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In QGIS can I create a model in the Graphical Modeler that does the equivalent of the following manual steps if I were just using menus/toolbars? If I can't via the Modeler is there another way in QGIS or even a different tool like GDAL tools to automate this?

  1. [Assume I've opened a shapefile/layer]
  2. Toggle Editing on
  3. Edit->Select->Select All Features
  4. Edit->Edit Geometry->Merge Selected Features
  5. Take attributes from first feature

I have a large number of shapefiles. Each one contains up to thousands of features, each a vertical slice of the whole as shown in the first image below. I'd like to automate the above steps so I can convert each shapefile such that it contains a single feature combining all the original features as shown in the second image. All the features within a shapefile have the same attributes. I do not want to combine shapefiles, simply combine the features within a shapefile.

sample vertical features merged features

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    Try using Dissolve from the processing toolbox and run as batch process. Commented Jul 13, 2022 at 23:21
  • Or merge all shapefiles then aggregate Commented Jul 14, 2022 at 8:51

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Since you are merging all the features of your shapefiles, you can use Dissolve instead + a for loop with PyQGIS to dissolve all your shapefiles.

import glob, os, processing #Put here the paths of your input and output folders inputFolder = r"C:\\Users\\_M92\\Desktop\\Jeff_S\\OriginalShapefiles" outputFolder = r"C:\\Users\\_M92\\Desktop\\Jeff_S\\DissolvedShapefiles\\" os.chdir(inputFolder) for lyr in glob.glob("*.shp"): processing.run("native:dissolve", {'INPUT':lyr, 'OUTPUT': outputFolder + 'Dissolved_' + lyr}) iface.addVectorLayer(outputFolder + 'Dissolved_' + lyr, 'Dissolved_' + lyr, 'ogr')

Note : The Dissolve algorithm pick the attributes of the first feature (of the original shapefile) and assigns it to the feature of the dissolved shapefile, automatically.

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  • That worked beautifully! Thanks! Commented Jul 14, 2022 at 14:27

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