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Contributing to VelantisWind

Thank you for your interest in contributing to VelantisWind.

VelantisWind is a free and open-source QGIS plugin designed to support wind farm pre-assessment, validation workflows and geospatial analysis directly inside QGIS.

Contributions are welcome when they help improve the quality, reliability, documentation or practical usefulness of the project.

Ways to contribute

You can contribute to VelantisWind in different ways:

Contribution type Examples
Bug reports Installation errors, calculation issues, interface problems or unexpected behaviour
Feature requests Ideas for improving existing modules or adding useful workflows
Documentation Tutorials, examples, screenshots, installation guides or troubleshooting notes
Validation Comparison with reference cases, real project data or internal workflows
Translations Interface text, documentation or user guides
Code contributions Improvements, fixes or new features submitted through pull requests
Academic work Bachelor’s or Master’s thesis projects that add technical value to the plugin

Reporting issues

When reporting a bug, please include as much relevant information as possible:

  • QGIS version
  • Operating system
  • Plugin version or repository branch
  • Steps to reproduce the issue
  • Error message or traceback, if available
  • Input data type used
  • Screenshots, when useful
  • Expected result
  • Actual result

Please avoid sharing confidential project data unless you have permission to do so.

Feature requests

Feature requests are welcome, especially when they are connected to real wind energy, GIS, environmental assessment or validation workflows.

A useful feature request should explain:

  • The problem or workflow need
  • Why the feature would be useful
  • The expected input data
  • The expected output
  • Whether it is related to AEP, wake effects, noise, shadow flicker, GIS processing, reporting or documentation

Pull requests

Before submitting a pull request, please try to make sure that:

  • The change has a clear purpose
  • The code is readable and documented when needed
  • The change does not break existing workflows
  • The pull request explains what has been changed
  • Any new behaviour is described clearly
  • No confidential or proprietary data is included

For larger changes, it is recommended to open an issue first to discuss the proposal.

License of contributions

VelantisWind is licensed under the GNU General Public License v3.0 or later.

By contributing to VelantisWind, you agree that your contribution will be licensed under the same license as the project: GPL-3.0-or-later.

This ensures that VelantisWind remains free and open source.

Substantial contributions

For substantial contributions, new modules, company-sponsored developments, academic projects or university collaborations, a separate contributor agreement may be required before integration into the main repository.

This is especially relevant for:

  • Bachelor’s thesis projects
  • Master’s thesis projects
  • University research work
  • Company-funded developments
  • New technical modules
  • Major workflow adaptations
  • Contributions involving third-party data, methods or intellectual property

The purpose is to make sure that authorship, licensing, maintenance rights and future integration into VelantisWind are clear for all parties.

Academic contributions

VelantisWind is open to collaboration with universities and research groups.

Academic contributions may include:

  • TFG or TFM projects
  • Validation studies
  • New QGIS tools
  • Documentation and educational material
  • Environmental assessment workflows
  • Renewable energy GIS workflows
  • New modules that may add value to the plugin

Academic contributions can be reviewed case by case. If they are useful, technically sound and aligned with the project, they may be integrated into the open-source repository.

Confidentiality

Please do not include confidential information in issues, discussions, pull requests or example files.

This includes:

  • Private wind farm layouts
  • Proprietary wind resource data
  • Commercial project data
  • Client information
  • Internal company reports
  • Restricted datasets
  • Confidential coordinates or project locations

If validation requires private data, please contact the VelantisWind team separately.

Code of conduct

Contributors are expected to communicate respectfully and constructively.

VelantisWind aims to be a collaborative technical project involving users, developers, consultants, universities, students and researchers.

Contact

For questions about contributions, academic collaboration, validation cases or technical partnerships, please contact VelantisWind at: info@velantiswind.com