In this chapter, you learned about two new useful libraries for analyzing geospatial data. We then looked at various techniques for manipulating and analyzing spatial data, including ways of accurately calculating distances, lengths, locations, and areas.

Next, we looked at how to convert intersecting roads into a planar graph, which we stored in a shapefile so that we could perform a shortest-path calculation based on the road data. Finally, we wrote a program to calculate the shortest path between any two points. As we worked through these various problems, we learned a number of techniques for manipulating and analyzing geospatial data—techniques which you will use regularly when you write your own programs for geospatial analysis.

In the next chapter, we will bring together everything you have learned to implement a complete geospatial analysis system using Python.