Geospatial technology, markets, and practice
For the past two years, have been working with a fiber-to-the-home (FTTH) provider supporting various data architecture and geospatial activities. This is a classic infrastructure business that cycles through phases of design, construction, and maintenance as the built environment changes. This leads to a lot classic GIS editing over time - which can mean the … Continue reading GeoParquet Backup and Restore
I recently had a project requirement to export the contents of a delta table in Databricks to several formats, including shapefile and file geodatabase, with the output being placed in object storage mounted to DBFS. I set up the logic in a notebook, with the intent to use geopandas, which provides an easy wrapper around … Continue reading Exporting Data with GeoPandas in Databricks
I can't remember the exact time that I met Paul Ramsey in person and had a conversation with him - it was either at the 2011 FOSS4G in Denver or the inaugural FOSS4GNA in DC the following year - but I clearly remember what he said to me. By then, I had been writing this … Continue reading Long-Form Spatial Writing
As a consultant, I have always placed a premium on the maturity of the technologies I recommend and deploy for my customers. While staying current with innovations, especially in the geospatial space, is a critical part of my work, I believe in letting new technologies develop and stabilize before introducing them into customer workflows. This … Continue reading Cloud, Ready
I started the year with a sense of renewal. By that, I mean that I had cataract surgery the first week of the year and I literally have a new vision for the future. This time last year, I was already down with bronchitis - the result of an unnamed respiratory illness that knocked me … Continue reading Onward to 2025