I’m surprised there isn’t more noise about this: The STAC API Specification has reached its 1.0 milestone.
While core STAC specification defines interfaces to publish and organise data in catalogues and collections, STAC API adds dynamic interfaces to enable machines to search and crawl datasets. For example, it adds STAC search, allowing clients to find STAC items across collections, based on filter criteria like a bounding box or date ranges and more complex queries against specific data properties, like cloud cover.
STAC API 1.0 is a continuation of the 0.9 specification, its previous release. The updated specification introduces a long list of changes; few are fundamental, but some are breaking changes—hence the major-version increase. For a detailed list of changes, check the changelog.
Felt added support for raster data like GeoTIFF, XYZ tile services and images:
Today we are announcing three new features that make raster files easier to work with than ever before:
The ability to upload raster files as layers on your map.
The ability to add any XYZ URL from sources such as Planet, or other imagery providers, which will dynamically load external imagery.
A set of purpose-built OSM layers, such as streets and building footprints, to complete your map quickly.
There’s a real danger that this is becoming a Felt fan blog but they keep delivering well-designed and useful features that strip away a lot of the complexity that comes from working with geospatial data. While we have seen most Felt’s functionality before in traditional GIS, their approach to reimagining known functionality to make map making more accessible to non-GIS crowds is truly ground-breaking.
Ms. Norwood, a physicist, was the person primarily responsible for designing and championing the scanner that made the program possible.
[…]
Ms. Norwood, who was part of an advanced design group in the space and communications division at Hughes, canvassed scientists who specialized in agriculture, meteorology, pollution and geology. She concluded that a scanner that recorded multiple spectra of light and energy — like one that had been used for local agricultural observations — could be modified for the planetary project that the Geological Survey and NASA had in mind.
VersaTiles is a set of open-source applications that form a complete stack to create, host, and visualise OpenStreetMap data on the Web using vector tiles.
From the VersaTiles website:
VersaTiles lets you use OpenStreetMap based vector tiles, without any restrictions, locked-in paid services or attribution requirements beyond OpenStreetMap. You can use the freely downloadable tilesets from VersaTiles on your own infrastrure, in any way you like. Our open spec, royalty free and permissively licensed conatainer format works with virtually any webserver or CDN — with no requirement to pay unreasonable prices for “Tiles-as-a-Service”.
It includes a tile generator, based on TileMaker that produces tiles in the Shortbread schema. A converter produces tiles in the custom *.versatiles format from MBTiles. The VersaTiles format results on a smaller footprint—compared to MBTiles—and it doesn’t use SQLite under the hood. That means you can host it pretty much anywhere, either using the VersaTiles server or on a CDN; and clients can utilise HTTP range requests to access a subset of the data. The front-end is based on MapLibre, and includes map styles and a range of open-source fonts.
The Geofabrik Shapefiles have been a go-to resource ever since for OpenStreetMap data in GIS-friendly formats. Geofabrik now also offers vector-tile downloads for individual countries in Europe and states in the US.
At this time, the service is experimental, with no timeline for a stable and regularly-updated product:
This is supposed to be an experiment and we don’t yet make any promises about the structure and update frequency of this offer. We’re happy to hear your ideas though.