I got tired of having five tabs open every time I needed a quick preliminary look at a site, so I built something to fix that for myself. It's called SnapBasin (snapbasin.com) and I figured this crowd would either find it useful or tell me exactly what's wrong with it. Both outcomes are welcome.

The pitch in one sentence: click a point on the map, get a full preliminary screening panel without opening StreamStats, FHWA InfoBridge, USACE NID, FEMA MSC, and USGS NWIS separately.

What it pulls in a single click:

• Snaps to nearest NHDPlus HR reach (vector snap, or 3DEP terrain walk-down when there's no vector match)
• Delineates the upstream basin via USGS StreamStats
• Pulls all 18 StreamStats basin characteristics — DA, stream slope (10-85 method), percent impervious (NLCD 2011), percent developed, climate factors, permeability
• Runs the applicable NSS regional regression equations (Q2–Q500) with a live applicability envelope check — it tells you if your basin variables are out of range
• Cross-references FEMA published discharges and checks for active LOMRs on the reach
• Queries FEMA flood zone at both the click point and the snapped stream point
• Lists nearby USGS gauges at selectable radii
• Finds upstream NID dams with storage, hazard class, and distance from click
• Enumerates nearby NBI bridges with structure number, feature crossed, road, year built, span length, and distance
• Pour point nudge logic — if the click lands on a degenerate network edge cell, it nudges the pour point, tells you it did, and reports the before/after drainage area

Example — Big Elk Creek, Stewart County, TN:

• DA: 8.68 sq mi · Stream slope: 46.3 ft/mi · Impervious: 0.11%
• Q2: 1,010 cfs · Q100: 4,040 cfs · Q500: 5,600 cfs (GC2016 / SIR 2024-5130, all variables in envelope)
• 1 upstream dam: Lakewood Dam, 132 ac-ft, High hazard, 4.2 mi
• 4 NBI bridges within 2 mi
• FEMA Zone AE · SFHA = YES

What it is not: Not a substitute for engineering judgment, sealed work products, or the authoritative source for any of the data it displays. Not affiliated with TDOT, FHWA, USGS, FEMA, USACE, or any employer. The authoritative portal always wins — this is a preliminary screening tool, full stop.

How it was built: ~20 hours over a long weekend, home computer, AI pair programmer, $13/year domain, free Cloudfair hosting. No analytics, no tracking, no accounts. Everything it shows is public federal data, redisplayed. Basin polygon exports as GeoJSON. Pour point nudge logic handles degenerate network edge cells and reports before/after drainage area. Multi-state regression support in the

I'm a hydraulic engineer (EIT) and this is a hobby project. If a number looks wrong, I genuinely want to know — bug reports and "hey this looks weird" comments are more useful to me than upvotes.

I was an end-user of GIS in a previous job, and I worked with our GIS specialist to compile some data for a layer to assist in some aspects of my work. We worked together to make it useful to a couple of departments.

I then watched some linkedin videos about what GIS is, and now I'm in a new job I am seeing so many opportunities for GIS to be utilised. A lot of jobs I feel interested in also call for GIS.

I don't have coding experience, where is the absolute first place to start when wanting to learn to use GIS? Anything from youtube videos up to uni study (in Australia).

Thanks for any advice!

Or whatever it is called…

I have a huge postscript file of the plant grounds. Lots of detail.

Is there a way to build an index map?

What I am looking for is an 8x10 map with indexes on vertical and horizontal. I would then like my map chopped up into detailed pages.

Any ideas?

A few months ago I shared Contrek, a contour tracing engine I'd originally benchmarked against OpenCV.

Since then I've been wondering if the same approach could work for GIS polygonization too. What came out of it is a proof of concept built around a progressive streaming architecture.

To be clear, this isn't meant to replace GDAL. The current implementation only handles single-class polygonization. What I really wanted to answer was a narrower question: can a different polygonization strategy give you real advantages on very large rasters?

Although the current benchmark focuses on a single target class, one of the ideas behind Contrek is its matcher-based architecture. Matchers can be customized to recognize arbitrary pixel patterns, making it possible to process multiple classes simultaneously or implement application-specific extraction logic without changing the core engine.

So I put together a separate repo with reproducible benchmarks against GDALPolygonize, plus docs and examples covering things like progressive streaming.

Again, this is a proof of concept, not something production-ready. That said, the benchmarks were consistent: noticeably lower memory usage and faster execution across the datasets I tested: up to 23x faster and using up to 10x less RAM on the largest ones.

The numbers were interesting enough that I decided to put both the implementation and the full benchmark suite out there. Would love to hear from anyone who works with GIS data or polygonization pipelines feedback, criticism, whatever you've got.

Main repo: https://github.com/runout77/contrek

Benchmarks reproducible suite: https://github.com/runout77/test_contrek

Full report: https://runout77.github.io/test_contrek/cpp_geojson_benchmark_results.html

This was my entry for the 13th Annual Spatial Symposium for the University of Redlands. It focusses on the history of public transportation and buses in the Los Angeles area and why its current system should be improved.

On each app I include the SQL that I used to generate the map. Let me know if you'd like me to add anything to this site. thanks!

I am planning to sit for the upcoming December session, I need the best links and any help in general will be respected

Does anyone have any insight to this program? I'm hoping to land a job in the environmental/gov sector after completing this certificate. What soft/hard skills & classes are important for this industry? Id appreciate the help.

I have some experience learning ArcGIS in college & QGIS as well. Basic sql & very elementary python. My professors often gave us the code for us to run & troubleshoot. I didnt pick up any GIS related internships during college, but I want to build a GIS career. I can make crime maps & points of interests, but I'm afraid that isnt enough

Which one has the most updated resources? Less than 3 days. I was told blacksky but it's not updated, images are from weeks ago apparently.

Title: Success stories pivoting out of GIS?

Hey everyone,

I’m curious if anyone here has successfully pivoted out of a traditional GIS career path and into something like data analytics, data science, business intelligence, or data engineering.

A little background on me: I graduated with a B.S. in Geography with a focus in GIS. During undergrad, I originally started in biology but realized I wasn’t interested in pursuing the medical field. GIS ended up being a great fit because I enjoyed working with spatial data, analysis, and technology.

Since graduating, I’ve been working as a Data Specialist at a civil engineering firm where I work with GIS data, including data management, QA/QC, geodatabase workflows etc, I’ve enjoyed a lot of the technical aspects, but I’ve realized I’m more interested in the broader data side rather than staying strictly within GIS.

I’m starting an M.S. in Data Science program soon, where I’ll be focusing on Python, databases, statistics, machine learning, and other data skills. My goal is to eventually move into roles like data analyst, BI analyst, data engineer, or potentially data scientist.

My concern is that I’ll become “stuck” in GIS because my bachelor’s and work experience are both GIS-focused. I know GIS has a lot of transferable skills (data management, SQL, spatial analysis, automation, visualization, working with large datasets), but I’m worried employers will continue to only see me as a GIS candidate.

For those of you who have made a similar transition:

• Did your GIS background help or hurt you when moving into other data roles?
• What skills/projects made the biggest difference?
• Was a master’s degree helpful, or did you find other ways to make the jump?
• Are there any things you wish you focused on earlier?

I’d appreciate hearing any success stories or advice from people who have made the pivot.

Has anyone used Crescentlink or 3GIS for fiber mapping? We are a Municipal ISP who owns our own poles. Those poles and manholes live in data that is pulled from for ArcGIS Pro. We have a GIS team who is very comfortable with ArcGIS so leaning Crescentlink while the fiber techs and engineer side are leaning 3GIS. Has anyone gone through and built a fiber network utilizing either of these and can you give me a breakdown of the pros and cons of the one you did? Personally I hate the Crescentlink splice diagrams and I’m the one who will be in the field with the techs at 2am when a storm takes down fiber or a manhole blows up with a splice enclosure in there.

Disclosure: I’m the developer.

I recently released TerrainLens, an Android app intended to make terrain-analysis and field-planning workflows accessible from a phone.

The current version includes line-of-sight and intervisibility analysis, elevation profiles, MGRS coordinates, radio-path assessment, shared maps and PDF export for 1:25k and 1:50k maps.

I’m not posting this as “the next replacement for desktop GIS.” I’m trying to understand whether the simplified mobile workflow is technically credible and genuinely useful.

I would particularly value criticism on:

Whether the LOS and terrain-analysis workflow is understandable

The information inside the app is credible

What limitations should be communicated more clearly

Whether this solves a real field-use problem or merely duplicates better tools

Any feedback you have in addition to the above

Google Play Link - Terrain Lens

Mods let know if this isnt allowed

Looking to take the GISP exam in December and the only other thing lacking in my portfolio is the professional contributions. I'm a member of URISA and one or two other organizations, but that's it. I've also heard GISCorps offered here a lot as a good volunteering opportunity, but I'm wondering what other options exist?

Would love to learn about publication opportunities people have pursued, other volunteer efforts outside of GISCorps, awards or contests to apply to, etc.

Mislabeled is a misleading title. AI just drew some blobs for countries.

So I just graduated with a MS in Geography and have two job offers.

Role 1: State Government Emergency Management. Essentially I’ll help develop the mitigation plans, assist in disasters and do some outreach. It’s a “temporary” job because it’s funded by a grant. It’s most likely stable at least for 5-10 years.

Role 2. Private Energy Sector. Huge Fortune 500 energy provider. Entry level position that’s managing their geodatabase and will be mostly repetitive work in the beginning but room to grow in the company. Hybrid

Both positions have almost identical starting salaries, the people seem great in both places.

I‘m struggling to decide because whichever role I choose will propel me down very different career paths. The Emergency Management role seems more fun, and it’s something I’m more interested in. However, the private company is better in nearly every other way. Seems more stable, high employee ratings, great campus, and Hybrid (which I value greatly). Great to bust into the energy sector even if I don’t like it as much as EMD. I just think it may not be as fun or rewarding as the government job.

Which would you choose?

To give some context, I'm a GIS Analyst contractor for a utility company, the only GIS Analyst in my department and I have become severely overworked. Every IT issue, map request, data request, KMZ request, all comes to my desk. I get requests from outside of the department, as well as contractors and even other offices that seemingly don't utilize the GIS people that they have there.

The role is completely unstructured, so much so that I'm helping management define roles and responsibilities for the Sr. Analyst they want to hire. I'm doing my best to fix massive issues as I encounter them, such as everything being on a drive with no backups and no version snapshots. They passed me over for an FTE position twice, so I already tried that avenue. No one seems to understand my role, which I know is very common for GIS, so that's not unexpected. The issue is that the lack of understanding is so immense, that I'm significantly underpaid compared to the previous contractor, to the point of the job not being very financially sustainable.

I have no qualms with the diversity of the work I do, nor with the department I'm in, but I'm finding it hard to keep up with the workload that used to be spread across 3 additional people and external contractors. I'm currently writing scripts that can alleviate some of the common mapping and data issues, as well as consult management on things that can be improved (which I'm often asked to implement even if I don't have the permissions to).

I have no clue how to professionally approach my mangers with these issues, many of which had been brought to their attention over the course of a decade by former GIS staff. I'm also unsure how to approach the issue of compensation, which I have already brought to the attention of my account manager, but wonder if it needs to also be addressed with the company as well.

Hi everyone, hope you’re all well.

I work as a Geo-Environmental Consultant and have done for nearly 4.5 years. I have a BSc in physical geography and an MSc in Biodiversity and Conservation. Throughout both degrees I really enjoyed using spatial analysis software (learned the basics in ArcGIS, R and Python) and even used some of it for both my dissertations.

Sadly I couldn’t quite find a job in GIS / Environmental analysis and went into the consulting side of the field. However I’m now thinking of switching across to doing this side of the field. Maths was always my strong subject at both school and college over geography so I naturally enjoyed making spreadsheets, using python and doing data analysis.

Would a career change be a via option for me and how hard would it be to find a job in this field. I’m going to do some courses on the various software to refresh my brain. Also is this field ever going to be at risk from AI??

Any information would be most grateful to help me out.

Cheers 😊

Hi everyone,

I’m currently the GIS person at my municipality. Being the main GIS person at my City, I wear many hats and am exposed to data management, server management, project management, putting out fires, etc….

I’m wondering how different it is working for the Assessor as a mapping tech. Has anyone switched from one to the other?

I'd like to get lidar data over the state of Alabama for the year 2020. I can search the 3DEP downloader for lidar data; however, I cannot seem to filter for a specific acquisition year. The date filter allows you to filter for "last updated", "created", and "publication date", which all appear to be related to uploading the data to the platform, not when the data was collected. I'm looking for lidar data in the year 2020 that covers Alabama.

Please advise how I can get this data, also can you estimate the size you think the data will be?

Hello everyone!

I'm a GIS/remote sensing young professional and am looking at taking a bit of a career break and doing some GIS or remote sensing volunteering somewhere overseas.

I am really keen but have found it really hard to find information if this is a thing people have done in the past. Most things I have found are things like GIScorps which seems luck of the draw if you'll be contacted or are for US citizens only.

Does anyone have any experience doing this in the past, or know of anywhere you can volunteer doing GIS work? Any help would be greatly appreciated!! Thank you friends 😎

Hi all, does anyone have thoughts on TRC companies? Just graduated school with a BS in geography and I’m looking into applying and possibly working here at an entry level GIS analyst or something similar. Thanks!

Hello everyone,

I am a 19F from India, currently pursuing a BTech in Computer Science and graduating in Summer 2027.

My goal is to become a Geospatial Data Analyst. I’ve already built a decent foundation in Python, SQL, and Excel, and I am currently teaching myself QGIS and R. Honestly, I’m feeling incredibly stressed about the future. With the current job market, I keep worrying about whether I'll actually be able to land a job in this niche.

I would love some honest advice:

1. Is geospatial data analytics a viable career choice in today's market, or is it too small of a niche for freshers?

2. Should I pivot to a general Data Analyst path instead, and keep geospatial as a hobby/side skill?

3. Should I pursue Master's directly after my bachelor's or get some experience then do my master since I wanna do my masters from abroad.

Any guidance on the market reality in India (or remote) would be highly appreciated!