The FSC Plugin for QGIS v3

This is the help for version 3.n.n of the FSC QGIS plugin which is compatible with version 3.n.n of QGIS. If you want to see the help pages for version 2.8.0 of the plugin, which was the last release compatible with version 2.n.n of QGIS, then follow this link: FSC QGIS plugin for version 2 of QGIS.

QGIS logoTom.bio plugin toolbar

To install the FSC QGIS Plugin, please use the QGIS plugin manager.

The FSC QGIS plugin is designed to make working with biological records in QGIS much easier for UK users, e.g. by:

  • dealing with British and Irish national grid references,
  • dealing with data structured as biological records (who, what, where & when), and
  • visualising and downloading biological records from the NBN Atlas.

Although originally designed to be used in the UK context, many features of the FSC QGIS plugin are useful to international users of biological records too - especially the distribution atlas generation features which can be used with data encoded with any CRS.

If you find problems or bugs with the plugin, or have an idea for a new feature, we would like to hear from you! We have some guidance on the forum explaining what to do next.

If you have a question or want to start some other sort of discussion about the plugin, the best place is our online forum. You will need to register (free and easy) in order to post, but its the best way for you to get the attention of the FSC Biodiversity team and developers.

The FSC QGIS plugin is installed from the QGIS plugin manager. When installed, you will find a 'FSC Tools' item on the Plugins menu and from this you can start each of the five Tom.bio tools as well as its options dialog. But usually a more convenient way of invoking the tools is from the FSC QGIS plugin toolbar. 

Tom.bio plugin for QGIS menuThere are five main tools and a sixth dialog for managing environment options. The help and info menu item links to this web page. Follow the links below for help on each of these.

  1. The OSGR ToolTom.bio OSGR Tool toolbutton
  2. The Biological Records ToolTom.bio Biological Records Tool toolbutton
  3. The NBN Atlas ToolTom.bio NBN Tool toolbutton
  4. The Map Mashup ToolTom.bio Map Mashup Tool toolbutton
  5. The GR to Layers ToolTom.bio Add GRs to Layer Tool toolbutton
  6. Environment Options

QGIS Help

There are many online sources of QGIS help available. A few are listed below:

Useful sources of data for QGIS

There are lots of good soruces of GIS data on the web. Some of the more useful in the UK context are listed below.

Mashups