Preparing a QGIS compilation

MinexMaps publishes a QGIS project with its own styling. The fewer surprises in the project, the more of it gets online. You do not need to tidy everything: we repair, convert and clip what we safely can, and the report after each upload says exactly what happened.

The short version

Use the QGIS plugin if your project reads a shared data library or a database. It collects that data from wherever it lives on your computer. A website upload can only contain the folder you send.
Save the project with relative paths: Project > Properties > General > Save paths: Relative.
Set the view you want people to see first, then save the project. Your map opens there.
Give the project a title (Project > Properties > General > Project title): it becomes the map's name.

Data outside the project folder

Many compilations read province-wide layers (claims, geology, geophysics) from a shared library folder or from a database. A zip or folder upload holds only what is inside it, so those layers are left out and listed in the report, grouped by folder. Three fixes, best first:

Publish with the QGIS plugin: it copies those files into the package for you.
Upload the parent folder that holds both the project and the data folder.
In QGIS, run Processing > Toolbox > Package layers to put everything in one GeoPackage beside the project.

Databases (PostGIS and others)

A live database connection cannot be published. The plugin exports database layers to a GeoPackage on your computer. Saved database passwords are always removed from what we publish.

Big provincial layers

Layers covering the whole province (hundreds of thousands of claims, province-wide magnetic grids) are clipped to your map area with a margin, and get sensible zoom limits, so the map stays fast. The report lists every layer that was clipped.

What we accept and convert

Accepted as they are: GeoPackage, shapefiles, GeoTIFF, GeoJSON, CSV, images, PDF.
Converted for you: Esri File Geodatabase, MapInfo TAB/MIF, KML/KMZ, DXF, GPX, JPEG 2000 and ER Mapper grids.
Not supported: ECW (export it as GeoTIFF) and Esri vector tile packages (.vtpk; use one of our basemaps).
Web basemaps: OpenStreetMap, OpenTopoMap, Esri imagery and Ontario's LIO services; other web layers are left out.

3D models (Leapfrog and other packages)

Your own geological models can be shown in the 3D drill-hole view beside the holes, as you made them (read-only). Put them in a folder named 3d_models beside the project:

OMF (Open Mining Format, version 1): in Leapfrog Geo, Export > Open Mining Format. Surfaces, solids, lines and points keep their names and colours.
OBJ or DXF (3D faces and polyface meshes, saved as ASCII DXF) from packages without OMF export.
Block models (voxels), such as resistivity, susceptibility or grade: a CSV with a header row, the cell centres (x or easting, y or northing, z or elevation) and one or more value columns (only the cells with values are needed), or an OMF 1 volume (an unrotated regular grid). Up to 3 million cells per model, 4 models per map. In models.json you can say which column to show and how, for example {"files": {"rdi.csv": {"property": "AppRes_ohm_m", "units": "ohm-m", "scale": "log", "reverse": true}}} (reverse puts low values in red, as for conductors); "cell": [37.5, 37.5, 25] gives the cell size when the coordinates were exported rounded. They appear under Voxels in the Underground view, switched off until you tick them.
Targets, plates and proposed holes with their attributes: a GeoJSON (.geojson) with heights (x, y, z: points, lines or polygons), for example EM plates as 3D polygons and proposed holes as lines from collar to end. They appear under Targets in the Underground view: a list you can filter, coloured by an attribute, and a click on one shows all its attributes, the survey lines it lies on and the holes or plates linked to it. In models.json you can choose the name shown, the colours, the order of the attributes and warnings to pin, for example {"files": {"plates.geojson": {"label": "plate", "color_by": "grade", "colors": {"Good": "#B2182B"}, "lines": "lines"}, "holes.geojson": {"label": "hole_id", "link": "plate"}}}. Up to 2,000 features per file (5 MB) and 100 attributes each. Inside 3d_models a GeoJSON is always read as 3D features, never as a 2D map layer: keep 2D layers elsewhere.
Coordinates in the project's map coordinate system, in metres, elevations above sea level. If your drill collars are in another system, add a small models.json in the folder saying which, for example {"crs": "EPSG:26915"}; it can also rename or recolour a file's objects and say how see-through each starts, for example {"files": {"shell_low.obj": {"name": "Grade shell 0.3 g/t", "color": "#facc15", "opacity": 25}}} (per cent; handy for nested grade shells). Add "about" to say what a model is and how it was made, in plain text (up to 1,500 characters; a blank line starts a new paragraph), for example {"files": {"rdi.csv": {"about": "Geotech VTEM 2026 RDI, apparent resistivity."}}}: it shows in the model's (i) in the Underground view. The same "about" in an ip/georef.json describes the IP or RDI sections.

A website upload (folder or zip) and the QGIS plugin both take the 3d_models folder with the project, and our build service does too. Files we cannot read safely are skipped and the upload report says which and why (“3D model pit.obj: skipped: …”); the rest still publish. Up to 30 files, 200 MB per file, 1 GB in all and about a million points per map. Models appear in the Underground (3D drill-hole) view, so the map needs its drill tables too.

Limits

A website upload can be up to 500 MB; the plugin sends bigger packages in parts. Only the files your chosen project uses are unpacked, so sending a whole GIS folder is fine. Your plan sets storage, map and upload limits: see Usage and limits.

Removed for safety

Project macros, Python code, layer actions, HTML in labels and saved passwords are removed from every published map. Your own project file is never changed.

Stuck? Contact us and we will help.