Featured software

If you use R then you’ll be interested in mapdeck, a library for visualising spatial data in R using Mapbox GL JS and Deck.gl. There are a large number of visualisation options and layer outputs to choose from. SymbolixAU/mapdeckR interface to

RivWidthCloud is a useful tool for Google Earth Engine to calculate river widths. It can calculate the widths over time from a series of Landsat images and can be run as either JavaScript or Python. Introducing RivWidthCloud, a Google Earth Engine tool for calculating

If you’re anything like me then you probably spend a lot of time on Stack Overflow while hunting down answers to your burning programming questions. Mapbox have taken this on board and are now using Stack Overflow as an official support channel. Introducing

I’ve featured a selection of story maps in previous issues — they’re a great way to use maps and spatial visualisation alongside text to help communicate a story. Think of them as fancy blog posts. What I haven’t featured yet is that

Routing in Web maps can be both complicated and time-consuming, or expensive if you need to set up your own server or make a lot of API requests. One alternative option is to use GeoJSON Path Finder, which performs simple routing calculations within the

Mapbox have pushed a new update for Mapbox GL JS that introduces a variety of minor improvements. The performance updates are very welcome, as well as the usability improvements in terms of new API methods and fixes for mobile devices. mapbox/mapbox-gl-jsInteractive, thoroughly customizable

This handy interactive tool makes it easy to generate and customise multi-hued, multi-stopped colour scales. It uses Chroma.js and provide a variety of export options for the resulting colour scale. chroma.js palette helper

If you want a detailed review of all the new things in ArcGIS API for JavaScript then look no further. From huge performance improvements, to time sliders, to a wealth of new 3D functionality — this is a huge update. I’m excited to check

There are countless Web mapping frameworks out there to choose from — too many. Fortunately James Milner has our back and has put together some examples of how to create basic maps using the most popular mapping frameworks. Thanks James! JamesLMilner/web-mapping-librariesA comparison of adding

Did you know that PROJ is nearly 40 years old? It’s crazy to think that it’s older than I am. Anyway, I digress. This is a great overview of PROJ and how it has changed over time, particularly with the latest PROJ.

Horace Williams has put together a command-line toolbox for general spatial data processing and visualisation. I particularly like the ability to quickly view the results on a geojson.io map. worace/geoqGeospatial Utility Belt. Contribute to worace/geoq development by creating an account on

Martin Isenburg has put together a set of benchmarks showing compression ratios for elevation data stored as GeoTIFF. While there are some clear winners, the impressive results of DEMzip for compression are worthy of further investigation. First independent #DEMzip tests using #GDAL are in:

Uber have integrated their kepler.gl 3D spatial visualisation library into Jupyter Notebook. It’s now possible to plot complex maps directly inside a notebook by using Python as you would normally. I’m excited to see what sorts of things people create using

Vladimir Agafonkin (creator of Leaflet) has released v4 of Delaunator. It’s a super-fast library for Delaunay triangulation and the latest update improves performance by up to 10%. His other libraries are worth checking out as he’s obsessed with making them as fast

Earth Lab at the University of Colorado have released earthpy, a Python package to support working with spatial data. It can be used for both raster and vector data and can do things like creating hillshades and other types of analysis. earthlab/earthpyA package

It’s now possible to create isochrone visualisations in QGIS using a new plugin by TravelTime. The plugin supports multiple modes of transport and is free to use for the first 5,000 requests per month. Blog | TravelTime platform releases isochrone QGIS pluginCreate a

Did you know that you can use FME for free for non-commercial and non-production purposes? I didn’t! This was exciting news for me as I’ve been wanting to check out FME for some time now. Free Home Use License of FME Desktop

If you want to bring custom 3D models into Cesium then you might be interested in a new plugin for exporting models into the 3D Tiles format. Publish 3D Tiles from SketchUp with the new Cesium ion Extension | cesium.comWe are happy to announce

I may not use ArcGIS Pro, but I do use QGIS. The latest 3.8 update is out now and brings a range of new features and changes. I’m quite interested in the hash-line symbols and the expression filter updates, as well as

I’ll be honest, I don’t use ArcGIS Pro (yet — I’m considering a personal licence to check it out) but I’ve always been impressed by what people are creating using it. The 2.4 update brings loads of changes, too many

OpenLayers is used and loved by a huge number of people in the spatial community. Recently a series of work for OpenLayers 6 took place to add WebGL support by using a Mapbox GL JS layer, the funding of which was initiated by Swisstopo.

The recent release of Cesium 1.57 has added a whole bunch of improvements, one of the most exciting being a dramatic improvement in performance of 3D Tiles. The linked article covers how they achieved this from a technical perspective. Nice! Up to 10x

Did you know that you can export a map from QGIS to Open Layers or Leaflet? How? By using qgis2web! This great plugin, and its sibling web2qgis, are created and maintained by Tom Chadwin. He’s currently looking for code contributions on qgis2web to

A brand new WebGL-powered 3D mapping framework has been released by HERE. It’s based on Three.js and Mapbox Vector Tiles. It’s also open source and released under the Apache License. It’s nice to see another mapping framework using Three.js,

SharedStreets have updated their tool for generating simulated raw GPS telemetry. The new features support simulating vehicle shift changes and random vehicle hardware failure mid trip. I’ve been itching to try this tool out, if only for the pretty visualisations. SharedStreets trip-simulator v2.