QGIS TUFLOW Styles

Introduction

When outputting GIS files in the shapefile format, no styling information is (or can be included). For example when viewing a _zsh_zpt_check_P, the user may wish to view whether the zpt (elevation point) has been raised, lowered, or no change has been applied. This GIS layer contains an attribute dz and the symbology options can be used to achieve this. For instructions to do this manually, please see QGIS Symbology.
The QGIS TUFLOW plugin also includes template styles for the majority of the check files. These are stored in a QGIS_Styles folder under the installation directory. This directory is typically:

C:\Users\<username>\.qgis2\python\plugins\TUFLOW\QGIS_Styles\

Where <username> is the Windows user name.

For instructions on customising these styles please see [[Overwriting_Style_Templates | Overwriting Style Templates] below.
There are currently three tools available for applying a TUFLOW style / symbology based on the templates, these are described further below.

Apply TUFLOW Style to Current Layer

As the name implies, this will apply the symbology to the current layer in the layer control. If no template file exists for the layer type no change is made.
This tool has a button in the toolbar which looks like the below:

This can also be accessed from the the Plugins >> TUFLOW >> Apply TUFLOW Styles to Current Layer menu item.

Apply TUFLOW Styles to Open Layers

As the name implies, this will apply the symbology to all open layers in the layer control (even if the visibility is turned off). This is particularly useful if loading in the .qgs project file from TUFLOW as this loads all of the input and output GIS files for the simulation, after loading if this tool is applied all output files will have a symbology applied. If no template file exists for a layer type no change is made.
This tool has a button in the toolbar which looks like the below:


This can also be accessed from the the Plugins >> TUFLOW >> Apply TUFLOW Styles to Open Layers.

An example QGIS map window showing the layers after this tool has been applied on a loaded .qgs project file is shown below.
File:QGIS TUFLOW CheckFile Symbology Open 02.png

Load Check Files and Apply Styles

This tool has a button in the toolbar which looks like the below:
File:Check files folder.png
This can also be accessed from the the Plugins >> TUFLOW >> Import Check Files from Folder.
Once the tool has been started, a dialogue as per the image below will be created.
File:QGIS TUFLOW Import Check from folder.png

The components of the dialogue are:

1. Browse to folder containing check files.
2. Check file directory to import files from, can be set using the button above, or the folder location can be copied into this line.
3. Run ID. This is used to filter the check files to only a single simulation.

Once OK has been selected, the tool will open the files filtered using the RunID and apply the relevant symbology, an output is shown below.

Overwriting Style Templates

When running these tools above, the following steps are performed:

• The names of all the .qml style files are loaded in from the QGIS_Styles folder under the installation directory.
• These files are sorted based on longest filename 1st. For example the tool will search for _zsh_zpt_check_P before _zpt_check_P.
• For each layer (depending on the method above), the utility check if the style layer name is in the layer name. For example if _zsh_zpt_check_P is found in the layer name M04_5m_001_zpt_check_P, the layer will get this styling applied.

The logic above has been designed to allow the user to modify the symbology for a selected layer or add symbology for an additional layer. This can be done by creating a custom symbology in the QGIS Styles dialogue. Once the preferred symbology has been created, the Style >>> Save Style >> QGIS Layer Style File can be used to save this as a QGIS .qml file. These steps are outlined in the image below.

File:QGIS TUFLOW CheckFile Custom Symbology 01.png

This .qml file can be saved in the QGIS_Style folder, for example to overwrite the _zsh_zpt_check_P.qml symbology, this file would be saved as per the below.
File:QGIS TUFLOW CheckFile Custom Symbology 02.png
This same process could be used to add additional functionality, for example no _hydroprop_check_L template is provided, but one could be created to style this based on one of the attributes in the GIS layer (such as Channel type, Manning's n, conveyance etc.)