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Get started with GIS Copilot

Download and Install QGIS    Install the GIS Copilot   Get a GIBD API Key    How to use the GIS Copilot   Monitoring your GIBD Service API Usage   More Resources

If you run into any problems during installation or while using the GIS Copilot, please contact Temitope at takinboyewa@psu.edu.

1. Download and Install QGIS

1.1 Download QGIS

  • Go to the QGIS official website (https://qgis.org/)
  • Click on “Download” from the homepage, or go directly to the download section at the top navigation menu

  • Select your operating system (Windows, MacOS, Linux)
    • For Windows, download one of the offline (Standalone) installers:
      • Long Term Release (LTR) – More stable, recommended for most users
      • Latest Release – Newest features but may have bugs

    • For MacOS, download the .dmg file appropriate for your chip (Intel or Apple Silicon)

For reliability, we recommend users to choose the LTR version

    • For Linux: follow the distribution -specific instructions provided
  • Once downloaded check your downloaded folder for the installer file (e.g., QGIS-OSGeo4W-3.40.12-1.msi for Windows. and qgis-macos-ltr.dmg for MacOS)

1.2. Install QGIS

  • Run the installer and follow the installation wizard to complete setup (Follow the steps below)

  • Accept the License Agreement when prompted and click Next to proceed.

  • Click Install and wait for the installation to complete. This may take a few minutes. Once finished, click Finish to exit the installer.

2. Install the GIS Copilot 

2.1 Download and install GIS Copilot plugin

  • Navigate to the QGIS plugin page

  • From the QGIS plugin search page within the QGIS software, search for “AutonomousGIS-SpatialAnalysisAgent” and install (this is recommended)

  • Alternatively, you can download the latest version of the GIS Copilot plugin as a zip file from the QGIS plugin repository and install.

  • If successful, a success message will be displayed, then you can close the plugins dialog.

  • Navigate to Plugins > Manage and Install Plugins. Ensure the plugin is checked.

2.2. Setting up the GIS Copilot

  • Load the GIS Copilot (AutonomousGIS-SpatialAnalysisAgent) on menu bar, or via its icon on the toolbar.

  • When the plugin is loaded for the first time, a dialog will appear indicating any missing dependencies. Click Yes to install all required dependencies. Installation of these dependencies required pip. If pip is missing in your Python environment, you will receive a prompt to install it. After pip is installed, restart QGIS to complete the setup. This step is only needed once.

  • After the installation of the missing dependencies, restart the QGIS software.
  • Navigate to the Settings tab and enter your API key (GIBD Key or OpenAI Key). See next section on how to obtain an GIDB API key.
  • Change the default workspace if needed

3. Get a GIBD API Key

To use GIBD-Services, you will first need to obtain an GIBD API key here. This key authenticates your access to the service and enables secure interaction with the tools and resources provided.

3.1. Creating an Account

  • Go to the GIBD UMS (user management system) website (https://www.gibd.online/).
  • Navigate to the Create Account page by selecting  Register here, and
  • Fill in the required fields (*) and click the Create Account button to submit.
  • Note: Registered users have 100 questions (spatial problems) to request each day through December 31, 2025.

3.2. Account Verification and Login 

  • After completing the registration, check your email for a verification link and confirm your account (also check your Spam folder if you don’t receive the verification email within several minutes).
  • Once verified, log in using the email and password you created to proceed to your dashboard.
  • On your dashboard, click on Generate New API Key  and copy the generated key.

4. How to use the GIS Copilot

  • Open the plugin by following the step in Section 2.2.
  • Navigate to the Settings tab and enter your generated GIBD key or your OpenAI API key.
  • Select the model to be used and change your workspace if needed.

  • Load the data to be used to perform analysis to QGIS. The Load Data button can be used. You can also load data using QGIS built-in functions.
  • Check/uncheck layers in the layer control panel to include/remove layers to be used by the GIS Copilot. The selected data layers are displayed in the textbox above the Send Request button.
  • Input your request and click the Send Request button
  • All the agent running information can be seen in the Information panel, also the real time prompts and code generation as well as the error messages are displayed on the Code panel.
  • The processing workflow generated can be viewed in the Geoprocessing Workflow tab and final generated code is displayed in the Generated Code tab. Chart, plots or text report can be view in the Report tab

To learn more about what types of questions you can ask the GIS Copilot, see usage examples below

5. Monitoring your GIBD Service API Usage

  • Login to your dashboard (https://www.gibd.online).
  • The dashboard gives you the overview of your service usage (including GIS Copilot).
  • The three main statistics can be seen at the top of the page. This include the remaining questions (daily), Total spent and Used Tokens.
  • Usage Statistics provide the breakdown of your queries. It include the usage by Service (e.g., GIS Copilot, and Spatial Retrieval Agent), LLM Model used, Total tokens, Total Cost and Total API calls for each models.
  • Note: Registered users have 100 questions (spatial problems) to request each day through December 31, 2025.

6. More Resources

    1. GitHub repository: https://github.com/Teakinboyewa/SpatialAnalysisAgent/tree/master
    2. Akinboyewa, T., Li, Z., Ning, H., & Lessani, M. N. (2025). GIS Copilot: Towards an autonomous GIS agent for spatial analysis. International Journal of Digital Earth, 18(1). https://doi.org/10.1080/17538947.2025.2497489

A PDF version of this user manual can be downloaded here. 

If you run into any problems during installation or while using the GIS Copilot, please contact Temitope at takinboyewa@psu.edu.