Agent skill · data analytics · erichowens
geospatial-data-pipeline
Process, analyze, and visualize geospatial data at scale. Handles drone imagery, GPS tracks, GeoJSON optimization, coordinate transformations, and tile generation. Use for mapping apps, drone
Why this skill is useful
Provides specific patterns for geospatial data processing and optimization that the AI wouldn't reliably generate on its own.
What it needs
Requires gdal, postgres installed locally. About 6k tokens when loaded. Last updated 2026-07-14. 180 stars on the source repository.
What this skill does
Geospatial Data Pipeline Expert in processing, optimizing, and visualizing geospatial data at scale. When to Use ✅ Use for: Drone imagery processing and annotation GPS track analysis and visualization Location-based search (find nearby X) Map tile generation for web/mobile Coordinate system transformations Geofencing and spatial queries GeoJSON optimization for web ❌ NOT for: Simple address validation (use address APIs) Basic distance calculations (use Haversine formula) Static map embeds (use Mapbox Static API) Geocoding (use Nominatim or Google Geocoding API) --- Technology Selection Database: PostGIS vs MongoDB Geospatial Feature PostGIS MongoDB --------- --------- --------- Spatial indexes GiST, SP-GiST 2dsphere Query language SQL + spatial functions Aggregation pipeline Geometry types 20+ (full OGC support) Basic (Point, Line, Polygon) Coordinate systems 6000+ via EPSG WGS84 only Performance (10M points) <100ms <200ms Best for Complex spatial analysis Document-centric apps Timeline: 2005: PostGIS 1.0 released 2012: MongoDB adds geospatial indexes 2020: PostGIS 3.0 with improved performance 2024: PostGIS remains gold standard for GIS workloads --- Common Anti-Patterns Anti-Pattern 1: Storing Coordinates as Strings Novice thinking: "I'll just store lat/lon as text, it's simple" Problem: Can't use spatial indexes, queries are slow, no validation. Wrong approach: Why wrong: O(N) linear scan, no spatial index, string parsing overhead. Correct approach: Timeline context: 2000s: Stored lat/lon as FLOAT columns, did math in app code 2010s: PostGIS adoption, spatial indexes 2024: GEOGRAPHY type handles Earth curvature automatically --- Anti-Pattern 2: Not Using Spatial Indexes Problem: Proximity queries do full table scans. …
How to use it
Reference it in AdaL, Claude Code, Cursor or any coding agent — nothing to install:
@skills erichowens/geospatial-data-pipeline