F|Heat - Heat Planning Plugin for QGIS

Description

The Heat Planning Plugin for QGIS enables functions like status analysis and heat network analysis for municipal heat planning. This plugin facilitates municipal heat planning by giving users access to various Python libraries within QGIS without the need for programming skills. Parts of the plugin are currently tailored to NRW, Germany.

Table of Contents

1. Features and Usage
2. Quick-Start
3. Installation
4. Requirements
5. Documentation
6. Contact Information
7. Contributing
8. License
9. Acknowledgements

Features and Usage

This tool simplifies the urban heat planning process by automating tasks such as:

• downloading data,
• customising necessary files,
• displaying suitable heat network areas and
• a potential network layout.

The resulting network areas and routes (streets) can be customised and adjusted during the whole process. The process is about designating the planning region and is based on the german heat planning law.

Quick-Start

If you do not have QGIS installed, you can download it from the official website: qgis.org

Once QGIS is installed, open QGIS Desktop.

Click on "Plugins" > "Manage and Install Plugins..."

Select "All", search for "FHeat" and install the Plugin.

If the plugin toolbar is not visible, right-click on an empty space in the toolbar and check the "Plugin Toolbar" box.

The plugin toolbar with the F|Heat icon will then become visible.

It is advisable to save the project before starting F|Heat, as the plugin utilizes the project directory to save files. The project can be saved by clicking the save icon or by selecting "Project" > "Save As...".

F|Heat starts by clicking the icon in the toolbar. From there, the plugin guides you through the process. Check the documentation for a detailed example.

Installation

To install F|Heat and use the functionalities without QGIS, ensure you have Python installed on your system. Follow the steps below:

1. Clone the repository:

   git clone https://github.com/L4rsG/F-Heat.git

2. Navigate to the project directory:

   cd F-Heat

3. Install the required packages:

   pip install -r requirements.txt

Requirements

For using the application as a plugin you need QGIS on your machine. The required Python packages are installed by using the plugin on your local machine. Alternatively you can install the packages yourself by following this guide on Installing Python packages in QGIS 3.

Documentation

All necessary steps are documented within the plugin. A detailed documentation about on installation, usage and methodology is available via the following link:

F|Heat readthedocs

Contributing

We welcome contributions from the community. Issues and Pull Requests for further development are greatly appreciated. To contribute follow this guideline:

1. Fork the repository.
2. Create a new branch for your feature or bug fix.
3. Make your changes and commit them with descriptive messages.
4. Push your changes to your forked repository.
5. Open a pull request to the main repository.

Please ensure that your contributions align with the coding standards and consider to add tests for new functionalities. If you've never contributed to an open source project before we are more than happy to walk you through how to create a pull request.

Contact Information

F|Heat is developed and maintained by FH Münster - University of Applied Sciences.

For further information, questions or feedback, please contact one of the project maintainers:

Organizational Matters and Usage

• Hinnerk Willenbrink - willenbrink@fh-muenster.de

Technical Documentation and Development

• Lars Goray - lars.goray@fh-muenster.de
• Philipp Sommer - philipp.sommer@fh-muenster.de

License

F|Heat is licensed under the GPL 3.0 License. We refer to the LICENSE file for more information.

Acknowledgments

Credits to those who helped or inspired the project.

Additional Attribution

This project uses code from the project demandlib published under MIT license.