We need a "come on" clause for these absurd headlines. Come on.
[deleted]
DuckDB is probably the most important geospatial software of the last decade
11–20 of 177 posts
Re: DuckDB is probably the most important geospatial software of the last decade
#12[dead]
Re: DuckDB is probably the most important geospatial software of the last decade
#13How might embedding spatial capabilities directly into general-purpose data tools like DuckDB reshape who participates in geospatial analysis—and what kinds of problems they choose to solve?
Re: DuckDB is probably the most important geospatial software of the last decade
#14I work on geospatial apps and the software I think I am most excited about is https://felt.com/. I want to see them expand their tooling such that maps and data source authentication/authorization was controllable by the developer, to enable tenant isolation with proprietary data access. They could really disrupt how geospatial tech gets integrated into consumer apps.
This article doesn't acknowledge how niche this stuff is and it's a lot of training to get people to up to speed on coordinate systems, projections, transformations, etc. I would replace a lot of my custom built mapping tools with Felt if it were possible, so I could focus on our core geospatial processes and not the code to display and play with it in the browser, which is almost as big if not bigger in terms of LOC to maintain.
As mentioned by another commenter, this DuckDB DX as described is basically the same as PostGIS too.
Re: DuckDB is probably the most important geospatial software of the last decade
#15SQL Server has geospatial capabilities without any extensions or add-ons. I've been happily using geospatial datatypes on the free Express version for years, probably well over a decade.
Re: DuckDB is probably the most important geospatial software of the last decade
#16I’m not sure I agree that “install geospatial” is a game changer in simplicity compared to “pip install geopandas”. They are both one line.
I think a big part is that duckdbs spatial extension doesnt have any transitive dependencies (except libc). It statically packages the standard suite of foss gis tools (including a whole database of coordinate systems) for multiple platforms (including WASM) and provides a unified SQL interface to it all.
(Disclaimer, I work on duckdb-spatial @duckdblabs)
Re: DuckDB is probably the most important geospatial software of the last decade
#17I work on geospatial apps and the software I think I am most excited about is https://felt.com/ . I want to see them expand their tooling such that maps and data source authentication/authorization was controllable by the developer, to enable tenant isolation with proprietary data access. They could really disrupt how geospatial tech gets integrated into consumer apps. This article doesn't acknowledge how niche this…
Author here: the beauty of DuckDB spatial is that the projections and CRS options are hidden until you need them. For 90% of geospatial data usage people don't and shouldn't need to know about projections or CRS.
Yes, there are so many great tools to handle the complexity for the capital-G Geospatial work.
I love Felt too! Sam and team have built a great platform. But lots of times a map isn't needed; an analyst just needs it as a column.
PostGIS is also excellent! But having to start up a database server to work with data doesn't lend itself to casual usage.
The beauty of DuckDB is that it's there in a moment and in reach for data generalists.
Re: DuckDB is probably the most important geospatial software of the last decade
#18DuckDB is a great thing for geospatial but most important of the past decade? There's so many tools in different categories it wouldnt come near top for me. Some might be QGIS, postGIS (still the standard), ArcGIS online (still the standard), JS mapping tools like mapbox (i prefer deckgl), new data types like COG, geopackage and geoparquet, photogrammetry tools, 3d tiles, core libraries like gdal and now pdal, shapel…
[deleted]
Re: DuckDB is probably the most important geospatial software of the last decade
#19“import geopandas” also exists and has for some time. Snark aside, WHAT is special about duckDB? I wish the author had actually shown some practical examples so I could understand their claims better.
I haven't used duckDB but the real comparison is presumably postgis? Which is also absent from the discussion, but I think what the author alludes to.
I have no major qualm with pandas and geopandas. However I use it when it's the only practical solution, not because I enjoy using it as a library. It sounds like pandas (or similar) vs a database?
Re: DuckDB is probably the most important geospatial software of the last decade
#20“import geopandas” also exists and has for some time. Snark aside, WHAT is special about duckDB? I wish the author had actually shown some practical examples so I could understand their claims better.
Author here: what's special is that you can go from 0 to spatial data incredibly quickly, in the data generalist tool you're already using. It makes the audience of people working with geospatial data much bigger.
(Geopandas is great, too.)