Geographic Information Systems
djangodatabasepython
Storing and querying data that has a position. The database side is small - PostGIS does most of it - and the real work is in coordinate systems, projections and tiling.
Storage
- PostGIS - the spatial extension for PostgreSQL, and the default choice. Geometry and geography types, spatial indexes, and a large function library. See PostgreSQL.
- MongoDB - geospatial indexes and queries, if the data is already there. See Document Stores and Search Engines.
Coordinate systems
The thing that bites first. A coordinate pair means nothing without knowing its reference system.
- WGS 84 (EPSG:4326) - “World Geodetic System 1984, used in GPS”. A geographic system: latitude and longitude in degrees, not metres.
- NTF (Paris) / Lambert zone II (EPSG:27572) - a projected French system in metres, Lambert Conic Conformal, introduced in 1972. Still turns up in older French datasets.
- EPSG.io - look up any system by code.
- PyProj - Python bindings to PROJ, for converting between them.
Vector tiles
- Awesome Vector Tiles - the catalogue of implementations, and the fastest way into the topic.
- Tippecanoe - build tilesets from large GeoJSON.