We are implementing two changes related to GIS on the Terrascope platform: an upgrade of QGIS on the Virtual Machines and the JupyterGIS extension to the Jupyter Lab environment.
QGIS upgrade on Virtual Machines
On Monday 8 June 2026, between 8:00 and 9:00 CEST, we will upgrade QGIS and GDAL on the Terrascope Virtual Machines, to these versions:
- QGIS: 3.44.7
- GDAL: 3.12.4
As part of this upgrade, the current QGIS installation will first be removed and then reinstalled using a new deployment method. During this period, QGIS may be temporarily unavailable. After the upgrade has been completed, please log out and log back in to ensure all changes are applied correctly.
Existing settings will be lost and will have to be configured after the upgrade is complete.
After the installation, the QGIS desktop icon may display a warning. This is expected behaviour and is resolved after selecting "Mark as executable".
Jupyter GIS extension on JupyterLab
On Tuesday 9 June 2026, between 9:00 and 10:00 CEST.
This adds these key features to the JupyterLab environment:
- Geospatial File Support: Work with a wide range of file formats, including QGIS project files (.qgs, .qgz), GeoJSON, GeoTIFF, and more
- Interactive Maps: Explore and visualize geospatial data directly in your notebooks
- Story Maps: Create and share narrative-driven geospatial stories to communicate your analysis
Documentation and usage examples can be found here: https://jupytergis.readthedocs.io/en/latest/
This enhancement makes it easier to explore, analyze, and visualize geospatial data seamlessly within your Terrascope environment. To help you get started, we created a notebook sample under terrascope-samples/Terrascope/Advanced/jupytergis_pythonapi.ipynb.
Notes:
- Collaboration features are currently disabled; the extension is available as an interactive viewer only.
- STAC integration is currently not functioning due to a known bug in the plugin; this has been reported and will be addressed in a future update of the extension.
