QGIS LOOM Transit Map Generator

A cross-platform QGIS plugin that wraps the LOOM transit map generation suite with a friendly GUI. Generate schematic and geographically accurate transit maps directly inside QGIS — no command line required.

LOOM © University of Freiburg (Hannah Bast, Patrick Brosi, Sabine Storandt), GPL-3.0.
Windows port & QGIS plugin by Transport for Cairo, 2026.

---

Installation

1. Download the latest plugin ZIP from the Releases page.
2. In QGIS: Plugins → Manage and Install Plugins → Install from ZIP.
3. Enable LOOM Transit Map Generator in the plugin list.
4. Click the toolbar button — on first run the plugin will automatically download the pre-built LOOM binaries for your platform (~10–80 MB, one-time).

No compiling required.

---

Usage

1. Open the plugin via Plugins → LOOM Transit Maps or the toolbar button.
2. Input tab — select a QGIS vector layer, a GeoJSON file, or a GTFS zip.
3. Options tab — choose render style, labels, line widths, ILP solver.
4. Output tab — set a save path and/or load the result directly into QGIS.
5. Click Run Pipeline.

Render styles

Style	Description
Geographic	Lines on their real-world geometry
Octilinear	Schematic map on a 45°/90° grid (metro-map style)
Orthoradial	Schematic map on a radial/concentric grid

Pipeline

[gtfs2graph]  →  topo  →  loom  →  [octi]  →  transitmap  →  SVG / MVT

All stages run as subprocess.PIPE chains — no shell redirection, works identically on Windows, macOS, and Linux.

---

Binaries

Pre-built binaries are hosted at transportforcairo/loom_binaries and downloaded automatically on first run. To re-download or update, go to the plugin's Diagnostics tab → Re-download binaries.

---

Repository structure

loom_qgis/
├── plugin/
│   ├── __init__.py            QGIS classFactory entry point
│   ├── loom_plugin.py         Plugin lifecycle (menu, toolbar, first-run check)
│   ├── dialog.py              Main Qt dialog (Input / Options / Output / Diagnostics)
│   ├── runner.py              Subprocess pipeline runner
│   ├── binary_resolver.py     OS detection and binary path resolution
│   ├── downloader.py          Binary downloader (pulls from loom_binaries repo)
│   ├── download_dialog.py     First-run download UI
│   ├── metadata.txt           QGIS plugin metadata
│   ├── bin/
│   │   ├── windows/           Populated automatically by downloader
│   │   ├── macos/             Populated automatically by downloader
│   │   └── linux/             Populated automatically by downloader
│   └── resources/
│       └── icon.png
├── README.md
└── LICENSE

---

Attribution

This plugin uses LOOM, developed by Hannah Bast, Patrick Brosi, and Sabine Storandt at the University of Freiburg, licensed under GPL-3.0. Windows port by Transport for Cairo, 2026.

Key publications:

• Bast, Brosi, Storandt. Efficient Generation of Geographically Accurate Transit Maps. SIGSPATIAL 2018.
• Bast, Brosi, Storandt. Metro Maps on Octilinear Grid Graphs. EuroVis 2020.
• Bast, Brosi, Storandt. Metro Maps on Flexible Base Grids. SSTD 2021.

---

Licence

GPL-3.0 — matching the upstream LOOM project.