Book Image

Geospatial Data Science Quick Start Guide

By : Abdishakur Hassan, Jayakrishnan Vijayaraghavan
Book Image

Geospatial Data Science Quick Start Guide

By: Abdishakur Hassan, Jayakrishnan Vijayaraghavan

Overview of this book

Data scientists, who have access to vast data streams, are a bit myopic when it comes to intrinsic and extrinsic location-based data and are missing out on the intelligence it can provide to their models. This book demonstrates effective techniques for using the power of data science and geospatial intelligence to build effective, intelligent data models that make use of location-based data to give useful predictions and analyses. This book begins with a quick overview of the fundamentals of location-based data and how techniques such as Exploratory Data Analysis can be applied to it. We then delve into spatial operations such as computing distances, areas, extents, centroids, buffer polygons, intersecting geometries, geocoding, and more, which adds additional context to location data. Moving ahead, you will learn how to quickly build and deploy a geo-fencing system using Python. Lastly, you will learn how to leverage geospatial analysis techniques in popular recommendation systems such as collaborative filtering and location-based recommendations, and more. By the end of the book, you will be a rockstar when it comes to performing geospatial analysis with ease.
Table of Contents (9 chapters)

Let's Build a Routing Engine

"Logic will take you from A to B. Imagination will take you everywhere."
- Albert Einstein

Despite the possibility of flying cars in the near future, right now, you still need to use the road or rail to get from point A to point B on land. I am pretty sure that you have never once deleted the Maps app from your smartphone. So, what makes the Maps app so indispensable that you can't imagine living in the pre-Google Maps era (that is, pre-2005)? Map-based routing saves you thousands of dollars in fuel costs and time spent in traffic (unless you're in the Bay Area, in which case, even Google Maps can't save you from the traffic!).

Good map-based routing is dependent on an accurate, well-defined, and updated...