Preface

This book starts by giving you the background of geospatial analysis and then offers a flow of the techniques and technology used, splitting the field into its component specialty areas, such as Geographic Information Systems (GISs), remote sensing, elevation data, advanced modeling, and real-time data. The focus of the book is to lay a strong foundation in using the powerful Python language and framework to approach geospatial analysis effectively. In doing so, we’ll focus on using pure Python, as well as certain Python tools and APIs, and generic algorithms. You will be able to analyze various forms of geospatial data, learn about real-time data tracking, and see how to apply what you learn to interesting scenarios.

While many third-party geospatial libraries are used throughout the examples, a special effort will be made by us to use pure Python, with no dependencies, whenever possible. This focus on pure Python 3 examples is what will set this book apart from nearly all other resources in this field. We will also go through some popular libraries that weren’t in the previous version of the book.