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I have a complicated shapefile of overlapping polygons. I need to generate random points inside each polygon, which is easily accomplished using Vector -> Research Tools -> Random Points Inside Polygons, but this obliterates the attribute table of the generated point shapefile which is not okay. Under more simple conditions, I could use NNJoin to rejoin the attributes, but because of the multiple overlapping polygons this is not acceptable as I cannot be sure the nearest polygon is actually the correct source of data. Can anyone suggest a method to generate a single random point in each polygon that has a 1:1 (ie., perfect) transfer of the attributes from the polygon to the random point, for each polygon?

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I've made a PR to support your requirement at https://github.com/qgis/QGIS/pull/36479

You can take the file RandomPointsPolygons.py from the PR and replace the one on your machine with the same name (make a copy before, to be safe). Then, restart QGIS and it should do what you want.

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  • Wow! Thanks so much for this! Does this mean it might eventually make its way into QGIS' native feature set?
    – Meander Photography
    May 16, 2020 at 17:32
  • It should if PR is accepted: waiting for QGIS devs feedback
    – ThomasG77
    May 16, 2020 at 17:37
  • Amazing. Thanks so much, Thomas. Open source GIS forever!
    – Meander Photography
    May 16, 2020 at 17:38
  • @MeanderPhotography Please accept this answer if it solves your problem.
    – underdark ♦
    Jul 29, 2020 at 20:23

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