Supported Formats

When working with Mergin Maps mobile app, you can keep using standard data formats you are used to in QGIS. In general, most of the data formats that QGIS can load, can be also used in the mobile app. There are however some minor differences worth highlighting.

• Vector data on Mergin Maps mobile app
  • PostgreSQL/PostGIS
• Raster data on Mergin Maps mobile app
• Vector tiles on Mergin Maps mobile app
• Supported QGIS providers
• Supported GDAL and OGR drivers
• How to convert between GDAL/OGR formats
• Support for new formats

Vector data on Mergin Maps mobile app

For survey layers used on the field, we strongly recommend GeoPackage, to be able to work fully offline, benefit from automatic merging of data (collaborative editing) and versioning.

Format	Android/iOS	Note
GeoPackage	😍	collaborative editing and versioning by geodiff
Shapefile	⚠️	collaborative editing not supported
Delimited text	⚠️	collaborative editing not supported
Virtual layer	⚠️	collaborative editing not supported
PostGIS	👍	requires internet connection
WFS	⚠️	requires internet connection

There are more formats supported, please see full list of supported QGIS providers, OGR and GDAL drivers.

TIP

Go to Behind Data Synchronisation to read more about how synchronisation works in Mergin Maps.

PostgreSQL/PostGIS

PostgreSQL connection (username, password, host, port, etc.) can be set up:

• directly in QGIS PostgreSQL connection, if you want to reuse the same connection for everyone
• use a Connection Service File pg_service.conf, if you want to have different PostgreSQL user for each surveyor

To use a Connection Service File, you have to:

• create a pg_service.conf file as described in QGIS User Manual and test it in QGIS Desktop
• manually transfer the pg_service.conf file to Mergin Maps mobile app data folder. The data folder is shown in the Diagnostic Log
• restart the mobile app. Check the Diagnostic Log to see if the file is found and used after restart.

Raster data on Mergin Maps mobile app

Format	Android/iOS	Note
GeoTIFF	👍	jpg and webp compression
JPEG	👍
PNG	👍
COG (local)	👍
MBTiles	👍	png, jpg compression
Geospatial PDF	👍
WM(T)S	👍	requires internet connection
XYZ tiles	👍	requires internet connection (e.g. OpenStreetMap)
COG (online)	👍	requires internet connection
ECW	🚫	proprietary license
MrSID	🚫	proprietary license

There are plenty of other raster formats we support through GDAL/OGR, please see the full list.

TIP

See our guide for setting up background layers.

Vector tiles on Mergin Maps mobile app

We support vector tiles just like QGIS does - in Mapbox Vector Tiles (MVT) format - and stored either in a MBTiles file (for offline use) or through a template URL (for online service) such as http://example.com/{z}/{x}/{y}.pbf.

TIP

See our guide for setting up background layers.

Supported QGIS providers

The currently supported QGIS providers are:

OGC API - Features data provider
WFS data provider
ArcGIS Feature Service data provider
ArcGIS Map Service data provider
Delimited text data provider
GDAL data provider
Memory provider
Mesh memory provider
OGR data provider
PostgreSQL/PostGIS data provider
SpatiaLite data provider
Vector tile provider
Virtual layer data provider
OGC Web Coverage Service version 1.0/1.1 data provider
OGC Web Map Service version 1.3 data provider

Supported GDAL and OGR drivers

Full list of supported GDAL and OGR drivers can be found in Mergin Maps mobile repository.

How to convert between GDAL/OGR formats

To convert between various GDAL formats, you can use gdal_translate command-line utility.

Support for new formats

If you find out that the Mergin Maps mobile app doesn't support your format, please open issue at MerginMaps/mobile.

If QGIS on desktop does not support the format of your choice, open issue at qgis/QGIS-Mac-Packager for macOS, or qgis/QGIS for other platforms.

For support of collaborative editing and versioning of vector data formats, please open issue at MerginMaps/geodiff.