We all enjoy a nice cup of tea with family or friends over Christmas, Walter Schwartz spotted this mappy teapot on his travels. “This little teapot, short and stout, was in the Two English Ladies Tea Shoppe, a booth at the San Francisco Dickens Fair. It says “Cardew’s London Maps” on the bottom and may have […]
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• By OpenStreetMap User's Diaries
•
Trạm biến áp 500kV Bắc Ninh
Trạm biến áp 500kV Quỳnh Lưu
Trạm biến áp 500kV Bình Định
Cấp điện áp: 500/220/35 kV
AT1 900MVA
Dự phòng AT2 900 MVA
900 MVA (1 x 900 MVA)
Dự phòng 1.800 MVA (2 x 900 MVA)
Khởi công quý 3/2027
Đóng điện quý 4/2029.
Tổng vốn đầu tư >2.260 tỷ đồng
Tuyến đường dây đấu nối 220 kV số 1 và 2: Xây dựng mới 2 tuyến đường dây 220 kV, 2 mạch, chiều dài mỗi đoạn khoảng 4,1 km đấu nối chuyển tiếp trên 2 mạch đường dây 220 kV Phước An - Phù Mỹ hiện hữu.
Tuyến đường dây đấu nối 220 kV số 3: Xây dựng mới 1 tuyến đường dây 220 kV, 4 mạch, dài khoảng 29 km đấu nối chuyển tiếp trên 2 đường dây 220 kV Pleiku 2 - Phước An và đường dây 220 kV An Khê - Quy Nhơn hiện hữu.
Trạm biến áp 500kV Bình Dương 1
Trạm biến áp 500kV Tây Ninh 1
Trạm biến áp 500kV Đồng Nai 2
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• By OpenStreetMap User's Diaries
•
Earlier this week, I accepted a PR to our codebase that made a bad and duplicated phone numbers. What happened was, that we use contact:phone=* per convention, but many entries used phone=*, which was not detected by our dupe scanner.
That’s 100% on me. I should have been more vigilant on that one, should have checked better (the few I checked on did not have phone=, so that’s another lesson for the books), and should have checked more vigilantly afterwards as well.
What I did: wrote a rescue to check all 600 edits we did, removed phone= dupes, and moved all phone= that were still there to contact:phone= in the process.
We also do contact every albergue we list (and thus sync) and ask them about their preferred/working phone numbers. So we went ahead and removed stale numbers that no longer worked, and updated those that did to a fully working set.
Of course the code is now fixed as well, and all edits have been too. Sorry again, this is 100% on me.
One of the biggest problems I face when riding across the prairie is identifying the cattle ranching owners of lost steers. Which is when I turn to Ranch Brand Search!Ranch Brand Search is an interactive map that brings one of the most distinctive traditions of the American West into the digital age. Instead of leafing through dusty brand books or wrestling with outdated state websites, users
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• By OpenStreetMap User's Diaries
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I’ve run into a strange behaviour in my OSM user diary entry when documenting a batch/ffmpeg command.
This line in a code-block (ignore formatting):
ffmpeg select=eq(pict_type,I)
is automatically turned into:
ffmpeg https://wiki.openstreetmap.org/wiki/Tag:select=eq(pict_type,I)
This happens even inside code blocks (
, fenced code, etc.). It does not happen if I add spaces around the = (e.g. select = eq(pict_type,I)), but I cannot change the code because it must stay exactly as written.
...,
...
,
...
and similar combinations do not stop the autolink.
Is this a known issue with the OSM Wiki parser or is this a feature?
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• By OpenStreetMap User's Diaries
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In order for OpenStreetMap to thrive, we need to attract and retain new mappers. To be welcoming to newcomers, we should avoid high barriers to starting mapping and instead support contributions that can be made with limited time, context, and experience. StreetComplete is a great example of this approach: by asking simple, well-scoped questions, it enables contributors to improve data quality in small, incremental steps. An effort-inclusive tagging philosophy builds on this idea by encouraging tagging schemas where each additional piece of information can be added independently and still be useful on its own. For example, amenity=bench is still a bench regardless if mapper knew about backrest=* and armrest=*.
I am writing this because I have encountered cases where newcomers are advised to follow practices that I consider unnecessarily demanding for basic contributions. A particularly stark example appears in the context of CCTV and ALPR mapping, where a sub-community...
Overview Testbed Europe is an emerging Open Geospatial Consortium (OGC) initiative exploring how Europe’s geospatial ecosystem can evolve to meet rapidly changing technical, policy, and...
The post Testbed Europe: Shaping the Future of Geospatial Innovation Together appeared first on Open Geospatial Consortium.
Are you feeling lucky? You probably should be. Based on where most Maps Mania readers are located, there’s a good chance you’ve already won the birth lottery.The Birth Lottery map makes global inequality tangible by illustrating how much our quality of life depends on chance. With a single spin, the map randomly “re-births” you somewhere in the world based on real statistics. It poses a simple
OsmAnd's Topography plugin offers an Avalanche color scheme for the Slope layer, coloring terrain by steepness to highlight potential avalanche risks. This visualizes slope angles intuitively for safer backcountry navigation.
How to Enable Avalanche Colors
Avalanche colors requires the OsmAnd Pro version.
Enable the plugin: Go to Main Menu → Plugins → Topography (requires OsmAnd Pro).
Download maps: In Menu → Maps & Resources, select Terrain map (3D) for your region under Worldwide or Regions.
Activate layer: Menu → Configure map → Topography → Terrain → Slope. Choose Avalanche from Modify button (only OsmAnd Pro).
Who It's For
Backcountry enthusiasts: Skiers, snowboarders, snowshoers assessing terrain exposure offline.
Risk-aware adventurers: Pair with daily avalanche forecasts for freeride planning (over 30 deg highlights danger).
General hikers/bikers: Spot steep sections quickly in any terrain.
Winter tip: During winter season, combine with Snowmobile, Winter and...
How many novels include maps? For his 2013 monograph on fantasy maps and settings, Here Be Dragons, Stefan Ekman surveyed a random sample of 200 fantasy novels and found that about a third of them… More
Spatialists – geospatial news
• By Ralph Straumann
•
#ESA is giving the long-serving #Sentinel‑2A #satellite a fascinating new role: Experimenting with capturing night-time images of Earth before its retirement. These unexpected “night vision” tests not only produce stunning visuals but also lay the groundwork for the next generation of #EarthObservation missions. #EO #RemoteSensing
In a Guardian piece last month, Laura Spinney briefly touches on three books and the ways in which they subvert our understanding of what’s on the map and how we use them to see the… More
The
section between Newcastle and Berwick-on-Tweed is said to be the most popular part of the Coast and Castles Cycle route that connects Newcastle, Edinburgh and Aberdeen. If that is true, it's for good reason. The 60 miles from Amble to Berwick delivers what it says on the tin. It's full of unspoilt coastline, small fishing ports, the tidal island of Lindisfarne and a choice of castles. The 15 miles between Newcastle and Whitley Bay includes a couple more castles and another five miles of coast. Not as unspoilt as the section further north, but full of interest.But what about the 30 miles (or so) between Whitley Bay and Amble? That's roughly a third of the distance. It's not as picturesque as the other sections, and it's certainly not unspoilt. But I think it's under-appreciated. It has a complex history. It's full of interest, and I'm now equipped to explore it in some detail. There's no shortage of potential destinations.Today's ride covers part. At 25 miles it was my...
Spatialists – geospatial news
• By Ralph Straumann
•
#GeoGirafe 1.0, the first Long-Term Release of this #opensource #WebGIS ecosystem, is now available. GeoGirafe positions itself as geospatial web component offering a comprehensive #webmap viewer with #OGC services, authentication, search, measurement, drawing, 3D, and more capabilities.
By Ivana Mowry-Mora Bushfire.io was born out of necessity during Australia’s devastating 2019–2020 Black Summer. The founder of Bushfire.io narrowly escaped a massive fire on the south coast, witnessing firsthand how lack of information hampered evacuations and firefighting efforts. Motivated by the knowledge […]
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• By OpenStreetMap User's Diaries
•
In Fall 2024, I broke my radius (arm) at the wrist of my dominant hand, and didn’t map at all for 2 months, gradually picking things up as my arm healed and gained strength.
It was agonizing to not have my daily OSM fix - and a palpable relief when my wrist could once again handle an extended session with a mouse.
Not content with my previous mapping outage, in Fall 2025 I had a cancerous tumor in my parotid (cheekbone salivary gland) removed - except that a relatively straightforward 2 hour surgery turned into a 13-hour marathon and an overnight hospital stay ballooned into 8 days in a hospital bed. The cancer had spread to lymph nodes, to one of my jugular veins and into muscle tissue in my neck. Recovery from the surgery turned into immediate chemotherapy + immunotherapy and radiation.
So now I map when I’m able, which unfortunately is not very frequently. My #Mali project gathers dust, with almost all of my current OSM edits focused around related work with my one remaining...
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• By OpenStreetMap User's Diaries
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Jangan melarang seseorang melakukan pemetaan di negara lain jika anda bukan internal dari OSM!!! Internal OSM tidak melarang seseorang memetakan negara lain. cheers
I really love this Tokyo Last Train Map, which is designed to visualize the times of the last train from every Tokyo station. If you’ve ever stayed out too late in Tokyo, you’ll know that missing the last train can be an expensive mistake. The Tokyo Last Train Map turns this anxiety into something beautiful — and strangely mesmerizing.On this transit map, the city’s rail network is reframed
Former Deputy Director of the National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency appointed to OGC Board.
The post Tonya Wilkerson Joins the OGC Board of Directors appeared first on Open Geospatial Consortium.
I’ve been doing more (a lot more) with Claude Code lately. With its subagents and skills features, it’s become more customizable and powerful. I can really dial it into doing things the way I want them done, which accelerates my development and quickly gets me to where I am focused on important behaviors, rather than … Continue reading Spatial Analysis with Claude Code →
With the publication of a white paper detailing all aspects of a data center’s environmental profile, Data4 and APL Data Center highlight the real impact of a data center and set a new standard of transparency for the industry. Paris, January 14th, 2026 – Data4, European leader in data centers, and APL Data Center, […]
Overall User Friendliness Also Enhanced AARSCHOT, Belgium, 13 January 2026 – Virtual Surveyor has added Local Coordinate System functionality to the 10.2 release of its smart drone surveying package. This means users can easily define a local coordinate system and work with new and existing survey data in those systems. “Virtual Surveyor users can now project […]
Accelerating AI-driven digital twin adoption and testbed development BOSTON, MA & KHARAGPUR, INDIA – JANUARY 13, 2026 – The Digital Twin Consortium® (DTC) today announced that the Indian Institute of Information Technology Kharagpur (IIT Kharagpur) has joined the consortium as a member to collaborate on advancing digital twin technologies and accelerating adoption across industries. “We […]
Adventures In Mapping | John Nelson Maps
• By John
•
Basemaps can be a busy place. Highly variable visual content sitting behind your line features can make them hard to see. Also, maps with lots of feature types, like road networks, need a visual hierarchy so that the primary features are most visible, and so on. Think interstate expressways vs local roads in an atlas. …
The Guardian maps the devastation wrought by wildfires across the globe. “Brazil, Bolivia, Russia, Australia and Canada have all endured some of their worst fire seasons in recent years, as heatwaves stoked by fossil fuel… More
The Guardian has Mapped: how the world is losing its forests to wildfires and, in the process, managed to transform abstract climate statistics into clear, spatial comparisons.The story opens with an interactive 3D globe that is used to reveal the sheer scale of forest lost to wildfires around the world. By panning and zooming the globe to recognisable areas, the article provides
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• By OpenStreetMap User's Diaries
•
I’ve been updating bus routes;
it’s a fun task, but takes a real long time;
slow progress in the wiki: osm.wiki/Braga
i’ve added tons of sidewalks and crosswalks and i’m totally happy to see them start rendering on OSMAnd;
if ppl actually used OSM while driving they would get vocal warnings for crosswalks, i’ve tried it before and it works and its really good to know whenever you approach a sidewalk as a driver; ofc this is a feature which is pedestrian centered, so the whole point is to especially help people navigate on foot; also i really like the added complexity layer when sidewalks appear on the map and you can actually start navigating the city through sidewalks, footways, footpaths and informal paths, the city is more interesting when seen through a walking perspective
we need to properly address this, i’m thinking of starting activism, we cant have 300 ppl getting run over per year (just in braga!)
i’m quite confused if and how exactly i should mark informal...
Spatialists – geospatial news
• By Ralph Straumann
•
A recent #JOSIS publication by Pebesma et al. highlights common challenges and opportunities across #RStats, #Python, and #Julia in spatial #datascience. The paper makes interesting recommendations for fostering cross-language collaboration and advancing geospatial tooling for researchers, developers, and educators.
The AGS Globe: Journey to the End of the World: South America’s Patagonia by American Geographical Society The American Geographical Society’s Weekly Newsletter for Tuesday, January 13, 2026 Read on Substack
The British comedy/panel show QI had this short bit about silk escape maps being made into underthings after World War II. (This is from episode 6 of series U, which aired in February 2024.) The… More
Where are you located on Earth? I live in the small town of Lancaster, in the north of England (this is important later). Historically built on the textile industry as an important west coast port city with links to the lands across the Atlantic and hence the evils of slavery. The town still has a […]
The post Maps and Mappers of the 2026 Calendar – Barry Rowlingson – January appeared first on GeoHipster.
If you render maps using the Mapnik rendering engine, you might have come across Nik4 by Ilya Zverev. It is a Python utility rendering single map images for a given bounding box, center coordinate, image dimensions and/or scale. At Geofabrik we use it to create maps for printouts.
Nik4 has one problem. It relies on Mapnik’s Python bindings. They do not have any releases and fail to build from time to time. In order to get rid of that unstable dependency, we decided to port Nik4 to C++ because Mapnik is written in C++.
Nik5 aims to behave exactly as Nik4 in order to make migration easy for its users. However, the syntax of the command line options --bbox, --size-px and --size was changed from space to comma as separator. If you wrote --size-px 800 600 in the past, you now have to use --size-px 800,600.
Nik4 used ImageMagick’s montage utility to stitch tiles together if the requested map size exceeded the maximum image limits of Mapnik. We replaced it by the libgd. Tiles will be...
War Atlas is an interactive, web-based map that visualizes 8,500+ historical battles spanning from around 1500 BC to the present day - providing users with a guided historical tour of human conflict.At its core, War Atlas is an interactive timeline-driven map. Users can select a specific war, explore through time using a slide control or through inputting a specific year, and see battles
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• By OpenStreetMap User's Diaries
•
Děje se toho tolik, že pokud se na něco konkrétního nesoustředím, tak už to nelze zpozorovat pouhým periferním vnímáním. A abych byl alespoň trochu v širším obraze, nakonec ke zpozorování používám i dostupné technologie tak, jak se postupně rozvíjejí.
Digitální kartografie prošla zásadní proměnou a OpenStreetMap se stala pilířem globální informační infrastruktury. Od svého založení v roce 2004 se tento projekt vyvinul v unikátní kolaborativní databázi využívanou pro navigaci i krizové řízení. Současná geopolitická situace charakterizovaná napětím mezi mocnostmi klade na otevřená data nové nároky. Mapa již není pouhým zrcadlem reality, protože její role v politickém a vojenském rozhodování přímo ovlivňuje dění ve světě. V tomto kontextu bylo nezbytné zkoumat, jakým způsobem jsou data využívána v oblastech konfliktů a jak jsou chráněna před restrikcemi ze strany státních aktérů usilujících o digitální suverenitu.
Základem metodologie OpenStreetMap zůstala doktrína popisu...
My ride today was from Embleton to Preston Tower, and back. The earliest records of Preston Tower date from 1415 and 1499, but Peter Ryder believes that it was originally the defensible south end of a 14th century hall house. By 1719 it was no longer used as a house, and the tower needed a new roof. In 1799 the house alongside the tower burned down and had to be rebuilt. In 1864 the tower was restored and the clock inserted by Henry Robert Baker Cresswell.It wasn't a day to hang around, but there are information panels outside, and apparently there's a display inside the tower which sound as though they are worth a return visit.A lapse of concentration on the way back meant that I missed a turning so the return journey was a bit longer than planned. That resulted in ride of a little over ten miles. Back at Embleton the Old Vicarage is another 14th century house, with a tower constructed c.1390. It was extended by John Dobson in 1828 for Rev. George Grimes. I believe it's now a...
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• By OpenStreetMap User's Diaries
•
This morning, when I woke up, I felt that something was different. The sky looked darker, the temperature felt colder, and the faint sound of drizzling rain outside carried a gloomy tone.
I immediately rushed to check the forum chat that morning, trying to scrape together information. What was going on out there?
07:17:55: “Heavy rain”
07:18:44: “Same here in Bogor”
07:19:39: “With a storm like this, how am I supposed to get to the office?”
07:39:11: “Anyone in North Jakarta who lives toward the east / near Bekasi. Is it storming there?”
07:40:20: “Yep. Storming. Starting to ease up a bit though.”
07:48:25: “Seems pretty widespread. Cikarang’s getting wind and rain too.”
07:50:04: “Still early morning but the rain is insanely heavy. What a Monday.”
07:55:41: “With rain this heavy, it’s best to just go back to sleep~”
08:00:26: “Heavy rainnn”
08:10:46: “The rain is so damn heavy.”
08:14:28: “Waiting for it to stop, but it’s just getting heavier.”
08:16:52: “This storm. No way...
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• By OpenStreetMap User's Diaries
•
1st January 2026
Happy New Year!
I went for a walk, today, to geo locate some benches. Given my physical challenges (not to mention my tendency to over do it all the time), benches are an absolute godsend — more often than not, a four-mile stroll feels like a ten-mile slog (and today, ironically, was no exception).
I got the job done, though, and bagged both benches at 51.4751546, -3.2752249 and 51.4742791, -3.2777702. There's a really cool MapComplete theme called Benches that I use a fair bit, so I've also got some photos ready.
I'll upload everything shortly — just as soon as my back stops hurting, my legs stop wobbling, and my ankle stops threatening an early retirement.
3rd January 2026
Locating a Quarry
I've decided to find and map the quarry in Plymouth Great Wood. According to Outdoor Cardiff's guide, it should be located somewhere around 51.483825, -3.257899.
The quarry was excavated in the late...
A short piece in The New Yorker from Adam Gopnik about Proposal 5, which appeared on the New York City general election ballot last November. It called for a unified single digital city map maintained… More
Geospatial Frontiers - Project Geospatial
• By Adam Simmons
•
Discover how the MIDB ontology can revolutionizing national infrastructure
resilience by transforming raw data into actionable intelligence. This
in-depth article explores how a structured framework has the potential to
enhance AI capabilities, identifies critical nodes like EV Gigafactories,
and could fostes innovation through an open-source government framework,
leading to a more secure and prosperous future.
AI-Powered Remote Sensing Platform for Rail Removes Risks, Cuts Costs, Minimizes Project Delays and Avoids Passenger Disruptions LAS VEGAS — Exodigo, the artificial intelligence (AI) and multi-sensing innovator modernizing underground data intelligence, today announced the successful development and deployment of an advanced underground intelligence system specifically designed for rail infrastructure projects. At the 2026 International […]
People Over Papers is a community-driven map showing reports of Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) activity. People Over Papers lets anyone submit sightings of possible ICE operations and view recent reports near them. The project’s stated objective is to “collect community-submitted information about possible ICE activity to help inform the public and raise awareness,” with every
Reinder spotted this in the in the public library in The Hague ” on the floor there is a map – not surprisingly – of the city of The Hague, the Netherlands. Been here many times, but never saw this before. “
This data and society blog Spatial Reserves frequently discusses the rapidly changing environment in which all of us in the geospatial field discover, access, and use data. How we access imagery in a GIS environment is also rapidly transforming, resulting in spending less time searching and formatting, and more time on analysis and decision-making. As […]
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• By OpenStreetMap User's Diaries
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Comecei a contribuir com o OpenStreetMap movido pela curiosidade e pela vontade de ajudar. Aos poucos, percebi que mapear não era apenas desenhar ruas ou ajustar pontos no mapa: era participar de um projeto global que transforma informação em impacto real.
Nos últimos meses, tenho dedicado boa parte do meu tempo ao mapeamento do Vale do Rio Pardo, no Estado da Bahia. É uma região rica, diversa e ainda pouco representada nos mapas digitais. Cada nova via identificada, cada edificação revisada e cada detalhe adicionado ajuda a tornar o território mais visível e acessível para quem depende dessas informações.
Antes disso, concentrei meus esforços na melhoria do mapa de vários municípios do Sul e Sudoeste Baiano. Foram horas revisando imagens, corrigindo traçados, adicionando estradas rurais e atualizando áreas urbanas. Ver essas regiões ganhando mais precisão e completude no OSM é uma sensação de realização difícil de descrever.
Meu trabalho voluntário envolve revisar imagens de...
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• By OpenStreetMap User's Diaries
•
[Ex-YU] Naški
##Postavimo Banju Luku na (digitalnu) kartu – Pridružite se #FOSMBL
Da li ste se ikada zapitali kako možemo najbolje iskoristiti potencijal našeg regiona? Sve počinje sa podacima. Pod hashtagom #FOSMBL (Friends of OpenStreetMap Banja Luka) želimo da sve izmjene na OpenStreetMap-u u Banjoj Luci i okolini učinimo vidljivijim i lakšim za pronalaženje.
Zašto #FOSMBL? Korištenjem ovog hashtaga u komentarima vaših izmjena (changesets), pomažete u stvaranju lokalne zajednice. To nam omogućava da pratimo napredak i bolje se koordinišemo. Ali cilj je mnogo veći od samog mapiranja:
Turizam: Ažurne karte pomažu turistima da pronađu naše znamenitosti, ugostiteljske objekte i staze.
Ekonomija: Precizni podaci su ključni za logistiku, lokalne biznise i ekonomski razvoj.
Vizija: Vrijeme je da razmislimo o formiranju zvanične OSM grupe za Banju Luku i regiju. Zajedno možemo organizovati “mapatone” i unaprijediti kvalitet podataka na viši nivo.
Hajde da zajedno pokrenemo Banju...
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• By OpenStreetMap User's Diaries
•
Mir ist aufgefallen, daß die Überwachungskameras, die an jeder U-Bahn-Station im Raum Nürnberg-Fürth hängen, in OSM kaum verzeichnet sind. Ich habe daher angefangen, alle, die mir beim Warten auf die U-Bahn auffallen, einzuzeichnen. Dafür verwende ich Vespucci am Handy mit folgenden Tagsets:
man-made:surveillance
surveillance:public
surveillance-type:camera
surveillance-zone:public_transport_platform
camera-type:#ist entweder fixed oder dome
camera-mount:#ist entweder wall oder ceiling
camera-direction:#oft nur geschätzte Richtwerte
camera-angle:#ich versuche, mit der Android-App Clinometer möglichst akkurate Schätzwerte zum Neigungswinkel zu bekommen, funktioniert bisher erstaunlich gut
height:#nur Schätzungen
level:#selbsterklärend
operator:VAG Verkehrs-Aktiengesellschaft Nürnberg
operator-type:public
operator-wikidata:Q1557682
ref:#jede gerichtete VAG-Kamera hat an der Seite ein gelbes Schild, auf dem eine alphanumerische Referenznummer aufgedruckt ist, nach dem Schema...
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• By OpenStreetMap User's Diaries
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Devo mappare una strada privata a uso pubblico vicino al Sentiero della Felce, sotto il Parco di Belmonte…ho visto che alcuni nodi, parti del sentiero sono stati mappati da utenti diversi, ma non questa strada carrabile..
Chiedo aiuto per indicazioni a chiunque voglia contribuire.
Agosto77
Melinda Clarke, the creator of the Melbourne Map has branched out with a range of beautiful silk scarves with some very stylish map designs including, of course, The Melbourne Map. n this pic my pal Denise McKenzie is wearing Melbourne at the GeoBusiness conference. Here’s Melinda with her vintage New York scarf And here she […]
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• By OpenStreetMap User's Diaries
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Quantity vs Quality Assurance
I wanted to know how well I was performing as an armchair mapper, internally I was concerned that I was creating more issues than I was helping so I learned about a website that answers the question “How did I contribute?”.
On my name I looked at the quality assurance section and the quantity of errors was too very high, almost over a 4000 issues ignored. I have attempted to improve the quality of my mapping change sets using Osmose and OSMI.
Osmose
Initially I had 26 level 1(major) issues, 50 level 2(intermediate) issues and 800(minor). I quickly adjusted the level 1 issues and over half of my level 2 issues. I have a single level 1, 19 level 2 and over 700 level 3 issues. Systematically I hope to solve;
*amenity=parking issues
*building=construction issues
*building overlap issues
*waterway issues.
OSMI
Routing issues have been harder for me to pin down, I have many sidewalk issues since I reworked the pedestrian walkways through the Bulawayo...
Free and Open Source GIS Ramblings
• By underdark
•
Finally it’s here: Jupyter notebooks inside QGIS. I don’t know about you but I’ve been hoping for someone to get around to doing this for quite a while. Qiusheng Wu published the first version of the Notebook plugin on 26 Dec 2025. Late Christmas present?! For the setup, there’s a handy tutorial by Hans van …Read More
My second ride of the year was on familiar ground. I enjoy the route between Hipsburn and Amble. It's mostly off-road with views of the coast and River Coquet. Usually I meet a few walkers and cyclists, but it's never been busy. The section between Warkworth and Amble is mostly a shared-use path that follows the River Coquet. The section between Hipsburn and Warkworth is mostly a shared-use path alongside the A1068 coast road. Navigation through Warkworth is straightforward in both directions. Navigation through Amble is another story, but more of that some other time.Today the weather was clear and sunny, with temperatures hovering just above freezing. There was some frost and ice on the path. Enough to justify taking things carefully in places, but nothing too problematic. I covered just over 11 miles at a sedate pace.The sharp-eyed will notice that I've replaced the G-Line standard G-One tyres with Marathon Plus. Between Hipsburn and Warkworth the shared-use path is almost...
On thursday I had to take the car to Newcastle for a service so I decided to take the bike for it's initial check at the same time. This was originally planned for Monday but had to be rescheduled after heavy snow.While I waited for the car to be ready I rode into town, and dropped the bike off. I pottered around for a bit, had some lunch, then collected the bike. I rode down to the quayside then along the Tyne. Only eight miles, in total, but it's a start. I had been a bit apprehensive about the weather, the traffic and finding my way round. But all went smoothly. The bike and the car are both fine.
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• By OpenStreetMap User's Diaries
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“I don’t know, can you?” is a joke of mediocre quality that is supposed to point out the difference between being able to do something and being allowed to do something. It is annoying to students all over because in everyday language, the word “can” gets used universally for both instances, and context clues make such comments seem pedantic.
There is, however, a great place where pedantry is more than welcome: When maintaining a database, such as OpenStreetMap.
So, what’s the issue?
Access tags, including more granular specifications like motor_vehicle, bicycle or foot, specify whether someone is allowed to use a way, an amenity or whatever else. The wheelchair tag, on the other hand, specifies if it is possible to access or use the place, independent of whether it is allowed or not.
Tag combinations like access=private and wheelchair=yes make perfect sense. Only a limited set of people are allowed to access a certain area, but when they are, they won’t be hindered by stairs,...
Homes Are Expensive is an interactive map that can help you find the cheapest and most expensive places to buy a property in the United States. The house prices are based on data from Zillow listings.The map visualizes property prices across the USA using data scraped via hasdata.com in November 2025, and provides a comprehensive look at the 1.85 million homes currently on the market. What makes
Spatialists – geospatial news
• By Ralph Straumann
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A bit of fun from the #OpenStreetMap community: Matt Whilden hosts the ingenious XofY #OSM Geometry Viewer. This open-source tool lets you explore and compare OSM geometries – from quirky lakes to oddly shaped museums – arranged as small multiples based on any #Overpass query you create.
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• By OpenStreetMap User's Diaries
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First and foremost, I want to express my sincere gratitude to the ESA Hub organization for selecting me for this fellowship. It was an honor to be chosen, and I am thankful for the opportunity to learn and contribute. When I began the program, I must admit I lacked confidence in the validation process. While I understood the basics of OpenStreetMap (OSM), the responsibility of critiquing and correcting other mappers’ work felt daunting. I often second-guessed my ability to distinguish between a mapping error and a local anomaly. However, looking back now, this fellowship has been a deeply enriching and practical experience that completely transformed that hesitation into technical authority.
The program didn’t just teach me how to map; it provided a robust understanding of the OSM ecosystem and the HOT Tasking Manager workflows. Through hands-on practice, I moved from simple digitization to mastering advanced tools in JOSM, including plugins, filters, search functions, and...
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• By OpenStreetMap User's Diaries
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My experience in the 2025 Validator Fellowship for Eastern and Southern Africa began on November 3rd, 2025, and concluded on January 7th, 2026, with all sessions held remotely. The fellowship consisted of 12 countries across Eastern and Southern Africa with 42 fellows.
https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/introducing-2025-esa-validator-fellowship-z0nifutm_source=share&utm_medium=member_android&utm_campaign=share_via The program kicked off with an introduction to the Java OpenStreetMap Editor (JOSM), which was followed by an in-depth examination of its advanced features. This phase was particularly enlightening, as I discovered various validation tools that could significantly enhance the validation process. Before we could dive in the fellowship one had to complete a learning lesson. https://learning.hotosm.org/course/josm-skills-series
Introduction JOSM
https://docs.google.com/presentation/d/1YjRJpVQZ9BnY7xmHOswq1DDvJq5b3Id2YsEs81QWVt0/edit?usp=sharing
-JOSM training i.e...
The Leica DISTO D2 and DISTO D2G laser distance meter guarantee precise measurements in bright environments and smart performance for indoor building design applications. Laser distance meters are easy to use, accurate, and accessible hand-held devices that can measure up to 150-250 metres, making them versatile in everyday use. They are the ideal option for […]
Geopost Vision, the new venture dedicated to unlocking the value of Geopost’s parcel delivery fleet for mapping and mobility innovation, announces a strategic partnership with Nextbase, the global provider of connected camera technology to accelerate the emergence of a new generation of street-level imagery and mobility intelligence in Europe. Together, the two companies will be […]
Itochu, Wingcopter’s authorized partner in Japan, has signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) with PASCO and YellowScan Japan to accelerate the practical deployment of long-range drone technology for aerial surveying in Japan. This forms the basis of a new collaboration on the operational use of Wingcopter’s fixed-wing VTOL drones for large-scale surveying applications in the […]
Partnership will deliver an integrated visual positioning system, providing GPS redundancy for autonomous and mixed reality operations. Niantic Spatial, the pioneer in geospatial AI, and Vantor, the provider of unified spatial intelligence, announced a partnership to deliver a comprehensive positioning solution that will enable air and ground platforms to navigate and coordinate precisely in GPS-denied […]
The Narwhal reports that flood map updates are getting pushback in Canada too: As provinces and municipalities amend decades-old flood maps and strengthen flood preparedness measures in the face of inclement climate change, a vocal… More
Adventures In Mapping | John Nelson Maps
• By John
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There are a lot of things to think about and manage and tinker with when you assemble a map into a layout, but here are three overarching things to consider: Here’s an example layout that has some issues. Those issues have been addressed in this update. And here it is in a portrait orientation. You …
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• By OpenStreetMap User's Diaries
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OpenStreetMap steht an einem kritischen Wendepunkt. Während die globale Community die Vorbereitungen für die State of the Map Konferenz in Paris (28.–30. August 2026) vorantreibt, offenbaren sich tiefgreifende Fragen zu Governance, Datenqualität und der Frage, für wen wir eigentlich kartographieren. Diese Wochenkolumne beleuchtet aktuelle Entwicklungen, lokale Initiativen aus Wien und globale Herausforderungen, die unsere Arbeit als digitale Kartographen prägen.
Governance und Machtstrukturen im offenen Raum: Wer entscheidet, was OSM ist?
Die Frage der Governance war 2025 ein Brennpunkt innerhalb der OSM-Community. Dabei geht es nicht nur um technische Entscheidungen, sondern um fundamentale Fragen: Wer bestimmt, welche Software zur Kerninfrastruktur von OpenStreetMap gehört? Wer hat Einsicht in die Entscheidungsprozesse? Und wie werden neuere Beiträger in diese Diskurse eingebunden?
Aktuell zeigt sich ein erhebliches Governance-Defizit. Die Kernsoftware von OpenStreetMap...
bikemap.nyc is an interactive visualization of the entire history of New York City’s Citi Bike system. Every animated arrow you see on the map represents a real bike ride, taken by a real person somewhere in New York City.And there are a lot of them.The map visualizes 291 million Citi Bike trips, spanning more than 12 years, from June 2013 through December 2025. If you want, you can simply sit
In the first 2026 edition of our OpenStreetMap interview series we speak with some of the makers of CoMaps, a community-driven, free and open-source, offline navigation app that uses OpenStreetMap data.
1. Who are you and what do you do? What got you into OpenStreetMap?
Will: I actually made my first edits, like many people, trying to make my area accurate for the Ingress and Pokemon Go. Later, I wanted an open source GPS app that didn’t track me, and found maps.me. I’m a web developer by trade, but learned C++ while trying to contribute to Organic Maps.
Bastian: By training, I’m a researcher coming from biology and bioinformatics, but I’ve spent the last 10 years or so working in different free & open knowledge spaces. I got into OpenStreetMap when I was visiting Vietnam a couple of years ago and Google Maps refused to deliver instructions for bicyle navigation. That’s how I tried Organic Maps and did my first OSM edits. From there, I went down the mapping...
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• By OpenStreetMap User's Diaries
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Árboles urbanos de la ciudad de Pitrufquén en OSM, 2025.
Recientemente la ciudad de Pitrufquén ubicada en la comuna homónima (Región de La Araucanía. Chile), a través de la Municipalidad solicito la elaboración de un catastro del arbolado urbano en el sector centro de la ciudad. Comprendiendo el polígono formado por las calles desde General Baquedano hasta O’higgins en sentido Este-Oeste y desde Domingo Santa María hasta Caupolicán en el sentido Norte-Sur. La superficie del polígono a mapear es de 80 hectáreas, con urgencia de ejecución de diez días entre el 19 al 29 de diciembre, antes de cierre de año. Dada las limitaciones de tiempo y presupuestarias para realizar un catastro en terreno como corresponde, se optó por la realización del levantamiento de forma virtual en la plataforma de OSM.
Se deben registrar e identificar las especies, estado sanitario, el numero de árboles al interior del polígono. Las variables que se registraron para natural=tree son:
age=...
Spatialists – geospatial news
• By Ralph Straumann
•
Swisstopo and partners have introduced a new “Vision for Cadastral Surveying” that extends the time horizon to 2040, adding a shared long-term framework regarding Swiss cadastral surveying. This vision emphasizes multidimensional, legally reliable georeference data (above and below ground, across past, present, and future objects) and positions cadastral surveying as the core provider of official geoinformation for land ownership.
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• By OpenStreetMap User's Diaries
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Flood Risk Map of Kenya using GIS
For the doc version: Kenya Flood Risk Map
Abstract
The Republic of Kenya has recently witnessed a series of devastating hydrometeorological events, transitioning from a severe multi-year drought to catastrophic, El Niño-enhanced flooding between 2024 and 2025. These events have underscored a critical need for high-resolution spatial data to inform disaster risk reduction and humanitarian response. This research, produced as a Legacy Project for the Humanitarian OpenStreetMap Team (HOT) Community Working Group (CWG) Mentorship 2025, presents a comprehensive national-scale flood risk assessment for Kenya. The study employs a Geographic Information System (GIS) and Multi-Criteria Decision Analysis (MCDA) framework to synthesize six influential factors: rainfall intensity, elevation, slope, Land Use/Land Cover (LULC), distance to water bodies, and distance to road networks. Utilizing a weighted overlay methodology, the study reclassifies these...
Tepuis are flat-topped mountains that rise like massive stone islands above the rainforests of the Guiana Highlands in northern South America. Most are found in Venezuela and western Guyana, with Mount Roraima towering at the meeting point of Venezuela, Brazil, and Guyana. From the surrounding lowlands, their sheer cliffs and frequent rings of cloud give […]
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• By OpenStreetMap User's Diaries
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It’s a pretty nice jump.
On November 4th, 2025, I noticed that there were 9,566 buildings mapped in Delaware County, and told a few friends that I wanted to push it up to 10,000. Since then, I’ve been mapping buildings in Delaware County daily, averaging over 100 buildings per day. Once I got it past 10,000, my next goal was to get it so that building mapping in 2025 would outpace building construction in the county. Delaware County is a rapidly growing county, so I did some napkin math and guessed that there were about 1500 buildings added to the county in the year. By the end of the year, I had easily surpassed that goal, and was now working to push back that date of keeping pace with construction further and further. You can see that in this graph:
The estimate I used for this graph is quite simply that the number of buildings is half of the number of residents of the county. This probably isn’t a great estimate, and I’d love if someone knows how to pull better estimates...
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• By OpenStreetMap User's Diaries
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I moved to Caracaraí, Roraima, for work (the banking life) in the first half of 2025. It is a quiet town.
By the end of the year, bothered by seeing that the city’s map on OpenStreetMap consisted merely of outdated streets, the City Hall, and the hospital, I decided to join OSM on December 29th.
It is an Amazonian town of 20,000 inhabitants. The result of this first week is over 300 changesets trying to pull the city out of the void.
All public amenities (that I can recall), such as schools, health centers, banks, etc., are mapped. And so far, half of the city’s buildings are already drawn (long live the Building Tool plugin!).
Honestly, I don’t know who will care about detailed mapping here in the middle of nowhere, but I wanted to do it anyway.
Realizing the full potential of AI in utiltiies depends on a workforce empowered to capture high-quality data at every point of contact with the grid. By modernizing field workflows and prioritizing a human-in-the-loop approach, organizations establish the reliable data foundation necessary for long-term resilience and advanced automation.
La entrada Building the “AI-ready” utility workforce se publicó primero en Fulcrum.
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• By OpenStreetMap User's Diaries
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Me mudei a trabalho (vida de bancário) para a cidade de Caracaraí, em Roraima no primeiro semestre de 2025. Cidade pacata.
Já no final do ano, incomodado em ver que mapa da cidade no OpenStreetMap se resumia a ruas desatualizadas, a prefeitura e o hospital, decidi entrar no OSM, nesse último 29 de dezembro.
É uma cidade amazônica de 20 mil habitantes.
O resultado dessa primeira semana são mais de 300 changesets tentando tirar a cidade do vazio.
Todos (que eu me lembre) as funções públicas como escolas, postos de saúde, bancos etc estão feitas. E até o momento metade das edificações da cidade já desenhadas (viva o plugin Building Tool).
Sinceramente, não sei a quem vai importar um mapeamento detalhado aqui no meio do nada, mas eu quis fazer assim mesmo.
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• By OpenStreetMap User's Diaries
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I find that the width of OSM ways is a useful property for determining how good a pedestrian route is. However, it is often missing from OSM. As an experiment, I decided to use my running activities from Strava to estimate the width of a single OSM way that I use often. The specific way ID I used is in a relatively open area, meaning GNSS error is minimized. I also have collected over 100 traces of me running that single way ID over ~1.5 years. Given all this, how accurate can the estimate of the width be? I got the median width to be in the range of 11 meters. The actual width as measured with Google Maps satellite imagery is 13 meters. It’s close. I am happy with the result. I don’t have nearly as many traces for any other segment on the OSM map, so it’s a limited experiment, but the potential is promising. See the code on Github.
AMOU (A Map of Us) describes itself as “a shared map of our memories.” In essence, the map allows people to pin their own personal stories, memories, and emotional milestones to specific locations around the world. The result is a global atlas of deeply personal landmarks.Each marker on the map - called a mou - is a short note anchored to a location. Some are deeply personal reflections,
A Discord server I use has a channel called #til, standing for Today I Learned. It’s a place to post interesting or surprising things you recently learned. I took my posts to that channel from the last couple of years, tidied them up and have listed them below. Hopefully you’ll find something interesting there: TIL […]
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• By OpenStreetMap User's Diaries
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“From here, how do we get to Ragunan Zoo?”
Good question.
I paused. This wasn’t a matter of intuition; it was a routing problem.
I opened a navigation app, queried the destination, and switched the mode to public transport. The proposed solution was a multi-hop journey : take the blue commuter line to Manggarai, transfer to the red line toward Bogor, get off at Pasar Minggu, then continue with something called S15A.
S15A?
That identifier triggered a red flag. After a quick lookup, it turned out to be an angkot.
That immediately raised another question. Was there really no direct busway route to Ragunan? Not even a JakLingko alternative? Cost sensitivity was also a concern. There are plenty of public transportation modes in this city: MRT, LRT, Commuter Line, Transjakarta BRT, and Transjakarta non-BRT, but angkot and ride-hailing motorcycles are the two worst options, since they can end up being pricey due to the lack of government subsidization.
At that point, I decided to...
Auch 2025 war wieder ein aktives Jahr auf digital.ebp.ch. Wir haben (ohne den Rückblick auf 2024) insgesamt 13 Blogposts publiziert zu unseren Themen IT und Geoinformation entlang von «Analyze, Plan, Build, Run». Aber welche Themen haben unsere Kundinnen und Kunden und uns speziell beschäftigt? Zeit, kurz zurückzublicken in einer Art «Highlight Reel». Veranstaltungen: Digitale Transformation, …
“World of communication’, in Rome, in the National Gallery of Modern and Contemporary Art. It dates from 1972 and is made by Jiří Kolář. ” I htink the collage on the globe is made with postage stamps.
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• By OpenStreetMap User's Diaries
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When I first started the ESA Validation Fellowship, I’ll admit I felt like a bit of an outsider. Even though I loved mapping, I often struggled with imposter syndrome, wondering if my skills actually measured up to the “expert” level. Looking back now, the growth I’ve experienced is incredible. I remember how intimidating JOSM used to feel with all its complex buttons and menus, but through this fellowship, it has become like a second language to me. I’ve moved past the basics and now feel completely at home using advanced tools to clean up and verify data. I learned new shortcuts and got to publicly map as others watched, proving to myself that I belong in this space.
Working alongside such talented people helped me realize that I really am an advanced mapper and a capable validator. Seeing my work hold up next to theirs finally silenced that voice in my head telling me I wasn’t good enough.
But as much as I’ve grown technically, the heart of this experience has been the...
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• By OpenStreetMap User's Diaries
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During the ESA HOTOSM Validation Fellowship, my journey began with the basics—learning how to install JOSM on my laptop and understanding its interface. From there, I learned how to install and use essential plugins such as the Building Tools plugin, Utils plugin, Mapathoner, and other supporting tools that greatly improved my workflow and actually made my validation easy. I also learned how to install and apply map paint styles, which helped me easily detect issues such as overlapping buildings and missing or incorrect tags, learnt how to work with different imagery such as bing, Esri and how to deal with the imagery offsets. These foundational steps laid the groundwork for my growth as a validator and deepened my understanding of data quality in OpenStreetMap.
As the fellowship progressed, we moved into active validation, where I gradually became familiar with new JOSM shortcuts that made mapping and validation more efficient. Shortcuts such as B for drawing buildings, G for...
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• By OpenStreetMap User's Diaries
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My Growth Journey in the ESA validation Fellowship
When I was first selected for this fellowship, I felt a mix of excitement and nerves. My first major assignment was Hot Tasking Manager Project #16505, and I’ll be honest: it was a wake-up call.
Initially, the tasks felt daunting. I quickly realized that while I knew how to map, I hadn’t yet mastered the advanced features required to validate data efficiently.
My workflow was slow, and I felt I was missing the technical “bridge” needed to ensure the high-quality data that a project of this scale demands.
The breakthrough came through the mentorship of our facilitators. They introduced us to a suite of professional techniques and GIS tools that changed everything. Specifically, learning how to leverage advanced filters and JOSM shortcuts was a game-changer.
These weren’t just “tips” they were the keys to unlocking a much more efficient and precise validation process.
By integrating these tools into my daily workflow, my...
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• By OpenStreetMap User's Diaries
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Introduction
The ESA Hub Fellowship was a deeply enriching and practical learning experience that significantly strengthened my skills in geospatial data production, validation, and humanitarian mapping. From the beginning, the fellowship introduced me to the mission of ESA Hub and the critical role that open geospatial data plays in disaster response, resilience building, and inclusive decision-making. I developed a strong understanding of the OpenStreetMap (OSM) ecosystem, humanitarian mapping principles, and the workflows of the HOT Tasking Manager, which laid a solid foundation for meaningful contributions to real-world projects.
Throughout the fellowship, I gained extensive hands-on experience in mapping and contributing to several humanitarian and disaster response projects. Using tools such as iD Editor and JOSM, I digitized key features including buildings, roads, waterways, and other critical infrastructure from high-resolution satellite imagery. I actively contributed...
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• By OpenStreetMap User's Diaries
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As of December 13th, 2025, Swift and Portal interlockings have been renamed to “Old Swift” and “Old Portal”. Tracks and signals have also been renamed (2 turned into 22 and 3 turned into 33). I’ve already put in the edits.
OSM: osm.org/#map=16/40.75308/-74.09527
Openrailwaymap: https://openrailwaymap.org/?style=standard&lat=40.7532&lon=-74.1037&zoom=15
NYW1-23-b: https://archive.org/details/AMTK-NEC-employee-timetable-supplemental-bulletin-20251213-NYW1-23-b
Current NEC ETT:
Amtrak - Northeast Corridor Employee Timetable 2025-11-03, Special Instructions
As always, I put all bulletins and new employee timetables in this list on Archive.org
Amtrak’s FOIA office is now really fast. I can get bulletins the same day they are requested. Back in August they were much slower but now that I’m doing these every month they are on top of it.
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• By OpenStreetMap User's Diaries
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Revisei recentemente áreas da Serra fortemente afetadas pelas chuvas da enchente de 2024. Um trecho da BR-470 na região da Ponte dos Arcos sofreu múltiplos deslizamentos e, 19 meses depois, ainda opera em sistema de comboio (sentido único reversível com escolta), com longas esperas, tornando várias estradas vizinhas rotas alternativas importantes.
Ao refazer o levantamento ali, notei uma quantidade significativa de nova sinalização de advertência, principalmente para risco de desmoronamentos. Como o OsmAnd agora oferece suporte básico à etiqueta hazard, passei a mapear esses riscos quando há placas de advertência no local, pois tendem a permanecer relevantes por muito tempo.
Pensando na utilidade prática para navegação, especialmente à noite e sob chuva, decidi focar o mapeamento de hazard apenas em dois riscos: desmoronamentos ( hazard=landslide, que podem influenciar a escolha da rota quando há chuva intensa) e animais ( hazard=animal_crossing, uma fonte comum de acidentes)....
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• By OpenStreetMap User's Diaries
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During the fellowship, I learned how to validate more effectively, especially by using filters, search functions, and setting up map paint styles. I became better at identifying issues, mapping across different countries, and validating data from other regions. This helped me understand mapping more deeply, including the different shapes of buildings across countries. I also gained a stronger grasp of quality standards and grew more comfortable using JOSM shortcuts.
For example, while validating building footprints in Africa and later in Asia like Japan, North and South America, I noticed differences in building construction styles and settlement patterns. By applying filters and map paint styles, I was able to quickly identify inconsistencies such as overlapping polygons or missing tags and correct them. This experience not only improved my technical validation skills but also gave me a broader perspective on how mapping standards can be applied across diverse contexts.
During...
Reinder spotted these mappy suitcases in a hotel window in Rome. He was so taken with them that he didn’t mention the nice looking globe, while his wife apparently was more impressed by the towels folded as swans. Go figure! If only those cases were a bit bigger and had wheels.
On New Year’s Day, I released a small virtual fireworks show to celebrate the start of the year. The Swiss newspaper Neue Zürcher Zeitung then put my effort to shame by publishing an impressive orbital tour of the entire planet on the same day - recorded by the International Space Station.Illuminated Cities and Northern Lights: A New Year's Flight around the World around the World is a guided
Spatialists – geospatial news
• By Ralph Straumann
•
#DevelopmentSeed has released #stacmap, an #opensource, map-first visualizer for exploring and searching #STAC collections through a simple, browser-based interface. It already supports natural-language queries (albeit experimentally) and also stac-#geoparquet.
The AGS Globe: NYC Flooding Adaptation Strategies by American Geographical Society The American Geographical Society’s Weekly Newsletter for Tuesday, January 6, 2026 Read on Substack
Reinder spotted this mosaic map of the Old City of Rome, “Saw this in the lobby of the Santa Chiara hotel in Rome. The size of the map is let’s say 50 x 70 cm, it is made of little stones of approximately 4 x 4 mm. No artist is mentioned — but he or […]
I think we would all like to banish the United States to Mars. Well now you can thanks to a new size comparison map. There have been a lot of (what are probably mostly vibe-coded) 'true-size of' maps lately. The True Size of Countries definitely has the AI-map template aesthetic often associated with large language model–designed maps, however it also offers a fresh twist on a familiar
In the past we have written how one can use social media or newspapers to study the world around us. Keeping with this theme of using text we (Xinyu Fu, Catherine Brinkley, Thomas Sanchez, Chaosu Li and myself) have a new editorial entitled "Not just numbers: Understanding cities through their words" which accompanies a special issue in Environment and Planning B entitled "Leveraging Natural Language Processing for Urban Analytics" The editorial discusses how researchers can use natural language processing (NLP) methods to get a sense of a diverse range of issues impacting cities. To quote from the editorial, these range: "from analyzing housing development from council planning applications (Lin et al., 2025), revealing visitor perceptions of famous attractions or passengers’ perceptions on transit service quality from social media (Luo et al., 2025; Ma et al., 2025), defining the meaning of urban imageability based on online review (Zhu et al., 2025), understanding the spatial...
I really haven’t got much time or energy at the moment (I spent most of the Christmas break with an extremely painful back, which was exhausting and frustrating), but I wanted to post a very brief list of books I read this year. I read a total of 44 books this year, which includes re-reads […]
Executive Summary Geospatial operational readiness in 2026 requires more than reliable systems, it demands contextually aware operations that understand where work happens, under what conditions, and how those conditions affect decision quality. Deterministic workflows remain foundational for repeatability and auditability, but they were not designed to interpret the conditional complexity inherent in geospatial data. As […]
Geospatial Frontiers - Project Geospatial
• By Fred Woods
•
Today's intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance (ISR) community
faces a critical crisis: analysts are drowning in exponential volumes of
sensor data from the expanding Internet of Battle Things (IoBT), leading to
severe cognitive overload and missed threats in contested environments. The
imperative solution is the rapid integration of Artificial Intelligence
(AI) and Machine Learning (ML) to filter noise and automate multi-source
sensor fusion. This article explores how leveraging edge processing and
AI-driven workflows—exemplified by DARPA programs and innovations from BAE
Systems, Esri, and Palantir—can transform overwhelmed analysts into agile
decision-makers, securing information dominance against increasingly
sophisticated adversaries.
Remember Santa’s Delivery Route from Xmas Eve? Ken sent me this modern version of that map which he spotted in the lobby of the Great Northern Hotel next to Kings Cross. Note that this time the map is north up.
Estimating how many people live within a specific area is a recurring challenge in public health, urban planning, and humanitarian work. Census data is often outdated, too coarse, or unavailable at the scale decision-makers need. A new open-source map created by Carlos Felipe Castillo shows how far you can get using nothing more than OpenStreetMap data and lightweight analytics.Carlos has built
Surekha Davies writes about on how monsters on maps led to her first book and then, in her second, to a consideration of why monsters exist as a category. By taking images of monstrous peoples… More
“The shortcomings and possibilities of generative AI are, of course, well chronicled across a million op-eds. I could write at length about the dangers or opportunities the technology presents,” writes Matt at Londonist. “But this… More
A year after launch, Topoprint has grown through community use and feedback across Switzerland. The post highlights three practical improvements aimed at making printed terrain models clearer and sturdier: route overlays, a stabilizing border ring, and multi-tile layouts. It introduces the new Designer Pro workflow for large prints, including examples and how to request print files.
I don’t know where to start with this one. Yes it is a map in the wild, but why would anyone make this decaying world held by rotting hands and then award it as a peace prize? I thought FIFA governed world football, is it really FIFA’s role to award peace prizes? As for the […]
Where do people around the world live today - and where were they born?The new Global Migration Map lets you explore international migration patterns using the United Nations’ International Migrant Stock 2024 dataset. By clicking on any country, you can discover where people living there originally came from, or where people born there now live - and how many people moved between each pair of
Tell Us About Yourself I’m Dilara, originally from Istanbul, Turkey. I studied at the prestigious M.Sc. Cartography program at four different universities in Germany, Austria, and the Netherlands. I have a multi-disciplinary background spanning cartography, urban and regional planning, design, and technology. Currently, I work as a part-time data scientist in Germany. Tell Us the […]
The post Maps and Mappers of the 2025 Calendar – Dilara Bozkurt – Front Cover appeared first on GeoHipster.
The State of The Map Room in 2025: On my Patreon, I look back on how this site did in terms of traffic and income over the past year. Map Books of 2026: Already live,… More
Melinda Clarke (of Melbourne Map fame) sent me this, she said “I met this young girl, we got chatting and I shared that I was producing a map of Melbourne. She then declared her love for maps, and travelling around the world – and showed me her tattoo of a world map on the soles […]
Imagine the Earth could write to you. What would it say?Letters from The Earth is an attempt to visualize global climate data not as charts or forecasts, but as daily first-person letters written by the Earth itself. It is an experiment to see whether data can be translated through narrative and emotion to convey a broader, more intuitive form of understanding than by raw numbers
I couldn't get tickets for London's very popular New Year's Eve fireworks display, so I had to make my own virtual version.My 3D Fireworks Map displays colorful bursts of fireworks exploding above the City of London. The map starts by loading real-world buildings from the Global Building Atlas, a massive dataset of city structures from around the world.The real magic happens with the fireworks.
This has to be one of the best maps in the wild ever! Elizabeth sent me this from Weymouth “Last night on the South Coast. Looks like the map of UK, Ireland and Denmark.” Mappy New Year to everyone who contributes maps in the wild or follows us, let it be a year full of […]
So last year I didn’t do a year in review because I was sitting in the hospital with one serious thought back in January: I was probably a few days away from the year in review not mattering anymore. How do you sum up this year. Usually I pour through a pile of things from […]
The post 2025: Year in Review appeared first on North River Geographic Systems Inc.
Wandering in Covent Garden I spotted this advert for the Omega Speedmaster watch which has a cute globe panel and a Snoopy graphic. Who knew that Snoopy was the official Mascot for the NASA Space Programme with the agreement of Charles Schulz?
Earthsounds
I’m guessing you’ve heard of - and perhaps even used - the popular location-addressing system, what3words. You may even know the three-word address for your home. But do you know your home’s personal songline?
Aboriginal songlines are ancient pathways that crisscross the land, created and sung into existence by Ancestral beings during the Dreaming. Each songline is a living map:
Most restaurant maps are designed to answer one question: what looks good right now? The dreadfully named Shittr answers a very different one - what won’t ruin my digestive system for the next 48 hours? Shittr is an interactive map that assigns restaurants a “Shit Score” - a 1 to 5 🚽 risk rating - based on real government health inspection data from the US and UK.💩💩💩At its core, Shittr uses
In the modern product-driven technology landscape, services revenue is often viewed as problematic. So why, in the geospatial community, are services-led companies so much more successful?
The Onion: MTA Admits to Fabricating Large Parts of Subway Map. “‘Frankly, no one I know has ever ridden farther than the Carroll Street Station in Brooklyn. We’re not really sure what’s out there, but… More
How much of Berlin is designed for cars - and how much for children and nature?Hans Hack has released an interactive map that offers a clear view of how urban space is allocated in Berlin. The tool compares the amount of urban space taken up by parking lots with that devoted to children’s playgrounds and other green spaces across Germany's capital.By centering the map on any point in the city,&
A new resource is very helpful for learning about Cloud Optimized data formats and sharing this information with colleagues: https://zines.developmentseed.org/zines/cloud-native/#zine/1/ As an educator I particularly like it for its comic-magazine presentation style. I salute the Development Seed folks who put this together and know and think very highly of the authors, Kiri Carini. Through […]
The Canadian Press reports on the closure of Canada Map Sales, a map store owned by the Manitoba government that sells topo maps, nautical charts, and other maps, posters and imagery, at the end of… More
MacRumors reports that Flyover city tours in Apple Maps appear to have been discontinued as of iOS 26. The Flyover imagery itself remains; this is about the feature that led the user from landmark to… More
The HOT Export Tool from the Humanitarian OpenStreetMap Team is an online service for creating custom extracts of OpenStreetMap (OSM) data.The tool allows users to select an area of interest and produce custom OSM data extracts. You can choose which map features and tags to include (e.g., roads, buildings, amenities, boundaries) and then download the data in multiple file formats (including
I wasn’t sure whether to share this but the editorial board said “F it, go for it” This tattoo is on the arm of Arsen Ostrovsky, a survivor of the Bondi Beach Chanukah shooting – no further comment needed.
Reinder spotted this magnificent illuminated globe at the railway station in Leiden. I think it’s a perfect choice for our Xmas day post. Happy Christmas to all who celebrate it and Seasons Greetings to the rest of you.
🎅 Santa’s Big Adventure: Follow Him Around the World! 🌍It’s Christmas Eve - the most magical night of the year - and guess what? Santa is already zooming around the world, delivering gifts to kids just like YOU! 🎁 This year, why not join in the fun by following Santa’s incredible journey around the world? 🎄✨
🦌 NORAD Santa Tracker: Powered by Rudolph’s NoseDo you know how NORAD tracks
The AGS Globe: How Excessive Heat Affects Young Children’s Development by American Geographical Society The American Geographical Society’s Weekly Newsletter for Tuesday, December 23, 2025 Read on Substack
According to NASA, Christmas lights up the winter. Using nighttime satellite imagery of American cities, NASA discovered that nighttime lights in American cities shine 20 to 50 percent brighter during the Christmas season than at other times of the year. In Even from Space, Holidays Shine Brightly NASA explains that nighttime lights start getting brighter on the day after Thanksgiving. You
Geospatial Frontiers - Project Geospatial
• By Adam Simmons
•
Is the era of centralized open-source governance ending? This in-depth
analysis examines the existential crisis facing OSGeo as it approaches its
twentieth anniversary, caught in an "Institutional Trap" between a
struggling global foundation and thriving regional chapters like FOSS4G
North America. Explore the critical tensions defining the future of the
geospatial technology stack, including debates over FOSS4G brand ownership,
controversial revenue-sharing proposals, and the rising demand for
"Sovereign Open Source" models to navigate complex geopolitical and
regulatory landscapes.
True-Size.com has become a go-to destination for anyone curious about the real dimensions of our world. It is best known for its interactive map that lets you compare the true size of countries. The site allows users to drag countries around the globe and make direct comparisons with other countries and regions around the world. It’s a simple idea with a powerful impact, often reshaping
City neighborhoods rarely have crisp, universally agreed-upon boundaries. Unlike political jurisdictions, neighborhood borders are shaped by lived experience: where people shop, who they identify as neighbors, and shifting social and cultural trends. These boundaries are often fluid, overlapping, and contested, changing over time and varying from person to person. As a result, neighborhood
Tell Us About Yourself My name is Hemed Lungo a 24 years old Tanzanian Or Place where Mount Kilimanjaro is found (cause people seem to be familiar with that).I stay at Dar-es-salaam to be specific, I recently graduated this year from the Institute of Finance Management (IFM), where I studied Information Technology (IT). My background […]
The post Map and Mappers of the 2025 Calendar – November – Hemed Lungo appeared first on GeoHipster.
Gute Daten sind nur wertvoll, wenn wir sie verstehen. Genau hier beginnt Data Literacy oder Datenkompetenz. Der Thurgauer «MoniThur» ist ein System von Indikatoren zur Beurteilung der Nachhaltigen Entwicklung des Kantons. Anhand des Indikators «Distanz zum öffentlichen Verkehrssystem» lässt sich exemplarisch nachvollziehen, wie gute Datenaufbereitung und -vermittlung komplexe Zusammenhänge greifbar macht. Ein Blick darauf lohnt …
Easily Download 3D Building Data from the Global Building AtlasThe Global Building Atlas is one of the most ambitious open mapping projects to date: a global, high-resolution dataset describing 2.75 billion buildings worldwide, including their footprints, heights, and simple 3D (LoD1) geometry. Developed by researchers at the Technical University of Munich (TUM), the dataset offers an
The Giro3D team is pleased to announce the release of Giro3D 1.0. Giro3D, an open-source geospatial visualization project Giro3D is a geospatial data visualization library for the Web. Free and...
In a previous post, we highlighted that a significant shift is underway; one that is unlocking the vast amounts of Earth observation (EO) data gathered by the European Space Agency (ESA). We’re proud to be part of modernizing how the industry interacts with this historically unwieldy data. We know when data is more accessible, it […]
The post Cloud-Native Earth Observation in R with the EOPF Toolkit appeared first on Sparkgeo.
The Open Geospatial Consortium provides a formal clarification on the operational structure, governance, and status of the OGC Japan Forum.
The post Announcement Regarding OGC Japan Forum appeared first on Open Geospatial Consortium.
If you’re planning a long hike or bike trip, then you should definitely bookmark Welcome to My Garden. This interactive map shows the locations of gardens that offer free camping spots for slow travellers.If you’re travelling on a low budget and want to keep your journey low-impact, Welcome to My Garden is the ideal companion. The concept is refreshingly simple: find somewhere to stay, book your
Spatialists – geospatial news
• By Ralph Straumann
•
Linda Stevens has published “GIS and Geospatial 2025: A Year in Review”, summarizing the highlights and lowlights that shaped the past year in our industry – from the rise of geospatial #AI to pricing pressures. The piece offers a timely perspective on where the sector has progressed and where it continues to struggle as 2026 approaches.
AI data center power demands are reshaping how utilities plan, build, and maintain their electric grids and distribution systems. Faster development cycles, shifting load patterns, and new on-site assets create conditions that rely heavily on accurate, timely field intelligence. Utilities that adopt field-first workflows gain a clearer picture of evolving sites and a stronger foundation for decisions that support smart grid technology throughout each phase of AI-driven growth.
La entrada Surging AI data center power demands require a new utility playbook se publicó primero en Fulcrum.
On the Library of Congress’s Worlds Revealed blog, a fascinating piece on a fascinating piece of hardware used by NASA to process lunar photographs taken for and by the Apollo program into orthorectified imagery useful… More
The Ordnance Survey has announced that the triple alignment of true north, grid north (on OS maps) and magnetic north—the so-called three norths—has left England and is now over the North Sea. It’ll make landfall… More
Geospatial Frontiers - Project Geospatial
• By Fred Woods
•
The era of U.S. electromagnetic spectrum dominance has ended, replaced by
contested battlespaces where adversaries like Russia and China employ
advanced electronic warfare (EW) to deny critical communications and
disable up to 90 percent of standard sensor networks. This new reality
demands a fundamental paradigm shift in the design of Wireless Sensor
Networks (WSNs) and unattended ground sensors (UGS), moving away from
systems built for permissive environments toward resilient architectures
optimized for spectrum-denied operations. To ensure network persistence
under extreme degradation, future military strategy must embrace
self-healing mesh networks that utilize edge AI/ML for real-time jamming
detection, advanced Counter EW (CEW) techniques like frequency agility, and
operational adaptations such as passive acoustic sensors that emit no
signals.
OGC announces a hybrid Code Sprint (Jan 27–29, 2026) supporting the GEOINT Imagery Media for Intelligence, Surveillance, and Reconnaissance (GIMI) standard.
The post OGC Code Sprint: GEOINT Imagery Media for Intelligence, Surveillance, and Reconnaissance (GIMI) standard appeared first on Open Geospatial Consortium.
Spatialists – geospatial news
• By Ralph Straumann
•
Dewey Dunnington’s latest blog post dives deep into how pruning, the selective reading of relevant data, makes #GeoParquet blazing fast in both local and #cloudnative contexts. Featuring hands-on comparisons across #SedonaDB, #DuckDB, #GeoPandas, #GDAL, and #Sedona #Spark, it’s a must-read for anyone exploring efficient cloud-native geospatial workflows.
Adventures In Mapping | John Nelson Maps
• By John
•
Here’s how you can create an inner shadow effect for your area of interest in ArcGIS Pro. Push the area down into the landscape with realistic lighting, using some gradient stroke hacks and an invisibility cloak. And, for giggles, the world’s fasted demo showing how to invert the effect to make the area of interest …
Spatialists – geospatial news
• By Ralph Straumann
•
In case you are interested in buying #map #art, “Independent Map Sellers” is a nice curated shopping guide offered by the Independent Map Artists. The guide features the work of more than 50 independent cartographers whose work can be bought.
#Data is more than an asset: it is a designed experience, a product. Jed Sundwall’s article “Great #DataProducts” reminds us that #OpenData matters only when paired with intent, usability, and care in creation. A shout out for #DataDesign and #ProductThinking for #geospatial data.
Adventures In Mapping | John Nelson Maps
• By John
•
Here’s how you can make the classic National Geographic sort of political style map, with inner tint band ribbon buffalo tint things, AND ensure no colors touch each other. We’ll use way more tools than you think and rely on a hotly contested mathematical theorem!All from the comfort of ArcGIS Pro. Here’s a closer look …
In the past we have written about how one can use social media to monitor dust storms along with how multi-modal large language models (MLLMs) can be used to analyze images. At the recent American Geophysical Union (AGU) Fall Meeting we (Sage Keidel, Stuart Evans and myself) brought these two strands of research together in a poster entitled "Creating and Assessing an Unconventional Global Database of Dust Storms Utilizing Generative AI."In this work we showcase how MLLMs are providing new opportunities and accessible methods for information extraction from imagery data using geo-located images from Flickr which have a dust keyword tag associated with it from multiple languages (e.g., Arabic, English, Spanish). We run these images through ChatGPT, which classifies them as dust storms or not and compare this classification with human classifed images. If this sounds of interest, below you can read the abstract, see the poster along with a selection of images that have been labeled as...
Organizations invested heavily in geospatial tools and data throughout 2025. Yet many leaders found the return on that investment lower than expected. A core issue is fragmentation rather than a lack of data or technology capability. When spatial data is scattered across teams, tools, and formats, it becomes harder to trust, harder to maintain, and […]
Erin on https://erdavis.com/datasets/ has posted some fascinating and unusual data sets that I encourage you to investigate, for teaching, research, visualization, and to learn more about coding-with-mapping. As a geographer who loves roads, I am particularly fond of Erin’s “road suffixes mileage” data set, and waterfalls, too (who doesn’t love waterfalls?). Erin even posted a […]
We’re happy to announce that the next QGIS User Conference will take place in Switzerland in October 2026. Please mark… Read more Save the date: QGIS User Conference 2026🇨🇭
Next October, we’re bringing the global cloud-native geospatial community back to the mountains of Utah. CNG Forum 2026 will gather geospatial data practitioners from governments, startups, universities, and enterprises who are shaping how we work with geospatial data.
If you were at our inaugural forum earlier this year, you know what made it special: over 250 people from over 100 organizations having real conversations about where geospatial data is headed. We surveyed our attendees and received a 4.7-star rating, and over 95% of attendees said they’d attend another CNG event.
So we’re putting one on: October 6-9, 2026 at Snowbird in Utah.
What we’re building
Our goal with CNG Forum is to create a space where geospatial data practitioners can come together to talk about what’s working, what isn’t, and what comes next. If you’re working with geospatial data – whether you’re a GIS analyst, data engineer, software developer, scientist, researcher, educator, policymaker, or student –...
Spatialists – geospatial news
• By Ralph Straumann
•
In his latest post, Mark Litwintschik compares a range of global administrative #boundary datasets, from #OpenStreetMap to #NaturalEarth, assessing geometric #accuracy, data #completeness, and information content. The analysis, powered by #DuckDB and #QGIS, reveals surprising differences in how nations’ borders are represented across data sources.
Mapidea Location Analytics Blog
• By Miguel Marques
•
Most companies know who their clients are, but not where they are or how
geography shapes behavior. Mapping clients reveals market gaps, growth
zones, service issues, and competitive threats. Learn how to start small,
integrate geography, and boost decisions with location intelligence.
Mapidea Location Analytics Blog
• By Pedro Moura
•
eCommerce doesn’t happen in a locationless internet. Customers buy from
real places, markets behave differently by region, and marketing impact
varies geographically. This article explains why eCommerce is inherently
spatial and how Geographical Intelligence can be used to boost analysis,
decisions, and performance.
In the past we have written a number of posts on synthetic populations, however, one thing we have not done is compare the various techniques that can be used to create them. This has now changed with a new paper entitled "Quantitative Comparison of Population Synthesis Techniques" which was recently presented at the 2025 Winter Simulation Conference.In this paper, we (David Han, Samiul Islam, Taylor Anderson, Hamdi Kavak and myself) investigate five synthetic population generation techniques (e.g., Iterative Proportional Fitting, Conditional Probabilities, Simple Random Sampling, Hill Climbing and Simulated Annealing) in parallel to synthesize population data for different North America settings (e.g., Fairfax County, VA, USA and Metro Vancouver, BC, Canada). Our findings suggest that while iterative proportional fitting and conditional probabilities techniques perform best, it also suggests at the same time that it is important to consider the basis of choosing certain methods over...
Installation artist Luke Jerram’s past work includes large reproductions of the Earth, Moon, Sun and Mars. His latest is Mirror Moon, a touchable stainless steel globe of the Moon created with NASA topographic data. A… More
The exhibition of Ursula K. Le Guin’s maps at the Architectural Association Gallery in London (previously, previously) wrapped up last Saturday. The Library of America has an interview with Sarah Shin, who co-curated the exhibit… More
Spatialists – geospatial news
• By Ralph Straumann
•
Under Article 9 of Switzerland’s “Federal Act on the Use of Electronic Means to Carry Out Official Tasks” (#EMBAG/#LMETA), federal authorities must publish the source code of software they develop or commission, marking a step toward greater digital #sovereignty. The resulting Swiss Federal #OSS Catalog now lists around 60 #opensource projects with #swisstopo’s #STAC API and the mapping application #KADASAlbireo among them.
I was recently surprised to learn the extent to which the United States dominates the list of world’s largest corporation by market capitalization. As the chart posted below shows, the seven most valuable companies are headquartered in the U.S., as are 16 of the top 20. It is an open question as to whether this […]
The post Almost All of the World’s Top Companies by Market Valuation Are Based in the United States appeared first on GeoCurrents.
The Overture Maps Foundation is now three years old, and we’ve met every milestone we’ve set out to meet. But there’s still much more to come. Please enjoy this interview with Software Engineering Radio’s Gregory Kapfhammer and Amy Rose, Overture CTO, and Jennings Anderson, software engineer at Meta. It is one of the best, most complete overviews of Overture’s progress and goals to date.
The post Overture Maps Explained on Software Engineering Radio appeared first on Overture Maps Foundation.
Africa lacks up-to-date, reliable maps, which makes it hard to plan infrastructure, deliver services, and respond to emergencies. The Map Africa Initiative aims to create accurate digital base maps for all 54 African countries. Base maps are the core reference maps that show things like roads, buildings, rivers, and boundaries. They are the starting layer […]
Spatialists – geospatial news
• By Ralph Straumann
•
A research team from the Technical University of Munich (#TUM) led by Prof. Xiao Xiang Zhu has released the #GlobalBuildingAtlas, a 3D dataset comprising 2.75 billion #buildingmodels worldwide at 3‑meter resolution. Built from #PlanetScope satellite imagery and #ML-based extraction, it represents the most detailed and comprehensive global building dataset produced so far.
Spatialists – geospatial news
• By Ralph Straumann
•
swisstopo has published the concept “Elementary geodata for a digital Switzerland” developed by a working group comprising various stakeholders. The document outlines principles and suggests priority themes for essential geodata, aiming to ensure cohesive, up-to-date, and centrally accessible official geoinformation.
(Note: This is the final post in a long series on basic physical geography, which was originally designed to help educators teach the subject. As the series progressed, however, posts have strayed outside the pedagogical realm. I do hope to return eventually to the original project and write more short essays on the fundamentals of […]
The post My Map of Climes: Latitudinal Zones Defined by Earth/Sun Relations appeared first on GeoCurrents.
So back last year I started something and have just finished one small part of it: https://training.northrivergeographic.com The Intro to QGIS class has a new home and that new home has a lot of room for a lot of different things. Something like 12 years ago (or more – 2013 to be exact) I started […]
The post Training, Websites, and Life appeared first on North River Geographic Systems Inc.
Geospatial Frontiers - Project Geospatial
• By Adam Simmons
•
Uncover the concrete legacy of the Cold War’s largest fortress in The Red
Shield. The third installment of the "Geospatial Frontiers" series crosses
the Iron Curtain to map the PVO Strany—the Soviet Union’s colossal air and
missile defense network. Through historical GIS analysis, we expose the
"Ring of Steel" that encircled the USSR, contrasting the Soviet Union’s
"citadel" strategy with the point-defenses of the West. From the haunting
ruins of the "Russian Woodpecker" and the Sary Shagan testing grounds to
the operational Don-2N pyramid guarding Moscow, this chronicle reveals a
landscape shaped by existential paranoia and technological maximalism.
Explore the physical geography of a superpower that built a defense network
designed not just to fight a war, but to survive the apocalypse.
Explore the complete network of oil and gas infrastructure in the Gulf of Mexico with our interactive map showing thousands of offshore wells, production platforms, and pipeline systems. Access official Bureau of Ocean Energy Management (BOEM) data on Outer Continental Shelf (OCS) drilling operations, including well locations, operator information, production status, water depths, and pipeline networks across federal waters.
John Nelson’s near-annual globe ornament blog posts are always a revelation. With the exception of the one time he went to 3D printing, they’re paper craft exercises that show just how many ways you can… More
Fragmented systems drain budgets, complicate regulatory compliance, and burn out crews, but modern utility asset management offers a fix. We explain how integrated asset management eliminates the chaos of disconnected spreadsheets to lower operating costs, guide smarter infrastructure investments, and extend asset life across the entire infrastructure life cycle. Read on to see how utility operations can improve electric grid reliability and transform utility infrastructure management from a headache into a strategic advantage.
La entrada How integrated utility asset management lowers operating costs se publicó primero en Fulcrum.
Engineers of Map Art, a book on the history of Swiss cartography that focuses on work done at ETH Zurich, came out in English last September. (The German edition, Ingenieure der Kartenkunst, came out last… More
Explore power generation facilities worldwide with our comprehensive interactive map. From nuclear power stations and coal plants to wind farms and solar installations, discover detailed information about electricity generation infrastructure in Canada, the United States, the United Kingdom, Ireland, Australia, New Zealand, and across the globe.
In searching the internet for climate maps that might be useful for educational purposes, I have continued to be disappointed and occasionally dumbfounded. Many highly ranked maps provide outright misinformation. Consider, for example, the two maps posted below, both of which divide the world into climate zones based simply on latitude. As explained in previous […]
The post More Cartographic Misinformation on Global Climate Zones appeared first on GeoCurrents.
New Zealand School Zones Map: Interactive School Finder & Catchment Boundary Tool Find your local school zone instantly with our comprehensive interactive map of all New Zealand schools and official enrolment scheme boundaries. Whether you’re a parent researching schools, buying property in a school zone, or relocating to New Zealand, this tool provides everything you...
The GRASS GIS 8.4.2 release provides more than 35 improvements and fixes with respect to the release 8.4.1. Enjoy!
The post GRASS GIS 8.4.2 released appeared first on Markus Neteler Consulting.
The previous GeoCurrents post harshly criticized several climate maps for extending the subtropical zones too far toward the poles. But after doing a little casual research, I was chagrined to discover that these maps largely fit the formal, or “geographical,” definition of the term. The Wikipedia article on the subtropics states that “they cover the […]
The post The Incoherent Concept of the Subtropics appeared first on GeoCurrents.
Modern electric utility operations run on data from operational technology, GIS, asset systems, information technology applications, and field crews, but silos between those utility systems create blind spots that slow outage restoration, complicate business continuity management, and raise risk. See how breaking down those silos and creating a connected operational picture turns raw operational data into faster, safer decisions in the field, the control room, and the utility field operations center.
La entrada Breaking down data silos in electric utility operations se publicó primero en Fulcrum.
Adventures In Mapping | John Nelson Maps
• By John
•
Ah the winter season is a time when we can slow down and appreciate the things that really matter. A chance to take stock of lasting joy. Clearly I’m talking about the opportunity to print out this paper craft ornament template, cut out the component globe gore panels, and assemble them into a simple treasure. …
By Alice Yee From the wetlands of Mesoamerica to the woodlands of the Northeast, Indigenous agricultural innovation shaped entire landscapes — and still influences sustainable farming today. From The Three Sisters in North America to the chinampa systems of Mesoamerica, Indigenous communities developed farming methods best suited to the local climate and surrounding ecosystems. Jöhehgöh […]
As I’ve recounted before, what became HIFLD started as the M: drive on a Windows server in a musty government building in Norfolk, VA. Early exercises made it obvious that the data on our M: drive didn’t match the data on other M: drives. They also made it clear that sharing data, especially across 2002-vintage … Continue reading Data Preservation: Let the Pain Guide You →
Free and Open Source GIS Ramblings
• By underdark
•
The journey continues: QgsArrowIterator is now merged! This makes it possible to iterate over QgsFeatures as Arrow batches. This is where we are now, quoting Dewey Dunnington: Further improvements are already being planned. To quote from the ticket: “The final state after this improvement would be a compact way for Arrow Python consumers like GeoPandas to …Read More
As noted in the previous post, many educational climate maps that rank high in internet image searches are based on a simplistic climatic model that is too focused on latitude. In this post, I scrutinize and criticize four such maps. The most simplistic example that I found (posted below) essentially replicates Aristotle’s five-zone climate scheme, […]
The post Avoiding Misinformation When Teaching the Geography of Climate; Part 2, Climate Maps appeared first on GeoCurrents.
Two more books from Belt Publishing came out this week, both part of their “50 Maps” series, each focusing on an Ohio city: Cincinnati in 50 Maps, edited by Nick Swartsell and with cartography by… More
Geospatial Frontiers - Project Geospatial
• By Adam Simmons
•
Uncover the forgotten geography of the Cold War through a forensic
investigation of the "Nike Belt," a continuous chain of nuclear-capable
missile batteries that once shielded Western Europe from the North Sea to
the Alps. By overlaying "archive missile defense KML" files onto modern
satellite imagery, this article reveals the "Silent Front" where the US
Army's 59th Ordnance Brigade served as custodial agents for tactical
nuclear warheads on foreign soil. From the restored high-altitude launch
pads of Base Tuono to the forest-reclaimed ruins of the Sauerland, explore
a "digital archaeology" of the "Belt of Fire"—a defense system where the
protection of land often necessitated its potential irradiation.
Summary Thread
Post by @[email protected] View on Mastodon
When and where?
Geomob Barcelona took place at 6:00 PM on Wednesday the 3rd of December, 2025 at CoWorkIdea, at Carrer de Torres i Amat, 21, First Floor.
doors open at 18:00, set up and general mingling
at 18:30 we begin the talks with a very brief introduction
Each speaker will have slides and speak for 10-15 minutes.
After each talk there will be time for 2-3 questions.
The talks will be in English.
We vote - using FeatureUpvote - for the best speaker. The winner will receive a SplashMap and unending glory (see the full list of all past winners).
We head to a nearby bar for discussion and #geobeers paid for by the sponsors.
The speakers:
Matteo Ferrari, Factual - Lane Patrol
Núria Julià Selvas, CREAF: Involving citizens in collecting evidences of environmental concerns through geospatial standards.
Alex Lopez Cruces, Indra Space,...
As earlier GeoCurrents posts in the current series on educational geography have noted, sun angles, which are determined by latitude, play a huge role in shaping the geography of climate. Simply put, the lower the latitude of any given location, the more solar radiation it will receive and the warmer it will be. Historically, latitude […]
The post Avoiding Misinformation When Teaching the Geography of Climate, Part 1 appeared first on GeoCurrents.
The AGS Globe: The U.S. Food System and Food Waste Solutions by American Geographical Society The American Geographical Society’s Weekly Newsletter for Tuesday, December 2, 2025 Read on Substack
Fernand Bale reflects on leading Côte d’Ivoire’s geospatial transformation and how OGC collaboration is accelerating innovation across Africa.
The post From Mathematics to National Mapping: Fernand Bale on Elevating Côte d’Ivoire’s Geospatial Future appeared first on Open Geospatial Consortium.
Every year, the FOSS4G community shows what is possible when people come together to push geospatial technology forward. For Sparkgeo, this gathering represents something more than a technical showcase. It reflects a shared belief that the future of geospatial work is open, collaborative, and accessible to anyone who wants to be part of it. Over […]
The post Sparkgeo at FOSS4G: Building an Open Geospatial Future appeared first on Sparkgeo.
Imagine asking an AI agent to book a hotel. The agent books the room, finds restaurants you like, a concert venue nearby, and lines up ground transportation. This smooth, integrated experience is the future of travel. Today, it is nearly impossible.
The post From Discovery to Action: A New Foundation for Travel appeared first on Overture Maps Foundation.
Spatialists – geospatial news
• By Ralph Straumann
•
#Sentinel‑1D, the newest radar satellite in #ESA’s #Copernicus Sentinel‑1 mission, was launched on 4 November and has already delivered its first C‑band #SAR images within just 50 hours of liftoff. Replacing Sentinel‑1A, it continues the mission’s all‑weather #EarthObservation while enhancing capability for detecting “dark” ships and sea pollution. #EO #RemoteSensing
The first wave of utility digitization is over; the new executive mandate is to get predictive. Fulfilling that mandate requires a new breed of field technology built on three pillars: active intelligence at the point of capture, seamless enterprise integration, and immediate operational insight driven by modern data analytics and artificial intelligence. The combination of the three pillars creates a resilient operational model, helping utilities manage grid complexity and adopt smart grid technologies. It also supports the shift from reactive responses to predictive operations.”
La entrada What utilities are looking for in field technology in 2026 and beyond se publicó primero en Fulcrum.
Spatialists – geospatial news
• By Ralph Straumann
•
Air Loom, a project by Benny Lim (Objective Unclear), offers a dynamic #3D #visualization platform for #realtime ADS-B #aircraft tracking around major airports. Users can explore #flight movements, airspace overlays, and adjust display options to suit educational or #aviation enthusiast needs.
I’ve been trying to write my thoughts down more and have just been lost in life. The last 30 days have had me in Oak Ridge, Murfreesboro, and Reston Virginia. Yet another reason I mumble I really need to cut down on traveling. Which reminds me I need to discuss Foss4GNA 2025 sooner than later. […]
The post Almost 11 months later appeared first on North River Geographic Systems Inc.
The site https://www.arcgis.com/home/item.html?id=927944e867624504bfd6c489b0d2aec7 gives you access to the Global Biodiversity Information Facility, the world’s largest database of species observations, aggregating over 3 billion records from ~2,500 organizations, including iNaturalist, OBIS, and eBird. This Geoprocessing Tool for ArcGIS Pro (version 3.2.x and newer) queries the GBIF API and returns up to 100,000 records for a single species. At […]
As the previous GeoCurrents post noted, longitude is to a significant extent a matter of time. Historically, every town kept its own time based on its longitude. Wherever you found yourself, “noon” was the moment when the sun reached its highest point, with the other hours of the day set around that time. Travelers reset […]
The post Time Zones Are Based on Longitude Overruled by Political Geography appeared first on GeoCurrents.
In the past we have posted about how we can utilize data and models to explore pandemics and peoples reactions to them. And while interest in the COVID might of waned, there will be future pandemics. To this end, at the 53rd Annual Meeting of NAPCRG we (Laurene Tumiel Berhalter, Sanchit Goel, Dawn Vanderkooi, Bruce Pitman, Yinyin Ye, Jennifer Surtees and myself) had a poster entitled "Integration of Community Level Data into Mathematical Models to Predict Future Public Health Emergencies." The objective of the poster is to showcase how one can integrate 211 data into models to predict future public health emergencies. If this sounds of interest, below you can see the poster and at the bottom of the post you can access the abstract. Full Reference:Tumiel, L.M., Goel, S., Vanderkooi, D., Pitman E.B., Crooks A.T., Ye, Y. and Surtees, J. (2025), Integration of Community Level Data into Mathematical Models to Predict Future Public Health Emergencies, North American Primary Care Research...
For nearly two centuries, airborne data collection has pushed the boundaries of how we see our world. From the first aerial photographs taken from hot air balloons in the 1850s to today’s hyperspectral, LiDAR, and SAR systems, this industry has been defined by constant innovation in data capture. However, while our ability to collect data […]
The post Prescient: Airborne Data Management Reimagined for the Future appeared first on Sparkgeo.
My perspective about AI swings between slot-machine chaos, mind-blown optimism, and Black Mirror dread. I turned that back-and-forth into an infographic about living in this emotional loop.
Why migrate to QGIS? At Oslandia, we offer a technology stack with high technical quality and extensive functional completeness for Geographic Information Systems: the QGIS platform. This modular platform provides...
Geospatial | Towards Data Science
• By Aakash Goswami
•
The high-resolution physics turning microwave echoes into real-time flood intelligence
The post RISAT’s Silent Promise: Decoding Disasters with Synthetic Aperture Radar appeared first on Towards Data Science.
In Conversation with Kannan Thiruvadi, Regional Executive, South Asia, Bentley Systems As India accelerates toward its ambitious targets under PM Gati Shakti, the National Infrastructure Pipeline (NIP), and Viksit Bharat […]
The post Building Connected, Intelligent, and Future-Ready Infrastructure appeared first on Geospatial World.
Geospatial Frontiers - Project Geospatial
• By Adam Simmons
•
Discover the forgotten "Ring of Steel" that once protected America's cities
from Soviet bombers. Based on a remarkable crowdsourced Google Earth KML
file from a hobbyist imagery analyst, this article unveils the sprawling
network of Project NIKE missile sites. Explore the history of this massive
Cold War missile defense system, from the initial Nike Ajax to the
nuclear-armed Nike Hercules, and see how these batteries formed defensive
shields around vital population centers and industrial hubs. This journey
through geospatial history not only illuminates a hidden era of national
defense but also sparks a thought-provoking reflection on what constitutes
critical infrastructure—from data centers to advanced manufacturing—in our
modern world.
The AGS Globe: Swamps as Freedom Spaces: Maroon Societies in the U.S. South by American Geographical Society The American Geographical Society’s Weekly Newsletter for Tuesday, November 25, 2025 Read on Substack
Earlier in my career, I was working on an infrastructure protection task and we were reconciling data from several sources that addressed the same road network. The data from the locality was authoritative, but it lacked some information we needed so we were conflating other data to the linework. I commented on the general lack … Continue reading Metadata Rising →
When and where?
Geomob Edinburgh was held at 6:30pm (doors open at 6pm) on Tuesday, November 25th, 2025
at CodeBase
at 37a Castle Terrace, Edinburgh EH1 2EL (Google Map,OpenStreetMap)
Agenda
Our format for the evening will be:
doors open at 18:00, set up and general mingling
at 18:30 we begin the talks with a very brief introduction
Each speaker will have slides and speak for 10 minutes.
After each talk there will be time for 2-3 questions.
We head to a nearby pub for discussion and #geobeers sponsored by OpenCage, Esri.
The speakers:
Samarth Bachkheti, Geospatial machine learning for subsea engineering
Chris McNeill, Storytelling with GB power grid data
Alex Merrington, NERC Field Spectroscopy Facility, The NERC Field Spectroscopy Facility: a Library of Remote Sensing Equipment and Expertise for Multidisciplinary Research
We are always looking for speakers, volunteer to speak!
The organizers:
Geomob Edinburgh is organized by Gala...
As was noted in an earlier post, most maps made in the 1500s and 1600s were relatively accurate in the north/south direction but often strikingly inaccurate in the east/west direction. This discrepancy was because latitude was relatively easy to determine (by the midday sun angle or by the position of the north star), whereas longitude […]
The post If Latitude Is about Sun Angles, Longitude Is about Time appeared first on GeoCurrents.
Geospatial Frontiers - Project Geospatial
• By Fred Woods
•
Modern defense operations face a critical intelligence gap in contested
environments, where high-value ISR assets are too risky to deploy and Open
Source Intelligence (OSINT) lacks verifiable ground truth. This article
proposes a scalable framework for air-dropped Wireless Sensor Networks
(WSNs) that utilizes low-cost, "attritable" COTS technology to deliver
continuous, 24/7 situational awareness without risking personnel. By
functioning as a tactical verification layer, these sensor swarms validate
OSINT data streams and provide the persistence that satellites and manned
aircraft cannot maintain. We demonstrate how this hardware integrates
seamlessly with existing GEOINT ecosystems—including BAE Systems GXP, Esri
ArcGIS, and DCGS-A—to close the loop between edge detection and multi-INT
fusion. Discover how leveraging swarm doctrine and commercial innovation
creates a cost-effective, "fire-and-forget" intelligence architecture
capable of dominating future...
The Free and Open Source Software for Geospatial (FOSS4G) 2025 conference happened in Auckland, New Zealand from 17-23 November 2025. It was a week-long event with 2 days of workshops followed by 3 days of talks and networking sessions. I want to share my experience and resources in this post. Workshops The first 2 days […]
With apologies for skipping the last 18 days…it’s day 24 of the 30 day map challenege and I’m back!
In my first post about SedonaDB I did a brief investigation into the least creatively named waterbodies in Nova Scotia based on the water segments data in Nova Scotia. Anecdotally I’m also aware that there are many “Long Lake"s and “Little Rivers” out there that paddlers (and lake scientists) have to contend with. My favourite of these names is “Mud Lake”. Let’s make a map!
Today I’ll use SedonaDB for R, as installed from SedonaDB on R Universe, in addition to r-spatial favourites sf, wk, and geos. For visualization I’ll use ggplot2 and ggspatial with extras provided by ggrepel and patchwork. We’ll start with installing SedonaDB since that is a little non-standard at the moment:
install.packages('sedonadb', repos = c('https://apache.r-universe.dev', 'https://cloud.r-project.org'))
Next we’ll load the lakes data we’re working with. In some previous posts I’ve downloaded the data but I’ve...
I had decided to move on from exploring the priority of north & south over east & west, but I realized that the most prominent example in the United States had escaped my attention: the northeast coast. Although this coast is often regarded as mostly oriented in a north/south direction, its actual orientation in more […]
The post The Misperceived Directional Orientation of the East Coast of North America appeared first on GeoCurrents.
Adventures In Mapping | John Nelson Maps
• By John
•
When working on the Earth Blocks layouts recently I was reminded of an idea I had years ago for a silly earth-slice cutaway graphic that I could strategically place over a 3D globe in an ArcGIS Pro layout. And since it’s a chill Friday afternoon I thought I’d follow up on that idea finally, and …
Spatialists – geospatial news
• By Ralph Straumann
•
Last week, the fourth Journée Romande de la Géoinformation (#JRG) took place in Ecublens with more than 800 participants. Now, all videos and presentations of the plenary sessions are available online. #GeoAI #DSS #DigitalTwin
Terrestrial laser scanning is a LiDAR system different from airborne systems. Terrestrial LiDAR generates a point cloud at ground level.
The post What Is Terrestrial Laser Scanning? appeared first on GIS Geography.
Learning the cardinal directions is an important but often neglected aspect of early geographical education. It is my impression that the understanding of cardinal directions, like most other aspects of geography, is in sharp decline. There are several reasons for this regression, but surely one of the most important is the abandonment of map navigation […]
The post Teaching the Cardinal Directions to Young Students appeared first on GeoCurrents.
Those of us who cut our teeth 20 years ago remember when geospatial analysis was fun. You had room to be creative, to shape something meaningful out of messy inputs.
So welcome to my crossover post. Which I hardly talk about Geohipster. Geohipster is one of those “side things” that’s been happening for over 10 years now. Back in the dearly days of twitter……or I should call it the “Golden Age of social media”, Atanas Entchev had an idea to Document the industry. So a […]
The post 2026 Geohipster Calendar appeared first on North River Geographic Systems Inc.
You may be wondering “Hey when does the longest running Artisanal completely Organic Map Calendar come out?” Guess What? It’s PostGIS Day and you’re favorite calendar is back (and the right year – I tripled checked). This year I put out the call and the Cartographers Answered. From the Phillipines to Germany to the US, […]
The post 2026 Geohipster Calendar appeared first on GeoHipster.
The Zarr community convened in Rome, Italy, on October 13-17, 2025, for the first-ever Zarr Summit! It was an incredible experience.
During the first three days, Zarr developers collaborated on crucial improvements to the Zarr ecosystem. We prototyped long-requested features, bootstrapped a framework for flourishing community-driven metadata conventions, and dramatically improved cross-language implementation parity.
During the final two days, we welcomed adopters from diverse organizations to meet with developers to discuss best practices and common roadblocks, exchange ideas, and build connections across the Zarr Community.
Zarr Summit adopter days group photo
And most importantly, we had a blast!
Takeaways
Zarr is taking off 🚀
We knew Zarr was getting big even before the event; ESA’s adoption of Zarr for Sentinel products was a key inspiration for the summit. Still, we were blown away by the depth and breadth of Zarr adoption worldwide across all sorts of institutions. Large...
From humanitarian mappers to defense analysts, public health experts to city planners, geospatial professionals use GIS to help us understand & shape a better world.
When and where?
Geomob Berlin took place at 18:00
on Wednesday the 19th of November, 2025, at the offices of
HERE at Invalidenstr. 116, 10115 Berlin.
Maps:
HERE,
OpenStreetMap,
Google Maps.
The nearest stations are Nordbahnhof and Naturkundenmuseum.
Summary Thread
Post by @[email protected] View on Mastodon
Agenda
Our format for the evening will be as it always has been:
doors open at 18:00, set up and general mingling
at 18:30 we begin the talks with a very brief introduction
Each speaker will have slides and speak for 10-15 minutes.
After each talk there will be time for 2-3 questions.
We vote - using Feature Upvote - for the best speaker. The winner will receive a SplashMap and unending glory (see the full list of all past winners).
We head to a nearby pub for discussion and #geobeers paid for by the
sponsors.
The speakers:
Harald Körtge, What can you build with 512KB of memory?
Patrick...
When and where?
Geomob Lisbon took place on the evening of Wednesday, November 19th, 2025 at Startup Lisboa, Rua da Prata 80, 1100-420 Lisbon (Google Maps, OpenStreetMap). Doors open at 17:30 and talks will begin at 18:00
Doors open at 18:00 and talks will begin at 18:15.
##Summary Thread
Post by @[email protected] View on Mastodon
Agenda
Doors open at 18.00, set up and general mingling
Talks begin at 18:15 with a very brief introduction
Each speaker will have slides and speak for 10-15 minutes.
After each talk there will be time for 2-3 questions.
We vote the best speaker. The winner will receive the best speaker prize and unending glory (see the full list of all past winners).
Discussion and #award and #geobeers paid for by the sponsors.
The speakers:
João Manuel, from GeoInsight, will explain how Discrete Global Grids can help us create geospatial insights.
Luis Calisto will talk about Geodata and APIs, and...
Ein Jahr nach dem GIS Day 2024 sitze ich wieder im Zug. Ungefähr, denn heute ist streng genommen noch nicht internationaler GIS Day, also dieser Tag, der international Geoinformationen gewidmet ist. Für den Tag nach dem GIS Day gibt es bekanntermassen einen Namen: PostGIS Day . Für den Tag vor dem GIS Day gibt es …
Introduction The word “open” gets used so often in tech that it starts to feel universal, like everyone must be talking about the same thing. But once you listen closely, it becomes obvious that different groups mean very different things when they say it. A software engineer is thinking about readable source code and licenses. […]
Adventures In Mapping | John Nelson Maps
• By John
•
Download this ArcGIS Pro project package that lets you make fun block diagram poster things in minutes. There are ten layout designs in two colors, waiting for your experience and ideas. Slice out little pieces of earth and drop them onto labeled poster paper. What could be more fun? It’s simple, just… When you download the ArcGIS …
To the uninitiated, address data appears simple. Scrawl an address on an envelope and a postal service will deliver it to the specified destination. However, the data enabling these systems...
The post Building Complete Address Coverage: How We Brought Every Address in Mississippi Together appeared first on Overture Maps Foundation.
When and where?
Next on our tour-de-Belgique is Antwerp, on Tuesday, 18 Nov. 2025.
The event’s venue is at Buurtcentrum Cortina in the Kerkstraat 68, Antwerpen.
We will welcome everyone at 6:30 PM and aim to start the talks by 6:45 PM.
Agenda
Our format for the evening will be:
6:30 PM: doors open, set up and general mingling
6:45 PM: we begin the talks with a very brief introduction
Each speaker will have slides and speak for 10-15 minutes.
After each talk there will be time for 2-3 questions.
This time we stay in the same place (we are already in a ‘pub’!) #geobeers paid for by the
sponsors.
The speakers:
Maarten Lambrechts, Development Data Group - World Bank, Space2Stats: fresh open geodata from the World Bank
Manuel Claeys Bouuaert, allmaps.org , Allmaps - an open source toolbox for georeferencing and exploring IIIF maps
Stijn Vernaillen, City of Antwerp/Smart Ways to Antwerp, Finding the balance between OSM and own data.
...
From onboarding new developers to deep technical discussions, the Rotterdam Code Sprint advanced OGC Standards and community collaboration.
The post From Rotterdam to Reality: Inside the OGC Code Sprint appeared first on Open Geospatial Consortium.
This post is cross-posted on the Taylor Geospatial Engine Blog
If you’ve been watching the rapid growth of geospatial AI, you’ve definitely heard the buzz about embeddings—compact representations of satellite imagery that can capture complex patterns and relationships in satellite data. This summer, Google announced the AlphaEarth Foundations (AEF) model, which represents a step change for our entire community. Along with the model, Google released pre-computed global embeddings at 10-meter resolution, freely available and ready to use without expensive infrastructure or deep learning expertise.
Why This Matters to our Community
With Taylor Geospatial Engine’s (TGE) current initiative, Fields of The World (FTW), teams are testing multiple model architectures to predict field boundaries globally. We wanted to understand where AEF embeddings fit:
– Could they boost boundary-prediction accuracy?
– Should they be used as direct inputs?
– Or should they be used as features that enhance...
This Landsat Surface Temperature Web Mapping Application and data could be very useful in physical geography, environmental science, and GIS courses in instruction, and for research purposes: From this application, you can obtain the land or water surface temperature as of the time the Landsat image was generated for any point on the planet, generate […]
Spatialists – geospatial news
• By Ralph Straumann
•
In a recent video, Hans van der Kwast explores digital #sovereignty and its implications for #opensource software, governance, and collaboration. Using #QGIS as a case study, he unpacks how open standards and community-driven development can empower users and reshape digital services. #digitalsovereignty
Spatialists – geospatial news
• By Ralph Straumann
•
From Stamen comes a deep dive into their ‘Philosophy on Dark Mode Maps’, exploring how #darkmode #map #design goes beyond simply inverting colors. Drawing on examples from their own portfolio and color scatterplot analyses, the article shows the balance between ‘night mode’ and ‘daytime dark mode’, and what each means for digital cartography.
While AI can scale fault detection across rail networks, the process only succeeds when railway inspection crews confirm conditions on site. Crews verify each alert’s location and severity, capture photos, measurements, and GPS data, and document everything within structured workflows. Human-in-the-loop validation turns automated detection into actionable maintenance, cutting errors, reducing backlog, and keeping rail repairs aligned with real-world conditions. In addition, field verification keeps inspection data tied to actual track infrastructure and supports Federal Railroad Administration compliance requirements.
La entrada AI is reshaping railway inspections, but real-world validation is still critical se publicó primero en Fulcrum.
Resilience planning demands more than a patchwork of outdated maps and scattered inspections. By combining high-level GIS with real-time field data, organizations gain the unified insight needed to predict risks, respond intelligently, and recover faster. An integrated approach transforms resilience planning into a proactive, data-driven process. It also strengthens management practices, improves data security, supports facilities teams, and delivers measurable cost savings across the infrastructure life cycle.
La entrada Resilience by design: Using GIS and field data to plan for the unexpected se publicó primero en Fulcrum.
Stop letting broken field software and data silos kill your productivity. Replace them with no-code tools and automated workflows that fit how your teams actually work. Learn how low-code platforms empower your field teams to build the fieldwork apps they actually need, turning IT from a police force into a strategic partner.
La entrada Boosting agility and efficiency in field operations with low-code solutions se publicó primero en Fulcrum.
The PostGIS Team is pleased to publish PostGIS 3.6.1. This is a bug fix release that includes bug fixes since PostGIS 3.6.0.
This version requires PostgreSQL 12 - 18, Proj 6.1+, and GEOS 3.8+. To take advantage of all features, GEOS 3.12+ is needed.
SFCGAL 1.4+ is needed to enable postgis_sfcgal support. To take advantage of all SFCGAL features, SFCGAL 2.2+ is needed.
3.6.1
source download md5
NEWS
PDF docs: en
HTML Online en ja fr zh_Hans
Cheat Sheets:
postgis: en ja fr zh_Hans
postgis_raster: en ja fr zh_Hans
postgis_topology: en ja fr zh_Hans
postgis_sfcgal: en ja fr zh_Hans
address standardizer, postgis_tiger_geocoder: en ja fr zh_Hans
Tell us about yourselfI’m a visual projects editor at The Guardian in the UK. As a visual journalist, making maps is part of my job, but I’ve always been a bit of a jack of all trades, and I love learning new tools that help me tell visually led stories. I fell in love with maps […]
The post Maps and Mappers of the 2025 Calendar – Ana Lucia Gonzalez Paz – October appeared first on GeoHipster.
At Sparkgeo, we spend a lot of time thinking about how things could be done better and recognizing when it’s time for a major shift. We thrive in periods of innovation, but we know it doesn’t come easy. It requires trust in the unknown, persistence through friction, and a deep belief that data should be […]
The post Bridging Cloud-Native Earth Observation with QGIS: Our Work on ESA’s EOPF Initiative appeared first on Sparkgeo.
While we have explored disasters in the past through agent-based models and other computational social science approaches, one area we have not explored is how one can use agent-based models to explore evacuations durring a wild fire event. This has now changed with a new paper with Zhongyu Zhou and myself entitled "Modeling Wildfire Evacuation with Embedded Fuzzy Cognitive Maps: An Agent-Based Simulation of Emotion and Social Contagion" which was recently presented at the 2025 International Conference of the Computational Social Science Society of the Americas (CSSSA). In the paper we present an agent-based model combined with an embedded fuzzy cognitive map (FCM) to simulate residents’ evacuation behavior during a wildfire event. If this sounds of interest, below we provide the abstract to the paper along with some of the figures that showcase the model logic and some of its results. A detailed ODD, the model and the data needed to run the model can be found at:...
Meet Hefni Azzahra – our new QGIS documentation writer, joining us from Indonesia! Hefni holds a Bachelor’s degree in Geodetic… Read more New QGIS documentation writer
I wasn’t looking forward to FOSS4G North America. The political and economic situation in the US made it much more difficult to attract sponsorship dollars. The government shutdown and the preceding sets of arbitrary and capricious cuts to government staff made attendance hard to predict. Three weeks prior to the event, it was not at … Continue reading FOSS4GNA, 2025, and Life →
Human mobility datasets are essential for investigating human behavior, mobility patterns, and traffic dynamics. In the past we have written about how one can use agent-based models to generate patterns of life trajectories datasets. Building on this work at the ACM SIGSPATIAL 2025 conference, we (Hossein Amiri, Richard Yang, Shiyang Ruan, Joon-Seok Kim, Hamdi Kavak, Andrew Crooks, Dieter Pfoser, Carola Wenk and Andreas Züfle) had a paper entitled "HD-GEN: A Software System for Large-Scale Human Mobility Data Generation Based on Patterns of Life"In this paper, we extend our previous work by introducing a software system that provides a new suite of tools built on top of the Patterns of Life simulation framework. Specifically
this work consolidates our contributions into a unified data generation pipeline that includes:additional discussion of the motivation and applications of large-scale simulated trajectory data, detailed instructions on running the simulation and...
The SDI Modernization Gateway, led by OGC and FGDC, envisions the next generation of Spatial Data Infrastructure. It’s a call to modernize governance, technology, and workforce collaboration to power smarter, connected geospatial ecosystems worldwide.
The post SDI Modernization Gateway appeared first on Open Geospatial Consortium.
Day 6 of the 30 day map challenege is Dimensions, and when I read the prompt I immediately thought: I have to do something with M values.
M values, you say? It’s true that these don’t come up as often as Z, but many spatial specifications out there allow combinations of XY, XYZ, XYM, or XYZM values. The M stands for “measure” because I think the original motivation was that sometimes the linear distance along a feature is actually the easiest thing to measure (think: you’re mapping a rail line before reliable high-precision GPS and what you write down is the odometer reading of the train). The ability to store a fourth dimension is also helpful when communicating time. I’m not 100% on the history here (if you have a definitive history feel free to share and I’ll link it!) but I did once meet somebody from ESRI who told me their dad invented them and that M values are popular in South America. Who knew?
From an implementation junkie’s perspective (me), M values (in particular the XYM...
It’s day 5…earth! I was particular excited about this day in the 30 day map challenege because earth is my thing…I did a M.Sc. in Geology and taught Geomorphology at Acadia University for several years. While my first thought was mapping bedrock or surficial geology in Nova Scotia, I was foiled by the fact that Nova Scotia DNR distributes its files as self-extracting executable files and I’m on a Mac. Instead, I turned to the open data of my new home in Winnipeg, Manitoba for the earthiest thing they could come up with. Turns out: it’s LiDAR.
My initial attempt to map the whole city fell apart after it took took too long to download the files, so I constrained my problem to downtown Winnipeg where there was a fighting chance of observable elevation change and a truly excellent market with some of the best Fish & Chips out there. I took a look at the tile map and figured out the download URL was a bit of a pattern.
# pip install "apache-sedona[db]"
import sedona.db
sd =...
Adventures In Mapping | John Nelson Maps
• By John
•
Ever feel like your beautiful web map is trapped in the confines of your monitor? Do you wish its bounty could spill out beyond the stifling domain of 1920×1080? Here’s how to trick a browser’s device emulation tools to capture enormous screenshots. Now you can export your screen as though it were the size of …
Podcast Archive - Project Geospatial
• By Joe Calamari
•
Join Karyn Hayes-Ryan (Deep Waterpoint), Shawana Johnson (Global Marketing Insights), and Joe Calamari (CACI) as they share their firsthand experiences and key takeaways from the GEOINT 2025 symposium. This insightful discussion delves into the evolving landscape of the geospatial intelligence industry, highlighting shifts in NGA's presence, the impact of the Golden Ticket program, and the growing prominence of AI and advanced analytics.Highlights:• Golden Ticket Program Experience: Joe Calamari, a USGIF Golden Ticket winner, discusses his unique experience at GEOINT 2025, which provides younger professionals with unparalleled access to senior leaders and peers, fostering valuable mentorship and networking opportunities. Shawana Johnson also shares how her interns, prepared through extensive geospatial work, successfully leveraged the program for career advancement.• Evolving NGA Presence and Industry Engagement: The symposium saw a "different" NGA presence, with key leaders attending...
Podcast Archive - Project Geospatial
• By Joe Calamari
•
The video features an in-depth discussion on effective leadership and people development within the geospatial, defense, and intelligence communities, hosted by Karen Hayes-Ryan of Project Geospatial with trailblazing leaders Shawana Johnson (CEO, Oval Marketing Insights), Meredith Davis (VP, Govini), and Deb Davis (Board member, USGIF and OGC). The leaders detail efforts to support the next generation through extensive student internship programs and social enterprises focused on transitioning military veterans into high-tech roles. Key strategies for leadership include cultivating a culture of caring, managing succession, and identifying future talent based on traits like drive, curiosity, and flexibility. The panelists also share personal struggles—such as balancing family life with demanding careers or earning a doctorate while working full-time—and offer essential advice for navigating industry turbulence: stay flexible, focus on immediate problems ("10-meter target"), and get AI...
Podcast Archive - Project Geospatial
• By Joe Calamari
•
Harley Emery, founder of Charted Consulting, discusses her new woman-owned small business specializing in geospatial data analysis and reporting for humanitarian and development organizations. Motivated by unmet needs in the UN system and job defunding, Charted aims to provide specialized external services. Plans include scalable, user-friendly tools with automated and AI-supported workflows, highlighting Geoint's crucial role in humanitarian decision-making. Harley also details Charted's lean, flexible team model, utilizing vetted consultants and creating opportunities for skilled humanitarians. The discussion emphasizes opportunities for Geoint integration via user-friendly tools, machine learning, imagery analysis, and private sector partnerships, alongside the invaluable mentorship and networking from the USGIF GEOINT Symposium's Golden Ticket program.Key Highlights:• Charted Consulting: A new woman-owned small business offering data analysis, GIS, and report production for...
Podcast Archive - Project Geospatial
• By Joe Calamari
•
Gain a competitive edge in your geospatial career! We recently sat down with a panel of distinguished leaders for a revealing discussion on successful career navigation, building a powerful personal brand, and the indispensable value of networking. This insightful conversation was expertly guided by Moderator Karyn Hayes-Ryan and featured the expertise of Tara Mott (ESRI), Susan Case (TekSynap), Shawana Johnson (Global Marketing Insights, Inc), and Katie Betts (Albedo). Their shared wisdom underscores how adaptability, dedication, and a commitment to lifelong learning are fundamental to reaching your career goals.Highlights You Can't Miss:🌟 Learn why networking and personal branding are non-negotiable for career advancement.🤝 Discover how active community engagement can create significant growth and opportunities.🎓 Understand why your passion might speak louder than your degree in the hiring process.💪 Get advice on embracing the unique value of your experiences, especially when...
Geospatial Frontiers - Project Geospatial
• By Fred Woods
•
Mature Wireless Sensor Networks (WSNs), or "motes," are the missing link in
modern intelligence and ISR operations. This article argues the
intelligence community's failure to adopt this mature technology is a
critical strategic lapse , creating a "static-data trap". Discover why the
problem isn't the technology but institutional lag , and explore a
framework for integrating WSNs with COTS GEOINT platforms to finally
achieve continuous, real-time situational awareness.
From October 14-16, the STAC and Zarr communities came together at ESA ESRIN in Frascati, Italy, for the first-ever STAC sprint in Europe focused on advancing cloud-native multidimensional geospatial data. After three intensive days of collaborative development, we’re excited to share what we accomplished and what we hope to be the path forward for STAC-Zarr integration.
Participants gathered at ESA ESRIN for the first European STAC sprint
A Community Comes Together
Twenty-six developers from across Europe and beyond converged on ESA’s facility in Frascati, representing a remarkable cross-section of the geospatial data community. Organizations including ESA, CEDA, DLR, EODC, Eurac Research, CloudFerro, Terradue, Element 84, Development Seed, DKRZ, Tilebox, and many others brought their unique perspectives and expertise to hammer out how multidimensional data should be represented in STAC.
What made this sprint particularly powerful was the convergence of two communities, STAC and...
An astounding and outstanding 3D model of Sutro Tower in San Francisco has been released by Vincent Woo. Sutro Tower in 3D is a fully interactive representation of the city’s 977-foot (298-meter) tall radio and television transmission tower. The model was created using thousands of aerial images of the tower, all captured by UAV / drone. […]
Day two of the 30 day map challenege is lines! A few weeks ago I wrote a post about stream traversal with SedonaDB. For day two I’ll do this with the river system for Gaspereau Lake (starting at the mouth of the beautiful Gaspereau River!). For anybody not familiar with the Gaspereau River, it features excellent wineries and the best tubing this side of any line you draw.
Let’s get to it!
# pip install "apache-sedona[db]"
import sedona.db
sd = sedona.db.connect()
sd.options.interactive = True
Let’s get ourselves some data! I’ll use the same GeoParquet as in the last post, but while in the last post I downloaded it using curl, I’ve since realized that SedonaDB can load it straight from the http url in a few seconds. I’ll augment the segments right out of the gate with the start/end points…the feature code list I had to iterate on a bit because the Gaspereau River system has a few fun hydrological components I hadn’t spotted in the last post (notably: canals, flumes, dams, and coastal...
Day one of the 30 day map challenege is points!
One of the datasets I use all the time in testing is named ns-water_point from GeoArrow Data. When I made this test data I didn’t think very hard about it…the Nova Scotia Geospatial Data Directory has a hydrological section and I spent the better part of a decade there working on lakes…it seemed like fun! Other than a few sanity checks I never really looked at the data, though, even though I read in the points one all the time as an example because it’s the smallest.
Day one of the 30 day map challenege seemed like a good time to resolve this. What is ns-water_point, anyway!?
Let’s roll. I’ll be using SedonaDB, so let’s load it:
# pip install "apache-sedona[db]"
import sedona.db
sd = sedona.db.connect()
sd.options.interactive = True
Next, let’s get the GeoParquet url from the GeoArrow Data page:
url = "https://github.com/geoarrow/geoarrow-data/releases/download/v0.2.0/ns-water_water-point_geo.parquet"
Next I’ll read it in as a view....
Free and Open Source GIS Ramblings
• By underdark
•
The conversation around Looking for better ways to convert between QGIS VectorLayer and (Geo)DataFrame is continuing over at https://fosstodon.org/@underdarkGIS/115442614331293320 What I’ve learned so far: Exciting times for spatial data science tooling 🤩
The Open Geospatial Consortium (OGC) proudly names Keith Ryden, Software Development Director at Esri, as the recipient of the 2025 Kenneth D. Gardels Award. With over two decades of contributions to OGC, Keith’s leadership in open standards—spanning Simple Features, GeoPackage, and I3S—has shaped the foundation of modern geospatial interoperability and cross-industry collaboration.
The post OGC Honors Keith Ryden with 2025 Gardels Award appeared first on Open Geospatial Consortium.
Keith Ryden, recipient of the 2025 Kenneth D. Gardels Award, reflects on his journey shaping OGC standards—from Simple Features to modern APIs—and the power of collaboration that drives global interoperability in geospatial data and technology.
The post Keith Ryden on collaboration, interoperability, and the evolution of open geospatial standards appeared first on Open Geospatial Consortium.
A 2023 heatwave killed nearly all of Florida’s main reef-building corals, leaving the reef functionally extinct.
The post Florida’s Primary Reef-Building Corals are ‘Functionally Extinct’ appeared first on Geography Realm.
The SpatioTemporal Asset Catalog (STAC) specification provides a common structure for describing and cataloging spatiotemporal assets.
The post OGC Announces Publication of the SpatioTemporal Asset Catalog Community Standards appeared first on Open Geospatial Consortium.
Once again, FOSS4G North America is bringing together the people shaping the future of open-source geospatial technology. This year, it takes place November 3–5 at the Hyatt Regency in Reston, Virginia, just a few miles from the centers of federal decision-making where open data, open tools, and open collaboration appear to be increasingly at risk. … Continue reading You Should Attend FOSS4G North America →
A hydraulic engineer by training, Nicolas Godet has been working at ISL Ingénierie for just over seven years and holds the position of hydraulic project manager (flood risk, hydraulic structure...
I’ve been trying to write more as I get into this “New Life” thing since January. I’m not a developer. There was a time I did give it a go and it wasn’t my thing. I can write small programs that scratch an itch but they aren’t for mass consumption. I have found a large […]
The post The TN 911 Project – The Garage. appeared first on North River Geographic Systems Inc.
Free and Open Source GIS Ramblings
• By underdark
•
Plugin developers who want to use (Geo)Pandas-based functionality in their plugins regularly face the challenge of converting QGIS vector layers to (Geo)DataFrames. There is currently no built-in convenience function. In Trajectools, so far, I have been performing the conversion manually, looping through all features and taking care of tricky column types, such as datetimes and …Read More
Geospatial | Towards Data Science
• By Robert Constable
•
An example workflow for vector geospatial data science
The post Building a Geospatial Lakehouse with Open Source and Databricks appeared first on Towards Data Science.
Utilities field operations keep critical infrastructure running, often under dangerous conditions, but they’re burdened with outdated, fragmented tech systems never designed for the field. The patchwork of disconnected apps and processes creates inefficiencies, risks, and unnecessary friction. It’s time for utilities to adopt a true field-first platform that empowers workers and supports modern operational demands.
La entrada Utilities field operations deserve better than Frankentech se publicó primero en Fulcrum.
Central Place Theory is a way to understand why cities and towns are where they are. Walter Christaller developed this theory in the 1930s.
The post What Is Central Place Theory? appeared first on GIS Geography.
I said last year I was going to cut back on conferences and forgot about that in the lead up to January. So far this year there’s been three conferences I’ve attended. I’ve got another 2 plus one speaking engagement and then I’m done for a bit. Of course that leaves me wondering about next […]
The post Solitude of the Traveling Pants appeared first on North River Geographic Systems Inc.
The **Live Stream Gauge Map** is a free, interactive web application that visualizes real-time stream gauge data from thousands of monitoring stations worldwide. This tool provides instant access to current water levels, flow rates, and flood status information, helping users make informed decisions about water-related safety and activities.
It made me sad. I’m working on a project involving 911 data and it’s made me do quite a bit of thinking. The short story on this is it’s not in Tennessee. I’m taking data in it’s raw form and shoving it into that state’s NG911 format. So I have about half of it “pre-written” […]
The post I edited ArcPy Code appeared first on North River Geographic Systems Inc.
When and where?
Geomob London took place at 6:00 PM
on Wednesday the 22nd of October, 2025
at Geovation Hub at (Sutton Yard, 65 Goswell Rd, London EC1V 7EN)
Summary Thread
Post by @[email protected] View on Mastodon
Agenda
Our format for the evening will be as it always has been:
doors open at 18:00, set up and general mingling
at 18:30 we begin the talks with a very brief introduction
Each speaker will have slides and speak for 10-15 minutes.
After each talk there will be time for 2-3 questions.
We vote - using Feature Upvote - for the best speaker. The winner will receive a SplashMap and unending glory (see the full list of all past winners).
We head to a nearby pub for discussion and #geobeers paid for by the
sponsors.
The speakers:
Joe Leach, Unique property reference numbers, a very British love affair
Rain Wu, Maps as desires
James Cheshire, The Library of Lost Maps
Nigel...
Satellite technology has revolutionized our ability to detect and monitor fires, volcanic activity, and thermal anomalies across the globe. Our VIIRS Thermal Hotspots Map provides real-time access to thermal detection data from NASA and NOAA satellites, offering unprecedented visibility into active fire locations, intensity measurements, and heat sources worldwide.
The transition to clean energy transportation is accelerating, with millions of Americans now driving electric vehicles, hybrid cars, and alternative fuel vehicles. Our Alternative Fuel Stations Locator provides a comprehensive, interactive map of EV charging stations, hydrogen fueling stations, compressed natural gas (CNG) stations, and other alternative fuel locations across the United States
Severe weather strikes without warning, affecting millions of Americans each year. Our NOAA Storm Reports Interactive Map provides real-time access to official severe weather reports from the National Weather Service, helping you track tornadoes, large hail, and damaging wind events across the United States as they're reported.
Wildfires pose an increasing threat across the United States, with thousands of incidents occurring annually. Our US Wildfire Timeline Map provides real-time wildfire tracking, leveraging official data from the National Interagency Fire Center (NIFC) to help you monitor active fires, understand fire perimeters, and access critical incident information.
Podcast Archive - Project Geospatial
• By Joe Calamari
•
In this episode of Project Geospatial, host Joe Calamari sits down with Mollie Martin from Privateer Space — a trailblazer in the geospatial intelligence industry. Mollie shares her journey from Deloitte Ventures to leading Privateer’s go-to-market strategy, helping bridge the gap between space data, analytics, and real-world business insights. Privateer Space is building an open, extensible geospatial intelligence platform that merges orbital and Earth observation data into powerful business-ready insights. With a focus on sustainability and accessibility, Privateer enables organizations to understand and act on what’s happening — both in orbit and on Earth. Highlights: 🛰️ How Privateer’s Wayfinder platform tracks satellites and debris for space sustainability 🔄 The integration of Orbital Insight and Privateer’s shift to commercial geospatial analytics 🧩 Breaking down organizational silos and democratizing geospatial insights 🔄 How Privateer differentiates from satellite...
Interactive Magnetic Declination Calculator: Click Any Location to See True North vs Magnetic North vs Grid North Experience the Difference Between Three Norths Through Real-Time Map Interaction Stop reading confusing explanations about magnetic declination and grid convergence—see them for yourself. Our interactive magnetic north calculator transforms abstract angular concepts into visual, tangible arrows you can...
Free Interactive Cartesian Coordinate System Explorer Visualize, Learn, and Master Coordinate Geometry with Our Browser-Based Math Tool Discover the power of coordinate geometry with our free interactive Cartesian coordinate system explorer. Whether you’re a student learning about coordinate planes, a teacher creating visual demonstrations, or a professional working with spatial mathematics, this browser-based tool provides...
The post From Isolated Tools to Shared Innovation: Inside the Sprint Accelerating Fields of The World (FTW) appeared first on Taylor Geospatial Engine.
Esri IMGIS 2025 centers on resilience, sustainability, and the growing role of AI in GIS to connect planning, operations, and field execution. Across sessions on digital twins, field mobility, and data integration, the message remains clear: real progress depends on accurate, timely field data. As an Esri partner, Fulcrum shares that focus, helping teams keep GIS systems current through connected, field-first workflows that complement ArcGIS Pro and the ArcGIS Utility Network.
La entrada From AI to field data: what’s driving conversation at Esri IMGIS 2025 se publicó primero en Fulcrum.
Mapidea Location Analytics Blog
• By Pedro Moura
•
Old-school GIS tools like ArcGIS, MapInfo, and QGIS are powerful but
limited to experts. Web Geospatial Intelligence platforms such as Mapidea
bring geography to everyone, turning static maps into continuous business
insight. It’s not about replacing GIS — it’s about freeing experts and
empowering the whole organization.
Geospatial Frontiers - Project Geospatial
• By Adam Simmons
•
Ever wondered how your phone knows you’re at Starbucks and not the cafe
next door? Dive into the world of WGS-84, the invisible global grid that
powers your GPS. Discover why this Cold War-era system is still the king of
coordinates, how it's constantly updated to centimeter-level accuracy, and
how it stacks up against alternatives like ITRF and NAD83. Uncover the
secret language of location that silently runs our world.
Mapidea Location Analytics Blog
• By Pedro Moura
•
Geospatial Intelligence is no longer a future promise — it’s a present
advantage. Mapidea and partners NielsenIQ, NOS, and LTPlabs show how
geography, data, and analytics merge to drive smarter Retail & FMCG
decisions, from strategy and expansion to marketing and performance.
I mentioned in my previous post that, at a previous career stop, I built open-source support into our IT lifecycle. Specifically, we used QGIS. The primary reason we made that choice is that we were a Mac shop. It’s true we could have run ArcGIS Pro inside Parallels, but I didn’t see the need to … Continue reading Supporting Open Source: A Case Study →
Welcome to GeoAI Unpacked! I am Ali Ahmadalipour and in this blog, I share insights and deep dives in geospatial AI, focusing on business opportunities and industry challenges.
By rethinking how we share information, we turn intelligence into real-world impact, building systems that react to crises and help us anticipate & respond together.
You are already using open-source. I’ve said that time and again to various audiences. The most committed Microsoft and Esri users will immediately balk, but it’s easy to knock the objections down. Azure? Linux abounds. Esri? GDAL under the hood. And what does the “Py” in ArcPy stand for? Oh yeah, Python, the open-source programming … Continue reading Unless… →
I’m an obvious fan of GeoParquet and SedonaDB and it should be no surprise that I worked (still working!) pretty hard making sure SedonaDB could take advantage of all GeoParquet had to offer. This post talks about one of those things: lazy reads (or if you’re a databse nut, “pruning”).
Basically, GeoParquet was designed to allow traditional GIS software to take advantage of a decade plus of heavy investment in the Parquet format and the software that reads and writes it. Two spot examples are that (1) software that reads traditional GIS formats is not particularly good at splitting the work up so that all the cores on your computer are put to good use and (2) most formats are not particularly good at being plonked onto a web server and have sections of them selectively queried1 (which can often save data producers from standing up a 24/7 web service).
FlatGeoBuf, of course, is the shining example of being great at being plonked onto a web server in this way and it’s great as long as...
The PostGIS Team is pleased to release PostGIS 3.5.4.
This version requires PostgreSQL 12 - 18beta1, GEOS 3.8 or higher, and Proj 6.1+.
To take advantage of all features, GEOS 3.12+ is needed.
SFCGAL 1.4+ is needed to enable postgis_sfcgal support.
To take advantage of all SFCGAL features, SFCGAL 1.5+ is needed.
3.5.4
source download md5
NEWS
PDF docs: en
This release is a bug fix release that includes bug fixes since PostGIS 3.5.3.
We’ve long thought that we’re onto something big here at Overture. And now the rest of the world does, too. I’m pleased to announce that Fast Company has recognized the...
The post Open Collaboration Wins: Overture Named to Fast Company’s 2025 Next Big Things in Tech appeared first on Overture Maps Foundation.
Adventures In Mapping | John Nelson Maps
• By John
•
Ten years ago today I registered this domain. It was my final week on the job where I’d been for over a decade. There were giant unknowns ahead in the form of a new job, working from home, and a baby on the way. What a time. Things have gone wonderfully these last ten years …
Decision-Making Information Resources & Solutions
• By proximityone
•
How many housing units are within a 1-mile radius of a given location? 5-miles? Use Site Analysis tools to count the number of housing units by census block as of 2020 and 2024. Use the use the VDA (Visual Data … Continue reading →
Adventures In Mapping | John Nelson Maps
• By John
•
A little while back I showed you how to make trippy AI-inspired isometric contour diagram things in ArcGIS Pro using terrain elevation data from Living Atlas. Many of you took the challenge and created amazing maps of your own! Here’s an update to that how-to, with a simplified process and a new focus area! The sea floor! …
Ownership and sovereignty of geospatial data is a key concern of our times and a topic we frequently address in this blog space. Jonathan Murphy has written what I consider to be the most important and thoughtful essay about digital sovereignty of our times, here: https://gogeomatics.ca/canada-can-no-longer-pretend-digital-sovereignty-isnt-at-risk/ Jonathan is the CEO, President, and Founder of GoGeomatics […]
QGIS comes bundled with a simplified version of the Natural Earth Countries shapefile that is suitable for quick map-making. The layer can be loaded into your canvas by typing the keyword world in the coordinates bar. While this is useful, there is no single political map of the world that is accepted by every country […]
Free and Open Source GIS Ramblings
• By underdark
•
The last time I preprocessed the whole GeoLife dataset, I loaded it into PostGIS. Today, I want to share a new workflow that creates a (Geo)Parquet file and that is much faster. The dataset (GeoLife) “This GPS trajectory dataset was collected in (Microsoft Research Asia) Geolife project by 182 users in a period of over …Read More
Decision-Making Information Resources & Solutions
• By proximityone
•
In 2020, centenarians (people of age 100 or more) accounted for just 2 out of 10,000 people. Centenarians in the U.S. increased by 50% from 53,364 in 2010 to 80,139 in 2020. The graphic shows patterns of centenarians in the … Continue reading →
As part of the GeoAI and Deep Learning Symposium at the 2026 AAG Annual Meeting in San Francisco, California we have a call for papers for sessions entitled "Geosimulation and Its Emerging Directions with AI"Call for Papers:Simulating past, present, and future events can empower humans to understand the composition and interactions in complex systems and explain their emergence and evolution from bottom up. In practice, geosimulations constitute a powerful tool in engaging different stakeholders, exploring what-if scenarios, and evaluating alternative policy outcomes.We invite interdisciplinary works for the exploration and understanding of complex social and environmental processes by means of computer simulation. We focus on all aspects of simulation and agent societies, including multi-agent systems, agent-based modeling, microsimulation, artificial intelligence (AI) agents, and the integration of Generative AI with simulation.As GenAI is impacting all aspects of our lives, we are...
Yesterday I read Sylvain Lesage’s post Parquet with GEOMETRY type is not GeoParquet and started writing a reply for Linkedin but it ended up a bit too long to just be a comment, so I thought I’d just post it here as a blog. Overall it’s a great write-up and I appreciate that Sylvain took the time to share his understandings, and that he’s been diving deep to be able to support the geospatial + Parquet ecosystem. And most all of it is right on, but I wanted to provide some more context, and one tweak.
The only thing that I think is ‘off’ in the post is the timeline that says GeoParquet 1.1 was ‘published three months after the introduction of GEOMETRY and GEOGRAPHY in Parquet’. GeoParquet 1.1 was June 19th of 2024, while the geospatial types landed in Parquet core in March of 2025.
The original PARQUET-2471 discussion started about 1 month before the 1.1.0 release. And the main topic for the core GeoParquet group members after the 1.1.0 release was to help ensure that Parquet and...
Following the earlier announcement that QGIS is moving to Qt 6 and launching QGIS 4.0, we want to share an… Read more Update on QGIS 4.0 Release Schedule and LTR Plans
Last week I had the pleasure of being a guest on a Cloud Native Geospatial webinar with my colleagues Jia Yu and Matt Forrest where we talked SedonaDB. In the webinar Matt demoed a fantastic blog post comparing a real-world workflow on SedonaDB, DuckDB, and PostGIS. In preparation, I came up with a few examples and only a small bit ended up making it to the live demo. Here’s the full version!
The gist of the post: let’s use SedonaDB’s top-notch (if I do say so myself) Arrow interop to ingest some totally bonkers real-world data and write it to nice clean GeoParquet.
Let’s get started: SedonaDB can be instealled with pip:
pip install "apache-sedona[db]"
We’ll create the handle to our session (sd) and turn on interactive mode to auto-print results (handy when not running queries against remote data!).
import sedona.db
sd = sedona.db.connect()
sd.options.interactive = True
Now let’s get into the problem a little. In 2012 I got a job as a Project Coordinator at a small environmental...
Stephanie May is a geographic technologist and cartographer based in Seattle, Washington. In addition to being a founding member of CNG’s Editorial Board, she serves on the board of the MapLibre Organization, an open source ecosystem for webmapping, and is the Principal of Liminal Maps.
1. What geospatial trend or tool excites you right now?
I’m energized by how much easier it has gotten to build, host, and embed cloud-enabled web maps. A few technologies stand out: PMTiles allow for serverless hosting from anywhere that supports HTTP range requests, which means you can build a map in a GitHub repo and host it via GitHub Pages, or for larger projects shift to a cloud storage bucket. Pair with Protomaps for a full map solution: extract a region in PMTiles format paired with a stylesheet and all the other assets you need to embed a map in your project site or app via MapLibre, or customize it in a huge variety of ways, such as mixing in other sources (e.g. OpenStreetMap US just...
In Canada, we have an unfenced backyard and need to combine AI with satellites to solve a series of key geographic, political, sovereignty, and climate-related problems.
Tell Us About Yourself Hi, I’m Jan Paul Miene. I’m currently completing my Master’s degree in Geodata Technology at the Technical University of Würzburg/Schweinfurt in Germany. My background is in geovisualisation, and I’ve always been fascinated by the intersection of data, geography, and design. What I enjoy most about cartography is that maps have the […]
The post Maps and Mappers of the 2025 Calendar – Jan-Paul Meine – September appeared first on GeoHipster.
Rocket Lab, a US-based launch services and space systems company, has announced an expansion of its partnership with Japanese SAR provider Synspective. The 10-satellite launch extension comes a year and […]
The post Rocket Lab, Synspective to Launch 10 More StriX Satellites appeared first on Geospatial World.
I have no problem with vibe coding. Yes, you can make bad code with it, and quite easily. The worst way to vibe code is to issue a monolithic prompt like “Build a word processor with the features of Microsoft Word.” But using techniques like chain-of-thought or plan-and-solve prompting in an iterative manner can yield … Continue reading Vibing Adjacencies →
When and where?
Geomob Edinburgh was held at 6:30pm (doors open at 6pm) on Tuesday, September 30th, 2025
at the office of Esri UK: Floor 2, Quartermile Three, 10 Nightingale Way, EH3 9EG Edinburgh Google Maps, OpenStreetMap
Summary Thread
Post by @[email protected] View on Mastodon
Agenda
Our format for the evening will be:
doors open at 18:00, set up and general mingling
at 18:30 we begin the talks with a very brief introduction
Each speaker will have slides and speak for 10 minutes.
After each talk there will be time for 2-3 questions.
Matthew will show us the diorama / physical model of Fort William his team made!
We head to a nearby pub for discussion and #geobeers sponsored by OpenCage, Esri.
The speakers:
Noon van der Silk, Is this the worst school crossing in Edinburgh?
Peter Creasey, Raytracing large Scottish Lidar datasets
Matthew Akerman, Esri UK, Building a topographically correct diorama
We are always...
Geospatial Frontiers - Project Geospatial
• By Adam Simmons
•
This article issues a compelling challenge to the community: to
collaboratively forge an open-source successor to the vital HIFLD portal.
We present a conceptual solution, not as a finished blueprint, but as a
compass to guide a collective journey forward. Join the critical
conversation on building a resilient, community-owned digital commons for
national infrastructure data, reclaiming our shared responsibility in the
wake of a crucial public resource going dark. This is a call to action for
mappers, developers, emergency managers, and all stakeholders to define the
future of accessible, authoritative geospatial data.
Today's interconnected world faces mounting challenges such as food security monitoring, supply chain transparency, climate impact assessment, and sustainable development tracking.
The post Fields of the World: Building AI and ML Infrastructure for Global Field Boundaries appeared first on Taylor Geospatial Engine.
Articles, encouragements, and warnings about AI (Artificial Intelligence) in GIS are, as many of us in the geospatial industry knew they would, are appearing at an increasing pace. If you only have time this week to read one of these articles, I encourage you to make it the one by Eric Pimpler. Why? First, through […]
As challenges such as accelerating urbanization, traffic congestion and data privacy continue to rise, so too does the need for more innovative transportation solutions. TomTom, a leader in location technology, […]
The post How maps and traffic data deliver actionable insights for smarter cities appeared first on Geospatial World.
In this episode Chris and Krishna talk a little about their career paths, reply to some questions from listeners about Episode 1 concerning embeddings, and profess their undying love for Google Earth Engine.
Last Wednesday the Apache Sedona project announced SedonaDB. There’s also a great post on the Whereobots blog that has a bit more context, or if you’re like me and you just want to see the code you can do that too.
I’ve been a sparse blog poster ever since I (1) got a job and (2) had kids, but if you’ve been vaguely following over the past few years you’ll notice that I mostly have written about what happens when spatial data gets a little too big to be comfortable for the standard R and Python tools to handle (mostly sf and geopandas). By “too big to be comfortable” I mean anything where the key part of your iteration takes more than 10 seconds, which is roughly the amount of time the average person is willing to wait before trying to do something else. The blog posts and the sofware I worked on over the past few years were cool but never solved anything: I basically found some great workarounds that people could implement if they were willing to write a pile of low-level R, C, or...
Decision-Making Information Resources & Solutions
• By proximityone
•
.. The United States 119th Congress is in session from Jan 3, 2025 to Jan 3, 2027. This post is focused on the demographic change of the 119th Congressional Districts from the 2020 (Census 2020) to 2023 (ACS 2024) by … Continue reading →
When and where?
Geomob Berlin took place at 18:00
on Thursday the 25th of September, 2025
in the office of Bettermile
at Oranienstr. 183 (Aufgang B), 10999 Berlin
(Google Maps, OpenStreetMap). The nearest station is Kottbusser Tor.
Summary Thread
Post by @[email protected] View on Mastodon
Agenda
Our format for the evening will be as it always has been:
doors open at 18:00, set up and general mingling
at 18:30 we begin the talks with a very brief introduction
Each speaker will have slides and speak for 10-15 minutes.
After each talk there will be time for 2-3 questions.
We vote - using Feature Upvote - for the best speaker. The winner will receive a SplashMap and unending glory (see the full list of all past winners).
We head to a nearby pub for discussion and #geobeers paid for by the
sponsors.
The speakers:
Michael Cruickshank, Anthropocene Analytics: Leveraging geospatial data and complex network...
Geospatial Frontiers - Project Geospatial
• By Adam Simmons
•
Uncover the future of Earth observation with Project Orbion, a
groundbreaking European initiative revolutionizing how we understand our
planet. This in-depth article explores how a powerful consortium is merging
cutting-edge satellite technology—combining all-weather Synthetic Aperture
Radar (SAR) with high-resolution optical imagery—to create unparalleled
"Synthetic Realities" and dynamic digital twins. Learn how Orbion is poised
to transform sectors from urban planning and disaster management to defense
and maritime safety, offering real-time, comprehensive insights into our
world. Discover the innovations driving the surging digital twin market and
the pivotal role of AI in bridging human interaction with vast planetary
data.
Janelle Daigle holds a Bachelor’s Degree in Geography and a Masters of Science degree in Geoinformatics. She began her integration of GIS and space weather during her graduate studies at Millersville University where she participated in Millersville’s SWEN (Space Weather and the Environment) program. Her Masters thesis focused on utilizing geospatial technology to assess the […]
The post I didn’t set out seeking to get into the geospatial field, it sort of found me. appeared first on GeoHipster.
In conversation with Mr. Eric DesRoche, Director, Infrastructure Business Strategy, AEC Design, Autodesk, where he talks about the adoption of Digital Twin and its role in critical infrastructure, major opportunities […]
The post We’re going through a digital transformation in the AEC industry appeared first on Geospatial World.
In our ongoing series on geospatial raster data formats, Julia
Signell and I have been exploring the
finer points of array data storage. Throughout our research, we’ve found that
chunking – breaking a large dataset down into smaller pieces for individual
storage and retrieval – is universally relevant regardless of data format.
Chunking, as we’ve seen, is an absolutely necessary strategy for making large
datasets usable, but in the cloud era, it has become something
tyrannical,
making data access efficiency strictly tied to chunk alignment.
Diverging from an access pattern aligning with the dataset’s chunking scheme and
compounding inefficiencies will cripple data access at scale. Pretend, for
example, we are an official in Chico, a city in the central valley of
California near the foothills of the Sierra Nevada, who wants to examine
changes in monthly average maximum temperatures in the city over the years 2010
to 2020 to understand possible increases in air conditioner usage. Say...
Geo for Good is Google’s annual conference focused on their geospatial and cloud offerings. The 2025 edition of the summit was hosted at both New York and Singapore. I was glad to take part in the Geo for Good 2025 Summit at Singapore that took place from Sept 8-11, 2025 at the Google Singapore office. […]
This plenary panel from AEC Forum 2025, moderated by Ananyaa Narain (Vice President – Consulting, Geospatial World), explored how the integration of geospatial, BIM, and digital twin technologies is transforming […]
The post Geospatial + BIM + Digital Twins: Enabling Connected Infrastructure Systems | AEC Forum 2025 appeared first on Geospatial World.
Oslandia is pleased to announce the release of the QGIS plugin: QSunPotential, a tool for assessing the solar potential of roofs developed by Oslandia in collaboration with CRAIG (Auvergne Rhône...
When and where?
Geomob Netherlands took place in Eindhoven on the evening of Thursday, September 18th, 2025 at the office of HERE: Kennedyplein 222, 5611 ZT Eindhoven - Maps:
HERE,
OpenStreetMap,
Google Maps
Agenda
Doors open at 16:30, set up and general mingling
Talks begin at 17:00 with a very brief introduction
Each speaker will have slides and speak for 10-15 minutes.
After each talk there will be time for 2-3 questions.
After the speeches, we vote for the best speaker. The winner will receive the best speaker prize and unending glory (see the full list of all past winners).
Discussion and #award and #geobeers paid for by the sponsors
The speakers:
Dean Carstens, Why does HERE support GeoMob, a warm welcome!
Joost Gevaert, Geotechnical Data = 3D Vector Data
Prof Hans van der Kwast, Digital Sovereignty and open source software
Daniel Escobar Valdivieso, Creating a Playground for Innovation through Digital Twin of the...
Geospatial Frontiers - Project Geospatial
• By Adam Simmons
•
Explore the dawn of Quantum-Geospatial Intelligence (Quantum GEOINT), a new
era catalyzed by IonQ's landmark acquisition of Capella Space. This report
dissects the fusion of quantum computing and Earth observation, detailing
how technologies like Quantum Key Distribution (QKD) are creating
unbreachable data security from orbit. Discover how quantum principles of
superposition, entanglement, and interference are set to revolutionize
geospatial analysis through advanced optimization for logistics and
disaster response, quantum machine learning (QML) for satellite imagery,
and high-fidelity climate simulations. We map the emerging ecosystem of key
players, from IonQ and D-Wave to GDIT, and provide a forward-looking
assessment of the challenges and strategic imperatives for navigating this
transformative frontier
The following data source on the Tableau Public site invites data users to “Explore these sample data sets, data sources, and web data connectors to get started on your next visualization project. Download a data set and connect to it from Tableau to start creating. Data sets may be available in English only.” https://public.tableau.com/app/learn/sample-data I […]
This year, Sparkgeo turned 15. To celebrate, our annual meet up was held in Prince George, British Columbia, the place where it all began in 2010. As a remote team, face-to-face time matters, and it’s especially important that the things we do together are fun. This year was a chance to reflect on our roots […]
The post 15 Years of Sparkgeo: Maps, Adventure, and Endurance appeared first on Sparkgeo.
Geospatial Frontiers - Project Geospatial
• By Adam Simmons
•
Explore the future of 3D geospatial innovation as charted at the Cesium
Developer Conference in Philadelphia. This comprehensive recap covers
groundbreaking advancements in open standards like 3D Tiles and glTF, the
transformative impact of AI and Gaussian Splatting on reality capture, and
the widespread adoption of digital twins in industries ranging from AEC and
defense to climate resilience. Discover how Cesium's ecosystem—from
CesiumJS and the Cesium ion cloud platform to powerful runtime plugins for
Unreal Engine—is empowering over 400 innovators worldwide to build a more
connected and intelligent virtual world
At AEC Forum 2025, Tapan Mozumdar, Senior Vice President, The Global Network for Zero, unpacks the real challenges and opportunities of digitalization in construction. He highlights why interoperability in BIM […]
The post Interoperability, BIM & Digital Twins: The Road to Net Zero Infrastructure | AEC Forum 2025 appeared first on Geospatial World.
I've heard geospatial professionals describe GIS as Google Maps. But is this really true? We compare Google Maps vs other GIS software.
The post Is Google Maps Really a GIS Software? appeared first on GIS Geography.
Wenn man sich mit Daten-Themen auseinandersetzt, ist „Datenräume“ schon einige Zeit ein geflügeltes Wort. Was die aktuellen Entwicklungen im Thema sind, habe ich am Swiss Data Spaces Forum in Rotkreuz mit anderen Interessierten diskutiert. Quelle Header-Bild: Swiss Data Alliance Datenräume Letzten Dienstag traf sich die Schweizer Daten-Community in Rotkreuz zum diesjährigen «Swiss Data Spaces Forum». …
Sometimes things happen at a slow burn. One thing I’ve been trying to do in what spare time I have is resurrect the QGIS-US group. It’s starting. I’ve reached the point now where emails/virtual hangouts are about to start happening. So I made a google form and in general I’m just trying to figure out […]
The post QGIS-US User Group appeared first on North River Geographic Systems Inc.
At AEC Forum 2025, Satish MV, Executive Committee Member & Advisor to CMD, Larsen & Toubro, explores how digital technologies are redefining construction and infrastructure worldwide. From automated generative design […]
The post Digital Engineering at L&T: The Power of BIM, AI & Smart Construction | AEC Forum 2025 appeared first on Geospatial World.
Chris and Krishna discuss their experiences working with geospatial embeddings, search and remote sensing in general, and how they think through problems.
Geospatial Frontiers - Project Geospatial
• By Adam Simmons
•
For two decades, the Homeland Infrastructure Foundation-Level Data (HIFLD)
Open portal was the bedrock of U.S. disaster response and community
planning—a free, authoritative map of the nation's most critical assets.
Now, it's gone. This in-depth article explores the profound impact of the
recent shutdown of HIFLD Open, from its origins in the wake of 9/11 to its
vital role in responding to hurricanes and wildfires. Discover what made
this curated government data uniquely powerful for emergency managers and
researchers, and why its disappearance leaves a critical void that
commercial and crowdsourced maps cannot fill. We examine the consequences
of this decision for national resilience and the uncertain future of open
data in America.
Many small and mid-sized organizations find technology modernization daunting due to costs, complexity, and skill shortages. However, a strategic, step-by-step approach focusing on business goals and small, high-impact wins can ease the process. Embracing gradual changes and leveraging expert guidance helps unlock new efficiencies and competitive advantages.
Geospatial Frontiers - Project Geospatial
• By Adam Simmons
•
In the world of geospatial technology, two powerful currents shape our
digital maps: the polished, enterprise-ready ecosystems of proprietary
software like Esri's ArcGIS and the passionate, community-driven innovation
of Free and Open Source Software (FOSS). This is not a story of opposition,
but of a complex, thriving balance. From corporate giants optimizing global
logistics to volunteer armies mapping disaster zones in real-time to save
lives, both models are fundamental to our modern world.
This article delves into the heart of this dynamic, exploring the
philosophies that divide and the open standards that unite these two
worlds. We deconstruct the powerful FOSS4G stack—featuring titans like QGIS
and PostGIS—and examine the sustainable business models that prove "free"
software is a viable, enterprise-grade choice.
More than just code, we uncover the soul of the movement: the Open Source
Geospatial Foundation (OSGeo) and the global community that...
At AEC Forum 2025, Eric DesRoche, Director – Infrastructure Business Strategy, AEC Design, Autodesk, shares powerful insights into the global shifts shaping the AEC industry. From India’s rapid rise in […]
The post AI, BIM & India’s Infrastructure Boom: The Future of AEC | AEC Forum 2025 appeared first on Geospatial World.
Disasters are becoming more frequent, more intense, and more costly. From cyclones and floods to record-breaking heatwaves, the threat to global infrastructure is real—and growing. At AEC Forum 2025, Amit […]
The post Resilient Infrastructure in an Age of Disasters | AEC Forum 2025 appeared first on Geospatial World.
Welcome to GeoAI Unpacked! I am Ali Ahmadalipour and in this blog, I share insights and deep dives in geospatial AI, focusing on business opportunities and industry challenges.
At AEC Forum 2025, Maj. Gen. Sameer Srivastava, AVSM, VSM, Additional Director General, Land Works and Environment, Indian Army, shares how the Army is reimagining infrastructure for the future. From […]
The post Indian Army’s Future-Ready Infrastructure: Resilient, Sustainable & Strategic | AEC Forum 2025 appeared first on Geospatial World.
The PostGIS Team is pleased to release PostGIS 3.6.0!
Best Served with PostgreSQL 18 Beta3
and recently released GEOS 3.14.0.
This version requires PostgreSQL 12 - 18beta3, GEOS 3.8 or higher, and Proj 6.1+.
To take advantage of all features, GEOS 3.14+ is needed.
To take advantage of all SFCGAL features, SFCGAL 2.2.0+ is needed.
3.6.0
source download md5
NEWS
HTML Online en ja sv fr zh_Hans
PDF docs: en ja, sv, zh_Hans, fr
Cheat Sheets:
postgis: en ja sv fr zh_Hans
postgis_raster: en ja sv fr zh_Hans
postgis_topology: en ja sv fr zh_Hans
postgis_sfcgal: en ja sv fr zh_Hans
address standardizer, postgis_tiger_geocoder: en ja sv fr zh_Hans
This release includes bug fixes since PostGIS 3.5.3 and new features.
Topoprint now supports creating relief maps as RoundRects (rounded rectangles) alongside traditional disc shapes. Backend optimizations have accelerated 3D model processing significantly: a model that once took up to 10 minutes now completes in less than three minutes, complete with a progress bar update to keep users informed. Additionally, the Topodisc Designer web app has been revamped for mobile devices, making interaction more intuitive on the small screen.
Geospatial Frontiers - Project Geospatial
• By Cami Maselli
•
From the inky blackness at the edge of space, a slender silhouette patrols
the upper atmosphere, a silent sentinel against the gentle curvature of the
Earth. This is the domain of the Lockheed U-2, an aircraft known by the
mythical moniker "Dragon Lady". For nearly seven decades, from the iciest
depths of the Cold War to the complex surveillance demands of the 21st
century, this visionary aircraft has been a constant, often unseen, factor
in global geopolitics.
Born from a desperate need to peer behind the Iron Curtain, the U-2 was a
high-stakes gamble. Its story is one of groundbreaking technological leaps
forged in secrecy at Lockheed's legendary Skunk Works, but it is equally a
story of profound human endeavor. Discover the incredible skill and courage
required of its pilots, who flew solo for hours at over 70,000 feet,
navigating the razor-thin margin of the "coffin corner" while sealed inside
an early spacesuit.
Go behind the scenes of the U-2's most...
Geospatial Frontiers - Project Geospatial
• By Adam Simmons
•
High on a remote mountaintop, you spot a metallic glint set in the bedrock:
a weathered brass disk stamped with cryptic words and a perfect triangle.
What is this object? It's a geodetic survey marker, a physical anchor from
a two-century-long scientific odyssey to measure and map a continent.
This is the story of how a network of brass and sweat, laid down with
grueling labor and uncompromising precision, formed the invisible framework
of our modern world. Discover the audacious vision of Ferdinand Hassler,
the brutal life of a survey party, and the elegant science of triangulation
that transformed an unmapped frontier into a tangible nation.
But in an age of GPS, are these markers mere relics? Explore the paradox of
why these "silent sentinels" are more critical than ever, anchoring our
virtual, satellite-driven age to the solid ground beneath our feet.
Finding the right balance between Running-the-business (RTB) and Changing-the-business (CTB) can be challenging. This post explains that if RTB tasks are kept to a minimum, Scrum can be effective. However, if those tasks increase, adopting a hybrid or Kanban system can significantly help maintain smooth workflows and achieve operational excellence.
Spatialty emphasizes a modern GIS approach centered on automation, accessibility, and education, transforming challenges into opportunities and enhancing organizational decision-making through geospatial intelligence.
Continuing my thoughts on deep horizontals, looking at AI and Geospatial economics. Another point of comparison is the use of consumer tools in enterprise workflows.
Overture is collaborating with the OpenTravel Alliance (OTA), which recently joined the Linux Foundation and Overture as a member, to solve a long-standing challenge in the travel industry: data interoperability. For years, the travel sector has struggled to standardize location data for hotels, attractions, and other points of interest across a complex ecosystem of providers.
The post Overture and the OpenTravel Alliance: Enabling the Future of Travel with Open Data appeared first on Overture Maps Foundation.
AI adoption is facing the same problems that Geospatial has been struggling with. Services-driven products are one solution, MIT, A16Z, and OpenAI all agree.
The PostGIS Team is pleased to release PostGIS 3.6.0rc2!
Best Served with PostgreSQL 18 Beta3
and recently released GEOS 3.14.0.
This version requires PostgreSQL 12 - 18beta3, GEOS 3.8 or higher, and Proj 6.1+.
To take advantage of all features, GEOS 3.14+ is needed.
To take advantage of all SFCGAL features, SFCGAL 2.2.0+ is needed.
3.6.0rc2
source download md5
NEWS
HTML Online en ja sv fr zh_Hans
PDF docs: en ja, sv, zh_Hans, fr
Cheat Sheets:
postgis: en ja sv fr zh_Hans
postgis_raster: en ja sv fr zh_Hans
postgis_topology: en ja sv fr zh_Hans
postgis_sfcgal: en ja sv fr zh_Hans
address standardizer, postgis_tiger_geocoder: en ja sv fr zh_Hans
This release is a beta of a major release, it includes bug fixes since PostGIS 3.5.3 and new features.
Geospatial | Towards Data Science
• By Lee Vaughan
•
Use Python, GeoPandas, Tropycal, and Plotly Express to map the number of hurricane encounters per county over the past 50 years.
The post Where Hurricanes Hit Hardest: A County-Level Analysis with Python appeared first on Towards Data Science.
Im ersten und zweiten Teil dieser Mini-Blogserie habe ich gezeigt, woher GNSS-Daten (umgangssprachlich GPS-Daten) stammen und wie sich diese in spezialisierten Tracking-Studien gezielt erfassen lassen. Im heutigen und letzten Teil widmen wir uns nun einer Anwendung, die den Nutzen solcher Daten greifbar macht. Ich zeige, wie sich der Einfluss von Hitze auf fussläufige Erreichbarkeiten quantifizieren …
The PostGIS Team is pleased to release PostGIS 3.6.0rc1!
Best Served with PostgreSQL 18 Beta3
and soon to be released GEOS 3.14.
This version requires PostgreSQL 12 - 18beta3, GEOS 3.8 or higher, and Proj 6.1+.
To take advantage of all features, GEOS 3.14+ is needed.
To take advantage of all SFCGAL features, SFCGAL 2.2.0+ is needed.
3.6.0rc1
source download md5
NEWS
HTML Online en ja sv fr zh_Hans
PDF docs: en ja, sv, zh_Hans, fr
Cheat Sheets:
postgis: en ja sv fr zh_Hans
postgis_raster: en ja sv fr zh_Hans
postgis_topology: en ja sv fr zh_Hans
postgis_sfcgal: en ja sv fr zh_Hans
address standardizer, postgis_tiger_geocoder: en ja sv fr zh_Hans
This release is a beta of a major release, it includes bug fixes since PostGIS 3.5.3 and new features.
Welcome to GeoAI Unpacked! I am Ali Ahmadalipour and in this blog, I share insights and deep dives in geospatial AI, focusing on business opportunities and industry challenges.
Tell Us About Yourself Hi, I’m Aaron Koelker. I was introduced to GIS while pursuing an Environmental Science degree and quickly became hooked on its unique blend of problem solving, storytelling, and visual design. I then spent eight years with the Florida Department of Environmental Protection providing enterprise GIS support and working on a wide variety of mappy […]
The post Maps and Mappers of the 2025 Calendar – Aaron Koelker – July appeared first on GeoHipster.
Paul Shapley's Open Source Geospatial Blog
• By [email protected] (Paul J. Shapley)
•
With reference to the source 'Compiling SAGA on Linux'.https://sourceforge.net/p/saga-gis/wiki/Compiling%20SAGA%20on%20Linux/You can also simply run these modules in QGIS but you would miss out on some excellent advantages such as having multiple map windows synchronized and a simple interface.Current 'Debian/Ubuntu' libraries only go up to version 9.2.0. This will install the latest version (currently 9.10.0).1. ~$ sudo apt install libwxgtk3.2-dev libgdal-dev libproj-dev libpq-dev libpdal-dev libopencv-dev libhpdf-dev unixodbc-dev(You may see this error:) 'E: Unable to locate package libpdal-dev' this does not prevent continuation of compilation process.2. ~$ sudo apt-get install g++ cmake cmake-qt-gui make libtool git3. ~$ sudo apt install libwxgtk3.2-dev4. ~$ sudo apt install libcurl4-openssl-dev5. ~$ sudo apt install g++ make cmake git swig python3 python3-dev python-dev-is-python36. ~$ sudo mkdir /home/devel7. ~$ cd /home/devel8. ~$ sudo git clone...
NLT Blog - New Light Technologies
• By NLT Staff
•
A Journey of Growth: NLT’s Evolving Role at TUgis
New Light Technologies (NLT) is proud to have served as the Platinum Sponsor of the 2025 Maryland GIS Conference (TUgis 2025). Our journey with TUgis has been one of significant growth and deepening commitment. Over the years, we have evolved from presenters and lower-tier sponsors to becoming a leading sponsor in 2025. This progression underscores our dedication to the geospatial community and our continuous efforts to advance geospatial solutions.
Mapidea Location Analytics Blog
• By Mapidea Location Intelligence
•
NIQ’s Oliver Pape explains how NIQ’s strategic partnership with Mapidea
transforms market and consumer data into powerful, actionable insights. By
uniting NIQ’s datasets with Mapidea’s geospatial intelligence platform,
clients gain faster, clearer decision-making capabilities—unlocking new
opportunities for growth and competitive advantage.
Mapidea Location Analytics Blog
• By Pedro Moura
•
Every couple of years, sales organizations brace for the big territory
reorganization: costly consultants, months of meetings, anxious reps, and a
shiny “new map” that’s already ageing when it launches.
At Mapidea, we’ve seen this across industries—and we know there’s a better
way. Continuous Sales Territory Optimization uses a geospatial intelligence
system to track territory performance in real time, assess the impact of
changes, and make small, frequent adjustments collaboratively with the
people who know the field best.
It’s faster, less expensive, and far more effective. Why wait years for the
next reorg when you can optimize today?
It’s weird to say “Time for the 7 month check-in” but there I stood at the doctors office waiting for my 7 month evaluation. Long story short – I’ve got some form of Heart Disease. I say some form because people have said a half dozen things around me and they all resolve around that […]
The post Time for the 7 Month Check-in appeared first on North River Geographic Systems Inc.
CNG is the place where geospatial data users create the future together. To make the share of knowledge between those data users even smoother, we’ve refined our process for getting blog posts onto cloudnativegeo.org. Whether you want to share a deep-dive technical tutorial, highlight lessons learned from a recent project, or explore ways to strengthen our community, this updated approach makes it simple to propose, write, and publish.
The following information can also be found at CONTRIBUTING.md.
What we’re looking for
Evergreen topics - We are always open to content about new ways of using geospatial data, case studies that show the benefits of using cloud-native approaches, technical tutorials, open-source tools, best practices in geospatial data management, and tools that help data users share, access, and work with geospatial data more effectively.
Current priorities - This year, we are also interested in blog posts that address the following common community challenges that...
I hardly ever do Mergin Maps blog posts. I need to do more. So I’ve been mapping random things in Chattanooga for OSM – which puts me out with my Bad Elf GPS and Mergin Maps. I don’t do nearly enough field work these days. It sort of scratches an itch. It’s fun. I’m probably […]
The post Sketching in Mergin Maps appeared first on North River Geographic Systems Inc.
Each month, we’re highlighting the community leaders who volunteer their expertise to guide CNG’s direction. Our Editorial Board Spotlight series features a different board member sharing their perspectives on geospatial trends and tools, what’s capturing their attention through reading or their current work, and the challenges they believe our community should focus on.
1. What geospatial trend or tool excites you right now?
I’m particularly excited about the growing convergence of geospatial data and AI, especially through open-source tools that lower the barrier to entry. Tools like the Segment Anything Model (SAM), combined with geospatial wrappers such as segment-geospatial and GeoAI, are enabling rapid experimentation in image segmentation and classification workflows. These tools empower researchers and practitioners to apply cutting-edge vision models to Earth observation data with minimal friction.
In addition, the emergence of geospatial foundation models—large, pretrained...
In a previous post we talked about the potential of Generative AI for urban modeling, keeping with this theme at the 11th International Conference on Computational Social Science (IC2S2), Na Jiang, Boyu Wang and myself had a poster entitled Agent-based Models with Large Language Models: Two Modeling Examples. In this poster and extended abstract we detail how LLMs can help with many aspects of agent-based modeling development. If this sounds of interest, below you can see the abstract, the poster and the full referece and link to the extended abstract .Abstract:Large language models (LLMs) play an important role in AI-powered code assistants such as code completion, debugging, and documentation. Such models can be further fine-tuned on smaller amount of data for specific tasks, often with the improvement of performance compared to generic LLMs. However, such fine-tuning techniques are seldomly used in generating sophisticated agent-based models (ABMs), because they are often...
It’s that time of year! We’re excited to issue the call for maps for contributions for the 2026 GeoHipster calendar. Entries are subject to these rules and guidelines for entry are listed below. So, send us your maps! (The deadline is 2025-10-23.) Guidelines: I hereby declare that this submission is my own work and to […]
The post 2026 Calendar Submissions appeared first on GeoHipster.
Joseph Elfelt is a software developer in the geo world as a result of a life-long interest in maps and self-teaching. His interest in maps began as a child looking at his father’s collection of USGS topographic maps for a large part of Minnesota. After college, Joseph moved to Seattle and went to work for […]
The post I curate a list of 5,000+ ArcGIS server addresses at all levels of USA government. appeared first on GeoHipster.
It’s been a summer full of side projects here. Which is a very good sign — I used to do many, many side projects, but for the last couple of years, poor health has left me with reduced energy, and my output dropped off significantly. It’s nice to feel inspired again, in so many directions … Continue reading A Sketch of Isle Royale →
Mike Long, Co-Founder of Spatialty, won the 2025 Esri SAG Award for his innovative contributions at Austin's CapMetro transit agency. His leadership in developing a geospatial platform integrated various operational systems, enabling automated data flows and enhancing real-time data access. This work improves transit operations and long-term planning efficiency.
Today we are excited to announce the release of stac-fastapi-indexed! stac-fastapi-indexed is an implementation of the STAC API specification. Like several similar projects, it draws on the indispensable stac-fastapi package. This project implements a new approach to data management to reduce hosting overheads. STAC and STAC API The STAC and STAC API specifications have proven […]
The post Introducing stac-fastapi-indexed: Low Overhead STAC Metadata Support appeared first on Sparkgeo.
Tell Us About YourselfI’m Qianyi Cao, with a background in Geographic Information Science and currently part of the Erasmus Mundus MSc in Cartography program across TU Munich, TU Vienna, and TU Dresden. My academic path blends map design, geospatial science, and cross-cultural storytelling. I’m passionate about using cartography as a bridge — one that connects […]
The post Maps and Mappers of the 2025 Calendar – June – Cao Qianyi appeared first on GeoHipster.
Running together at CNG Conference 2025
On the last day of CNG Conference, we held a facilitated discussion to identify what our community needs to thrive.
As Chris Holmes noted in his opening keynote, the geospatial field has reached a pivotal moment. We have more data, better tools, and greater computational power than ever before. The question now is how we use these resources to address real-world challenges. The six themes below emerged from our discussions and will shape our collective work in the coming year.
These challenges are deeply interconnected. Progress in one area often enables progress in others. And with AI rapidly changing the landscape, we need to stay adaptable and collaborative. We invite governments, funders, educators, enterprises, and entrepreneurs to join our community in this ongoing effort.
Geospatial education isn’t helping people get good jobs
The problem
Workforce and talent development surfaced as a top priority from the discussion. There’s a clear...
Im ersten Teil dieser Mini-Blogserie habe ich gezeigt, woher GNSS-Daten (umgangssprachlich GPS-Daten) stammen und wie sich diese in spezialisierten Tracking-Studien gezielt erfassen lassen. Heute nehmen wir solch eine Studie genauer unter die Lupe und zeigen, wie sich mit moderner Tracking-Technologie und passenden Befragungen Verhaltensexperimente durchführen lassen, die komplexe Fragen der Verkehrs- und Stadtplanung beantworten. Die …
Mapidea Location Analytics Blog
• By Miguel Marques
•
Why using geography continuously across your business is essential.
Democratizing geospatial intelligence empowers every department to make
smarter, faster decisions and unlocks lasting competitive advantage.
Mapidea Location Analytics Blog
• By Pedro Moura
•
A personal letter to BI and data leaders on why geography must become a
core dimension in analytics. It's not just a map—it’s the missing link in
your data stack.
Mapidea Location Analytics Blog
• By Mapidea Location Intelligence
•
Combine NielsenIQ’s market data with Mapidea’s geospatial intelligence to
empower retail & FMCG teams with continuous, actionable insights driving
smarter decisions & growth.
The PostGIS Team is pleased to release PostGIS 3.6.0beta1!
Best Served with PostgreSQL 18 Beta2
and soon to be released GEOS 3.14.
This version requires PostgreSQL 12 - 18beta2, GEOS 3.8 or higher, and Proj 6.1+.
To take advantage of all features, GEOS 3.14+ is needed.
To take advantage of all SFCGAL features, SFCGAL 2.2.0+ is needed.
3.6.0beta1
source download md5
NEWS
HTML Online en ja sv fr zh_Hans
PDF docs: en ja, sv, zh_Hans, fr
Cheat Sheets:
postgis: en ja sv fr zh_Hans
postgis_raster: en ja sv fr zh_Hans
postgis_topology: en ja sv fr zh_Hans
postgis_sfcgal: en ja sv fr zh_Hans
address standardizer, postgis_tiger_geocoder: en ja sv fr zh_Hans
This release is a beta of a major release, it includes bug fixes since PostGIS 3.5.3 and new features.
In the past we have written about how one can study urban shrinkage with a specific emphasis on Detroit from both an agent-based modeling perspective and also from analyzing newspapers through natural language processing Keeping with the theme of Detroit and urban shrinkage we (Xiaoliang Meng, Yichun Xie, Junyi Wu, Heather Khan Welsh, Shi Zeng and myself) have a new paper entitled "Examining spatial expansion and stemming strategies of urban shrinkage: evidence from Detroit, USA" which was recently published in npj Urban Sustainability. In this paper we introduce a method for studying urban shrinkage by constructing multi-scale spatial structures based on urban network connectivity which we call gravity-networked spatial interaction zones-based spatial panel modeling or GSIZs-Spanel for short. We demonstrate this method by exploring the spatial processes and scopes of past urban shrinkage in Detroit between 2000 and 2020. If this sounds of interest, below you can read the abstract...
Landsat imagery and NDVI are used to monitor vegetation change, from invasive grass spread in rangelands to early stress detection in coastal marshes.
The post Using Landsat and NDVI to Map Vegetation Change appeared first on Geography Realm.
Discover how our natural language interface prototype has the potential to make satellite imagery accessible to everyone. By translating plain English queries into structured STAC queries, we're simplifying access to valuable Earth observation data. Learn how our system uses NLP, serverless architecture, and geospatial standards to search for satellite images
The post Making Satellite Data Searchable with Natural Language appeared first on Sparkgeo.
Many of you attended our webinar “3D: a new dimension!” Vincent Picavet was on the mic : 3D challenges in 2025: digital twins, publishing data on the web, sharing data,...
Do you deal with sensitive geospatial data ? Are you concerned by cybersecurity threats ? Oslandia and partners ( e.g. OPENGIS.ch) launched the « Security Project for QGIS » :...
Photo: ESA/J. Mai (source)
Recently the European Space Agency’s (ESA) Living Planet Symposium (LPS) was held in Vienna, Austria.
This was likely the world’s largest gathering of the Earth Observation community. The LPS website claims there there were 6500+ registered participants and 4200+ presentations & posters in 250+ sessions, but those are conservative numbers… I counted 4428 presentations & posters in 453 sessions.
Also it says there were 2300 “Children at the School Activities”, and I can confirm there were lots of kids at the conference (and on the metro). Awesome to see!
I attended LPS on behalf of Radiant Earth and the Cloud-Native Geospatial (CNG) Forum.
I was there to learn how CNG specs and tools are being adopted by the Earth observation community and to help build awareness. Given the size of the conference (it had 30 separate content tracks!), my first challenge was to determine what content would be presented where and at what time, in order to plan out where I...
Ohne harte Fakten bleibt jeder Veloweg ein Bauchentscheid und jede Taktverdichtung ein Ratespiel. GNSS-Tracking, besser bekannt als GPS-Tracking, schliesst diese Wissenslücke, indem es Bewegungsmuster in hoher räumlich-zeitlicher Auflösung liefert. Dieser Beitrag zeigt, welche Datenquellen es gibt, welche Technik dahintersteckt und wie eine Tracking-Studie geplant und durchgeführt werden kann. Daten sind das Grundgerüst jeder Verkehrs- und …
A global dataset of 700 mud volcanoes was recently published by geologists from Sapienza University.
The post GIS Data: Shallow Sea Mud Volcanoes appeared first on Geography Realm.
Iris is about unlocking the value of what you already have. Built on open source and proprietary tools, Iris enforces open standards and promotes integration.
FAO’s global dataset maps access to towns and cities of all sizes within reasonable travel times, identifying patterns of urban interconnectedness.
The post Explore the City-Regions Dataset from FAO appeared first on Geography Realm.
London made it a priority to create a environmentally friendly city where the pedestrian comes first. Our role was to help build the tools to make that possible.
Researchers mapped 540 million years of sea level change, showing major short-term shifts during ice ages driven by Earth's orbital cycles.
The post Mapping Short-term Sea Level Changes Over 540 Million Years appeared first on Geography Realm.
von Laurin Bertozzi (sieber&partners), Daniela Herzig (EBP Schweiz), Patrick Saxer (EBP Schweiz) Workshop-Inhalte Im Workshop 3 BIM in der Bauausführung – Informationsbedürfnisse und veränderte Möglichkeiten haben wir uns folgendem Inhalt gewidmet:Die Bauausführung ist ein komplexes Zusammenspiel zwischen Bauherr:innen, Unternehmer:innen und Planer:innen – drei zentralen Akteur:innen mit jeweils unterschiedlichen Informationsbedürfnissen und -verantwortlichkeiten. Im Zuge der fortschreitenden …
von Claus Maier (EBP) & Philipp Dohmen (QAECY) 30 Teilnehmende, eine Frage: Wie verwandeln wir vorhandene Daten in nutzbares Wissen für bessere Entscheidungen? Die Anwesenden schilderten ihr gemeinsames Problem: Unmengen von Daten liegen verstreut in Modellen und Ablagen vor. Doch wie können sie sinnvoll erschlossen und genutzt werden? Aus diesem Grund stiess das Thema des …
Groundwater stored over many years is a significant contributor to streamflow in Western United States mountains according to a published study.
The post Water Can Take Years to Seep out of Mountains appeared first on Geography Realm.
NLT Blog - New Light Technologies
• By Mario Field
•
DMVGIS Website launch: An Excellent Resource to drive and facilitate collaboration, coordination, and awareness of GIS in the DMV region.
New Light Technologies (NLT) is thrilled to launch the DMVGIS website, your new online platform for the geospatial community in the DC, Maryland, and Virginia region. This website is designed to be a central hub for DMVGIS, offering a handy resource for GIS information, data, and events. It will also help facilitate professional networking, participant collaboration, and information sharing. Whether you're looking for the latest GIS news or details on upcoming events, this website will serve as the nexus of activity for our regional geospatial community.
Bubbles created by the movement of waves can influence how much carbon dioxide is absorbed by the ocean.
The post Study Models How the Behavior of Waves Affects Blue Carbon Storage appeared first on Geography Realm.
When Data is Easy, Geospatial Will Change Everything Geospatial technologies are transforming how we model the world, plan infrastructure, monitor change, and make decisions. But for that transformation to be realized at scale, one foundational element must be addressed: access to data. At Sparkgeo, we believe that improving access to geospatial data is essential for […]
The post The Industry Data Access Survey appeared first on Sparkgeo.
This is a guest post by Guilhem Allaman. Mid-June, the French-speaking QGIS Users Meeting was held in Avignon, Southern France – a… Read more Presentation and feedback from the QGIS-fr Users Meeting in Avignon
In the current issue of Environment and Planning B, we (Boyu Wang, Na Jiang and myself) have a new editorial entitled "Generative AI and Urban Modeling". The premise of this editorial is that Generative AI (GenAI) is impacting all aspects of our daily lives and as such has we were wondering how will it impact urban modeling? For example, in the editorial we discuss how GenAI could speed up the overall urban modeling process. To demonstrate this we show how ChatGPT (and its built-in coding interface Canvas) can take published papers and build agent-based models from them (one being of an abstract space and another being spatially explicit). However, while model building is time consuming task, another challenge modelers face is how to incorporate decision making within them. To this end we also discuss how large language models (LLMs) have the potential to help with agent-decision making in the form of generating agent-personas or scheduling agent activities. We conclude the...
Stephanie Long, co-founder of Spatialty, has been recognized as Faculty Leader of the Year for 2025 at Austin Community College. This honor acknowledges her outstanding leadership in geospatial education, curriculum development, and mentorship. At Spatialty, she enhances consulting by providing tailored training and simplifying complex technology for clients.
After a long development cycle, Giro3D 0.43 is available. The Globe entity We were talking about it in a previous article, the main feature of this release is of course...
Podcast Archive - Project Geospatial
• By Adam Simmons
•
Terradepth, led by CTO Andrew Lunstead, focuses on helping people make
better decisions about the ocean, an environment less understood than the
surface of Mars due to data collection challenges. Their approach involves
both developing high-endurance autonomous underwater vehicles (AUVs) for
massive data gathering and the sensor-agnostic Absolute Ocean data platform
. This platform, built on CesiumJS, provides an intuitive, world-view
interface for managing and visualizing current and historical undersea
surveys. Terradepth supports critical sectors like offshore energy,
resource management, and defense. While accommodating data from any source,
Terradepth has consolidated its cloud operations within AWS, including
GovCloud for enhanced security. A significant innovation is leveraging
edge computing with Absolute Ocean to drastically reduce the "scan to
decision" time from months to mere hours, greatly enhancing the speed of
critical operations
Before it was HIFLD, it was briefly FGDWG. Before that, it was a nameless thing in its infancy. In those early days, it bounced around between conference rooms in Norfolk, Dahlgren, and Chantilly. I was fortunate enough to be in the rooms where it was born and took shape. I was a contractor supporting an … Continue reading HIFLD Open Is Dead*, Long Live HIFLD →
NatureServe has developed an updated 30-meter hexagon map of regional ecosystems in the contiguous United States and adjacent areas.
The post High Resolution Ecosystem Map of the Contiguous United States and Adjacent Areas appeared first on Geography Realm.
I have just gotten back from attending the 19th International Conference on Computational Urban Planning and Urban Management (CUPUM) in London and thought I would share the two papers we presented at the conference. The first paper was with Qingqing Chen and Linda See and was entitled "Using New Sources of Data for Urban Climate Modeling Generated through MLLMs on Street View Imagery. "As the title might suggest, this paper was about how one can leverage multi-modal large language models (MLLMs) to extract information on building height, age and function from street level photographs. We demonstrate this using street view images from Mapillary and than ask ChatGPT to estimate the building height, age and function and compare the results to authoritative data sources. If this sounds of interest, below you can see the abstract to the paper, some if the figures (i.e., the work flow and prompts) while the results can be seen in the attached paper (see the link below).
Abstract:Urban...
The time since I’ve last posted has been quite busy. I’ve completely recovered from my previous eye issues and have been able to start traveling again. In fact, I’m writing this post from a hotel room. In addition to my consulting work at Cercana, I took on a role as the CTO of Photometrics AI, … Continue reading Geospatial, AI/ML, and Infrastructure →
This blog post outlines the process of creating multi-color 3D prints using the Bambu Lab X1 Carbon printer and the Topoprint software. I explain how to prepare multiple STL files for distinct landscape features, using OrcaSlicer for effective slicing. The final print, requiring extensive filament changes, showcases the Landwasserviadukt.
Free and Open Source GIS Ramblings
• By underdark
•
The QGISUC2025 team has done an awesome job recording and editing the conference presentations. All “presentation” type talks where the presenter has accepted to be published are now available in a dedicated list on the QGIS Youtube channel. I also had the pleasure of presenting our Trajectools plugin and you can see this talk here: …Read More
Paul Shapley's Open Source Geospatial Blog
• By [email protected] (Paul J. Shapley)
•
If your concerned about sharing QGIS projects on the web there are many options apart from the 'qgis2web' plugin. This just utilises a docker image containing a demo project.Share your QGIS projects with QGIS Server • Gispo
Today, Overture Maps Foundation announced the general availability of the Global Entity Reference System (GERS). GERS provides common, open, accessible IDs for geospatial entities like buildings, places, and roads, making...
The post Understanding Overture’s Global Entity Reference System appeared first on Overture Maps Foundation.
Unique IDs make it easier and cheaper to attach data to geospatial entities, such as buildings, streets, places, etc. SAN FRANCISCO, Calif.—June 25, 2025 — The Overture Maps Foundation, a collaborative...
The post Overture Maps Launches GERS, a Global Standard for Interoperable Geospatial IDs, to Drive Data Interoperability appeared first on Overture Maps Foundation.
How Precisely’s Data Link program connects data from leading providers via unique ID systems, including GERS, to eliminate the “conflation tax” and unlock instant access to enriched location intelligence Precisely,...
The post Precisely Accelerates Data Integration with Overture GERS IDs appeared first on Overture Maps Foundation.
Lake Chapala was formed at the intersection of three grabens.
The post Lake Chapala: a Tectonic Lake at Mexico’s Triple-graben Intersection appeared first on Geography Realm.
When someone proposes an idea to you, smile and assure them that you understand (yes ...). Express your enthusiasm about it (... yes ...) with an even bigger smile. Then, offer to enhance and extend their great idea (... and ...). You can compare this creativity technique to rubber duck debugging, but always remember that you should not replace a human with an LLM.
Summary thread
Post by @[email protected] View on Mastodon
When and where?
Geomob Edinburgh was held at 6:30pm (doors open at 6pm) on Tuesday, June 24th, 2025
at room 1.26 in Paterson’s Land, The University of Edinburgh Holyrood Campus
(Google / OSM)
Thank you to The Community Access to Rooms project for providing this space for us, free of cost!
This event is part of The Data Lab’s Geospatial Month - other events listed here.
Agenda
Our format for the evening will be:
doors open at 18:00, set up and general mingling
at 18:30 we begin the talks with a very brief introduction
Each speaker will have slides and speak for 10 minutes.
After each talk there will be time for 2-3 questions.
We head to a nearby pub for discussion and #geobeers sponsored by OpenCage, Esri and on this special occasion also by Avineon Tensing.
The speakers:
Laura Munoz, Putting Marketing on the Map: My journey as a marketer in the geospatial edtech...
Mapidea Location Analytics Blog
• By Mapidea Location Intelligence
•
Should you map influence areas using distance or time?
From retail site selection to public service planning, the way you define
"reach" matters. In this article, we break down the difference between
radial buffers and isochrones—when to use each, and why choosing the right
method can dramatically improve the precision of your location-based
decisions.
Read now to avoid the most common mistake in spatial analysis.
Mapidea Location Analytics Blog
• By Pedro Moura
•
Discover how combining market intelligence from NielsenIQ with geospatial
analytics is helping retailers identify opportunities, outsmart
competition, and move faster.
Mapidea Location Analytics Blog
• By Mapidea Location Intelligence
•
Mapidea partners with NielsenIQ to bring together powerful market data and
geospatial intelligence—helping businesses make smarter, location-based
decisions.
This is a slightly different post to normal, in the sense its not really about papers but my take on agent-based modeling, urban analytics and the growth of Artificial Intelligence impacting both. First up, while I was in Santa Fe last October for the 2024 International Conference of the Computational Social Science Society of the Americas I was interviewed by John Cordier from Epistemix for their Flux Podcast which resulted in this "From Micro-Behaviors to Macro-Patterns: Exploring Agent-Based Models with Andrew Crooks. Rather than me trying to sum it up I will just quote from the podcast episode "In this episode of The Flux, host John Cordier sits down with Andrew Crooks ..... They dive into the world of agent-based modeling (ABM) - what it is, why it matters, and how it helps us simulate and better understand human behavior in complex systems. From simulating traffic jams to modeling social influence on vaccine uptake, Andrew shares how data, geography, and synthetic populations...
Open source geospatial 3D innovation has just reached another important milestone, thanks to a Cesium Ecosystem Grant for a new 3D globe view in QGIS. This is the second grant that the team of North Road and Lutra Consulting received from Cesium, and we’re proud of what we’ve delivered for our QGIS users. The new 3D globe will be available to all in QGIS v.3.44. This was an extremely interesting project to undertake, as it required a heavy research and experimentation process by our developers. There’s many potential approaches for implementing a large-scale, 3D globe, and each have their advantages and trade-offs. We were very lucky to have insight from Cesium’s Kevin Ring to advise us at the start […]
Landsat's Thermal Infrared Sensor (TIRS) measures the Earth's surface temperature by focusing on the infrared part of the light spectrum.
The post Thermal Infrared Sensor (TIRS) on Landsat appeared first on GIS Geography.
Credits: Pixabay (Pixabay Content License) The Importance of Compliance A geographic data layer must comply with many rules and constraints. For example: Geometric Topological Arbitrary rules – no angles smaller...
Read about how the Amazon once flowed east to west and how the strength of Hurricane Isaac once change the course of the Mississippi river.
The post Rivers that Flow Backwards appeared first on Geography Realm.
I’ve got into a bit of a habit of writing occasional posts with links to interesting things I’ve found (probably because it’s a relatively easy blog post to write). This is another of those posts – this time, written in June 2025. So, let’s get on with some links: Why COUNT(*) can be slow in […]
The QGIS International User Conference 2025 happened in Norrköping, Sweden from 2-3 June 2025. I have been to the previous conferences in 2024, 2023 and 2019 and always look forward to the annual event. The conference keeps getting bigger and this year it attracted a diverse audience of 300+ participants from around the globe. This […]
Geospatial Frontiers - Project Geospatial
• By Adam Simmons
•
The way we observe our planet from orbit is undergoing a seismic shift,
moving beyond the limitations of traditional satellite tasking to embrace a
future of intelligent, interconnected Earth observation. This revolution is
powered by the synergy of "virtual constellations" – diverse networks of
coordinated sensors – and sophisticated "tipping and cueing" workflows,
where broad-area monitoring by some assets automatically directs
high-resolution satellites to points of critical interest. Underpinning
this entire evolution is the transformative power of Artificial
Intelligence, which not only automates the detection of subtle changes and
orchestrates complex tasking but also distills vast streams of imagery into
actionable insights, promising a more transparent, responsive, and
understandable world.
Podcast Archive - Project Geospatial
• By Adam Simmons
•
In this interview from the 2025 GEOINT Symposium, Adam Simmons of Project Geospatial speaks with Phill Thomas from Innovate. Phill discusses his career path, starting at Accenture and moving into federal government work. He introduces Innovate as a woman-owned small business headquartered in Alexandria, Virginia, with a history primarily in federal civilian and commercial sectors. Innovate is now excited about bringing their solutions to the Intel community. Phill details Innovate's evolution, including their decision in 2012 to focus intensely on the Salesforce and Esri platforms, becoming "an inch wide and a mile deep". He highlights their extensive experience with over a thousand Esri deployments and over 800 Salesforce deployments, their gold level partnership with Esri, numerous specialty certifications, and the presence of Salesforce certified architects. This deep expertise allows them to build reusable component repositories for efficiency. Phill shares that GEOINT 2025 is...
Podcast Archive - Project Geospatial
• By Adam Simmons
•
Adam Simmons interviews Yuval Lorig, VP R&D at Asterra, at the GEOINT 2025 conference. Yuval shares his background in physical geography and the geospatial industry. They delve into Asterra's work, which utilizes satellite data, particularly SAR, to monitor critical infrastructure like dams, levies, and canals, in addition to their traditional focus on water leaks. Yuval discusses the company's expansion into APIs, a SAS platform called EO 2.0, their global reach across over 70 countries, and their focus on improving technology accuracy and developing in-house AI models.Highlights• Interview with Yuval Lorig, VP R&D at Asterra.• Astera focuses on monitoring critical infrastructure (dams, levies, canals) and the water industry.• They utilize satellite data, specifically SAR, for subsurface penetration to gain insights.• Expanding their offering to include APIs and a SAS platform (EO 2.0).• Customer base is now global, working in more than 70 countries with almost a thousand projects.•...
Podcast Archive - Project Geospatial
• By Adam Simmons
•
Adam Simmons of Project Geospatial speaks with Burt Wagner, a Data Architect at Broadcom, during the GEOINT 2025 Symposium. Burt, with 25 years supporting the US intelligence community and federal law enforcement, discusses Broadcom's lesser-known big data solutions. While Broadcom is widely known for semiconductors and acquiring VMware, Burt highlights their significant data products, including Gemfire and Greenplum databases. He explains how Greenplum, based on PostgreSQL, provides massive scalability (up to tens of petabytes) for analyzing geospatial data, overcoming PostgreSQL's limitations. The conversation also covers Broadcom's Unified Data Management (UDM) solution, which includes capabilities for crossing network security boundaries and operating in environments with denied, delayed, intermittent, and latent communications. UDM facilitates bringing edge data centrally for detailed analysis and building AI/ML models that can then be exported for use on small edge...
Podcast Archive - Project Geospatial
• By Adam Simmons
•
Adam Simmons interviews Craig Brower from Unseenlabs US at the GEOINT 2025 Symposium. Craig discusses Unseenlabs' capability to provide satellite-based RF (Radio Frequency) data for monitoring and tracking, which is integrated into customer workflows for rapid tasking and delivery. He highlights the ongoing need to educate the community about RF data and SIGINT-type sources, noting that many, including traditional imagery analysts, may be unfamiliar with it. Craig describes their data as simple "dots on a map" where status changes indicate behavior, such as a vessel turning off its AIS. He mentions that Unseenlabs is unique in being a profitable company, recently secured a large investment to build 20 new satellites and next-generation birds, and currently has 16 satellites on orbit.Highlights• Interview with Craig Brower from Unseenlabs US.• Provides satellite-based RF (Radio Frequency) data for monitoring and tracking.• Data is integrated into customer workflows for quick tasking...
Podcast Archive - Project Geospatial
• By Adam Simmons
•
Adam Simmons of Project Geospatial interviews Dan DeGennaro (CTO), Bryan Cosme (CEO & Co-founder), and Brian Buttaccio (COO) of Trevity at the GEOINT 2025 Symposium. Bryan shares his background, including experience in the Marine Corps specializing in geospatial, which informs Trevity's focus. Dan, a physicist turned coder, focuses on AI, Augmentation, and integrating capabilities into analyst workflows. All of them discuss Trevity's mission to increase analyst productivity, believing they can nearly double it. They highlight their new software, Inkwell, which addresses the challenge of managing vast amounts of geospatial data. Inkwell allows for targeted data scraping and, crucially, enables analysts to interact with and filter data using natural language. This helps analysts quickly find and understand relevant data within an area of interest.Highlights• Trevity's founders have a background in the Marine Corps specializing in geospatial intelligence.• Trevity aims to significantly...
Podcast Archive - Project Geospatial
• By Adam Simmons
•
Mats Palsson, CEO of T Kartor Group, shares his journey from engineering to finding his passion in geospatial and maps. He introduces T Kartor Group, founded 40 years ago, which specializes in map and information management solutions based on the principle that maps represent information assets with a position. T Kartor provides solutions for major cities, defense organizations, and public safety sectors in Europe and the US. Palsson mentions T Kartor has significant operations in St. Louis and Sweden. He explains that "making maps" for them involves managing information and tailoring its presentation for diverse end-users, such as military personnel and public transport systems. The company has evolved to focus on information management with a cartographic element. Recent developments include providing customers with dashboards to monitor how their information is used. Palsson discusses the significant industry changes driven by the tremendous amount of data from satellites and...
Podcast Archive - Project Geospatial
• By Adam Simmons
•
Adam Simmons of Project Geospatial interviews Geoffrey King, Vice President of Strategy at Greater St. Louis Inc. (GSL), at the GEOINT 2025 Symposium. Geoffrey discusses GSL's role in growing and strengthening the geospatial cluster in St. Louis through the GeoFutures Initiative. He explains GSL's various functions, including business attraction, downtown revitalization, and supporting small and diverse businesses. Geoffrey highlights NGA as a key anchor institution for the region's geospatial growth. He talks about GSL's presence at GEOINT for over five years, showcasing St. Louis's assets to attract talent and investment. He notes that St. Louis is hosting GEOINT for the third time this year and will host again in 2029, emphasizing the significant effort invested in the 2025 event. GSL aims to collaborate with partners and connect different sectors and communities to maximize the economic impact of geospatial growth in the region.Highlights• Geoffrey King of Greater St. Louis Inc....
Podcast Archive - Project Geospatial
• By Adam Simmons
•
Adam Simmons interviews Tim Klawa of Figure Eight Federal at the GEOINT 2025 Symposium. Tim discusses the critical importance of data validity for training effective AI programs, particularly for users like warfighters and operators. He emphasizes that understanding the attributes and relevance of training data to specific mission needs is essential for building confidence in the resulting AI models. Tim mentions that Figure Eight Federal's technology, including their enterprise data labeling platform Artemis and their Hydra AI platform for situational awareness and decision support, helps address this challenge. He notes that they will be demonstrating their capabilities at Amazon's booth.Highlights• Interview with Tim Klawa of Figure Eight Federal.• Emphasizes the importance of data validity for AI programs.• Understanding data set attributes and alignment with mission needs is crucial for AI confidence.• Discusses Figure Eight Federal's technology platforms.• Artemis platform is...
Podcast Archive - Project Geospatial
• By Adam Simmons
•
Adam Simmons of Project Geospatial speaks with Billy Sokol and Brent Perry of Progress Federal during the GEOINT 2025 Symposium. Brent, with a background in full stack engineering and data analytics for defense and IC customers, highlights geospatial as one of the top ways to visualize intelligence. They introduce Progress Federal, a business unit within Progress Software that includes the capabilities of the acquired company MarkLogic. They explain that MarkLogic's history spans diverse industries and government, focusing on a multi-modal database that can aggregate data from multiple systems, regardless of format. This database is designed to operate at immense scale and also to scale down to a laptop for use in hostile environments with denied, delayed, intermittent, or latent communications. They emphasize the importance of being agile due to the rapid rate of change in user expectations and technology in the market.Highlights• Progress Federal is a business unit of Progress...
Podcast Archive - Project Geospatial
• By Adam Simmons
•
Guy De Carufel, CEO of Cognitive Space, shares his background as an aerospace engineer from NASA and Firefly. He introduces Cognitive Space as an AI software company dedicated to making the most effective use of space leveraging assets. De Carufel explains his motivation for starting the company was to apply modern AI to automate space operations, addressing the manual methods previously used. He describes their product focused on mission management for ground systems, which automates the process of generating effective schedules from mission priorities and integrates with C2 systems. Cognitive Space uses AI to orchestrate proliferated satellite systems, diverse sensors, and different organizations (national, commercial, allied). He also mentions their Sentient Earth product for aggregating data and providing predictive capacity analytics. Their primary customers manage constellations, including government and commercial entities. De Carufel highlights Cognitive Space's focus on...
Podcast Archive - Project Geospatial
• By Adam Simmons
•
Adam Simmons of Project Geospatial interviews Nicole Sullivan from Gateway Geospatial Group at the GEOINT 2025 Symposium in St. Louis. Nicole proudly states that Gateway Geospatial Group is St. Louis born and bred. She shares some of the company's capabilities and interests, including their work with low-cost mesh networks for data collection. A key area of focus is performing near real-time AI/ML on the data collected via their mesh network. They are also interested in the challenges related to different data formats. Nicole encourages attendees and viewers to visit their booth or website to learn more and share ideas.Highlights• Nicole Sullivan represents Gateway Geospatial Group at GEOINT 2025.• Gateway Geospatial Group is a company based in St. Louis.• They work with low-cost mesh networks for data collection.• A key capability is performing near real-time AI/ML on collected data.• The company is interested in exploring ideas related to their technology and addressing challenges...
Podcast Archive - Project Geospatial
• By Adam Simmons
•
Adam Simmons speaks with Will Clapperton from GDIT at the GEOINT 2025 Symposium. Will highlights GDIT's focus on supporting tactical missions with advanced technology. He provides an example of their innovative work using VR/AR technology for post-damage assessment scenarios. This allows users to immerse themselves in a virtual landscape containing geospatial data, identify areas needing attention like damaged infrastructure, plan subsequent steps, and share that critical information with other responders. Will stresses that GDIT's involvement goes deep into everyday missions, far beyond traditional IT support, and emphasizes their passion for working close to the tactical edge. He also offers advice to young professionals entering the field, encouraging technologists to prioritize understanding and addressing tactical mission needs.Highlights• Interview with Will Clapperton from GDIT.• GDIT focuses on supporting tactical missions with technology.• Discusses the use of VR/AR...
Podcast Archive - Project Geospatial
• By Adam Simmons
•
Adam Simmons speaks with John True and Andy Dearing from Cultivation Capital at GEOINT 2025, gaining insights from their perspective as investment professionals in the geospatial sector. They offer advice to startups attending GEOINT, emphasizing the importance of developing dual-use technology applicable to both government and commercial markets rather than focusing solely on federal contracts. They highlight that they look for companies that are genuinely solving problems for the customer base, particularly addressing the challenge of data overload and analyst shortages, potentially leveraging AI and machine learning. They discuss monitoring exit strategies in the market, like SPACs, and the increasing value of data for internal processing by larger companies to build solutions. John and Andy are proud of Cultivation Capital's foundation built on the experience of former geospatial operators, which allows them to offer unique insight and support to entrepreneurs.Highlights•...
Podcast Archive - Project Geospatial
• By Adam Simmons
•
Susan Moreira from Axiologic Solutions discusses her company's role as an Intel integrator specializing in system, data, and cyber security engineering for complex intelligence systems. She explains their support for geospatial data across customers like NGA and DIA, including managing the Mars program and improving analytic workflows. Moreira highlights their "mission ready" approach, working directly with analysts and operators to translate requirements. Axiologic Solutions is involved with AI efforts, supporting Project Maven and prototype development, focusing on successfully integrating AI with constrained resources and accelerating Authority to Operate (ATO) processes. Other supported efforts include the common data fabric and DIA's data hub. Cyber security is a key focus, integrated from the project's beginning, offering advisory services and researching future challenges like quantum engineering for security. Moreira shares what Axiologic hopes to achieve at GEOINT, such as...
Geospatial Frontiers - Project Geospatial
• By Adam Simmons
•
Today marks the final, quiet farewell to Landsat 7, a satellite that has
tirelessly served as humanity's eye on Earth for over a quarter-century.
Its incredible 2.5 million images have not only documented our planet's
vital pulse – from receding glaciers to changing forests – but have also
empowered countless discoveries and deepened our understanding of our
world. As it drifts into its final, silent orbit, we honor its unparalleled
service and the dedication of the countless individuals who guided its
mission, ensuring its legacy of environmental insight endures.
As drones become a staple in modern industries—from infrastructure inspection and agriculture to public safety and energy—the demand for skilled drone professionals is growing rapidly. But while the technology continues to soar, a major challenge has emerged: finding qualified drone talent. Why the Demand is Exploding Drones, or unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs), are no longer […]
The post The Rise of Drone Talent – Why Companies are Racing to Recruit UAV Professionals appeared first on GeoSearch.
Chris Holmes giving the opening keynote at CNG Conference
Well, we did it.
The Cloud-Native Geospatial Forum (CNG) community came together on April 30-May 2 for our first in-person conference in Snowbird, Utah–and honestly? It was something special.
For 2.5 packed days, we welcomed around 250 attendees from over 100 organizations, spanning cloud service providers, government and nonprofit agencies, academic institutions, and private sector companies. People flew in from across the globe, with participants joining from countries including Australia, Argentina, Japan, South Korea, Germany, France, and more – all ready to learn and share what it takes to build geospatial workflows for the cloud.
Who showed up?
Our attendees largely consisted of highly technical, skilled data practitioners, including software engineers, data scientists, and geospatial developers. Here’s a breakdown of who was in the room:
45%: Senior technical professionals (software engineers, geospatial developers,...
Last week, Switzerland’s Birchgletscher collapsed and caused a major rock avalanches, altering the landscape and burying the village of Blatten. With the data of the federal Rapid Mapping service and the help of individual experts, a first open post-event elevation model was made available. I used the model to create pre- and post-event visualizations and prints at a local scale.
Mapidea Location Analytics Blog
• By Mapidea Location Intelligence
•
Explore how homophily—our tendency to bond with similar others—shapes
customer behavior and risk. Discover how geospatial analysis of homophily
patterns reveals opportunities in marketing, sales, and fraud detection
across industries.
Mapidea Location Analytics Blog
• By Mapidea Location Intelligence
•
Discover how our partnership with IQGEO and Mapidea's geospatial
intelligence can help telecom operators find growth opportunities, improve
operational efficiency, and drive innovation. Dive into data-driven
business cases for network planning, marketing, and more!
Tell Us About YourselfMy name is Antonia Blankenberg. Alongside being a drummer with the fantastic TBL8 Brass, I’m a Lead Consultant in Utilities with Esri Ireland and I’ve been working in GIS for 6 years now. I’ve always been interested in geography, but I only first came across GIS during my undergraduate degree. I was […]
The post Maps and Mappers of the 2025 Calendar – May – Antonia Blankenberg appeared first on GeoHipster.
The current version of GIS can be seen as a 1.0 model—built in an era when computers were in their infancy, and storage and processing power were both limited and prohibitively expensive.
NLT Blog - New Light Technologies
• By Mario Field
•
Reflecting on Another Event Facilitating Regional Collaboration, Share, and Advancement of Geospatial Innovation in the DMV
The DMV GIS Day 2025: Midpoint Meetup, held on April 30, 2025, served as an engaging follow-up to the successful DMV GIS Day 2024. This virtual event convened a vibrant geospatial community to highlight the significant impact of Geographic Information Systems (GIS) and the innovative advancements shaping progress throughout the District of Columbia, Maryland, and Virginia (DMV) region.
If you're technically inclined, consider using Borg, Vorta, and rsync.net for encrypted remote backups. If that feels a bit too complex, Arq Backup might be a simpler option for you.
Topoprint has introduced three significant updates to its service for creating 3D mini-reliefs, or Topodiscs, of Swiss locations: bridges with arches, an easy-to-use Topodisc designer and an automated printing-as-a-service option.
Wie wir für den Kanton Graubünden komplexe Daten nutzerfreundlich aufbereiteten – und dabei auf das richtige Tool setzten. Im Auftrag des Kantons Graubünden analysierten wir, wie sich der Tourismus auf die regionale Wertschöpfung und Beschäftigung auswirkt – kantonsweit sowie in einzelnen Regionen. Grundlage bildeten drei Befragungen mit über 30’000 Personen, Daten des Bundesamtes für Statistik …
NLT Blog - New Light Technologies
• By Ran Goldblatt
•
New Light Technologies Inc. (NLT) is honored to serve as a Platinum Sponsor of the 10th annual Innovation Summit for Preparedness & Resilience (InSPIRE), taking place May 28–29, 2025, at Louisiana State University in Baton Rouge. Organized by the National Alliance for Public Safety GIS (NAPSG) Foundation, InSPIRE brings together leaders from across the public and private sectors to advance the role of geospatial technology in public safety and disaster resilience.This year’s summit is especially significant as it looks back at the 20 years since Hurricanes Katrina and Rita, recognizing the transformative role these devastating events played in shaping today’s emergency management practices. Many of the professionals attending and organizing InSPIRE 2025 were directly involved in the response to those historic storms.
Immer wieder wird im Geschäftskontext über Datenqualität gesprochen. Leider oft genug ziemlich unscharf. Nachdem ich im ersten Blogpost dieser informellen Serie auf den Begriff der Datenqualität generell eingegangen bin, möchte ich nun etwas hineinzoomen auf die Beschreibung der Datenqualität. Ich tue das anhand eines breit etablierten Standards. Aber erst ein Kürzest-Recap von Teil 1: Wieso …
TLDR; After 10²¹ FLOPs and 500 B patches, IBM’s TerraMind beats a supervised U‑Net by just +2 mIoU on PANGAEA; losing on 5/9 tasks, most other GFMs do worse.
Gentle readers, I have just wrapped up a fun side project that will be of great interest to a very small number of you. The result of one of the most technically demanding efforts of my career, I am very pleased to share it with you. Most of you will wonder what this place is, … Continue reading Planetfall →
The PostGIS Team is pleased to release PostGIS 3.6.0alpha1!
Best Served with PostgreSQL 18 Beta1
and GEOS 3.13.1.
This version requires PostgreSQL 12 - 18beta1, GEOS 3.8 or higher, and Proj 6.1+.
To take advantage of all features, GEOS 3.12+ is needed.
To take advantage of all SFCGAL features, SFCGAL 2.1.0+ is needed.
3.6.0alpha1
source download md5
NEWS
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postgis: en ja fr zh_Hans
postgis_raster: en ja fr zh_Hans
postgis_topology: en ja fr zh_Hans
postgis_sfcgal: en ja fr zh_Hans
address standardizer, postgis_tiger_geocoder: en ja fr zh_Hans
This release is an alpha of a major release, it includes bug fixes since PostGIS 3.5.3 and new features.
Free and Open Source GIS Ramblings
• By underdark
•
The latest releases of MovingPandas and Trajectools come with many “under the hood” changes that aim to make your movement analytics faster: Let’s have a look at some example performance measurements! Example 1: MovingPandas ValueChangeSplitter The ValueChangeSplitter splits trajectories when it detects a value change in the specified column. This is useful, for example, to …Read More
The PostGIS Team is pleased to release PostGIS 3.5.3.
This version requires PostgreSQL 12 - 18beta1, GEOS 3.8 or higher, and Proj 6.1+.
To take advantage of all features, GEOS 3.12+ is needed.
SFCGAL 1.4+ is needed to enable postgis_sfcgal support.
To take advantage of all SFCGAL features, SFCGAL 1.5+ is needed.
3.5.3
source download md5
NEWS
PDF docs: en
HTML Online en ja fr zh_Hans
Cheat Sheets:
postgis: en ja fr zh_Hans
postgis_raster: en ja fr zh_Hans
postgis_topology: en ja fr zh_Hans
postgis_sfcgal: en ja fr zh_Hans
address standardizer, postgis_tiger_geocoder: en ja fr zh_Hans
This release is a bug fix release that includes bug fixes since PostGIS 3.5.1.
Introduction In this post, we’ll explore an experimental project — not something built for practical use, rather for exploring some technology and techniques. The goal is to create an immersive, cube-shaped map visualization using web tools and Python backend services. Specifically, we’ll use: Imagine standing inside a cube where every wall is a piece of […]
The post Building a Virtual Map Cube with FastAPI and Marzipano appeared first on Sparkgeo.
Geospatial | Towards Data Science
• By Remko de Lange
•
A step closer to spatial AI with geospatial processing with Fabric
The post The Geospatial Capabilities of Microsoft Fabric and ESRI GeoAnalytics, Demonstrated appeared first on Towards Data Science.
Today marks my first day at Fotokite, a Zurich-based company that designs and manufactures actively tethered UAVs forpublic safety and emergency response. I’ll be leading the application engineering team and am excited to help build a great company with an innovative product.
Friends, you might remember that, last year, I wrote to you about how I was finally able to see a dream I’d had for many years come true: bringing together a bunch of map creators onto a single website. I had hoped that this would only be the beginning of our cooperation with each other. … Continue reading Map of the Month: An Experiment →
A month ago, a news headline about a landslide near Kelowna caught our attention, not just for its tragic impact, but for the question it raised: Was this slope destabilized by last season’s wildfires? We’ve since had a chance to explore the event more closely. Our satellite-based analysis suggests that wildfire-related landscape changes likely played […]
The post When Fire Sets the Stage for Landslides: Understanding Through Satellite Risk Analysis appeared first on Sparkgeo.
One of our goals at CNG is to create a larger and more diverse community of geospatial data practitioners. While tremendous progress is being made to make geospatial data easier to access and use in the cloud, we know that there are many people in need of training and educational opportunities to benefit from this progress.
To this end, we are starting to experiment with issuing badges to recognize individuals who have completed cloud-native geospatial trainings. We have started by partnering with thriveGEO, a training and technical consulting company based in Germany. In April 2025, thriveGEO gave its first Cloud-Native Geospatial 101 training course and we have issued CNG Badges to course participants.
CNG Badges use the Open Badges Specification which allows us to give people a verifiable digital credential that asserts they have completed a CNG-approved training course. By maintaining a vendor-neutral view of the geospatial technology landscape, we seek to establish CNG Badges as...
In the past we have explored how social media can be used to delineate earthquakes, study human-wildlife interactions, understand urban morphology, urban smells or locating wildfires among many other things. Keeping with the last topic (i.e., locating things), in a new paper published in GeoJournal entitled "Crowdsourcing dust storms in the United States utilizing social media data," Stuart Evans, Festus Adegbola and myself explore how we can use X (formerly Twitter) and Flickr to source observations of windblown dust. As such the paper demonstrates how social media data can act as supplementary source for dust events monitoring and captures the seasonal trends of such events. Furthermore, the paper highlights the potential of using crowdsourced data for the often overlooked field of dust monitoring that has substantial health and economic impacts. If this sounds of interest, below we provide the abstract to the paper along with some figures which showcase our methodology and...
Location intelligence is becoming increasingly central to enterprise analytics, with organizations in sectors such as retail, logistics, and financial services integrating geospatial data into decision-making systems. A 2016 McKinsey report projected that data-driven decision-making could generate trillions in economic value, with location data playing a key role in operational and strategic improvements (Manyika et al., […]
Geospatial | Towards Data Science
• By Iñigo Pallardo-Fernández
•
Identify spatial gaps in the urban pharmacy network suitable for the installation of new pharmacies, while adhering to legal requirements on minimum distance between establishments, using geospatial tools such as OSMnx and NetworkX.
The post Pharmacy Placement in Urban Spain appeared first on Towards Data Science.
Mapidea Location Analytics Blog
• By Mapidea Location Intelligence
•
Geospatial Intelligence is quickly becoming a game-changer in Pharma. As
more companies adopt spatial analytics to optimize sales, marketing, and
territory planning, those who delay risk falling behind. This article
explores how geography adds critical context to business data — and why now
is the time to make it part of your data strategy.
UAV mapping has changed how we do aerial surveying. With drones, we can now map areas quickly, accurately, and in a cost effective way.
The post UAV Mapping for Aerial Surveying appeared first on GIS Geography.
At the "Calgary 11," Tee referenced "spatial thinking" as a key future workforce attribute. In an age of AI, why is simply being able to think so important?
When most people hear “geospatial,” they immediately think of maps. But in many advanced applications, maps never enter the picture at all. Instead, geospatial data becomes a powerful input to machine learning workflows, unlocking insights and automation in ways that don’t require a single visual. At its core, geospatial data is structured around location—coordinates, areas, […]
In today’s AI-driven and geospatially enabled world, data is an organization’s most valuable asset — yet it is often treated as an afterthought until issues arise. Poor data quality, incomplete metadata, and inconsistent governance can quickly derail even the most sophisticated projects. At Cercana, we believe that data stewardship must be intentional, continuous, strategic, and […]
Immer wieder wird im Geschäftskontext über Datenqualität gesprochen. Aktuell wird Datenqualität in Diskussionen häufig mit anderen Themen verwoben: Autorität im Sinn von «authoritativeness», Offizialität, Entstehungskontext, Governance-Modelle, Rechtssicherheit, «foi publique» etc. Das sind wichtige weitere Themen rund um Daten. Und diese können im Einzelnen die Erkenntnistiefe erhöhen, aber es lohnt sich meines Erachtens, zuerst die Begrifflichkeiten …
What is FedGeoDay? FedGeoDay is a single-track conference dedicated to federal use-cases of open geospatial ecosystems. The open ecosystems have a wide variety of uses and forms, but largely include anything designed around open data, open source software, and open standards. The main event is a one day commitment and is followed by a day […]
OK I will admit it took me longer than I had planned to finish this up. Life got in the way. But now I think is a good time to finish up the series and move on to another. In … Continue reading →
It’s all hot air until AI takes your job. In the geospatial community of practice, AI tools are making an increasingly big impact. We can choose to flip the table, or take the win.
We are extremely pleased to announce the six funded proposals for our 2025 QGIS.ORG grant programme. Funding for the programme… Read more QGIS Grant Programme 2025 Results
Mapidea Location Analytics Blog
• By Mapidea Location Intelligence
•
Telcos are sitting on a goldmine of spatial data—but most of it is locked
behind technical tools and inaccessible to the majority of the
organization. Operational GIS is critical but not enough. To win, telcos
must democratize Geospatial Intelligence across departments, empowering
thousands of users to make smarter decisions, faster.
Readers might of noticed that recently we have been exploring the use of street view images to explore cities or how we can utilize geosocial media to understand the form of function of cities, but one thing we have not explored is the role of smell and how it shapes peoples perceptions of urban spaces. However, in a new paper recently published in the Annals of the American Association of Geographers with Qingqing Chen, Ate Poorthuis we do just that. The paper is entitled "Mapping the Invisible: Decoding Perceived Urban Smells Through Geosocial Media in New York City" In the paper we use text mining techniques to tease out smell related information from over 56 million geolocated tweets which are then assigned to specific small categories (e.g., nature, food, waste) resulting in a new smellscape map for New York city. If this sounds of interest, below you can read the abstract to our paper, see our workflow and resulting smellscape map. While the the analysis steps, along with the...
Cercana Systems is excited to share that our entire team will be in attendance at FedGeoDay 2025! This is a great opportunity to meet with us face-to-face and learn more about our capabilities and the work we do. The event is happening April 22, 2025 at the Department of Interior’s Yates Auditorium in Washington, D.C. […]
Exciting times are ahead for the QGIS project! We’re thrilled to share some major updates coming to the QGIS platform over the next few months. These changes are part of a long-planned technical migration that will bring new possibilities and ensure QGIS stays modern, fast, and future-ready.
In today’s fast-paced professional world, it’s easy for young professionals to assume that hard work alone will get them ahead. While grinding at the desk and delivering results matters, relying solely on your work to speak for itself may leave you overlooked in a competitive field. Getting out of the office and into local conferences, […]
Though it’s been about a week since we sent it out there, I just recalled that I haven’t alerted all of you to the 2025 edition of the freelance cartographer survey that Aly Ollivierre and I conduct. Due to popular demand, we are going to try conducting it annually, rather than biennially. This survey is … Continue reading 2025 AFC Freelancer Survey →
Friends, I’m excited to share that I have just completed a world physical map, in my new asymmetric monstrosity projection. It’s free to download, or if you want to buy a 30″ × 20″ print, you can also do that (and I will be pleasantly surprised). If you download it and print it yourself, I … Continue reading A Usefully Useless Projection →
BIM, or Building Information Modeling, is a smart way to design buildings. It creates virtual 3D models about the its materials and systems.
The post BIM – Building Information Modeling appeared first on GIS Geography.
In the last couple of months a total of 57 new plugins were published in the QGIS plugin repository. Highlights… Read more Plugin Update – February to March, 2025
NLT Blog - New Light Technologies
• By NLT Staff
•
We’re excited to announce that New Light Technologies (NLT) is once again a proud sponsor of FedGeoDay, happening April 22, 2025, in Washington, D.C. at the American Red Cross Building – DOI Yates Auditorium.
CapMetro's recent feature in an Esri case study highlights their development of a cloud-based geospatial infrastructure. Key efforts include automating data pipelines and migrating to Azure, aimed at enhancing operational efficiency and providing real-time spatial data for better decision-making in transit services.
NLT Blog - New Light Technologies
• By NLT Staff
•
We are excited to announce the DMV GIS Day 2025: Midpoint Meetup, a follow up to the inaugural DMV GIS Day 2024. This is where the dynamic geospatial community of the Washington, D.C., Maryland, and Virginia (DMV) region comes together to showcase the history, latest innovations, applications, and trends in Geographic Information Systems (GIS). This half-day event highlights the diverse ecosystem of GIS professionals, organizations, and enthusiasts working to solve real-world challenges using cutting-edge geospatial technologies in our community.
TGE hosted a workshop to begin the second phase of our collaboration on AI for Earth Observation and Field Boundaries. Learn how to get involved.
The post AI for Satellite Imagery: Fields of the World Phase 2 Begins appeared first on Taylor Geospatial Engine.
NLT Blog - New Light Technologies
• By NLT Staff
•
NLT at the 2025 North Carolina GIS Conference
From March 18-21, 2025, Winston-Salem, North Carolina held its annual NC GIS conference, a dynamic gathering of state, local government, academic, and industry professionals dedicated to leveraging GIS for real-world solutions. New Light Technologies (NLT) proudly participated as a platinum exhibitor and Herb Stout award sponsor, making their first appearance and engaging deeply with the incredible North Carolina GIS community, demonstrating their latest geospatial innovations and strengthening collaborative partnerships for mission success.
NLT Blog - New Light Technologies
• By NLT Staff
•
Unveiling the Drive Behind New Light Technologies' Bold Move
New Light Technologies (NLT) has long been a beacon of innovation in the realms of technology, geospatial science, and data solutions. However, the company is now poised to illuminate a new path by venturing into the lighting industry. This strategic pivot seems both unexpected and ingenious, rooted in the convergence of brand perception and market demand. Over the years, NLT has been inundated with inquiries about lighting solutions, from LED retrofits to smart lighting systems, and even decorative fixtures. This surge in interest highlighted an intriguing opportunity: the potential to expand their brand into an industry closely aligned with their name and ethos.
As the AAG has just wrapped up I thought I would write brief (well actually quite long) post on the talks that I was involved with at the conference. These talks would not have been possible without the many great students and colleagues who I have been collaborating with over time. Below you will find a brief summary of the talks and if any sound interesting, please reach out and we can give you more details. First up (in order in which they were presented) was "Utilizing Streetview Images for Mapping Building Attributes with ChatGPT" with Qingqing Chen and Linda See. In this talk we discussed how multimodal Large Language Models are giving us a new way to study cities, in the sense, lowering the boundary for information extraction. Using ChatGPT and street view images from Mapillary as an example, we showed how one can extract building age, usage (e.g., commercial, mixed use, residential) and estimate building height which could all be used to inform urban climate models which...
Free and Open Source GIS Ramblings
• By underdark
•
At the end of yesterday’s TimeGPT for mobility post, we concluded that TimeGPT’s trainingset probably included a copy of the popular BikeNYC timeseries dataset and that, therefore, we were not looking at a fair comparison. Naturally, it’s hard to find mobility timeseries datasets online that haven’t been widely disseminated and therefore may have slipped past …Read More
In this post, you will learn how to work with the Open Buildings 2.5D Temporal data and download it for many useful downstream applications, such as Visibility Analysis, Population Modeling, and 3D Visualization. Google has two important large-scale AI-derived open building datasets: We will cover a Google Earth Engine workflow to process this data to […]
Free and Open Source GIS Ramblings
• By underdark
•
tldr; Maybe. Preliminary results certainly are impressive. Introduction Crowd and flow predictions have been very popular topics in mobility data science. Traditional forecasting methods rely on classic machine learning models like ARIMA, later followed by deep learning approaches such as ST-ResNet. More recently, foundation models for timeseries forecasting, such as TimeGPT, Chronos, and LagLlama have …Read More
I recently gave a careers talk to students at Solent University, and through that I got to know a MSc student there who had previous GIS experience and was now doing a Data Analytics and AI MSc course. Her GIS experience was mostly in the ESRI stack (ArcGIS and related tools) and she was keen […]
Mapidea Location Analytics Blog
• By Mapidea Location Intelligence
•
Data drives decisions, but where that data comes from—or converges—can be
the key differentiator. By weaving geospatial analytics into your everyday
workflows, you unlock the ability to detect trends, spot opportunities, and
handle obstacles more proactively.
Last year we put out a call for abstracts for presentations for our sessions Geosimulations for Addressing Societal Challenges. The session description is as follows: There is an urgent need for research that promotes sustainability in an era of societal challenges ranging from climate change, population growth, aging and wellbeing to that of pandemics. These need to be directly fed into policy. We, as a Geosimulation community, have the skills and knowledge to use the latest theory, models and evidence to make a positive and disruptive impact. These include agent-based modeling, microsimulation and increasingly, machine learning methods. However, there are several key questions that we need to address which we seek to cover in this session. For example, What do we need to be able to contribute to policy in a more direct and timely manner? What new or existing research approaches are needed? How can we make sure they are robust enough to be used in decision making? How can...
Satellite Earth observation is at a crossroads, balancing national defense priorities, environmental monitoring, and commercial innovation. As competition intensifies and AI-driven analytics reshape the industry, the sector faces key challenges: pricing models, regulatory shifts, and the push for actionable intelligence over raw imagery. With market consolidation on the horizon, the future of Earth observation lies in the ability to extract value from data while navigating geopolitical and technological disruptions. 🚀
GNSS vs GPS: GNSS is an umbrella for multiple navigational satellites. Under this umbrella, GPS, along with other systems, finds its place.
The post GNSS vs GPS: What’s the Difference? appeared first on GIS Geography.
I did a post a while back which was just a lot of links to things I found interesting, mostly in the geospatial/data/programming sphere. Since then I’ve collected a lot more links – so here are some of them. The theme, such as there is, seems to be ‘this would have really helped me about […]
As always, this post is very delayed – apologies. In fact, I was encouraged to write this by a friend who I see at PyData Southampton (Hi, if you’re reading this!). I mentioned my talk in passing to her, and she asked if I’d blogged about it yet. I admitted that I hadn’t, and promised […]
Geospatial technology is the modern expression of geography, encompassing geographic information systems, remote sensing, and surveying technology. “Geospatial technology” is a convenient catch-all term for anything with a location component. The problem is that geography is quite literally everywhere, and modern geospatial technology is, in fact, changing everything.
Whether you are a parent who happens to be a geospatial veteran or want to help educate the next generation, check out these ideas to help the next generation develop integral geospatial skills and understanding.
Maps, Tattoos, & Geospatial Views
• By Brian Monheiser
•
A few weeks ago, I posed a simple yet thought-provoking question to the geospatial community on LinkedIn, one that many found difficult to answer, including myself:
In the past I have blogged about disasters, but mainly from a social media or agent-based modeling perspective. However, after the devastating wildfires that impacted parts of Los Angeles County earlier this year led me to wonder how resilient are cities to such events? Or more generally, what role could urban analytics play on the various stages of disaster management (i.e., preparation, response, recovery, and mitigation), or how can data, models, and methods at the disposal of researchers be leveraged to better prepare us for future disasters and be linked to policy?If these questions sound of interest, I encourage you to go and read a short editorial that I recently published in Environment and Planning B entitled "Cities and Disasters: What can Urban Analytics Do?"Full referece: Crooks, A.T. (2024), Cities and Disasters: What can Urban Analytics Do?, Environment and Planning B, 52(3): 523-526. (pdf)
Free and Open Source GIS Ramblings
• By underdark
•
In today’s post, we (that is, Gaspard Merten from Universite Libre de Bruxelles and yours truly) are going to dive deep into how to analyze public transport data, using both schedule and real time information. This collaboration has been made possible by the EMERALDS project. Previously, I already shared news about GTFS algorithms for Trajectools that …Read More
OK, it has been a while since the last time I published this data, but I have a valid excuse.
The most striking feature of the 2024 chart is the zero’ing out of IBM’s piece of the pie. Big Blue, which once billed the government $107M in a year, has been reduced to a billing rate of less than $5M per year over the last two years.
Everything else feels more or less the same. After seven years of NDP government, the overall trajectory of outsourcing growth has beeen flattened, but in no way reversed. It is a smaller proportion of overall spend, but the substantial change wrought by the Campbell Liberal government starting around 2005 has been durable – BC IT has a huge outsourced component still.
The initial surge in smaller local companies after 2017 stalled out by 2021 and had been flat since.
The most consistent grower is now CGI, which entered the Victoria market around 2005 and has grown to $60M/year in billings with consistent year-over-year increases.
Spatial Data Science - Medium
• By Juan C. Montes-Herrera, Ph.D.
•
Ten years of using uncrewed aerial vehicles (UAVs or ‘drones’) for different mapping projects — scientific, educational, and commercial —…Continue reading on Spatial Data Science »
Back to entry 1
I recently “celebrated” my “cancerversary”, the one-year mark since my GI doctor phoned me up and said the fateful words – “you have cancer”.
At that moment, my universe shrank down immensely. All the external stuff, job, professional relationships, volunteerism, just kind of fell away, I had no mental space for it. It was just me and my immediate family and the many, many unknowns.
My experience since then has included two major physical insults. The “curative” surgery that removed most of my rectum, and the associated c.difficle infection that brutally wrecked my GI tract.
The insults really knocked me back. Moving around the house involved effort. Meals would lead to stomach pain and long sessions on the toilet. Runs were replaced with walks and then shorter walks. A trip to the cafe became my gold standard for “getting out”.
Now, I am immensely “better” than I was this summer. But I am still a very long way from the physical condition I was before (which was...
The GRASS GIS 8.4.1 release provides more than 80 improvements and fixes with respect to the release 8.4.0. Enjoy!
The post GRASS GIS 8.4.1 released appeared first on Markus Neteler Consulting.
We are pleased to announce that the minutes from the QGIS.ORG Annual General Meeting (AGM) 2024 are now available for… Read more QGIS.ORG Annual General Meeting 2024 – Minutes Now Available
While traditional images are taken from directly above, oblique imagery captures them at an angle. Learn more about oblique images.
The post What Is Oblique Imagery? appeared first on GIS Geography.
We are delighted to announce a special track on “Integrating Large-Language Models and Geospatial Foundation Models to Enhance Spatial Reasoning in ABMs” as part of the Social Simulation Conference 2025, 25th to 29th August 2025 at Delft University of Technology, the Netherlands. Full conference details can be found at the end of this email.Abstract for the Special Track: Recent developments in the use of large language models (LLMs) offer exciting opportunities to control agent behaviour in potentially more realistic and nuanced ways than has previously been possible. However, an LLM-backed agent can only interface with their surroundings through text prompts, which is severely limiting. The integration of large language models (LLMs) and geospatial foundation models (GFMs) presents an exciting opportunity to use AI techniques to advance agent-based modelling for spatial applications, potentially allowing for agents with more comprehensive behavioural realism, as well as an improved...
FOSS4G:BG: Open GIS conference is coming early in March as a local FOSS4G event in Bulgaria organized by the QGIS.bg community. The event will span in two days, having a day with workshops with deep dive in different topics and a second day with conference presentations.
Introduction Geospatial data volumes and complexity are growing due to diverse sources, such as GPS, satellite imagery, and sensor data. Traditional geospatial processing methods face challenges, including scalability, handling various formats, and ensuring data consistency. The medallion architecture offers a layered approach to data management, improving data processing, reliability, and scalability. While the medallion architecture […]
Maps, Tattoos, & Geospatial Views
• By Brian Monheiser
•
Around this time last year, we made a pivotal decision, GEO261 needed a true headquarters, a space that reflected not just where we worked, but who we were evolving.
The post explores an SQL query using DuckDB and OvertureMaps data to
extract, filter, and visualize pizza places in Switzerland. All these steps
can be done in one line, and the generated map of Swiss pizza places can be
viewed immediately using PMTiles.
A funny thing happened when I wrote up my 2025 book list – a lot of the books were parts of pairings. And I started wondering what other pairings I had read that were memorable.
So here’s another list!
Wicked, Gregory Maguire and The Wonderful Wizard of Oz, L. Frank Baum
You wouldn’t know it to look at me (or would you?) but I am a person who has read all 14 books of the original L. Frank Baum Oz series. From “The Wonderful Wizard of Oz” to “Glinda of Oz” and all in between.
As… that kind of person, I was truly tickled to pick up “Wicked” a couple years ago and take in not only the invented back-story of the Wicked Witch of the West (Elphaba), but also all the references to the Oz world that Maguire builds into his narrative. “Wicked” is the best kind of reimagining, one that manages a completely fresh story, but without tearing down the original source material on the way. Maguire clearly is also… that kind of person, and he treats Oz with respect while building a totally fresh...
Introduction When combining open-source GIS tools with the ArcGIS ecosystem, there are a handful of challenges one can encounter. The compatibility of data formats, issues with interoperability, tool chain fragmentation, and performance at scale come to mind quickly. However, the use of the open-source Python library GeoPandas can be an effective way of working around […]
Safe Software highlighted CapMetro's Geospatial Program in a success story, showcasing the integration of FME and ArcGIS to enhance transit operations, planning, and performance management. Their comprehensive GIS platform automates workflows and utilizes real-time data, ensuring decision-makers have access to vital information.
The Swiss Rooftop Explorer is a cloud-native web app that retrieves
Swiss building roof heights without a GIS server. Using PMTiles,
Geoparquet, and DuckDB-WASM, it enables fast, low-maintenance geospatial
queries. This post explores the data pipeline and its benefits of cloud-optimized
formats, and how static files can replace traditional GIS infrastructure.
GIS supports various ways to explore spatial relationships. Among these, fishnets stand out for their utility in spatial analysis.
The post Fishnets in GIS: An Overview appeared first on GIS Geography.
Literacy skills, are essential for enabling students to develop their geographical understanding and being able to communicate this, both in writing and verbally. In order for students to be able to develop their literacy skills and become confident with reading, writing, speaking and listening, to enable communication and geographical understanding, vocabulary plays a key role.Continue reading "The Importance of Vocabulary Learning in the Geography Classroom"
Use Tailscale to build your own gated community (a.k.a. VPN) within the public
internet: bypass geo-blocking, remotely control your smart home, and quickly
provide services as a developer.
Time should be a first-class citizen in geospatial. In many ways, measuring change might always have been geospatial's killer app. But are we giving time enough structured attention?
Learn about our plan for Phase 2 of the AI for Earth Observation and Field Boundaries Initiative and how to get involved.
The post Join TGE in Phase 2 of AI for Earth Observation and Field Boundaries appeared first on Taylor Geospatial Engine.
Seven months ago, we issued A Call to Action for the Data Community to break down geospatial data silos and make GIS a core part of analytics. Today, we’re thrilled to announce two major developments that bring this vision closer to reality:
The Parquet specification has officially adopted geospatial guidance, enabling native storage of GEOMETRY and GEOGRAPHY types
Iceberg 3 now includes GEOMETRY and GEOGRAPHY as part of its official specification
Now both Parquet and Iceberg support columns of type GEOMETRY or GEOGRAPHY just like INT32, INT64, FLOAT32, etc. columns! Yay! This is a landmark achievement for geospatial data! 🎉
A Community Achievement
First, a heartfelt thank you to everyone who contributed to this effort—engineers, early adopters, and advocates who pushed for geospatial data to be treated as a first-class citizen. This milestone wasn’t achieved overnight; it took years of collaboration across organizations and ecosystems. From the early days of GeoParquet 1.0...
The GRASS GIS 8.4.1RC1 release provides more than 70 improvements and fixes with respect to the release 8.4.0. Please support us in testing this release candidate.
The post GRASS GIS 8.4.1RC1 released appeared first on Markus Neteler Consulting.
Installing the most widely used open-source GIS software on the most popular Linux distribution should be straightforward, yet it often raises questions and even problems. This guide walks you through the process so you can refer back to it whenever needed.
The post Innovation Bridge 2024 Wrapped: A collaboration to build a global dataset using AI and satellite imagery appeared first on Taylor Geospatial Engine.
For PostGIS Day this year I researched a little into one of my favourite topics, the history of relational databases. I feel like in general we do not pay a lot of attention to history in software development. To quote Yoda, “All his life has he looked away… to the future, to the horizon. Never his mind on where he was. Hmm? What he was doing.”
Anyways, this year I took on the topic of the early history of spatial databases in particular. There was a lot going on in the ’90s in the field, and in many ways PostGIS was a late entrant, even though it gobbled up a lot of the user base eventually.
This blog post was first published on Chris’ personal blog on February 9, 2025 and is being cross posted here.
Have you benefitted from Cloud-Optimized GeoTIFF’s? SpatioTemporal Asset Catalogs? Zarr, COPC or GeoParquet? Not just the formats, but the whole ecosystem of tools and data around it? Well I’d like to present you with an incredibly easy opportunity to ‘pay it forward’ and help build and expand the movement. And all you have to do is attend a conference! One that should be a totally awesome experience, the first in-person CNG Conference, from April 30th to May 2nd.
I have big dreams for this conference, as my hope is that it can expand in the next few years to become a truly vendor-neutral gathering for anyone working in and around geospatial data. To be one of those conferences that has the critical mass where you know ‘everyone’ you want to talk to will be there. In North America there’s really only two options for this: Esri UC and GeoINT. Both are incredible events, but...
Paul shows you how to access raster data stored in the cloud or object storage for PostGIS using cloud optimized GeoTIFF (aka COG) files. He also includes some functions for working with raster elevation.
In previous posts we have noted how one can explore urban issues through newspapers, while at the same time we have used social media to explore trends in vaccinations. In a recently published paper in PLOS Digital Health entitled "From print to perspective: A mixed-method analysis of the convergence and divergence of COVID-19 topics in newspapers and interviews" with Qingqing Chen, Adam Sullivan, Jennifer Surtees, Laurene Tumiel-Berhalter and myself, we thought we would explore how COVID-19 was reported in newspapers and how this varied from interviews. The rationale behind this was that the COVID-19 pandemic has led to diverse experiences influenced by public health measures like lockdowns and social distancing. To explore these dynamics, we introduce a novel ’big-thick’ data approach that integrates extensive U.S. newspaper data with detailed interviews. By employing natural language processing (NLP) and geoparsing techniques, we identify key topics related to the pandemic and...
Introduction The geospatial industry has seen significant transformation with the rise of open-source solutions. Tools like QGIS, PostGIS, OpenLayers, and GDAL have provided alternatives to proprietary GIS software, providing cost-effective, customizable, and community-driven mapping and spatial analysis capabilities. While open-source GIS thrives on collaboration and accessibility, it still operates within a competitive landscape influenced by […]
Cloud-Native Geospatial represents a significant shift in how geospatial data is processed, stored, and analyzed. This approach offers GIS Professionals greater scalability, allowing them to handle massive datasets without relying on traditional and often limited on-premise infrastructure. Additionally, the cloud-native approach enhances collaboration by enabling multiple users to access and work on shared datasets in real-time, regardless of their physical location, helping to eliminate data silos. This level of accessibility and flexibility empowers GIS professionals to deliver faster results, streamline workflows, and adapt to the growing demands of modern geospatial applications.
What is Cloud-Native Geospatial?
Cloud-native geospatial refers to the practice of leveraging cloud-based technologies and architectures to handle geospatial data in the cloud, ideally without migrating it between heavy/purpose-built storage and file formats. This approach focuses on scalability,...
XTools Pro is a special add-on for ArcMap and ArcGIS Pro. It’s mostly a tool for GIS analysis. But it has a fair share of productivity tools.
The post 7 Best Features of XTools Pro appeared first on GIS Geography.
Following up on my last post, I wanted to share some more details about the experience of using AI tools to code a plugin for QGIS, one that has seen some reasonable success, with over 2000 downloads in the past couple of months. My hope is to inspire others to make their own QGIS plugins and other geospatial tools, as I think more people doing AI-assisted coding has the potential to accelerate the momentum of the open source ecosystem.
Cursor & QGIS — awesome together :)
Can you really code a QGIS plug-in just using AI tools?
Before we dig in I want to give everyone who is not a coder some encouragement to jump in and try things out. The quick answer is yes! You can code a QGIS plug-in even if you’re not a software developer. I’m sure you’ve seen the videos of people building cool things with AI tools, but it can still be hard to actually dive into it. For me the most important thing is to have a real problem you’re trying to solve. I could never follow those tutorials about...
The post discusses AI hallucination - when AI generates incorrect
information. It explores two main problems: user frustration with incorrect
outputs and uncertainty about managing these errors long-term. Using a
geodetic network analogy, it explains how AI errors can propagate like
measurement errors in surveying, suggesting we need better frameworks for
detecting and managing hallucinations.
I have been watching the codification of spatial data types into GeoParquet and now GeoIceberg with some interest, since the work is near and dear to my heart.
Writing a disk serialization for PostGIS is basically an act of format standardization – albeit a standard with only one consumer – and many of the same issues that the Parquet and Iceberg implementations are thinking about are ones I dealt with too.
Here is an easy one: if you are going to use well-known binary for your serialiation (as GeoPackage, and GeoParquet do) you have to wrestle with the fact that the ISO/OGC standard for WKB does not describe a standard way to represent empty geometries.
Empty geometries come up frequently in the OGC/ISO standards, and they are simple to generate in real operations – just subtract a big thing from a small thing.
SELECT ST_AsText(ST_Difference(
'POLYGON((0 0, 1 0, 1 1, 0 1, 0 0))',
'POLYGON((-1 -1, 3 -1, 3 3, -1 3, -1 -1))'
))
If you have a data set and are running...
Last month I released my first QGIS plug-in, and promised I’d write an in-depth post about it. I’ll give an overview and dig into some of the motivations, and then I’ll put the details of my experience of coding with AI in its own follow up post.
Background
I’ve been a long time QGIS user, though am very far from an expert — I mostly open different files and visualize them. I’ve never been able to afford an Esri license, so it’s QGIS all the way for me. And I’ve always loved the plugin ecosystem: the fact that many people worldwide are adding all kinds of functionality so that anyone can customize it to their needs is just awesome, and a testament to the power of open source. There’s still things Esri can do better, but we’re now at the point where there’s a lot of things QGIS can do better.
I also recently have ‘become a coder’ again, thanks to the power of AI tools. I’ll dive into more of the experience in my next post, but it meant that I could tackle something like a new QGIS...
The integration of Artificial Intelligence (AI) into geospatial technology is fundamentally reshaping industries, from urban development and environmental conservation to logistics and disaster relief. With businesses increasingly adopting AI-powered geospatial solutions, the need for professionals who can harness these tools is higher than ever. To stay ahead, hiring teams must grasp the evolving landscape and […]
The post AI and Geospatial Technology: Transforming Hiring and Workforce Solutions appeared first on GeoSearch.
What is Strategic Planning and Why Does it Matter? Strategic planning is one of the most important things you can do for your organization. It helps you not only paint the picture of where you want your organization to be in the future, but also draws the roadmap for how you’re going to get there. […]
In previous posts, we have written how large language models (LLMs) like ChatGPT can be used in various urban analytical applications. We have kept exploring this potential especially with respect to citizen science applications. To this end we have just published a new paper in iScience, entitled "New Directions in Mapping the Earth’s Surface with Citizen Science and Generative AI". In the paper, lead by Linda See, we discuss how multi-modal LLMs (MLLMs) which are like LMMs but can take different forms of inputs (e.g., text, images, video) and output multi-modal information (e.g., take an image and output a description) could be leveraged to enhance citizen science land cover/land use mapping campaigns. If this sounds of interest, below you can read the abstract to the paper, see some of the figures we use to build our argument, while at the bottom of the post you can see the full reference and a link to the actual paper.Abstract: As more satellite imagery has become openly...
I know it’s short notice, but I wanted to let you all know that I’m doing a livestream tomorrow. It’s been well over 2½ years since my last one. I’ll be covering a few monochrome maps I made for an upcoming book. Please come on by to ask questions, offer feedback, and share your thoughts … Continue reading Going Live →
A goal for me this year is to ‘ship more’, so in the spirit of releasing early and often I wanted to share a little new project I got going this past weekend. See https://github.com/cholmes/geoparquet-tools.
It’s a collection of utilities for things I often want to do but that aren’t trivial out of the box with DuckDB. It started focused on just checking GeoParquet files for ‘best practices’, which I’ve been working on writing up in this pull request, as I realized that lots of people are publishing awesome data as GeoParquet but don’t always pick the best options (and the tools don’t always set the best defaults). So it can check compression, if there’s a bbox column, and row group size. It also attempts to check if a file is spatially ordered, but I’m not sure if it works across different types of approaches. It does seem to work with Hilbert curves generated from DuckDB.
I do need to refine the row group reporting a bit — I think the row group size in bytes is more important...
DuckDB continues to be my go to tool for geospatial processing, after I discovered it over a year ago. Since that time its functionality has continued to expand, and as of version 1.1 it reads and writes GeoParquet natively, as long as you have the spatial extension installed.
LOAD spatial; CREATE TABLE fields AS (SELECT * from 'https://data.source.coop/kerner-lab/fields-of-the-world-cambodia/boundaries_cambodia_2021.parquet'); COPY fields TO 'cambodia-fields.parquet';
Be sure to always run LOAD spatial; or the table won’t get a geometry column, it will just create blobs. If you see errors or your output data is just Parquet and not GeoParquet that’s likely the source of your problems. I often forget to add it at the beginning of my sessions — perhaps there is some nice way to configure DuckDB to always load it, but I don’t know it (yet).
I also do recommend that you always use zstd compression, as it generally results in at least 20% smaller files, and its speed is comparable to...
Die GRASS GIS-Community würdigt die langjährigen Beiträge von Roger Bivand zur Entwicklung des rgrass-Pakets.
The post Großer Dank an Roger Bivand! appeared first on Markus Neteler Consulting.