QGIS

https://github.com/qgis/QGIS/compare/final-3_44_12%5E...final-3_44_13

https://github.com/qgis/QGIS/compare/final-4_2_0%5E...final-4_2_1

https://github.com/qgis/QGIS/compare/final-3_44_11%5E...final-3_44_12

Changelog for QGIS 4.2 ¶

Release date: 2026-07-03 QGIS (https://qgis.org) is the world’s most popular (open source) desktop Geographical Information System (GIS). It is used by people around the world to view, edit, analyse, and share spatial data. It can produce professional-grade cartography products and supports hundreds of spatial data formats. QGIS is a member project of OSGEO, the Open Source Geospatial Foundation that is democratising access to spatial platforms (https://osgeo.org). We are pleased to announce the new major release of QGIS 4.2, which builds on the solid foundation of the Major Version 4.0 update that transitioned the core of QGIS onto the modern Qt6 framework. This release also bundles loads of performance optimizations and newly introduced features, including multiple enhancements to 3D capabilities and processing tools. For a whirlwind tour of all the new functionalities introduced in this release, you can view the highlight reel video on YouTube. QGIS is a community effort, and we would like to extend a big thank-you to the developers, documenters, testers, and the many folks out there who volunteer their time and effort (or fund others to do so) to make these releases possible. From the QGIS community, we hope you enjoy this release! If you wish to donate time, money, or otherwise contribute towards making QGIS more awesome, please wander along to QGIS.ORG and lend a hand! QGIS is supported by donors and sustaining members. A current list of donors who have made financial contributions, large or small, to the project can be seen on our list of donors. If you would like to become an official project sustaining member, please visit our sustaining member page for more details. Sponsoring QGIS helps us to fund our regular developer meetings, maintain project infrastructure, and fund bug-fixing efforts. A complete list of current sponsors is provided below - our very big thank you to all of our sponsors! QGIS is free software, and you are under no obligation to pay anything to use it - in fact, we want to encourage people far and wide to use it regardless of their financial or social status - we believe that empowering people with spatial decision-making tools will result in a better society for all of humanity.

Breaking Changes ¶

Feature: Move QGIS4 settings storage location with automated migration from QGIS3 ¶

In order to prevent configuration file corruption between changes made to user settings on both QGIS3 and QGIS4 on the same system, the QGIS 4 settings are now completely siloed into a separate directory.PLEASE NOTE: This will affect automated installation scripts, profile management, and enterprise deployments.On initial startup, QGIS4 will perform a copy of user profile data from the existing QGIS3 path and clone the settings to a new QGIS4 path. Automated deployments and profile management scripts must be updated to target this new location. This resolves reported issues #61636 and #60088.Please note:

• This is a ONE TIME ONLY migration
• The migration losslessly preserves existing settings of the LOADED USER PROFILE
• Subsequent profile changes will not sync between QGIS3 and QGIS4 This feature was developed by Nyall Dawson

User Interface ¶

Feature: Add layer menu to load and save styles ¶

This adds Load Style… and Save Style… options directly to the layer menu under the Styles submenu. This will provide users with a quick way to load/save style on a layer, without the need to open another interface or menu. This feature was developed by Jan Caha

Symbology ¶

Feature: Add categorized renderer for 3D Symbols ¶

Categorized and rule-based rendering is now available for QGIS 3D Symbology.Both implementations are similar to the existing vector renderers for 2D styling, so that users have familiar controls for 3D scenes, whilst multiple API enhancements have been applied to support this powerful set of functionalities. This feature was funded by Stadt Frankfurt am Main This feature was developed by Jean Felder

Feature: Add physically based material with texture support ¶

A new 3d material type for exposing the physically based material with full texture map support has been added.Textures can be specified for:

• base color
• metalness
• roughness
• ambient occlusion This feature was developed by Nyall Dawson

Feature: Add trim distance start and end to Hashes/Markers line symbol layer ¶

This extends capabilities already existing for simple line to hashes and markers line symbol layers. This feature was funded by Stadt Frankfurt am Main and Oslandia This feature was developed by Julien Cabieces

Feature: Add data-defined control for metal rough base, emission color ¶

A data-defined control for metal rough base and emission color has been added, closing one of the few remaining functionality gaps between the legacy phong materials and the physically based material. This feature was developed by Nyall Dawson

Feature: Data defined control over phong/metal rough texture scale, rotation and offset ¶

A data-defined control has been added for control over the texture scale, rotation, and offset for 3D polygons when using either the metal rough or phong textured materials. This feature was developed by Nyall Dawson

Feature: Add optional solid emission color to metal rough material ¶

A new, non-default, solid emission color setting has been added to the metal rough material, along with a spin box to also control the strength of the emission. Practically, this allows users to create materials that are not impacted by scene lighting.The attached image shows a comparison of dark scene lighting with no emission, yellow emission at 100%, and yellow emission at 1000% to demonstrate the effect of this functionality. This feature was developed by Nyall Dawson

Feature: Add opacity support to metal rough materials ¶

Physically based rendering materials now support opacity, bringing their capabilities closer to the older phong material capabilities. This feature was developed by Nyall Dawson

Feature: Add 3d material settings to style database ¶

QGIS now includes support for managing 3d material settings in the style database (and style manager dialog).Users can create presets of 3d materials and manage them alongside other style objects (e.g., allowing metadata such as tagging, favourites, etc.). This feature was developed by Nyall Dawson

Feature: Allow choice of up/forward axis for 3d point model symbols ¶

Instead of always assuming the model file has been created using a z up, y forward axis convention, expose settings to allow users to manually set the forward and up axes.This makes it easier to use random obj files downloaded from the internet as 3d point symbols in QGIS. Previous workarounds required manually rotating the symbol, but this prevented the reuse of rotation/scale values and data-defined expressions used by other 3d point symbols. This feature was developed by Nyall Dawson

Feature: Add extra items for templated line symbol layer ¶

Tools are now provided to create, move, rotate and delete new markers/hashes for marker/hash line symbol layer.Those new markers will share the same style as the original markers, the same selected or visibly state.This is the implementation of QEP #406. This feature was funded by Stadt Frankfurt am Main and Oslandia** This feature was developed by Julien Cabieces

3D Features ¶

Feature: Generate environmental lighting from skybox ¶

New environmental lighting effects have been added to the physically based materials when a cube map skybox is in place. Environmental lights are calculated dynamically from the skybox textures.These effects use the spherical harmonic approximation for the irradiance to avoid the need for pre-calculated irradiance textures and to simplify the user experience.This is only enabled when a skybox is in use (not the fixed gradient) and can be disabled if desired. This feature was developed by Nyall Dawson

Feature: Support 3D model instancing ¶

Instancing support has been added for 3d symbols.This introduces a new library, tinyobjloader: https://github.com/tinyobjloader/tinyobjloaderqgsobj3dutils (similar to qgsgltf3dutils) is created, which loads OBJ data into geometry, reading and creating textured material, if it exists.Other changes:

• PhongTexturedMaterial now supports instancing by implementing setInstancingEnabled() like phong and gooch.
• HighlightMaterial has been refactored to remove technique from the constructor call, and it also implements setInstacingEnabled() with flags. This also fixes a bug where previously 3d models wouldn’t be highlighted in 3d view when selected in 2d. “And if you gaze long into an abyss, the abyss also gazes into you”. This feature was developed by Dominik Cindric

Feature: Allow control over 3d map color grading effects ¶

New settings are exposed for tone mapping, exposure adjustment, and gamma for 3D scenes.A new “Color Grading” section the in 3d map “Effects” tab allows users to control these options. This allows users to modify a scene to render in a manner that makes colors more dramatic and provides higher contrast, or use bloom effects that can make very bright emitted light display as overexposed light in a nighttime scene. This feature was developed by Nyall Dawson

Feature: Optional light bloom effects ¶

A new physically-based light bloom effect has been added, which gives bright portions of the 3d map a realistic bloom. This helps those areas to actually look like they emit light, as opposed to just having bright colors, and can help make 3d scenes look much more dramatic. This feature was developed by Nyall Dawson

Feature: Add multisample anti aliasing (MSAA) ¶

A new global 3D setting is provided that toggles the use of multisample anti-aliasing in 3D maps. This feature was developed by Dominik Cindric

Feature: Add gradient background to 3D scene ¶

QGIS now supports configurable gradients as background effects in 3D map views, providing users an effective custom skybox effect without textures. This feature was developed by Dominik Cindric

Feature: 3D Tiles: add instancing support ¶

Support has been added for instanced meshes in 3D Tiles, allowing users to efficiently display repeated 3D objects like trees or streetlights at varying positions, rotations, and scales. This implementation abstracts away the complex structural differences between 3D Tiles 1.0 and 1.1 to provide seamless rendering.

• Supported in both 2D and 3D map views.
• 3D views utilize highly efficient GPU instanced rendering.
• Supports 3D Tiles 1.0 using the i3dm format.
• Supports 3D Tiles 1.1 via glTF GPU instancing.
• Automatically corrects tile rotations for projected coordinate systems.
• Quantized positions and oct-encoded rotations remain unsupported.
• Feature IDs are not read in this implementation. This feature was funded by Natural Resources Canada This feature was developed by Martin Dobias

Feature: Add implicit tiling for 3D Tiles ¶

Support has been added for implicit tiles as specified in the 3D Tiles 1.1 standard. This feature improves the loading and parsing efficiency of massive 3D datasets by utilizing structured subdivision schemes.Logic runs via a new QgsCesiumImplicitTiling core class, and the quadtree subdivision scheme is currently supported (with octree support possible in a future update). This feature was developed by Martin Dobias

Feature: Add camera controls dialog to control the 3D camera in map coordinates ¶

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https://github.com/qgis/QGIS/compare/final-4_0_2%5E...final-4_0_3

https://github.com/qgis/QGIS/compare/final-3_44_10%5E...final-3_44_11

https://github.com/qgis/QGIS/compare/final-4_0_1%5E...final-4_0_2

https://changelog.qgis.org/en/qgis/version/3.44

https://github.com/qgis/QGIS/compare/final-4_0_0%5E...final-4_0_1

https://github.com/qgis/QGIS/compare/final-3_45_8%5E...final-3_44_9