A lot has happened since the humble beginnings back in 2017 when we introduced 3D map views in the QGIS 3.0 release. We have worked hard to improve QGIS 3D over the years through contracts with various organizations – and for larger chunks of work we have managed to run several crowdfunding campaigns – in 2018, 2020, 2021 and 2022. Thanks to that, QGIS has received support for point cloud data, 3D Tiles, elevation profile tool, lidar processing algorithms, globe view and much more. Check out our blog to learn more.

Now we are back with a new crowdfunding campaign that promises a whole range of useful functionalities when working with 3D data. There is a lot of focus on improving support for vector layers in 3D map views, together with addition of scene layers from ESRI, with various rendering quality and performance improvements. We are again partnering with North Road, one of the leading contributors to QGIS, to work together on the implementation.

The overarching goal is to help make QGIS an open platform for building geospatial digital twins. Beyond the buzzword, digital twins are becoming useful tools in cities, governments and across many industries. By combining 3D models of the physical world with various other data streams, they enable better understanding of the environment, analyses or simulations. We see QGIS well-positioned in building and management of digital twins – it can seamlessly integrate a wide range of geospatial data, and provide editing and analytical capabilities. With the improvements proposed in this crowdfunding campaign, we believe that we will bring QGIS another step towards being an important part of open platforms for digital twins.

The total cost of development will be 75 000 EUR. If you want to make a contribution, please fill the pledge form. For more information about contribution and how it works, see below. 

Timeline

The campaign to pledge funds is set to finish on June 30, 2025. Work will commence when the target for our crowdfunding campaign has been reached. We aim to deliver the promised features over QGIS 4.0 and 4.2 (due to be released in October 2025 and February 2026 respectively).

About us

This effort has been organised and led by Lutra Consulting in collaboration with North Road. These are two highly respected, proven companies committed to open source GIS, both of them with a history of running successful campaigns to enhance Open Source GIS software.