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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. On first launch it opens the World Atlas sample: countries, cities, rivers and lakes from Natural Earth.
  • From source:
cargo run --release -p rustgis -- --sample    # always 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

If you already changed the start-up settings, use Project › New › World Atlas to open the sample again. Settings › Start-up › Start With chooses what opens next time.

  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 Style › Symbology. In the Symbology pane, choose Graduated Colors, set Field to pop_est and pick a colour scheme. Unique Values instead colours categories such as continent.
  3. Select. Open Home › Select By Attributes, choose Countries under Input Rows, enter continent = 'Asia' under Where, and press Apply. Open the attribute table with Ctrl+T. Rows and map features stay in sync.
  4. Analyze. Open Analyze › Buffer. Set Input Features to Cities, Distance to 300, Units to Kilometers and Dissolve to All, then press 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; click the north arrow to reset it.
  6. Share. Publish › Export Map saves a PNG with labels and a scale bar. Home › New Layout offers page sizes and Publication Layout presets for sheets and figures. Choose a page size for a page with a map frame, legend, north arrow and scale bar. Project › Save As writes a .rgis project.

Command search

Press Ctrl+K to find any command or geoprocessing tool by name. On macOS, use Cmd in place of Ctrl for shortcuts.

Your own data

Home › Add Data › Data… (or drop files on the window) opens GeoJSON, GeoPackage, GeoParquet, FlatGeobuf, KML/KMZ, GPX, GeoTIFF, ASCII grids and more. Shapefiles work in the browser too: pick or drop the .shp and .dbf together, with .shx and .prj if available, or use a ZIP containing them. Use Add Data › Delimited Text… to choose a CSV's coordinate columns or WKT geometry and coordinate system.

Project › New › Map starts a blank project. Home › Web Data finds public satellite imagery, Overture Maps, OpenStreetMap, NASA Earthdata, open-data portals and more (see Web Data). Home › Add Data › Connections… opens saved data connections; desktop database connections include PostGIS, MySQL/MariaDB and SQL Server/Azure SQL. See Data and Supported Data Formats for format and platform limits.

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". By default, the assistant asks before file, network and plugin operations. Undo restores project changes, not files already written. 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.
  • Python covers sessions, rendering and the interactive notebook map.
  • MCP connects external AI agents to RustGIS.