{"title":"SHP Buddy: a QGIS plugin for generating shapefiles to support remote sensing in plant breeding and agronomic experiments.","authors":"Nathaniel Burner, Donna K Harris, Zenglu Li","doi":"10.1186/s13007-025-01336-1","DOIUrl":null,"url":null,"abstract":"<p><strong>Background: </strong>Shapefiles are a geospatial vector data format used to indicate geographic features in geographic information systems (GIS) software. Shapefiles are used in high-throughput phenotyping plant breeding and agronomic studies to identify plots from aerial imagery and extract remote sensing data. However, the process of manually creating shapefiles is tedious and error prone. Current options that assist in shapefile generation suffer from issues such as installation processes that require a degree of programming knowledge or inefficient methods for incorporating plot-level information from field books. In this study, we have developed a program called 'SHP Buddy', a QGIS plugin that provides accessible and intuitive functions that quickly generate shapefiles for common experimental layouts used in agricultural research.</p><p><strong>Results: </strong>SHP Buddy is a free and open source QGIS plugin that is easily downloaded directly from the QGIS plugin repository. It provides options for generating serpentine replicated and unreplicated experimental layouts. Further, SHP Buddy is the first of its type to provide an intuitive method for removing non-experimental plots, such as non-experimental \"fill\" plots at the end of experiments or plots in irrigation wheel tracks. Plot information is easily incorporated by uploading a field book CSV file that contains a column of matching plot numbers. Lastly, plot dimensions can be modified to produce more precise regions of interest.</p><p><strong>Conclusions: </strong>SHP Buddy substantially reduces the time and increases the accuracy of shapefile generation. This results in reliable shapefiles that improve record keeping and the quality of high-throughput phenotyping data extracted. By working natively in QGIS, SHP Buddy provides an efficient solution to shapefile generation while maintaining a low learning curve.</p>","PeriodicalId":20100,"journal":{"name":"Plant Methods","volume":"21 1","pages":"17"},"PeriodicalIF":4.4000,"publicationDate":"2025-02-12","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC11823009/pdf/","citationCount":"0","resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":null,"PeriodicalName":"Plant Methods","FirstCategoryId":"99","ListUrlMain":"https://doi.org/10.1186/s13007-025-01336-1","RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"生物学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":null,"EPubDate":"","PubModel":"","JCR":"Q1","JCRName":"BIOCHEMICAL RESEARCH METHODS","Score":null,"Total":0}
引用次数: 0
Abstract
Background: Shapefiles are a geospatial vector data format used to indicate geographic features in geographic information systems (GIS) software. Shapefiles are used in high-throughput phenotyping plant breeding and agronomic studies to identify plots from aerial imagery and extract remote sensing data. However, the process of manually creating shapefiles is tedious and error prone. Current options that assist in shapefile generation suffer from issues such as installation processes that require a degree of programming knowledge or inefficient methods for incorporating plot-level information from field books. In this study, we have developed a program called 'SHP Buddy', a QGIS plugin that provides accessible and intuitive functions that quickly generate shapefiles for common experimental layouts used in agricultural research.
Results: SHP Buddy is a free and open source QGIS plugin that is easily downloaded directly from the QGIS plugin repository. It provides options for generating serpentine replicated and unreplicated experimental layouts. Further, SHP Buddy is the first of its type to provide an intuitive method for removing non-experimental plots, such as non-experimental "fill" plots at the end of experiments or plots in irrigation wheel tracks. Plot information is easily incorporated by uploading a field book CSV file that contains a column of matching plot numbers. Lastly, plot dimensions can be modified to produce more precise regions of interest.
Conclusions: SHP Buddy substantially reduces the time and increases the accuracy of shapefile generation. This results in reliable shapefiles that improve record keeping and the quality of high-throughput phenotyping data extracted. By working natively in QGIS, SHP Buddy provides an efficient solution to shapefile generation while maintaining a low learning curve.
期刊介绍：
Plant Methods is an open access, peer-reviewed, online journal for the plant research community that encompasses all aspects of technological innovation in the plant sciences.
There is no doubt that we have entered an exciting new era in plant biology. The completion of the Arabidopsis genome sequence, and the rapid progress being made in other plant genomics projects are providing unparalleled opportunities for progress in all areas of plant science. Nevertheless, enormous challenges lie ahead if we are to understand the function of every gene in the genome, and how the individual parts work together to make the whole organism. Achieving these goals will require an unprecedented collaborative effort, combining high-throughput, system-wide technologies with more focused approaches that integrate traditional disciplines such as cell biology, biochemistry and molecular genetics.
Technological innovation is probably the most important catalyst for progress in any scientific discipline. Plant Methods’ goal is to stimulate the development and adoption of new and improved techniques and research tools and, where appropriate, to promote consistency of methodologies for better integration of data from different laboratories.
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