Sixteen tiling and weave families, each mapping the same five Auckland deprivation indices over the same areas

WeavingSpace QGIS

An experimental QGIS plugin built on the weavingspace library of David O’Sullivan and Luke Bergmann.

Mapping several attributes of the same areas in a single map remains an awkward problem. This plugin takes one particular approach to it: a small repeating pattern of shapes is laid across the study area, and each kind of shape is coloured by a different attribute, so that several variables can be read from one map rather than from a row of them side by side. The technique, its cartographic reasoning, and its limits are set out in the article listed below.

Four deprivation indices in a basket weave and seven in a hexagon seven-colouring, both over central Auckland
Four indices of deprivation in a basket weave, and seven in a 7-colouring of hexagons, both over the centre of Auckland. Each legend names which element carries which variable. Figure 1 from O’Sullivan and Bergmann (2026), reproduced by the authors.
Anthropogenic biomes at six moments in time across northeastern North America
Six moments in time in a single map: anthropogenic biomes across the northeast of North America, after Ellis et al. (2021). Figure 2 from the same article.

What the plugin adds to a QGIS project is not an image file but a group of ordinary GIS layers, one per pattern element, each provided with a standard graduated or categorized symbolization. Everything after that is normal QGIS work: the Layer Styling panel, GeoPackage export with styles embedded, print layouts, etc. Tilings and weaves are both available, along with grids and stripes, geometric modifiers, per-element colour ramps and opacity, and the option to draw the pattern as glyphs instead. Categorical elements can also be given a colour per value, for the many cases where a ramp will not do and forest ought to be green.

A twill weave with gaps between the strands

A twill weave, with gaps.

A tiled map of categorical land cover classes

Categorical data, from an imported colour mapping.

The grid at the top of this page is sixteen designs over one place: the same Auckland deprivation data with the same variable in the same colour throughout — deprivation blue, employment brown, income purple — and only the pattern changing, so the families can be compared against each other rather than admired one at a time.

Obtaining it

Download the plugin (the zip under Assets, whose name carries the version), then in QGIS choose Plugins ▶ Manage and Install Plugins… ▶ Install from ZIP and pick the file.

Source, issues, and documentation: github.com/FoldingSpace/weavingspaceQGIS.

QGIS 4.x is required.

The plugin dialog, showing the design tab and a preview of the tile unit
The design tab, with the tile unit previewed at the right. Each lettered element takes its own variable and colours.

A prototype, and how it was made

This is experimental research software and should be treated as such.

This QGIS plugin is an interface to the weavingspace library by David O’Sullivan and Luke Bergmann. By contrast, the QGIS interface here was mostly co-written by Luke Bergmann and large language models (Claude Fable and Opus, working through Claude Code). The plugin echoes and extends our earlier (also handwritten) web-based interface. You should expect rough edges, and we would rather hear about them than not.


Further reading

O’Sullivan, D., & Bergmann, L. (2026). Using MapWeaver to make tiled and woven maps of multivariate thematic data. Cartographic Perspectives, 108, 41–52. doi:10.14714/CP108.2109

O’Sullivan, D., & Bergmann, L. Tilings and weaves for multivariate mapping. Manuscript under review.

The library that does the tiling mathematics, with its own examples, is at github.com/DOSull/weavingspace. If you would like to make maps like these outside QGIS, MapWeaver is a browser-based tool built on the same library: dosull.github.io/mapweaver/app.