Project: InaSAFE

Changelog for version: 4.2.0

Release date: 15 July, 2017


Version 4.2 is an incremental improvement over the previous release which adds bug fixes and some new features.


Tools


Feature: Improved display of field preview in the Keywords wizard

In previous versions of InaSAFE it was at times difficult to select an appropriate field for the aggregation area name when defining keywords for an aggregation layer. InaSAFE 4.2 adds some helpful information about the aggregation field being selected to help you quickly determine if the aggregation area names are unique. It also displays helpful information about field counts and so on. See #3786. (#4379)

This feature was funded by DFAT/DMI

This feature was developed by Kartoza


Documentation


Feature: Wizards now have context sensitive help

In previous versions of InaSAFE, there was no context based help when using the Keywords and Impact Function Centric wizards. In version 4.2 we have added the standard help system to the wizard too. The help is context sensitive - it shows help relevant to the current page active in the Wizard.

This feature was funded by DFAT/DMI

This feature was developed by Kartoza


Reporting


Feature: Added ability to override templates

Until prior releases of InaSAFE 4.x, there was not an easy way to modify the templates used to produce map reports in InaSAFE. With InaSAFE 4.2 we have added a system of template overrides which work in the following manner:

The master templates are found in the InaSAFE plugin directory under "resources/qgis-composer-templates/". If you make a copy of the reports in that folder your "(home)/.qgis2/inasafe" directory, you can edit this copy and override the default layout and content options provided by InaSAFE. See also the manual for details about expressions and composer elements that you can use in your reports. In addition to this basic override mechanism, you can provide hazard / exposure specific variants of this template by using a standard path and naming conventions. For example:

(home)/.qgis2/inasafe/(hazard)-(exposure).qpt

where

  • (home) is replaced by the path to your home directory,
  • (hazard) by the class of hazard,
  • and (exposure) by the class of exposure).

You can find a list of which reports support template overrides in the user manual here.

With this new system you can now make reports that are specific to hazards and exposure types for your organisation. The video provided below gives a walk-through of the new functionality described here (as well as showing how expressions and project variables are made available).

This feature was funded by DFAT/DMI

This feature was developed by Kartoza


Feature: Re-implemented infographics as composer templates

In InaSAFE 4.2 we have added infographic support again for analyses that use population exposure. Our revised implementation makes use of QGIS composer templates to provide pixel perfect layout positioning. The new implementation is generic for the demographic breakdowns, but Indonesia specific for the minimum needs portion of the infographic. By using the standard template overrides explained elsewhere in this changelog, you can customise the demographic reports for your own country or organisation's requirements.

The calculations for the demographic report are based on the ratio's assigned to your aggregation layer or counts assigned to your population layer, so be sure to run the keywords wizard on your aggregation or exposure layer if needed.

Note: The screenshot example provided here is based on contrived demographic ratios and is not intended to reflect a real-world scenario.

This feature was funded by DFAT/DMI

This feature was developed by Kartoza


Feature: Enable atlas generation on reporting

In 4.2 we have added experimental support for producing atlas reports. An atlas report is a series of map sheets in a series (for example one sheet per aggregation area). When using this feature, be sure to enable the new option in the InaSAFE options dialog that enables atlas printing. Currently only the map report supports atlas (infographic etc will come in future versions). Also note that preparation of the atlas report may substantially increase the length of time InaSAFE takes to generate the reports at the end of the analysis process.

This feature was funded by DFAT/DMI

This feature was developed by Kartoza


Feature: Provision of InaSAFE expressions and project variables for easy report customisation

In this release we really focussed on adding tools to help you build better reports. The report templating system has been updated and a large number of InaSAFE specific QGIS project variables and expressions have been made available to report designers. With the new system we are moving away from using 'tokens' (as described here) in favour of QGIS project variables and expressions. All the analysis provenance (which layers were used, how long the analysis took etc.) data are now available as QGIS project variables. Custom expressions allow you to easily extract data from the analysis results layer. The complete set of of expressions are listed in the InaSAFE manual.

This feature was funded by DFAT/DMI

This feature was developed by Kartoza


Impact Functions


Feature: Removed separate workflow for Earthquake impact functions

InaSAFE 4.0 introduced a new implementation for the Impact Function logic used to determine the potential impact of a hazard. In the new implementation, a uniform approach is used for all hazard and exposure combinations - with the exception of earthquakes which retained its own discrete workflow. In 4.2 we have removed this discrete functionality so that earthquake impacts are also calculated in a similar workflow to all other hazards.

This feature was funded by DFAT/DMI

This feature was developed by Kartoza


Feature: Allow exposure data driven classification

This feature introduces a new classification option for exposure data. This classification is data driven, meaning that classes are automatically generated based on the unique values present in the dataset. See the change request for more details.

This feature was funded by WorldBank/GFDRR

This feature was developed by Marco Bernasocchi


Feature: Support for Land Cover economic impact calculations

InaSAFE 4.2 introduces support for calculation of productivity, production cost, and production values for landcover (see #4344). These additional statistics are reported in the analysis summary table and made available in the analysis results table. The relationship between productivity rates and the resulting values is illustrated in the diagram below. In order to make use of this feature, be sure to run the keyword wizard on your land use layer and provide mappings for the productivity cost related fields.

This feature was funded by DFAT/DMI

This feature was developed by Kartoza


Feature: Added support for working with multi-band rasters

Previous versions of InaSAFE did not support raster layers that contained more than one band. This sometimes required that raster data needed to be pre-processed to remove additional bands and added extra overhead to the preparation stage when carrying out an analysis. InaSAFE 4.2 adds support for working with multi-band rasters. To make use of this feature, be sure to run the keyword wizard on your raster layer and choose the appropriate data sub-layer in the raster. InaSAFE will display some helpful layer statistics to help you be certain that you are selecting the correct layer.

This feature was funded by DFAT/DMI

This feature was developed by Kartoza