CHAPTER 1

FREEWAT v.1.1 - Installation & Requirements

Install QGIS

The first step in order to use FREEWAT is to install QGIS.

It is strongly recommended to download the last stable and Long Term Release (LTR) version of QGIS, which is at
present version 2.14 Essen, or later (either version 2.16 or 2.18).

Note: The present version of the FREEWAT plugin is NOT compatible with QGIS 3.

FREEWAT has been tested within the following QGIS versions:

• 2.14 Essen;
• 2.16 Nodebo;
• 2.18 Las Palmas.
In order to install QGIS, please refer to the official documentation available at the QGIS web site.

Note: In order to avoid conflicts during FREEWAT installation, having ONLY ONE VERSION OF QGIS installed is
highly recommended. However, Users having QGIS versions 2.18 and 3.0 installed on the same pc did not experience
any problem. Furthermore, having QGIS and ArcGIS jointly installed on the same pc is strongly discouraged.

Note: Screenshots of QGIS interfaces reported in the following were made with QGIS version 2.18 Las Palmas.

Install the FREEWAT plugin

Information on how to download the last version of the FREEWAT plugin can be found at this web page. Once
the download area of the FREEWAT web site has been accessed, it will be possible to download the zip file
freewat_v.x.x.zip (x.x indicates the most updated version of the plugin), along with User Manuals and
training material.

Note: The FREEWAT plugin can not be installed on MAC OS machines.

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In all the other Operative Systems (Windows and Linux), once QGIS is run for the first time, the .qgis2 folder is
created.
On Windows machines you can find this folder under C:\Users\your_name\.qgis2, while on Linux machines
it is located in your home folder (/home/user/.qgis2).

Note: Spaces and/or special characters (e.g., accents) must be avoided in the path of the
C:\Users\your_name\.qgis2 or /home/user/.qgis2 folders.

• Step 1. In order to install the FREEWAT plugin, you have to extract the provided plugin
folder (its name is freewat, it is located within the downloaded freewat_v.x.x.zip
file) in C:\Users\your_name\.qgis2\python\plugins (for Windows machines) or
/home/user/.qgis2/python/plugins (for Linux machines). Sometimes the plugins folder
could not exist. In such case, you can just create it (its name must be exactly plugins, lower case letters).
• Step 2. Download the freewat_dep.zip file from the Download area of the FREEWAT website and extract the
content of this zip file in whatever folder of your pc.
• Step 3. From the START button search OSGeo4W Shell -> right click on it and Run as administrator.
• Step 4. Browse to the freewat_dep folder using the cd command (e.g., if you extracted the freewat_dep folder
under C:\Users, you must type cd C:\Users\freewat_dep).
• Step 5. Type installer_32bit.bat (for 32-bit machines) or installer_64bit.bat (for 64-bit
machines) and wait until all the required libraries are installed (a couple of minutes are needed). NOTE: this Step
requires connection to the Internet.

• Step 6. A txt file renamed install.txt must be created manually in

C:\Users\your_name\.qgis2\python\plugins\freewat\install or
/home/user/.qgis2/python/plugins. This txt file must contain only the sentence installation
done.

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Start FREEWAT

After QGIS and all the needed dependencies have been correctly installed, run QGIS.
FREEWAT should appear as a drop-down menu in the toolbar of the QGIS Graphical User Interface (GUI).

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If not, just go to Plugins -> Manange and Install Plugins.., type FREEWAT in the Search bar and click on the
corresponding checkbox to activate the plugin, as shown in the picture below:

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Note: Should FREEWAT not be present among the installed plugins, switch to the Settings tab and check Show also
experimental plugins. Then search again the FREEWAT plugin.

The FREEWAT platform can now be used by following the logical workflow presented in the following Chapter.