3 Flying Points

Tutorial 3: Flying Points

This tutorial aims to show you how add a flying point animation to points on your map using built-in QGIS functionalities (The geometry generator line) and introduced variables from the workbench.

1. Download and extract the Required Tutorial Zip Folder  

2. Open the tutorial_3.qgz project file. When you first open the project file you should be greeted with something like this:

 

3. Create a new point layer in a new geopackage by clicking Layer➔Create Layer➔ New GeoPackage Layer.... Click on the Ellipsis (three dots) next to the Database textbox and navigate to the folder that the tutorial_3.qgz file is located in. Type the File name "tutorial_3" (1) and ensure the file will be saved as a GeoPackage (2) and click Save (3).

 

Change the Table name to flying_points (4), set the Geometry type as Point (5) and change the CRS to match the Project CRS (6).

Click OK (7)  

4. Click on Toggle Editing➔Add Point Feature (8).

 

And randomly add points to your map. Depending on your computer's capabilites, you can add more, or fewer, points than the example below.

 

Save your Layer Edits and toggle off the Editing tool.  

5. Style the points layer.

Select the flying_points (9) layer and in the Layer Styling toolbar click on the Add Symbol Layer (green plus symbol) button (10).

 

Select the top Simple Marker (11) and change its Symbol layer type to Geometry Generator (12)

and then set the Geometry type to LineString / MultiLineString (13).

 

Change the line's Symbol layer type to Marker Line (14).

 

Add a second Simple marker to the marker line so that you end up with something like this:

 

Style the various Simple Markers to your preferred look.

 

6. Select the Geometry Generator symbol layer (15) and add this code to it:

    wave_randomized(
    make_line(
    $geometry, geometry(@hover_feature)), 
    100, 1000, 1000, 10000, 1)

 

More information about what changing the numbers will affect can be found in the QGIS expressions editor.  

7. A few options need to be changed in the Marker Line symbol layer (16): The Marker placement needs to be set to On first vertex (17) and, the Offset along line needs to be changed to Percentage (18). The click the Dropdown menu next to Offset along line and select Edit... (19).

 

In the Expression String Builder add the following code snippet:

    100 - to_int((@current_hover_frame / @hover_frames) * 100 )

 

Click OK  

8. Select the first Simple Marker symbol layer (20) in the Marker Line symbol layer. Scroll down to Offset and click on the Dropdown Menu➔Edit.. (21).

 

In the Expression String Builder add the following code snippet:

    -- Taken from https://spicyyoghurt.com/tools/easing-functions
    --    t = Time - Amount of time that has passed since the beginning of the animation. Usually starts at 0 and is slowly increased using a game loop or other update function.
    --    b = Beginning value - The starting point of the animation. Usually it's a static value, you can start at 0 for example.
    --    c = Change in value - The amount of change needed to go from starting point to end point. It's also usually a static value.
    --    d = Duration - Amount of time the animation will take. Usually a static value aswell.
    -- Sinusoidal
    -- -c / 2 * (Math.cos(Math.PI * t / d) - 1) + b;

    -- Use with the animation in static mode
    if(@hover_feature_id != $id,
    array(
        (-@hover_frames / 2) * (cos( (pi() * @frame_number / @hover_frames ) - 1)) ,
        (-@hover_frames / 2) * (sin( (pi() * @frame_number / @hover_frames ) - 1)) 
        ),
        array (0,0))

 

Click OK  

9. Open the Animation Workbench (22)

 

10. Set up the Animation Plan with:

• the Render Mode to Planar (23),
• the Animation Layer to flying_points (24) using the dropdown menu,
• the Zoom Range (25) to 1:22000000 for the Minimum and 1:11000000 for the Maximum,
• the Frame rate per second to 9 fps (26),
• the Travel duration to 2,00 s (27),
• the Feature hover duration to 2,00 s (28),
• and the Zoom Easing as InCirc (29)

 

With a decently specced computer you can up the fps and get the points to fly faster in your output.  

11. Add license-free media to the Intro, Outro, and Soundtrack.

Make sure your Soundtrack is as long as, or longer than, your final animation will be (including the Intro, Animation, and Outro).

 

12. Set the Output Format as Movie (MP4) (30) and the Output Resolution to 1080 (1920x1080) (31). The Output Resolution can be set as any of the three choices but was set at 1080 for this tutorial for the sake of speed. Set the output location (32) to one you can easily locate.

 

13. Click Run and get an output. The GIF below is the visual output of the tutorial if you followed step-by-step and set the parameters to exactly what was stated.

 

The link to a more complex output (with an Intro, an Outro, and a Soundtrack) can be found here

 

After this tutorial you should have a better idea of how you can use a mixture of built-in QGIS functionalites and the workbench's introduced variables to generate interesting outputs.