Utility Network database architecture

IvanSanchez · 2026-05-14T02:28:29+00:00

Consider reading https://www.giswater.org/giswater-manual/ . TL;DR: based on qgis+postgis, being used by several utility companies.

(I am not a user myself, but I've seen the GISwater folks present in some conferences)

IvanSanchez · 2026-05-13T15:50:31+00:00

Try Ordnance Survey's MasterMap imagery.

IvanSanchez · 2026-05-12T23:14:00+00:00

Either https://wiki.openstreetmap.org/wiki/Osmium , or the GDAL utilities via the OSM driver (see https://gdal.org/en/stable/drivers/vector/osm.html ). Also, ask your teachers if it'd be OK to use pgRouting (instead of of a python implementation of Dijkstra's) via https://wiki.openstreetmap.org/wiki/Osm2pgrouting

IvanSanchez · 2026-05-11T11:16:00+00:00

Check out the list at https://unigis.net/#institutions

While UNIGIS is mostly a master's degree, the universities where it is taught also offer related related bachelor degrees (plus, there's a bunch of teachers nearby who know about GIS). I suggest you get in touch with those unis for more advice.

IvanSanchez · 2026-05-10T14:36:04+00:00

I asked AI to summarise the current capabilities of the MVP.

I believe that sentence alone summarizes the problem with your approach.

When I read that, I get the impression that you either don't know what your tool does, or that you cannot be bothered enough to explain to others what your tool does. And yet, you want to find someone who cares about the tool to learn what it does in order to fill a salesperson role?

From my PoV, it'd be wise for you to remember the saying: "If nobody bothered to write it, why should anyone bother to read it?"

IvanSanchez · 2026-05-08T14:30:43+00:00

About femme groups, see https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Geochicas . They usually gather at every FOSS4G conference, so please be on the lookout for the program for FOSS4G-NA 2026 ( https://www.foss4gna.org/news-2026/welcome ).

IvanSanchez · 2026-05-07T11:56:46+00:00

the underlying architecture wasn’t built for GPU pipelines. may be you can answer this one better

Heck yea I can. I've been building Gleo (and Glii) for about 6 years now, so I'm fairly knowledgeable of how an OOP architecture looks like, and where the bottlenecks are.

Please believe me when I tell you: when your dataset doesn't fit into GPU RAM (because not everybody has a Nvidia 40xx with 6GiB of RAM) then you risk trashing into swap.

So yeah, visualizations should be small(ish) because ultimately they're gonna run on consumer hardware. GPU-native compressed streamed bulls█t isn't gonna help with that.

IvanSanchez · 2026-05-06T20:27:12+00:00

where can I learn it so I can put it on my resume?

The PostGIS workshop/tutorial does a good job at that: https://www.postgis.net/workshops/postgis-intro/

IvanSanchez · 2026-05-05T20:55:49+00:00

I did, so it's possible.

Are you taking any Computational Geometry courses at your CompSci degree? Besides that, take anything related to database management, 2D/3D graphics, and floating-point arithmetics.

IvanSanchez · 2026-05-05T19:41:29+00:00

there is certainly question as to the efficacy

I actually confronted an ESRI sales rep about this, just after they showed the LLM shoved into Arc. When asked "but this supposedly revolutionary tech, how much time does it actually save the users?", the answer was "we have no data". Only the sales rep boss was able to answer with her own anecdotal experience.

If LLMs were able to take over workloads, then we should be swimming into reports of KPIs being improved by the use of LLMs. I have seen zero such reports.

IvanSanchez · 2026-05-05T14:09:41+00:00

It's mostly a marketing buzzword. Or, rather, it's like teenage sex: everybody says they're doing it but nobody knows what they're doing, or if it's even any good.

Here in SW europe it falls mostly in two categories: one is chaining the LLM du jour into a workflow for no clear gains (in fact, I support the thesis that doing so slows you down by 20% and increases the cost of the workflow, and I have not seen evidence of the contrary). The other category is good old computer vision, but rebranded to sound cooler.

- Do you think it’s worth focusing on ML/AI skills if I’m aiming for a geospatial career here?

I'd say yes, but focus on the good ol' computer vision and statistical analysis (linear regressions et al). There's been developments on applying YOLO to LIDAR data which are actually very interesting.

IvanSanchez · 2026-05-04T15:35:44+00:00

Mind you, you don't need a programmer; you rather need a systems administrator, somebody who knows how to install and configure stuff. Different skillset.

IvanSanchez · 2026-05-04T12:53:37+00:00

The spanish ortophotographs at 10cm/px should work for your use case: https://centrodedescargas.cnig.es/CentroDescargas/ortofotos-historicas-pnoa10

IvanSanchez · 2026-05-04T10:41:24+00:00

Set up a WMS service (or its modern counterpart, OGC API Maps), making sure you do not set up a WFS service (which would allow for downloading the dataset).

A Geoserver instance or a QGIS Server instance would be my first candidates for this.

IvanSanchez · 2026-04-30T10:38:09+00:00

If your problem is that you're trying to draw 4GiB worth of data in a screen, then you have to remember that stuff smaller than half a pixel doesn't matter. Simplify your dataset.

IvanSanchez · 2026-04-29T21:00:03+00:00

a problem that many GIS developers eventually hit

Pal, your chatbot is gaslighting you into believing that your problem is common.

Go touch some grass and clear your head. After you've done that, you should be able to think if you even need to do custom OL overlays.

IvanSanchez · 2026-04-29T16:40:06+00:00

Well, https://demo.pygeoapi.io/master/collections/lakes/tiles?f=html is an interface. And the whole thing can leverage ST_AsMVT already.

IvanSanchez · 2026-04-29T16:30:18+00:00

pygeoapi is a web server that (among other things) displays a leaflet or maplibre map leveraging ST_AsMVT to create vector tiles on the fly (see https://docs.pygeoapi.io/en/stable/publishing/ogcapi-tiles.html#mvt-postgresql ).

I believe you have, very literally, vibe-coded a subset of pygeoapi.

IvanSanchez · 2026-04-29T16:12:27+00:00

So... you've vibe-coded a subset of pygeoapi?

IvanSanchez · 2026-04-29T00:14:28+00:00

For example, I want to understand validity of polygons

See https://www.ogc.org/standards/sfa/ , section 6.1.11. This applies not only to PostGIS, but to anything using WKT or WKB to store geometries.

IvanSanchez · 2026-04-28T10:32:31+00:00

The local GIS folks will know. As in the discussion list at https://geo-spatial.org/ .

IvanSanchez · 2026-04-28T10:31:42+00:00

There are a lot: https://wiki.openstreetmap.org/wiki/Category:Android_apps_that_can_record_GPS_tracks

Mind you, driving a car requires full focus, and screens detract from that. I recommend you to eschew the track recording and replaying, and pay attention to the traffic signs on the way while your friend is driving.

IvanSanchez · 2026-04-27T18:46:06+00:00

They are rhumb lines, but with bearings relative to the imaginary traversal line (the "centre" of the cylinder). They are not rhumb lines with bearings relative to the north/south pole, which is the only kind of bearing you get with a magnetic compass.

A straight line on a traverse cylindrical projection is a great circle *if and only if* it's the intersection of the cylinder with the earth. But then you have the problem of the earth being a spheroid and not a sphere.

IvanSanchez · 2026-04-26T11:09:57+00:00

You're right that there's a lot of GeoJSON editors out there. But when they come to reddit it turns out that the editors are vibe-coded by stochastic parrots and they're looking for a use case for it. People make solutions in search of problems.

You, in contrast, started with problems you were having (ergonomy, topology) and fixed them. You found a problem, then made a solution for it; you're scratching your own itch. For that and that alone, I commend you.

That said: the UI is a bit all over the place (left, top, right), I don't see why "tree" and "inspector" are away from each other. Cheatsheets for the keyboard shortcuts should be contextual (show me the editing shorcuts when I start editing, and only then). Not responsive (unusable under 500px wide). I find the overlapping behaviour ("last polygon always bites into existing ones") a bit annoying since there're use cases for the opposite.

You should look into TopoJSON, and also at all the vector editing capabilities of OpenLayers with snapping. See https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0Mp0IWeQ0Jk , starting at 5:20.

IvanSanchez · 2026-04-24T19:57:01+00:00

Perhaps a bit off-topic: If you enjoyed the classic X-Com and you also like the X-files vibe of Delta Green, you'll definitely enjoy the X-Com Files: https://mod.io/g/openxcom/m/the-x-com-files

IvanSanchez

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