Measuring the distance between lines and points in QGIS

Question

Using QGIS - I have a vector of fault lines. I have point data in the form of a csv which I have also loaded into QGIS. I need to know how far each point is from the nearest fault line then enter this distance in a new column in the csv file. Any ideas?

Answer 1

You can do this easily using the GRASS plugin with the v.distance module. Import both the fault lines (v.in.ogr in GRASS) and the csv file (v.in.ascii), then run v.distance with the "upload=dist" parameter.

Answer 2

Staying in QGIS, use the mmqgis plugin. Install the plugin, then use the hub distance tools. http://michaelminn.com/linux/mmqgis/

Be aware though, that it may only return the distance of the point from centre of the (fault) line. Explore your results to determine this effect.