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I have a GML file that I'm displaying in QGis - it contains a set of contours and they are written out in such a way that the lowest contour (largest polygon) is drawn last thus covering up all the smaller polygons. While I can work round this by writing out the GML in reverse order I was wondering if there was a way to reverse the draw order directly inside QGis.

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It will be simply derided from how it parses the GML; I am sure there's no way to force a parsing order. I had the similar issues with MapInfo and drawing GML and it was simply the way it did it. – Hairy Dec 8 '11 at 14:20

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There are ways to create symbols that should give the desired effect:

Create a symbol made of two layers: 1) a fill layer, 2) an outline layer.

Enable "Symbol layers" to tell QGIS to first render the the fill layer for all features in and then the outline layer.

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How about just converting the polygons to linework? Then you wouldn't have to worry about display order.

Or maybe these previous questions will give you some suggestions you can use:

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I need them to be polygons as I'm colouring them in. Since I control the code writing out the GML reversing the order is easy but I wondered what the correct answer should be. – iant♦ Dec 8 '11 at 16:40
True, if you control the writing of the data, then it shouldn't be too tough to change the source data. I have yet to see any QGIS or ArcGIS functions that have the capability of sorting the draw order. It could be useful in certain circumstances, though, if it existed. – RyanDalton Dec 8 '11 at 17:02
It's pretty easy in UDig so I expected it to be easy in QGis – iant♦ Dec 11 '11 at 11:41

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