Book Image

Learning Geospatial Analysis with Python

By : Joel Lawhead
4 (1)
Book Image

Learning Geospatial Analysis with Python

4 (1)
By: Joel Lawhead

Overview of this book

Geospatial analysis is used in almost every field you can think of from medicine, to defense, to farming. It is an approach to use statistical analysis and other informational engineering to data which has a geographical or geospatial aspect. And this typically involves applications capable of geospatial display and processing to get a compiled and useful data. "Learning Geospatial Analysis with Python" uses the expressive and powerful Python programming language to guide you through geographic information systems, remote sensing, topography, and more. It explains how to use a framework in order to approach Geospatial analysis effectively, but on your own terms. "Learning Geospatial Analysis with Python" starts with a background of the field, a survey of the techniques and technology used, and then splits the field into its component speciality areas: GIS, remote sensing, elevation data, advanced modelling, and real-time data. This book will teach you everything there is to know, from using a particular software package or API to using generic algorithms that can be applied to Geospatial analysis. This book focuses on pure Python whenever possible to minimize compiling platform-dependent binaries, so that you don't become bogged down in just getting ready to do analysis. "Learning Geospatial Analysis with Python" will round out your technical library with handy recipes and a good understanding of a field that supplements many a modern day human endeavors.
Table of Contents (17 chapters)
Learning Geospatial Analysis with Python
Credits
About the Author
About the Reviewers
www.PacktPub.com
Preface
Index

dbfpy


Both OGR and PyShp read and write the dbf files because they are part of the shapefile specification. However, both libraries have a very basic dbf support. Occasionally you will need to do some heavier duty dbf work. The dbfpy module is a pure Python module dedicated to working with dbf files. It is hosted on sourceforge.net but has an entry on PyPI. However, the PyPI entry is not correctly configured and you have to force easy_install to find the download by specifying the download directory:

easy_install -f http://sourceforge.net/projects/dbfpy/files/dbfpy/2.2.5/dbfpy

If you are using pip to install packages, use the following command:

pip install http://downloads.sourceforge.net/project/dbfpy/dbfpy/2.2.5/dbfpy-2.2.5.tar.gz

The following shapefile has over 600 dbf records representing US Census Bureau tracts which make it a good sample for trying out dbfpy: https://geospatialpython.googlecode.com/files/GIS_CensusTract.zip

Let's open up the dbf file of this shapefile and look at the...