38: Cloud-Native GIS: Architecture, Not Just Location
Cloud-native GIS isn’t about hosting your servers in AWS. It’s a fundamental shift to designing spatial systems where data is stored, accessed, and processed efficiently via object…
37: The Shift from Cloud-Hosted to Cloud-Native GIS
Cloud-native GIS is not about moving legacy desktop workflows to a virtual machine. It is about re-architecting…
#36: Parquet Isn’t a File Format. It’s Query Optimization Persisted to Disk
Most data engineers don’t understand why Parquet is faster than CSV. The answer: Parquet reads what you…
35: Resolution Is a Budget, Not a File Property
Defaulting to raw resolution because “it’s available” will drain your cloud budget while…
#34: Cloud-Native GIS Isn’t GIS in the Cloud
Moving ArcGIS to an AWS server isn’t cloud-native GIS. It’s just a slower version of desktop GIS.…
#33: Invalid Geometry Breaks Spatial Joins Silently
A spatial join mysteriously matches 80% of features when it should match 100%. The coordinates look fine. The…
#32: ST_Transform Changes Your Coordinate System, Not Your Data Quality
Many people treat ST_Transform as a data cleanup function. It’s not. It recalculates coordinates from one…
#31: Z and M Are Different Dimensions
Most GIS tools silently drop M values because people confuse them with Z. They’re not interchangeable.…
#30: The Shortest Distance Between Two Points Is Not a Straight Line
Draw a straight line between New York and Tokyo on a map. Pilots don’t fly that route. They fly the great…
#29: Geohashes Are Cells, Not Points
A geohash looks like a location but it’s actually a cell. Treating it as a point is how you end up with…
#28: Spatial Indexes Are Search Structures, Not Data
Most spatial queries are slow because they’re checking every geometry. A spatial index fixes this by…
