Filtering data using QGIS Atlas

Question

I have some mining data that I want to filter by year and by bench. The data is something like this:

bench   year
1      2020
1      2021
1      2022
2      2020
2      2021
2      2022
4      2020
4      2020
4      2021
4      2021
4      2022
3      2020
3      2021
3      2022
3      2023

This is a polygon layer with squares representing each bench. Each bench has a different year when they will be mined. some of these polygons have the same location (same X,Y but different Z value), different bench number, but will be mined at a different year.

I want to create several maps that can filter the data by year; e.g. These are all the benches that are going to be mined in 2020. Then I want to do it by bench; e.g bench 4 will be mined in 2020, 2021 and 2022.

I was wondering if I can do this with Atlas?

Answer 1

I think I figured it out. To do it for each bench per year:

1. Dissolve layer. make sure you choose bench as your Dissolve field(s)

2. Choose this newly dissolved layer as your atlas Coverage Layer and choose bench as Page name

3. In the original layer go to Properties and select Rule-Based

4. Add a rule for each year and do the following: something like this:

   "year" = 2020 AND "Bench" = @atlas_pagename

Now all I did was duplicate the original layer and do this time dissolve by year and change the rule to

"bench" = 2 AND "year" = @atlas_pagename

do this for every bench

This can also work for a graduated symbology. Something like this:

"field_name" >= 0.0 AND "field_name" <= 20.0 AND "field_to_filter" = @atlas_pagename