infrared.city now runs natively inside QGIS, putting climate simulation right next to the layers you’re already working with. Skip the round trip through external tools — install the plugin, drop in your API key, and start testing design scenarios against real microclimate data straight from your project. This guide covers installing the plugin, connecting your account, running your first analysis, and layering trees into the simulation.

Prerequisites

Before you start, you’ll need:

• A registered infrared.city account
• QGIS 3.44
• An active internet connection

Step 1: Install the plugin

To install the plugin, go to this link and download the zip file. Open QGIS and go to Plugins → Manage and Install Plugins. If you’re installing from the official ZIP release, choose Install from ZIP, point it to the downloaded infrared-city-qgis.zip file, and click Install Plugin. Once installation finishes, make sure the plugin is checked/enabled in the plugin list. After installing, you’ll find the Infrared City plugin available from the Plugins menu (or as a toolbar icon, depending on your QGIS setup).

Figure 1: Infrared City plugin entry point.

Step 2: Connect your account

The plugin authenticates using an API key tied to your infrared.city account. Grab it from the web app under Account → API Keys → Generate a key.

Figure 2: API key location.

Back in QGIS, open the Infrared City panel and paste the key into the API Key field. Once it’s accepted, your token balance and account are linked and ready to run simulations.

Figure 3: Connecting your API key in QGIS.

Step 3: What’s inside the plugin

The QGIS plugin panel is organized around a few core pieces:

Figure 4: Plugin panel overview.

API Key

Links the plugin to your account and draws from your token balance whenever a simulation runs.

Figure 5: API key field.

Fetch geometry

Opens a dialog where you set the center longitude and latitude. Fetching pulls building geometry for that area from OpenStreetMap and adds it to your Layers panel as a new vector layer, ready to use as the basis for a simulation.

Figure 6: Fetch geometry panel.

Fetch ground material

Shows the selected area (in tiles) and, once fetched, adds one editable layer per ground-surface type — asphalt, concrete, vegetation, soil, water, and building — each named ‘ground-material’. Note that ‘ground-vegetation’ covers green surfaces like grass and parks; trees are handled separately as their own ‘tree-*’ point layers, defined in the Tree Catalog below.

Figure 7: Fetch ground material panel.

Tree Catalog

Where you define the vegetation used in a run — species, height, and crown size. Needed any time trees are part of the simulation.

Figure 8: Tree Catalog panel.

Area selection

Defines the extent of your simulation — draw a rectangle on the canvas or use your current map extent, depending on what your plugin version supports.

Figure 9: Setting the simulation extent.

Run Simulation

Sends the project to infrared.city’s backend and returns results as a new raster layer with a legend, added directly to your Layers panel.

Figure 10: Run Simulation panel.

Step 4: Setting up and running an analysis

You’ll need building geometry in your project before running anything. The fastest route is fetching it straight from OpenStreetMap — the plugin can pull building footprints for your selected area automatically. You can also bring in your own footprint or context layers if you’re working from project-specific data.

NOTE: No building geometry in the simulation area means the run will fail.

Figure 11: Uploaded building geometry.

NOTE: To run a simulation, make sure the building layer is selected in the layers panel — not the tree layer or a simulation result layer.

Set your simulation extent, confirm buildings have loaded (they’ll typically highlight).

Figure 12: Selected area with one tile component.

Then open Run Simulation, pick your simulation type, set your parameters, and run. Results land back in your Layers panel within seconds, as a raster layer complete with its own colour legend.

Figure 13: Simulation layer for thermal comfort index.

Step 5: Layering in trees

To bring vegetation into the simulation, create a new point layer and position the points. Name the layer ‘tree’ or a variation of it. To do this, in Layer tab find New Shapefile Layer. There fill the file name, set geometry type to Point, and click OK.

Figure 14: Creating Point Layer.

Once your trees are positioned, open the Tree Catalog panel to assign species, height, and crown dimensions, save.

Figure 15: Pick Tree type.

Add the tree layer into your next Run Simulation call. The output returns as its own layer, showing how the vegetation shifts the microclimate compared to your baseline run.

Figure 16: Tree impact of solar radiation.

TIP: Run the same simulation twice with two different tree species in the catalog — the side-by-side comparison makes the impact of species choice on solar radiation (or any other metric) immediately visible.

Step 6: Edit ground materials

Use the Fetch ground material component to source ground materials for the selected location.

Figure 17: Result from Fetching Ground Material.

Each material can be edited using the yellow pencil toggle, letting you assign different shapes and areas to different materials. In simulations such as thermal comfort index and thermal comfort statistics, you can use the generated version of the materials or your edited version.

Figure 18: Ground Material display.

TIP: Try different materials in the same areas to analyse their impact on thermal comfort index and thermal comfort statistics.