QNEAT 4.0

What changed since QNEAT3

After nearly 8 years, I decided to overhaul QNEAT3. Firstly the old codebase was exactly that — old. Secondly, QGIS development moved on from QGIS3 to QGIS4. In the course of a whole year, I rewrote the QNEAT plugin from scratch, adding new features but also dropping many old/unpractical or buggy logic. Due to this redesign, old QNEAT3 models and projects are not compatible with QNEAT version 4. The new version number of QNEAT is 4.0 — in line with the new QGIS version number. I also decided to decouple the algorithm name from the QGIS version in order to have easier ports between future QGIS versions. QNEAT4 is now simply called QNEAT.

Following changes have been made to the plugin and have to be kept in mind when porting old QNEAT3 models, projects or processing scripts:

• No more matplotlib. Every Iso-Area algorithm that previously required a manual matplotlib install (Iso-Area as Contours/Polygons) has been rewritten on top of GDAL. All algorithms are now available out-of-the-box — see the updated Installation and Setup page.
• Entry/exit cost calculation is always ellipsoidal, and always uses the network layer's own CRS ellipsoid. Every algorithm used to expose an advanced “Entry Cost calculation method” parameter (Ellipsoidal / Planar), and ellipsoidal calculations were hardcoded to WGS84 regardless of the network's actual CRS. Both the parameter and the hardcoding are gone: costs are now always ellipsoidal and always computed against the network source's own ellipsoid, which is more accurate for networks in other CRSs.
• Iso-Area algorithms consolidated. 8 iso-area algorithms become 6 (see the mapping table below). The Polygon/Contour matplotlib algorithms were merged into two new algorithms (Iso-area from point / Iso-area from layer) that let you pick the output type and interpolation method as parameters instead of picking a different algorithm for each combination.
• OD-Matrix from Points as CSV (n:n) was removed. It has been redundant: the OD matrix from points as table (n:n) algorithm's output can be saved directly to a .csv file via the QGIS processing algorithm output options.
• OD-Matrix terminology renamed. “From-Point Layer” / “To-Point Layer” are now “Origin point layer” / “Destination point layer”, with distinct ID field labels for each side.
• Under the hood: the plugin's internals were substantially rewritten for maintainability (Qneat3Network/Qneat3AnalysisPoint → QneatCore, algorithms now inherit directly from QgsProcessingAlgorithm), progress reporting was reworked to actually reflect algorithm progress, and a number of longstanding bugs were fixed along the way (see the full changelog below).

Algorithm-by-algorithm