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Getting Started

Open the app

  • In the browser: open web.rustgis.app. Nothing to install.
  • On the desktop: install RustGIS and start it. It opens the World Atlas sample: countries, cities, rivers and lakes from Natural Earth.
  • From source:
cargo run --release -p rustgis                  # opens the World Atlas sample
cargo run --release -p rustgis -- places.geojson
cargo run --release -p rustgis -- atlas.rgis   # a saved project
cargo run --release -p rustgis -- lesson.rgispkg   # a project package, opened unsaved

Five minutes with the World Atlas

  1. Explore. Drag to pan, scroll to zoom, and click a country to see its attributes in a pop-up. Press Home for the full extent, or pick a place from Home › Bookmarks.
  2. Style a layer. Click Countries in the Layers pane, then open the Style tab and Style › Symbology, choose Graduated Colors or Unique Values, and pick a colour scheme.
  3. Select. Home › Select By Attributes, enter continent = 'Asia', and press Apply. Open the attribute table with Ctrl+T. Rows and map features stay in sync.
  4. Analyse. Analyze › Buffer: choose Cities, 300 km, Dissolve: All, and Run. The result is added as a new layer, and the run is listed under Analyze › History.
  5. Change the view. View › Globe turns the map into a 3D globe; View › Projection offers Equal Earth, Robinson and other projections. Home › Add › Basemap switches the basemap or adds a web tile layer, and its Celestial Bodies take the map to the Moon or Mars. Right-drag (or Ctrl-drag) turns and tilts the map.
  6. Share. Publish › Export Map saves a PNG with labels and a scale bar. Home › New Layout makes a printable page with a legend and north arrow. Project › Save As writes a .rgis project.

Command search

Press Ctrl+K to find any command or geoprocessing tool by name.

Your own data

Home › Add Data (or drop files on the window) opens GeoJSON, CSV with longitude and latitude columns, GeoParquet, FlatGeobuf, GeoTIFFs and ASCII grids, and on the desktop also Shapefiles and GeoPackages. Project › New › Map starts from a blank map. Home › Web Data finds public data on the web: satellite imagery from STAC catalogs, Overture Maps, OpenStreetMap, NASA Earthdata, open-data portals and more (see Web Data). See Data for the details of each format.

Ask the AI Assistant

Analyze › AI Assistant opens a chat pane. Choose a model provider (Anthropic, OpenAI, your ChatGPT account, Gemini, OpenRouter, a local Ollama, or any OpenAI-compatible server) and ask, for example, "Which 5 countries have the largest GDP?" or "Label the cities and zoom to Tokyo". See AI Assistant.

Next steps

  • The User Guide walks through every part of the app.
  • Command Line shows how to script RustGIS with rustgis-cli.
  • Plugins shows how to add tools from the plugin registry, or write your own.