Included within the price of each course is a range of bonus content that are related to the lessons being taught, designed aid your learning and support you in future work or study. There is also a set of Universal Freebies that come as standard with every course being offered, regardless of level.
This page outlines the bonus materials included with each major course. In addition, there is also the option to purchase just these items if you are interested in them.
All Courses – Universal
This GIS data package contains an organised and comprehensive collection of lithological fill patterns and cartographic symbols that have been compiled from various open online sources and conform to international standards. It also includes walkthroughs for their set-up and configuration in QGIS.
Making the best use of both open access datasets and supporting information can save you a lot of time and money. This document contains links to c. 60 online sources where you can download freely available GIS data, employ GIS-related tools and support software, and develop your knowledge from learning materials.
There are more than 1,500 plug-ins available in QGIS so it can be very difficult to know which ones are useful, or even just where to start. This resource document therefore lists c. 30 of the most popular plug-ins for both general and more geological uses, as well as briefly describing what each one actually does.
Basic
It is difficult to visualise how a projection distorts your map without a point of reference for comparison. This GIS data package therefore contains a form of Tissot's Indicatrix, a regular grid of circles with the same diameter which can be overlain on your map to see which parts are warped, how so, and to what degree.
Base maps such as satellite imagery and terrain data are exceptionally useful for orientating yourself in GIS. If not using a specialised plug-in, this cheat-sheet provides you with the links that can be used to manually connect to various base map sources, such as Google Satellite, Bing Map and Esri's Shaded Relief.
Some of the text box and labelling functionality in QGIS uses HTML coding in order to control the format and display. As part of the Basic Bonus Content, you will receive this cheat-sheet with around 25 of the most useful HTML tags, ranging from font formatting to creating tables, bullet point lists and hyperlinks.
Working with any GIS software will bring you into contact with a myriad of file types ... and it can be confusing trying to work out what they all are! This final cheat-sheet provides a summary of almost 70 different file extensions that you are likely to come across when using QGIS.
Creating high quality maps for presenting your spatial data is an important part of many core GIS workflows. The last piece of Basic Bonus Content includes a total of 16 x professional-standard map templates (2 x landscape and 2 x portrait in A1, A2, A3 and A4) that can be freely repurposed to suit your needs.
Intermediate
Digital Elevation Models can be a key component of your GIS dataset, but not all DEMs are the same. In conjunction with its cheat-sheet (see below), this GIS data package displays the relative coverage of the 3 main open access global DEMs so, regardless of where you're working, you know which ones to use.
As above, not all DEMs are the same due to their different areas of coverage, spatial resolutions, data capture methods and public accessibility etc. This cheat-sheet summarises the core characteristics of the same 3 open access global DEMs so you always know which one is the most appropriate to use.
When digisiting, ensuring the accuracy and integrity of your vector data is crucial, otherwise data become difficult to analyse and impossible to process. This cheat-sheet shows 16 common topological errors that you should watch out for and explains how they should be fixed to ensure the compliance of your data.
QGIS has a lot of tools that help you efficiently create, edit and manage your vector data, but remembering what they all do can be hard. As a result, over 50 core vector processing tools are described and explained in this cheat-sheet, showing a 'before' and 'after' for better understanding.
Additionally, there are many tools that can also create, edit and manage raster data, but understanding all of these can be difficult as well. Similar to the above, this cheat-sheet describes and visually explains c. 15 of the most useful raster processing tools, again clearly demonstrating their impact with a 'before' and 'after'.
When changing the resolution of or reprojecting a raster file, you need to resample the original data, but different methods are useful for different data in different ways. This cheat-sheet describes the various resampling techniques, explaining how they work and in what circumstances it is best to use each one.
Creating cross-sections is an important geological skill, and they start by projecting your observation data onto a topographic profile. This Excel tool lets you take data exported from a QGIS plug-in and create an editable and customisable geological profile which can form the basis of your interpretation.
Advanced
