There are generally two approaches when input data should be rendered as a map: either do it quick way using QgsMapRenderer or produce more fine-tuned output by composing the map with QgsComposition class and friends.
Render some layers using QgsMapRenderer — create destination paint device (QImage, QPainter etc.), set up layer set, extent, output size and do the rendering
# create image
img = QImage(QSize(800, 600), QImage.Format_ARGB32_Premultiplied)
# set image's background color
color = QColor(255, 255, 255)
img.fill(color.rgb())
# create painter
p = QPainter()
p.begin(img)
p.setRenderHint(QPainter.Antialiasing)
render = QgsMapRenderer()
# set layer set
lst = [layer.getLayerID()] # add ID of every layer
render.setLayerSet(lst)
# set extent
rect = QgsRectangle(render.fullExtent())
rect.scale(1.1)
render.setExtent(rect)
# set output size
render.setOutputSize(img.size(), img.logicalDpiX())
# do the rendering
render.render(p)
p.end()
# save image
img.save("render.png","png")
If you have more than one layer and they have a different CRS, the simple example above will probably not work: to get the right values from the extent calculations you have to explicitly set the destination CRS and enable OTF reprojection as in the example below (only the renderer configuration part is reported)
...
# set layer set
layers = QgsMapLayerRegistry.instance().mapLayers()
lst = layers.keys()
render.setLayerSet(lst)
# Set destination CRS to match the CRS of the first layer
render.setDestinationCrs(layers.values()[0].crs())
# Enable OTF reprojection
render.setProjectionsEnabled(True)
...
Map composer is a very handy tool if you would like to do a more sophisticated output than the simple rendering shown above. Using the composer it is possible to create complex map layouts consisting of map views, labels, legend, tables and other elements that are usually present on paper maps. The layouts can be then exported to PDF, raster images or directly printed on a printer.
The composer consists of a bunch of classes. They all belong to the core library. QGIS application has a convenient GUI for placement of the elements, though it is not available in the GUI library. If you are not familiar with Qt Graphics View framework, then you are encouraged to check the documentation now, because the composer is based on it. Also check the Python documentation of the implementation of QGraphicView.
The central class of the composer is QgsComposition which is derived from QGraphicsScene. Let us create one
mapRenderer = iface.mapCanvas().mapRenderer()
c = QgsComposition(mapRenderer)
c.setPlotStyle(QgsComposition.Print)
Note that the composition takes an instance of QgsMapRenderer. In the code we expect we are running within QGIS application and thus use the map renderer from map canvas. The composition uses various parameters from the map renderer, most importantly the default set of map layers and the current extent. When using composer in a standalone application, you can create your own map renderer instance the same way as shown in the section above and pass it to the composition.
It is possible to add various elements (map, label, ...) to the composition — these elements have to be descendants of QgsComposerItem class. Currently supported items are:
map — this item tells the libraries where to put the map itself. Here we create a map and stretch it over the whole paper size
x, y = 0, 0
w, h = c.paperWidth(), c.paperHeight()
composerMap = QgsComposerMap(c, x ,y, w, h)
c.addItem(composerMap)
label — allows displaying labels. It is possible to modify its font, color, alignment and margin
composerLabel = QgsComposerLabel(c)
composerLabel.setText("Hello world")
composerLabel.adjustSizeToText()
c.addItem(composerLabel)
legend
legend = QgsComposerLegend(c)
legend.model().setLayerSet(mapRenderer.layerSet())
c.addItem(legend)
scale bar
item = QgsComposerScaleBar(c)
item.setStyle('Numeric') # optionally modify the style
item.setComposerMap(composerMap)
item.applyDefaultSize()
c.addItem(item)
arrow
picture
shape
table
By default the newly created composer items have zero position (top left corner of the page) and zero size. The position and size are always measured in millimeters
# set label 1cm from the top and 2cm from the left of the page
composerLabel.setItemPosition(20, 10)
# set both label's position and size (width 10cm, height 3cm)
composerLabel.setItemPosition(20, 10, 100, 30)
A frame is drawn around each item by default. How to remove the frame
composerLabel.setFrame(False)
Besides creating the composer items by hand, QGIS has support for composer templates which are essentially compositions with all their items saved to a .qpt file (with XML syntax). Unfortunately this functionality is not yet available in the API.
Once the composition is ready (the composer items have been created and added to the composition), we can proceed to produce a raster and/or vector output.
The default output settings for composition are page size A4 and resolution 300 DPI. You can change them if necessary. The paper size is specified in millimeters
c.setPaperSize(width, height)
c.setPrintResolution(dpi)
The following code fragment shows how to render a composition to a raster image
dpi = c.printResolution()
dpmm = dpi / 25.4
width = int(dpmm * c.paperWidth())
height = int(dpmm * c.paperHeight())
# create output image and initialize it
image = QImage(QSize(width, height), QImage.Format_ARGB32)
image.setDotsPerMeterX(dpmm * 1000)
image.setDotsPerMeterY(dpmm * 1000)
image.fill(0)
# render the composition
imagePainter = QPainter(image)
sourceArea = QRectF(0, 0, c.paperWidth(), c.paperHeight())
targetArea = QRectF(0, 0, width, height)
c.render(imagePainter, targetArea, sourceArea)
imagePainter.end()
image.save("out.png", "png")
The following code fragment renders a composition to a PDF file
printer = QPrinter()
printer.setOutputFormat(QPrinter.PdfFormat)
printer.setOutputFileName("out.pdf")
printer.setPaperSize(QSizeF(c.paperWidth(), c.paperHeight()), QPrinter.Millimeter)
printer.setFullPage(True)
printer.setColorMode(QPrinter.Color)
printer.setResolution(c.printResolution())
pdfPainter = QPainter(printer)
paperRectMM = printer.pageRect(QPrinter.Millimeter)
paperRectPixel = printer.pageRect(QPrinter.DevicePixel)
c.render(pdfPainter, paperRectPixel, paperRectMM)
pdfPainter.end()