Eyes to the Sky: LiDAR Point Cloud in Databricks for Urban Canopy Insights

Editor’s note: This post was originally published June 20th, 2025.  What is the Sky View Factor and why does it matter in our cities? I’m back with another sunny, summer-inspired geospatial adventure!Ever wonder how much sky you can actually see when you’re standing on a busy city street or under a cluster of city trees? […]

Building a Geospatial Time Machine

Editor’s note: This post was originally published June 12th, 2025.  What is environmental change detection? Think of it as a time machine for planet Earth. No flux capacitor, no DeLorean, and no Marty McFly needed!😉 Just some cool tech that lets us peek into how our world changes over time. Detecting and understanding environmental changes […]

Geospatial Location-Allocation in Databricks: A Scalable GIS Approach

Editor’s note: This post was originally published June 6th, 2025.  What is a location-allocation problem in GIS? Summer’s almost here, so let’s start with a sunny example. Imagine you’re tasked with finding the top 1,000 most profitable locations across the UK to park an ice cream cart. It’s not just about sweet treats, it’s a […]

Mastering Location Data: Geospatial Magic Meets Databricks Power

Mastering Location Data: Geospatial Magic Meets Databricks Power Ever used Google Maps to find your way around? That’s geospatial data in action! It’s information tied to a place on Earth-like where your favorite ice-cream shop is, where roads go, where cities are expanding, and how places change over time, just to name a few. GIS, […]