You may be wondering what I mean by “data visualization with GDAL”? After all, aren’t satellites images and maps — prominently featured in previous installments — both data? Well, yes. But there are differences between types of data that I think it’s worth expanding on, before diving into examples of…

In my previous posts on GDAL (written more than five years ago!) I covered how to open and interpret maps and images with embedded geographic information; how to transform maps from one projection to another; some of the complexities introduced working with highly detailed maps; and how to read and…

Near the entrance to the Mariposa Grove of Giant Sequoias in Yosemite National Park is an unusual map. …

Join us on our new site: https://nightingaledvs.com Satellite imagery surrounds us — from Google Maps and daily weather forecasts to the graphics illustrating news stories — but almost all of it is from a map-like, top-down perspective. This view allows satellite data to be analyzed over time and compared with other sources of data. Unfortunately, it’s also…

If you’re a Planet customer — or you’re just a fan of pictures of Earth from space — you may have noticed some recent changes in our image gallery. …

Neil Peart died last week. I found out on the company Slack, when a good friend and colleague sent me a link to the CBC article announcing his passing, followed by a simple “sigh”. My reply was an equally succinct four letters, but far less sanguine. “Fuck.” I took a…

There are only a few dozen sites on Earth that are optimal for rocket launches, and they’re either extremely remote, on the edge of an ocean, or both. There are several good reasons for this, which are all a side effect of the speeds needed to reach orbit — about…

A year ago, I put together a series of satellite views of 21st Century Landscapes—areas where humans had completely reshaped their environment since the year 2000. The things is, humans are an industrious species, and we just won’t stop building things (or, occasionally, rehabilitating things). Here’s a set of images highlighting the links between development from Antarctica to Sub-Arctica Canada, Shanghai to Midway Island.

While it’s possible for hand-made data visualization to be distorted (hopefully with intention) it’s not inherent to the medium—precise, meticulously drawn maps, charts, and graphs are quite doable, and were the norm before the arrival of computer-aided-design and drafting and R.