. Note: You cannot set the shadow color. Shadows are not cast onto surfaces with transparent materials. For this material Surface shininess is based only on Highlights are only rendered if there is a point light in your scene that has Emit Specular turned on.

Note: This option is only available when Highlights is on. Note: This option is only available when Reflections is on.

Edge Options Include Edges Surface edges and silhouettes are rendered as outlines. Tip: If you are rendering a model with many polygons, avoid turning on Hidden Edges and setting Edge Style to Entire Mesh ; too many lines will likely appear in the rendered image. Note: This option is only available when Edge Style is Outlines. Render Optimizations The Render Optimization setting specifies how the Vector renderer optimizes the current frame to reduce file sizes. You can select one of the following types of optimizations: Safe Removes redundant geometry in areas of high detail, especially geometry that is only visible by zooming in on the area.

If symbols levels are deactivated, the complete symbols will be drawn according to their respective features order. Overlapping symbols will simply obfuscate to other below. When a layer is rendered with the proportional symbol or the multivariate rendering or when a scaled size diagram is applied to the layer, you can allow the display of the scaled symbols in both the Layers panel and the print layout legend.

To enable the Data-defined Size Legend dialog to render symbology, select the eponym option in the Advanced button below the saved symbols list.

For diagrams, the option is available under the Legend tab. The dialog provides the following options to:. For the latter option, you can select whether the legend items are aligned at the Bottom or at the Center ;. Use the and buttons to set your custom classes values and labels.

A preview of the legend is displayed in the right panel of the dialog and updated as you set the parameters. For collapsed legend, a leader line from the horizontal center of the symbol to the corresponding legend text is drawn. Currently, data-defined size legend for layer symbology can only be applied to point layer using single, categorized or graduated symbology.

In order to improve layer rendering and avoid or at least reduce the resort to other software for final rendering of maps, QGIS provides another powerful functionality: the Draw Effects options, which adds paint effects for customizing the visualization of vector layers. You can combine both usage. Paint effects can be activated by checking the Draw effects option and clicking the Customize effects button.

That will open the Effect Properties Dialog see Fig. The following effect types, with custom options are available:. The Opacity of its style can be adjusted as well as the Blend mode and Draw mode. These are common properties for all types of effects. Blur : Adds a blur effect on the vector layer. The custom options that you can change are the Blur type Stack blur fast or Gaussian blur quality and the Blur strength.

Colorise : This effect can be used to make a version of the style using one single hue. The base will always be a grayscale version of the symbol and you can:. If Colorise is selected, it will be possible to mix another color and choose how strong it should be. Control the Brightness , Contrast and Saturation levels of the resulting symbol.

Drop Shadow : Using this effect adds a shadow on the feature, which looks like adding an extra dimension. This effect can be customized by changing the Offset angle and distance, determining where the shadow shifts towards to and the proximity to the source object. Drop Shadow also has the option to change the Blur radius and the Color of the effect. Inner Shadow : This effect is similar to the Drop Shadow effect, but it adds the shadow effect on the inside of the edges of the feature.

The available options for customization are the same as the Drop Shadow effect. Inner Glow : Adds a glow effect inside the feature. This effect can be customized by adjusting the Spread width of the glow, or the Blur radius.

The latter specifies the proximity from the edge of the feature where you want any blurring to happen. Additionally, there are options to customize the color of the glow using a Single color or a Color ramp. Outer Glow : This effect is similar to the Inner Glow effect, but it adds the glow effect on the outside of the edges of the feature.

The available options for customization are the same as the Inner Glow effect. Transform : Adds the possibility of transforming the shape of the symbol. The other options are:. One or more effect types can be used at the same time.

You de activate an effect using its checkbox in the effects list. You can change the selected effect type by using the Effect type option. There are some common options available for all draw effect types. Opacity and Blend mode options work similar to the ones described in Layer rendering and can be used in all draw effects except for the transform one. Modifier only mode means that the effect will not be visible but the changes that it applies will be passed to the next effect the one immediately below.

The Render and Modify mode will make the effect visible and pass any changes to the next effect. If the effect is at the top of the effects list or if the immediately above effect is not in modify mode, then it will use the original source symbol from the layers properties similar to source. The Labels properties provides you with all the needed and appropriate capabilities to configure smart labeling on vector layers.

This dialog can also be accessed from the Layer Styling panel, or using the Layer Labeling Options button of the Labels toolbar. No labels : the default value, showing no labels from the layer. Single labels : Show labels on the map using a single attribute or an expression. Rule-based labeling. The next steps assume you select the Single labels option, opening the following dialog.

At the top of the dialog, a Value drop-down list is enabled. You can select an attribute column to use for labeling. By default, the display field is used. Click if you want to define labels based on expressions - See Define labels based on expressions.

Description of how to set each property is exposed at Setting a label. You can use the automated placement settings to configure a project-level automated behavior of the labels. In the top right corner of the Labels tab, click the Automated placement settings applies to all layers button, opening a dialog with the following options:.

Number of candidates : calculates and assigns to line and polygon features the number of possible labels placement based on their size. The longer or wider a feature is, the more candidates it has, and its labels can be better placed with less risk of collision. Text rendering : sets the default value for label rendering widgets when exporting a map canvas or a layout to PDF or SVG. If Always render labels as text is selected then labels can be edited in external applications e.

Inkscape as normal text. BUT the side effect is that the rendering quality is decreased, and there are issues with rendering when certain text settings like buffers are in place. Allow truncated labels on edges of map : controls whether labels which fall partially outside of the map extent should be rendered. If unchecked then partially visible labels will be skipped.

Show all labels for all layers i. Note that this option can be also set per layer see Rendering tab. Show unplaced labels : allows to determine whether any important labels are missing from the maps e.

They are displayed using a customizable color. Show candidates for debugging : controls whether boxes should be drawn on the map showing all the candidates generated for label placement. This could be handy for a better manual placement with tools from the label toolbar. Project labeling version : QGIS supports two different versions of label automatic placement:.

Version 1 : the old system used by QGIS versions 3. Accordingly, it can be difficult to obtain the desired labeling results when using this version and it is thus recommended only for compatibility with older projects. Version 2 recommended : this is the default system in new projects created in QGIS 3. In version 2, the logic dictating when labels are allowed to overlap obstacles has been reworked. As a result, this version results in much more predictable and easier to understand labeling results.

With rule-based labeling multiple label configurations can be defined and applied selectively on the base of expression filters and scale range, as in Rule-based rendering. To create a rule, select the Rule-based labeling option in the main drop-down list from the Labels tab and click the button at the bottom of the dialog.

Then fill the new dialog with a description and an expression to filter features. You can also set a scale range in which the label rule should be applied. The other options available in this dialog are the common settings seen beforehand.

A summary of existing rules is shown in the main dialog see Fig. You can add multiple rules, reorder or imbricate them with a drag-and-drop. You can as well remove them with the button or edit them with button or a double-click. Whether you choose single or rule-based labeling type, QGIS allows using expressions to label features. Assuming you are using the Single labels method, click the button near the Value drop-down list in the Labels tab of the properties dialog.

In Fig. Be aware that in some situations when null or numeric value are involved not all of these tools will fit your need. As you can see in the expression builder, you have hundreds of functions available to create simple and very complex expressions to label your data in QGIS.

See Expressions chapter for more information and examples on expressions. With the Data defined override function, the settings for the labeling are overridden by entries in the attribute table or expressions based on them. This feature can be used to set values for most of the labeling options described above. Click on the icon next to the Size property. Press OK to validate. The dialog closes and the button becomes meaning that an rule is being run.

Likewise, you can customize any other property of the label, the way you want. There is an option to set the labeling for multi-part features independently from your label properties.

Choose the Rendering , Feature options , go to the Data-define override button next to the checkbox Label every part of multipart-features and define the labels as described in Data defined override setup. The Label Toolbar provides some tools to manipulate label including their callout or diagram properties:.

Highlight Pinned Labels, Diagrams and Callouts. Toggle Display of Unplaced Labels : Allows to determine whether any important labels are missing from the maps e.

They are displayed with a customizable color see Setting the automated placement engine. By clicking or draging an area, you pin overlaid items. If you click or drag an area holding Shift , the items are unpinned. Finally, you can also click or drag an area holding Ctrl to toggle their pin status. If you click on the items, or click and drag an area holding Shift , they are hidden.

When an item is hidden, you just have to click on the feature to restore its visibility. If you drag an area, all the items in the area will be restored. Move a Label, Diagram or Callout : click to select the item and click to move it to the desired place. The new coordinates are stored in auxiliary fields. Selecting the item with this tool and hitting the Delete key will delete the stored position value. Rotate a Label. Click to select the label and click again to apply the desired rotation.

Likewise, the new angle is stored in an auxiliary field. Selecting a label with this tool and hitting the Delete key will delete the rotation value of this label. Change Label Properties. It opens a dialog to change the clicked label properties; it can be the label itself, its coordinates, angle, font, size, multiline alignment … as long as this property has been mapped to a field.

Here you can set the option to Label every part of a feature. Using the Label toolbar to customize the labeling actually writes the new value of the property in the mapped field. Hence, be careful to not inadvertently replace data you may need later! The Auxiliary Storage Properties mechanism may be used to customize labeling position, and so on without modifying the underlying data source.

Combined with the Label Toolbar , the data defined override setting helps you manipulate labels in the map canvas move, edit, rotate. We now describe an example using the data-defined override function for the Move Label, Diagram or Callout function see Fig. Import lakes.

Double-click the layer to open the Layer Properties. Click on Labels and Placement. Select Offset from centroid. Look for the Data defined entries. Click the icon to define the field type for the Coordinate. Choose xlabel for X and ylabel for Y.

The icons are now highlighted in yellow. Set editable the layer using the Toggle Editing button. Go to the Label toolbar and click the icon. Now you can shift the label manually to another position see Fig. The new position of the label is saved in the xlabel and ylabel columns of the attribute table. The Auxiliary Storage Properties mechanism may be used with data-defined properties without having an editable data source.

The Diagrams tab allows you to add a graphic overlay to a vector layer see Fig. No diagrams : the default value with no diagram displayed over the features;. Pie chart , a circular statistical graphic divided into slices to illustrate numerical proportion. The arc length of each slice is proportional to the quantity it represents;. Text diagram , a horizontaly divided circle showing statistics values inside;.

Histogram , bars of varying colors for each attribute aligned next to each other. Stacked bars , Stacks bars of varying colors for each attribute on top of each other vertically or horizontally. In the top right corner of the Diagrams tab, the Automated placement settings applies to all layers button provides means to control diagram labels placement on the map canvas.

Given that the settings are almost common to the different types of diagram, when designing your diagram, you can easily change the diagram type and check which one is more appropriate to your data without any loss.

Attributes defines which variables to display in the diagram. Generated attributes with Expressions can also be used. You can move up and down any row with click and drag, sorting how attributes are displayed. Rendering defines how the diagram looks like. It provides general settings that do not interfere with the statistic values such as:. You may want to set the spacing to 0 for stacked bars. Moreover, the Axis line symbol can be made visible on the map canvas and customized using line symbol properties.

Diagram z-index : controls how diagrams are drawn on top of each other and on top of labels. A diagram with a high index is drawn over diagrams and labels;. Show all diagrams : shows all the diagrams even if they overlap each other;. Always Show : selects specific diagrams to always render, even when they overlap other diagrams or map labels;. Size is the main tab to set how the selected statistics are represented. You can use:.

Fixed size , a unique size to represent the graphic of all the features not available for histograms. Press Find to return the Maximum value of the attribute or enter a custom value in the widget.

For histogram and stacked bars, enter a Bar length value, used to represent the Maximum value of the attributes. For each feature, the bar lenght will then be scaled linearly to keep this matching. For pie chart and text diagram, enter a Size value, used to represent the Maximum value of the attributes. For each feature, the circle area or diameter will then be scaled linearly to keep this matching from 0. A Minimum size can however be set for small diagrams.

Placement defines the diagram position. Depending on the layer geometry type, it offers different options for the placement more details at Placement :.

Around point or Over point for point geometry. The former variable requires a radius to follow. Around line or Over line for line geometry. In that case, QGIS will look for the optimal position of the diagram. Remember that you can also use the line orientation for the position of the diagram.

Around centroid at a set Distance , Over centroid , Using perimeter and Inside polygon are the options for polygon features. The Coordinate group provides direct control on diagram placement, on a feature-by-feature basis, using their attributes or an expression to set the X and Y coordinate. The information can also be filled using the Move labels and diagrams tool.

In the Priority section, you can define the placement priority rank of each diagram, ie if there are different diagrams or labels candidates for the same location, the item with the higher priority will be displayed and the others could be left out. Discourage diagrams and labels from covering features defines features to use as obstacles , ie QGIS will try to not place diagrams nor labels over these features.

The priority rank is then used to evaluate whether a diagram could be omitted due to a greater weighted obstacle feature. The Options tab has settings for histograms and stacked bars. You can choose whether the Bar orientation should be Up , Down , Right or Left , for horizontal and vertical diagrams. From the Legend tab, you can choose to display items of the diagram in the Layers panel , and in the print layout legend , next to the layer symbology:.

This opens the Data-defined Size Legend dialog whose options are described in Data-defined size legend. When set, the diagram legend items attributes with color and diagram size are also displayed in the print layout legend, next to the layer symbology. The Masks tab helps you configure the current layer symbols overlay with other symbol layers or labels, from any layer. To apply masks on the active layer, you first need to enable in the project either mask symbol layers or mask labels.

Then, from the Masks tab, check:. Select the items that would generate the mask over the selected masked symbol layers.

The 3D View tab provides settings for vector layers that should be depicted in the 3D Map view tool. For better performance, data from vector layers are loaded in the background, using multithreading, and rendered in tiles whose size can be controlled from the Layer rendering section of the tab:. Zoom levels count : determines how deep the quadtree will be.

For example, one zoom level means there will be a single tile for the whole layer. Three zoom levels means there will be 16 tiles at the leaf level every extra zoom level multiplies that by 4.

The default is 3 and the maximum is 8. Show bounding boxes of tiles : especially useful if there are issues with tiles not showing up when they should. Single symbol : features are rendered using a common 3D symbol whose properties can be data-defined or not. Read details on setting a 3D symbol for each layer geometry type.

Rule-based : multiple symbol configurations can be defined and applied selectively based on expression filters and scale range. More details on how-to at Rule-based rendering. The Fields tab provides information on fields related to the layer and helps you organize them. The layer can be made editable using the Toggle editing mode.

At this moment, you can modify its structure using the New field and Delete field buttons. You can also rename fields by double-clicking its name. An alias is a human readable field name you can use in the feature form or the attribute table.

Aliases are saved in the project file. Depending on the data provider, you can associate a comment with a field, for example at its creation. This information is retrieved and shown in the Comment column and is later displayed when hovering over the field label in a feature form.

Other than the fields contained in the dataset, virtual fields and Auxiliary Storage included, the Fields tab also lists fields from any joined layers. Depending on the origin of the field, a different background color is applied to it. For each listed field, the dialog also lists read-only characteristics such as its type , type name , length and precision. The Attributes Form tab helps you set up the form to display when creating new features or querying existing one.

You can define:. At the top right of the dialog, you can set whether the form is opened by default when creating new features. By default, when you click on a feature with the Identify Features tool or switch the attribute table to the form view mode, QGIS displays a basic form with predefined widgets generally spinboxes and textboxes — each field is represented on a dedicated row by its label next to the widget.

If relations are set on the layer, fields from the referencing layers are shown in an embedded frame at the bottom of the form, following the same basic structure.

This property holds three different values:. Drag-and-drop designer : other than widget customization, the form structure can be made more complex eg, with widgets embedded in groups and tabs. Provide ui file : allows to use a Qt designer file, hence a potentially more complex and fully featured template, as feature form. When the Autogenerate option is on, the Available widgets panel shows lists of fields from the layer and its relations that would be shown in the form.

Select a field and you can configure its appearance and behavior in the right panel:. Choose Drag and drop designer from the Select attribute layout editor combobox. This enables the Form Layout panel next to the Available widgets panel, filled with existing fields. The selected field displays its properties in a third panel. Select fields you do not want to use in your Form Layout panel and hit the button to remove them.

Drag and drop fields from the other panel to re-add them. The same field can be added multiple times. Drag and drop fields within the Form Layout panel to reorder their position.

Add containers tab or group frames to associate fields that belong to the same category and better structure the form. The first step is to use the icon to create a tab in which fields and groups will be displayed. These, and other properties can later be updated by selecting the item and, from the third panel:. You can create as many containers as you want; press the icon again to create another tab or a group frame under an existing tab.

The next step is to assign the relevant fields to each container, by simple drag and drop. Groups and tabs can also be moved in the same way. Customize the widget of the fields in use. In case the layer is involved in a one or many to many relation , drag-and-drop the relation name from the Available Widgets panel to the Form Layout panel. As for the other items, select the relation label to configure some properties:.

In case the layer has one or more actions enabled for Layer or Feature scope, the actions will be listed under Actions and you can drag and drop them as with the other fields. Open a feature attribute form eg, using the Identify features tool and it should display the new form. The Provide ui-file option allows you to use complex dialogs made with Qt-Designer.

Using a UI-file allows a great deal of freedom in creating a dialog. UI-files can also be hosted on a remote server.

QGIS forms can have a Python function that is called when the dialog is opened. Use this function to add extra logic to your dialogs. The form code can be specified in three different ways:. In all cases you must enter the name of the function that will be called open in the example below. Reference in Python Init Function like so: open.

The main part of the Attributes Form tab helps you set the type of widget used to fill or display values of the field, in the attribute table or the feature form: you can define how user interacts with each field and the values or range of values that are allowed to be added to each.

Regardless the type of widget applied to the field, there are some common properties you can set to control whether and how a field can be edited. Show label : indicates whether the field name should be displayed in the form only in the Drag and drop designer mode.

Alias : a human readable name to use for fields. The alias will be displayed in the feature form, the attribute table, or in the Identify results panel. It can also be used as field name replacement in the expression builder , easing expressions understanding and reviews. Aliases are saved in project file. This information is shown as tooltip when hovering over the field label in a feature form.

Editable : uncheck this option to set the field read-only not manually modifiable even when the layer is in edit mode. Reuse last entered value : remembers the last value entered in this field and uses it as default for the next feature being edited in the layer. Label on top : places the field name above or beside the widget in the feature form. Default value : for new features, automatically populates by default the field with a predefined value or an expression-based one.

For example, you can:. Apply default value on update : whenever the feature attribute or geometry is changed, the default value is recalculated. This could be handy to save values like last user that modifies data, last time it was changed…. Not null : requires the user to provide a value;. Unique : guarantee the inserted value to be unique throughout the field;.

A short description can be added to help you remember the constraint. You can hover over the cross to remind which constraints are applied to the field and fix the value:. An orange cross can not be ignored and does not allow you to save your modifications until they meet the constraints. It appears when the Enforce constraint option is checked.

Based on the field type, QGIS automatically determines and assigns a default widget type to it. You can then replace the widget with any other compatible with the field type. The available widgets are:.

Classification : Only available when a categorized symbology is applied to the layer, displays a combo box with the values of the classes. Color : Displays a color widget allowing to select a color; the color value is stored as a html notation in the attribute table. Column type must be text. You can select a custom format, pop-up a calendar, etc. Enumeration : Opens a combo box with predefined values fetched from the database.

This is currently only supported by the PostgreSQL provider, for fields of enum type. It can be used to display a hyperlink to document path , a picture or a web page. Hidden : A hidden attribute column is invisible. The user is not able to see its contents. This is currently supported by the PostgreSQL provider, for fields of hstore type. This widget is currently read only. Several options are available to change how the data is displayed.

Indented: Display data in a human readable form with newlines and four space characters for indentation. List : Displays a single column table to add different values within a single field. This is currently supported by the PostgreSQL provider, for fields of array type. Range : Allows you to set numeric values from a specific range.

The edit widget can be either a slider or a spin box. Relation Reference : This is the default widget assigned to the referencing field i. Text Edit default : This opens a text edit field that allows simple text or multiple lines to be used.

If you choose multiple lines you can also choose html content. The vector data is stored into a compound path. You may want to separate it into single objects. This can be achieved by selecting the Compound Path; the easiest way to do this is in your layer manager. Rendering to vector format doesn't support shadows, reflections etc.

If you want shadows, highlights or reflections, you need to use a bitmap format. You can open bitmaps in Illustrator and place vector data on top of it in another layer. In this way you can combine the flexibility and quality of vector data and the effects and realism offered by bitmaps. Combining Mental Ray renders and Vector data can yield great results. Note: Using shadows, highlights or reflections will not work for the vector output formats!

If you've selected the output to be Adobe Illustrator.