QGas is an interactive software toolkit designed for the visualization, exploration, and modification of gas infrastructure datasets through a map-based interface.
The toolkit provides researchers, engineers, and energy analysts with the ability to intuitively manage complex datasets while preserving the integrity of the underlying network topology.
Its design emphasizes usability, flexibility, and topological consistency, enabling both detailed operational edits and large-scale network modifications without compromising structural properties.
- Topology-preserving network modifications: QGas allows users to manipulate pipeline geometries and node positions while ensuring that the network's connectivity, routing, and topological characteristics remain intact.
- Interactive pipeline creation and rerouting: Users can seamlessly draw new pipelines, adjust existing routes, or create new connections between nodes using an intuitive, map-based graphical interface.
- Flexible infrastructure management: The toolkit supports the addition of new infrastructure types beyond conventional gas pipelines, including hydrogen pipelines, storage facilities, LNG terminals, and other energy-relevant assets as well as repurposing of existing pipelines.
- Advanced attribute management: QGas provides a robust mechanism for managing metadata and attributes associated with infrastructure elements. Users can create new attributes, edit existing ones, or remove unnecessary attributes through a straightforward interface.
- Georeferenced background map integration: Users can import infrastructure plans or other spatial data as images, georeference them accurately, and overlay them as a reference for network construction.
QGas operates within a Python environment managed via Conda. All necessary software dependencies are included in the provided environment.yml file.
To set up the environment, please follow the instructions from the Conda Activation Scripts repository, which guides you through creating and activating the Conda environment for QGas.
Once the environment is activated, all required packages and libraries for running QGas are available, enabling immediate use of the toolkit's full functionality.
A comprehensive user manual is available here.
The manual provides detailed guidance on all aspects of QGas, including the creation and modification of pipelines, editing of nodes, management of infrastructure attributes, integration of multiple datasets, and the use of georeferenced background maps.
QGas is released under the MIT License, allowing free use, modification, and distribution of the software with proper attribution.
To facilitate testing and to demonstrate the data structure used by QGas, a sample dataset has been included in the repository.
The IGGIELGNC-1 dataset from SciGRID_gas has been converted into the QGas data format and is provided in the Input folder of this repository.
For more information about the original dataset, see the Zenodo record.
@misc{SciGRID_gas_IGGIELGNC1,
author = {Diettrich, J. and Pluta, A. and Medjroubi, W. and Dasenbrock, J. and Sandoval, J. E.},
title = {SciGRID_gas IGGIELGNC-1 (0.2) [Data set]},
year = {2021},
publisher = {Zenodo},
doi = {10.5281/zenodo.5509988},
url = {https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.5509988}
}If you use QGas in your research, publications, or technical work, please cite the toolkit to acknowledge the development team and the supporting institute, and to support reproducibility of your results.
@article{Quantschnig2026QGas,
author = {Marco Quantschnig and Yannick Werner and Sonja Wogrin and Thomas Klatzer},
title = {{QGas: Interactive Gas Infrastructure Toolkit}},
year = {2026},
eprint = {2604.15876},
archivePrefix = {arXiv},
primaryClass = {eess.SY},
doi = {10.48550/arXiv.2604.15876},
url = {https://doi.org/10.48550/arXiv.2604.15876}
}Or in text format:
M. Quantschnig, Y. Werner, S. Wogrin, and T. Klatzer (2026). QGas: Interactive Gas Infrastructure Toolkit. arXiv:2604.15876 [eess.SY]. https://doi.org/10.48550/arXiv.2604.15876
AI-assisted tools were used during the development of this software and its documentation:
- GitHub Copilot (Claude Sonnet 4.5, Claude Sonnet 4.6, GPT-5.1 Codex): code structuring, error detection and correction, and code commenting.
- ChatGPT (OpenAI): grammar checking, spell checking and minor language refinement in the technical documentation.
All AI-assisted outputs were carefully reviewed and edited by the authors, who take full responsibility for the content of this publication.
 Marco Quantschnig |
 Thomas Klatzer |
 Yannick Werner |
 Sonja Wogrin |
 Diego Alejandro Tejada Arango |