Can't be the only person that's ever thought of this but why do all the networks represent the presidential voting results with a winner take all by county color. Wouldn't a better way to represent the distribution of votes be based upon a per captia gradient? Like the middle of the country is not entirely red, it's a gradient between red and blue and the population of the county would be more strongly in the gradient.

I have almost zero understanding of GIS. Just a layman's thoughts watching the coverage.>!​!<

Yeah so basically I'm automating my workflows and I would like to be able to have a viewer pop up once I run my scripts. At the moment, I'm just taking the output and putting it into QGIS to check quality/validate outcomes but I would love to see it in an extension so I save myself some clicks. There seem to be a few around but they are not very active.

Ideally I'm able to load the layers and potentially show hide. Python btw, don't think I need to say that.

Here’s to all the folks working hard to tie precinct reporting to the map for live television. I’m sure they’re using way more sophisticated ways to do it than I have but dang it was hard. My favorite is when clerks report on a precinct using a totally different name than what they had done in the recent past. Or worse when they combine precincts (even though they aren’t supposed to) to make it easier on them. I’m already drunk.

Hi all. We used to use ArcScan (ArcMap), but our company license has lapsed. Is there a plugin for QGIS that could vectorize a contour line shapefile? Or is there another alternative? Thanks!

While I realize you can jump from 10.6 to 11, just curious if any of you have made the leap and if you would have done things differently? Would doing it any other way be a waste of time? If baby stepping through versions will ensure success, I'm fine spending more time upgrading. Thanks for your feedback.

View Poll

Hi guys! I was to planning to write a PhD proposal. I am a GIS engineer with specialty in web gis. The professor that I will cooperate is specialized in remote sensing and deep learning. Do you have any ideas about a good PhD thesis content? But feel free to also propose interesting subjects for any GIS discipline. I could possibly adjust them. Thank you!

Lie on the screener questions. I don’t know if it’s people just wanting to get seen or if they’re paying bots to apply for them that just respond yes to every question, but I get dozens of applicants that have 100% on the screening questions and no actual experience with those things. It’s at the point now where if I see a score of 100 it’s a strike against you. If I check your resume and it doesn’t match the screening questions I’m rejecting you offhand. I’m hiring because we need help and sifting thru endless resumes that don’t meet basic requirements makes me cranky.

I need to preprocess a huge number of georeferenced point clouds in ply format obtained using a LiDAR. Each file isn’t that big, but loading all of them into cloud compare in order to merge them, simplify the cloud and output the result in laziness format (so I can create a virtual point cloud) crashes that software due to lack of ram. Another alternative could be using pdal wrench to convert all files in the folder to laz and then build the virtual point cloud, but Ím not sure if it can read ply files as it says that it has been integrated into qgis (which crashes when converting ply files).

Do you know any tool that could be used for automating that process? I could build one using pdal c++ library, but since this workflow is just a test, a more flexible option would be great to validate if it’s useful

This is probably a stupid question but I'm the pseudo-lead of my section (all the work without the title or pay) and my department (Planning in a lower tier municipality) is constantly ignoring us and our needs. They recently hired a graphic designer for the department to assist with community outreach with residents like making posters and stuff, and have now expanded this person's role into rebranding one of the City's major documents with branded word templates, etc. and this is now including maps.

Every single day now they ask for my section's mapping (in PDF with all layers exported) for the sole purpose of throwing into Illustrator and doing god knows what to it (changing the colours?)

Should I be concerned about my section further getting ignored because management will think this new person is the new "mapping person" and hire more of them instead of hiring more people for my section because we are almost constantly drowning in work? Should I be learning Illustrator to protect my section/job? What is it that you can do in Illustrator that I can't do in Pro?

I'm going on maternity leave in April 2025 and I do NOT need the stress of coming back 12/18 months later finding out that I don't have a job anymore and/or my team is under so much stress that they all quit while I was gone because nobody was there to be the backbone of our section (because my manager sure isn't).

I was enrolled in a university urban planning program but had to drop out in the first year. Going back seems pretty difficult in my situation, so I was looking into getting a personal license for ArcGIS and teaching myself. In your opinion, could I realistically get an internship or entry level position if I demonstrate knowledge and proficiency in ArcGIS?

Introduction

Learn to predict the risks of a rise in sea level using geospatial APIs. IBM Environmental Intelligence APIs help you predict sea levels, visualize data, and assess risks. These APIs provide a repository of geospatial and temporal data, along with an analytics engine capable of executing complex queries to uncover relationships between different data layers. You will use Python to visualize high-risk coastal areas, understand potential impacts, and plan for changes by leveraging the intersection of technology and environmental science.

Visualize high-risk coastal areas, assisting in disaster preparedness and urban planning while exploring the exciting intersection of technology and environmental science.

 Potential learning outcomes from tutorial

• Understand the fundamentals of geospatial APIs and how they can be utilized for environmental intelligence.
• Learn how to use Python to interact with geospatial APIs and visualize data.
• Develop skills in identifying and analyzing high-risk coastal areas for sea-level rise.
• Gain practical experience in disaster preparedness and urban planning using data-driven insights.

Setup and steps to follow

Click here ( https://www.ibm.com/account/reg/us-en/signup?formid=urx-52894) to sign up and to get started on how to predict sea level rise risks
After signing up, you would get API keys, Org ID and Tenant ID which would be required to run the sample.

Here we would be using Shuttle Radar Topography Mission (SRTM), a Digital Elevation Model (DEM) for this use case. SRTM is a DEM that is utilised for research in fields including, but not limited to: geology, geomorphology, water resources and hydrology, glaciology, evaluation of natural hazards and vegetation surveys.

To complete the task you would require to install

• Ibmpairs
• Rasterio
• Folium
• Configparser
• Matplotlib

Detailed steps and guidance are present across Github page link below

Github page link (https://github.com/IBM/Environmental-Intelligence/blob/main/geospatial_analytics/v3_apis/samples/industry_use_cases/climate_change_tidal_surge/sea_rise_risk_prediction.ipynb)

https://preview.redd.it/i21pqb1tk3zd1.jpg?width=540&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=35459e9b66df0495abec97663d1c0bfa025077ae

Hi all,

python question here, btw. PySpark.. i have a dataframe with billions points(a Tb csv file) and another dataframe with appx 100 polygons and need filter only points which are intersects this polygons. I found 2 ways to do this on stockoverflow: first one is using udf function and geopandas and second is using Apache Sedona.

Anyone here has experience with such tasks? what would be more efficient way to do this?

1. https://stackoverflow.com/questions/59143891/spatial-join-between-pyspark-dataframe-and-polygons-geopandas

2. https://stackoverflow.com/questions/77131685/the-fastest-way-of-pyspark-and-geodataframe-to-check-if-a-point-is-contained-in

Thx

So I'm fairly new to conducting spatial analysis but have been trying to make SatScan work for me during my PhD and showing the output in Qgis. So some background I provide the SatScan program with the following files:

- Case nr's of each district in my data (per year)

- Total population of each district in my data (per year)

- Coordinates of the district centroids (obtained through qgis based on polygons)

Then I obtain the outputted spatial and temporal clusters which actually follow visual trends I had recognized so I was very pleased with this. I also let SatScan output the shp files so i can nicely animate the clusters in qgis but THEN. So the issue that arises is that the result from this doesn't make much sense in qgis. I import both the gis file with the location information and the col one that has the circles indicating the clusters. So firstly im not sure if the centre of the cluster should be in a centroid of a district but in case this should be the case it's not for me, never actually. Second the location information file should have the locations of the districts part of the clusters. But the locations it shows are NOT THE CENTROIDS. There seems to be also no pattern to it and i have checked already many options:

- It's not a projection error I double checked

- The coordinates are based on the centroids from qgis and are then given to satscan (the exact same ones)

- In the gis file it shows actually the coordinates of the locations (WHICH ARE THE RIGHT ONES) yet the dots dont appear there

- There is 0 pattern (shifting all dots upward or downard doesnt allign them)

- it doesnt seem to be a rounding issue considering how far some of the dots go from the actual centroids

Below you can see some examples, the districts are in different colours and their centroids are green. The cluster circle is the black striped ouline and the gis location information file contains those pink dots (which again do not allign with the centroids aka the only information i provide to satscan). Truely hope someon can help me figure out what is causing this. This is also my first time posting here so if it is not appropriate because of for ex. the fact that it's a sat scan please let me know. Cheers

https://preview.redd.it/ein0plfj63zd1.png?width=1985&format=png&auto=webp&s=1da490c80657181cd1ed440f4ded600931904851

https://preview.redd.it/dt2td2gl63zd1.png?width=1356&format=png&auto=webp&s=aa78f3ee785bcfe3996cd02e43587a32b9c735bf

I'm still getting familiar with working with rasters.

How difficult is it to intersect the raster https://water.noaa.gov/
With building points to create a spreadsheet of the potential rainfall that may occur as well as afterwards?

Are there things to keep in mind when doing an intersection with the raster?

Hey guys! Im doing a sideproject where i'm trying to classify >10m pairs of lat long coordinates as land or water with high precision (<50m). How would you go about solving this? I currently have an implemen tation in typescript where im using a 2d grid index of the earth to together with a boolean point in polygon algorithm, and getting about 15 000 coordinates classified per second. Any suggestions to make it faster?

When I try to convert this longitude, 81-06-51.2 W, to a decimal equivalent using the converter on website, https://www.fcc.gov/media/radio/dms-decimal, it shows it runs through Russia. I know it should be running through the eastern USA. Can someone please help me covert this longitude properly to a decimal format? I'm trying to pinpoint a TV antenna broadcast tower in southern West Virginia on Google Earth Pro. I am obviously not a GIS professional. Thanks for your help.

Curious if anyone knows a way in ArcGIS Pro to update a whole column of attributes at once with a column of unique values from Excel? Essentially what’s happening is there’s a table of features which need to be connected to a number of existing line features, so I’m using the global ID of the line features to do that. There’s about 50 line features in a batch, so to manually copy/paste each of those global ID’s to the other attribute table takes some time.. So I’m curious if there’s an easy way to take that list of global ID’s, and just connect them all at once to the table in question? Thanks in advance for your help!!

Hello everyone, I want to remove the yellow/white color above the road in Google Earth Pro. When I import this image into AutoCAD, I can't see some features around the road. Please help.

https://preview.redd.it/o4slisibt0zd1.png?width=1257&format=png&auto=webp&s=5feedf992f24411a22477bd092cb0cfef4fdb188

Alot of jobs I have been looking at are asking for python experience alongside GIS skills. I am looking into python courses to do so I can add it to my resume to better apply to these GIS jobs.

But I was just wondering for those who do use python alongside GIS; how advanced of a python knowlege do you have?

I am wondering what people are doing for data flow into their systems for real-time or nightly data pulls. Specially for data from non-GIS systems into GIS infrastructure.

The data being non-spatial in nature and joined to features. Non-GIS to GIS joins. My org is heavily invested in ESRI infrastructure but without geoevent or Velocity. Unless there is a clear reason we should consider them.

An example, parking garage occupancy from a raw JSON API that should be available when selecting a parking garage in a map.

Any clear options for consuming JSON in applications? (Not GeoJSON)

So, I have this idea:

I would use a TV sized touch screen (saving up for it) to do GIS work in which I would use a stylus.

I would make my own wooden stand up desk and make the screen slant at 45 degree angle for better drawing but it’s adjustable to vertical with a pull out keyboard and mouse.

I would also build my own gaming laptop to keep up with highly detailed 3d models and large analyses of rasters (like downloading and doing projects with 1 meter DEMs of Puerto Rico).

Has anyone used a touch screen for GIS? And if so what is it like? Do you find it better and more dynamic or is it actually somewhat challenging because of little things?

I am currently majoring in civil engineering but I am considering switching majors to GIS. I haven't looked to far into GIS and am wondering what I need to know about it.

If you are into skating/cycling and GIS boy do I have the tool for you.

so as you know a lot of roads are too bumpy, too busy, have too little of a shoulder, or are simply too dangerous to skate on. I personally have ate dirt one too many times trying to cruise down a road that simply wasn't well paved enough. I realized there was no tool that shows which roads are good for skating, so I decided to build one.

skateable allows you to simply click two points on a map and rate the smoothness and the safety of the road (or trail/path) between them. You can also view other people's ratings of existing routes and update them if you feel they're incorrect (such as when a road has recently been paved).

Lemme know any feedback you guys have and I hope y'all find this useful.

Check it out:

skateable

I wrote about geocoding again — this time based on my own experience, looking at how wrong address data can impact user experience. I tested how Mapbox, Esri, HERE, and Google Maps handle home addresses in Calgary, AB in different situations. Give it a read and let me know what you think https://www.pickyourplace.app/blog/geocoding

I have a master's in GIS and now have been offered a job in a hydrographics surveying company. Catch is that I've never touched hydro data before (the company is aware of this and I will be trained up). Was just wondering if any of you have done a similar change in fields and how it went? I'm also keen to hit the ground runningso so any advice, resources, things to learn before I start would be appreciated. Cheers.

Hey everyone! I’m working on a project to map the Silk Road routes and thought of using a Garmin device to mark them for offline maps. The areas are really remote and mountainous, so I’m a bit worried about GPS accuracy. Do you think Garmin is the best option for this, or would you recommend something else? Also, would recording the trail a few times help improve accuracy?

This will be a ramble, bear with me lol.

So I have BA in Geography with a minor in GIS. My studies were fairly general in nature: environmental management and policy, python, GIS, regional studies, soil science, geopolitics. And within my GIS classes we went through remote sensing, python, geodatabase design, many real world applications for GIS etc.

I also have 2 years of experience as a Research Geographer and GIS analyat for a construction lab for the Army Corps of engineers.

I have always been interested in architecture but avoided it because of the often terrible career optics.

At the time of my freshman year I felt bad about math and just unmotivated to lean into so physics, and engineering were out of the question at the time. But i liked solving complex problems about the environment and people so I felt Geography and GIS were a nice middle ground.

However, at 25 now I am seeing the true potential of GIS, as well as a peaked interest in engineering and architecture.

My path to better development and interests (hope this might shed some light on your own path, and feel free to review my own path for any limitations) :

Better remote sensing skills and photogrammetry: Remote sensing is huge, it is a path all on its own, and if you learn anything in GIS, learn a decent amount of remote sensing.

• Remote sensing is my weakest spot in GIS, It is such a vast field that I need to just get really good at. Photogrammetry can enable realistic modeling of buildings within GIS, and LIDAR is becoming a big thing lately.

Efforts to deepen physics, engineering, ecology and architecture knowledge: This is very important because any one of these can deepen our understanding of the built environment and the natural environment. Having this foundation makes using GIS INCREDIBLE because of how complementary it is to these studies.

• One thing I learned working at a construction lab is I don't know shit about construction, engineering or architecture. I have some knowledge in general urban planning but that is it.
• So far I am reading many books in all subjects. but primarily reading and taking online classes to learn calc 1-2 and differential equations, statistics.
  • Of which will make learning geophysics, engineering concepts much easier I think.
  • Learning these makes handling complex statistical analysis in GIS and in general way easier to formulate, especially as you start to utilize more python.
• for architecture I have a large library of books to read from, and online classes to take. It will not replace studio but I will at least start leaning towards a more creative endeavor.
  • Cartography allowed me to be very creative at times, and i can see the HUGE potential in 3d interactive mapping being highly creative. I plan to use that knowledge where I can with this.

3D Modeling: 3D mapping is becoming very popular in GIS, with digital twins of entire cities. GIS is making its way well within engineering and architecture firms.

• Another thing I learned at the job was that 3D modeling, cartography, and web development are meant to be married lol
  • Think of rendering details in architecture using lumion, D5, or blender or autocad. These renders can become integrated to GIS, and provide better cartographic contexts to designs and engineering needs.
  • Or how DEMs could be placed into blender for more creative freedoms in cartography
  • Combing them all in web development for highly interactive maps is something that I think is just now starting to become huge.
  • Also, if you want to learn engineering and architecture, taking online courses on these softwares are essential to make your own projects. which GIS can aid in bringing contexts.

Getting a better understanding of philosophy of geography:

• geography and philosophy are two of the oldest disciplines. They feed off eachother to an insane degree and if you can truly learn the engineering and hard science side of geography - and join it with the holistic frame work geography provides for more of the social science side: you will be unstoppable.

Programming and AI:

• GIS and AI have huge opportunities together in predictive modeling, and interactive mapping.
• python and javascript are two languages I have been exposed to for GIS and for web develppment and it is just amazing the things that are possible now.

All of these you can touch on and learn a lot by doing courses on udemy, udacity, and Domestika. From there just make your own projects and see where it leads you. I am still learning these things, but I hope by the end of this year I at least have 1 project I am working on in my free time.

I am seeing now how integrated all these tools and fields are, and I hope you do too that when you do study geography keep these things in mind.

I just have a BA and have a long journey to go to balance myself out, I am deciding which masters program I should eventually get. I doubt it will be GIS, it is a tool that brings all other tools together but I am finding that I need a better base of knowledge to do that.

So environment engineering, geophysics, urban planning, or architecture could be possible routes to take as a masters after doing geography.

GIS graduate certificates seem better to pursue.

after which, especially with AI, it is becoming more possible that someone can freelance their skills as a true geographer to engineering/architecture firms, NGO's, DOD. the possibilities are nearly limitless

Especially when we think of GIS as an artistic combination of just about every other field. The issue is specialization. Perhaps I will carve my own path with it.

Anyways this was a ramble, and Idk if it makes a whole lot of sense. But these are my thoughts with GIS so far. Feel free to leave your thoughts, and I would appreciate if someone could provide insight in how I could create a clearer path for myself.