Visualizing Multi-Temporal Data with Time Manager

Requirements

• A Screenr account.
• Libreoffice 3.6.4 or
• Openoffice 3.4.1
• QGIS 1.8
• Time Manager plugin for QGIS

Installing Time Manager

Fetching Python Plugin

• Start QGIS
• Click "Plugins" on the toolbar. A drop down menu will appear.
• Click "Fetch Python Plugins"
• Click "Repositories"
• Click "Add"
• Name your plugin "Time Manager"
• Type in "https://github.com/anitagraser/TimeManager" in the URL field
• Click "OK"
• Click "Close"

Managing Time Manager

• Click "Plugins" on the toolbar. A drop down menu will appear.
• Click "Manage Plugins"

Getting Data

Getting CSV data

• Proceed to data.seattle.gov
• Search & open Seattle Real Time Fire 911 Calls
• Click "Export", A drop down menu will appear.
• Scroll down to "Download As"
• Download a copy of this dataset in XLSX format

Getting Vector data

• Proceed to data.seattle.gov
• Search & open Street Network Database
• Download a copy of this polyline shapefile in ZIP format
• Search & open Neighbourhoods
• Download a copy of this polygon shapefile in ZIP format

Preparation of Data

Spreadsheet

• Import to Libreoffice or Openoffice or Microsoft Excel

LibreOffice Calc/OpenOffice Calc

• Right click on "datetime" column and proceed to "Format Cells".
• Find and click "User defined" in "Numbers" tab.
• Change format to the following: YYYY-MM-DD HH:MM:SS
• Save file in CSV format.

Microsoft Excel

• Right click on "datetime" column and proceed to "Format Cells".
• Find and click "Custom" in "Numbers" tab.
• Change format to the following: YYYY-MM-DD HH:MM:SS
• Save file in CSV format.

Importing Data

Importing a spreadsheet

• Start QGIS and click "Layer" on the toolbar. A drop down menu will appear.
• Click "Add Delimited Text Layer".
• Browse to location of your CSV file.
• Click on the "OK" button.

• Right click on the imported spreadsheet on the Layers panel. A drop down menu will appear.
• Click "Save As"
• Format should be "ESRI shapefile"
• CRS should be "WGS84"
• "Add saved file to map" should be enabled.
• Save file to a desired location.
• Click on the "OK" button.

Importing a vector polyline/polygon

• Start QGIS and click "Layer" on the toolbar. A dropdown menu will appear.
• Click "Add Vector Layer".
• Browse to location of your WGS84 projected "shp" file.
• Click on the "Open" button.