GIS Articles

Rendering 1 Million Spatial Points in the Browser using PMTiles and WebGPU Introduction Rendering 1 Million Spatial Points in the Browser has historically caused severe performance degradation until the introduction of modern hardware-accelerated web graphics. Rendering massive vector datasets containing over one million point features in an interactive web browser map has historically triggered severe … Read more

H3 Spatial Indexing vs. Geohash vs. S2: Choosing the Right Discrete Global Grid System (DGGS) Introduction When evaluating Spatial Indexing vs Geohash vs S2, modern data architectures must balance spatial precision with computational scalability. In modern big data analytics and distributed geospatial systems, handling spatial data via traditional computational geometry algorithms—such as arbitrary bounding box … Read more

Graph Neural Networks (GNNs) for Urban Traffic Flow and Spatial Network Prediction Introduction Implementing Graph Neural Networks Urban Traffic Flow forecasting transforms how modern intelligent transportation systems predict congestion bottlenecks and spatial dependencies. Traditional time-series forecasting frameworks—such as Autoregressive Integrated Moving Average (ARIMA), Seasonal Decomposition of Time Series (STL), and standard Recurrent Neural Networks (RNNs) … Read more

Automated Building Footprint Extraction using Segment Anything Model 2 (SAM 2) in QGIS and Python Introduction Implementing SAM 2 Building Footprint Extraction QGIS Python pipelines allows geospatial analysts and data scientists to achieve state-of-the-art vector extraction without training custom neural networks from scratch. In the rapidly evolving domain of Geographic Information Systems (GIS) and Remote … Read more

STAC (SpatioTemporal Asset Catalog) API Specification: Automating Satellite Data Pipelines Introduction Building Vector Tile Servers with Martin PostGIS allows modern web mapping applications to render millions of spatial records smoothly without client-side performance bottlenecks.Global satellite archives are distributed across multiple data providers, storage systems, and access interfaces. Sentinel imagery is available through Copernicus services and … Read more

3D Solar Radiation Modeling on Complex Terrain Using DEMs and GRASS GIS Utility-scale solar photovoltaic (PV) deployment has expanded from flat, arid plains into complex, mountainous topographies. Estimating solar yield across rugged landscapes presents significant spatial modeling challenges: standard planar insolation models fail to account for microclimatic fluctuations, terrain-induced self-shadowing, elevated horizon obstructions, and anisotropic … Read more

Building High-Performance Web Maps with MapLibre GL JS and Open-Source Vector Tiles Introduction MapLibre GL JS vector tiles revolutionize modern web mapping by enabling high-performance spatial rendering, smooth client-side styling, and scalable open-source GIS infrastructure without relying on proprietary SDKs. Modern web mapping requires more than displaying geographic data on a page. A production web … Read more

Super-Resolution Mapping: Enhancing Sentinel-2 Imagery Using Deep Learning Introduction Super-Resolution Sentinel-2 workflows rely on advanced deep learning models. By incorporating batch normalization and skip connections, the network maintains stable gradient flow across deep multispectral feature layers without degrading original radiometric values. Open-source satellite constellations like the European Space Agency’s (ESA) Sentinel-2 mission have transformed Earth … Read more