GIS icon theme

Introduction

This page presents history and development details of GIS icons theme version 0.1

New versions are available under OSGeo Graphics

Overview

GIS icon theme is designed mainly for GIS applications. I hope it will help in intuitive visual identification of typical objects and actions. It is intended to be open and free alternative for existing GIS icon sets.

Design was inspired mainly by Tango Desktop Project. I was impressed by beauty and simplicity of this design and tried to follow Tango guidelines. I hope to get close to this level in version 7.0 :)

Naming convention

I plan to implement also Icon Naming Specification and supplement it with FOSS4G terms.
Depending on term complexity, three general types of file name are applied:

Most of icons follow object-action type. Objects and actions are shown below separately, but in final version any useful combination can be available.

Basic GIS object

layer
map
mapset
layer-vector
layer-raster
layer-db
layer-wfs
layer-wms
layer-gps
point
line
vertex
polygon
ring
island

Basic GIS actions

layer-create
layer-delete
layer-add
layer-remove
layer-edit
layer-open
layer-save
layer-import
layer-export
layer-redraw

View actions

zoom-in
zoom-out
zoom-layer
zoom-extent
zoom-last
zoom-refresh
zoom-selection
view

General actions

create
edit
show
hide
open
save
save-as
select
split
edit-copy
edit-cut
edit-paste

Reference list

Where GIS icon set was applied:

  • GRASS GIS - Geographic Resources Analysis Support System is a software for performing spatial analysis. It consists of more than 350 modules for processing vector (2D/3D), raster and voxel data.
  • QGIS - Quantum GIS is a user friendly Open Source Geographic Information System (GIS) that runs on GNU/Linux, Unix, Mac OSX, and Windows.
  • Mapplate - tool for designing customised web maps, using a skin based mapping template.
  • GeoTools (Swing components) - open source Java library that provides tools for geospatial data.
  • i3Geo - open source framework for web interactive maps based on MapServer an OpenLayers. Nice example application for Brasil.
  • ... place for your application

version for GRASS

Working draft I use to trace work and for some analysis. It will be also useful for comparison and further themes coding, I hope.

[2.01.2008]
Wxpython version with png format goes first. No conversion to gif an loss of semi-transparency. I will convert it to Tcl/Tk gif version as soon as possible.

Layer manager toolbar


Map display toolbar

version for QGIS

[26.11.2008]
Considering your sugestions and votes (thanks) I prepared the first complete version for Quantum GIS icon theme. It contains at the moment only toolbar icons.

gis-0.1_qgis

[3.12.2008]
Updated version considering Tim remarks. GPS and WFS layer icons are merged in graphics for presentation purposes only, as I have no idea where they are located.

qgis v.2

Download zip file (44kB) and save in themes directory of QGIS. After unzipping, gis-0.1 directory will be created and theme will available in QGIS.

[18.12.2008]
Set of 13 plugin icons for Quantum GIS.
Download zip file (13kB)

[20.12.2008]
GRASS icons for Quantum GIS.
Download zip file (22kB)

[2.01.2008]
Traditional version of save-open icons.

[23.04.2009]
SpatiaLite and zoom-next icons.

Comments and sugestions

Any comments are welcome on OGGeo Graphics mailing list.

License

Creative Commons License
GIS icons by Robert Szczepanek is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 Unported License. Feel free to use it in any GIS software or for other purposes. I only ask you to let me know about that and to include licence.txt file in your work.

Acknowledgements

OSGeo community helped in whole design process.
Especially I want to acknowledge GRASS and QGIS team members for creative comments and support:

  • Martin Landa
  • Michael Barton
  • Tim Sutton
  • Borys Jurgiel

Other sources