Groundwork 04 is our quarterly look at small, practical experiments by our team that are shaped by real questions weβre hearing across the cloud-native geospatial community.
GeoAI agents. Browser-native raster rendering. STAC tooling. Transit data as GeoParquet.
ds.io/groundwork04
New preprint! We propose "anergiobiosis" to describe microbial life at thermodynamic limits as a way of separating the physiological state from questions about aeonophilic extremophile specialization. ecoevorxiv.org/repository/v...
#Microbiology #Extremophiles #SubsurfaceMicrobiology #MicroSky
Visualize a mosaic of NAIP imagery loaded from @microsoft.com Planetary Computer COGs, all in your browser, no server involved.
Render true color, false color infrared, or NDVI. developmentseed.org/deck.gl-rast...
Built at @developmentseed.org with deck.gl-raster: github.com/developments...
Graphic for a Development Seed blog post titled βPredicting Earth Observations,β featuring abstract satellite imagery and a headshot of author Will Rynearson.
Earth observation data is everywhere. Getting it in time is still the hard part.
EO Predictor is a map-first tool that estimates where satellite observations are likely to happen over the next 48 hoursβuseful for disaster response & other time-sensitive work.
developmentseed.org/blog/2026-01...
ποΈ Snowpack futures
The VEDA Dashboard shows how climate change could reshape Western U.S. βwater towers.β
Explore + share your ideas for resilience.
π www.earthdata.nasa.gov/dashboard/s...
Introducing ππ¬π²π§π-πππ¨πππ
π
, a new library for reading GeoTIFFs and COGs. developmentseed.org/async-geotif...
- Fast, with a Rust core
- Uses a non-blocking thread pool for image decoding
- Integrates with NumPy, PyProj, Affine & Morecantile
- Remote data support with Obstore
- No GDAL dependency
What does βcloudβfriendlyβ Earth data mean?
In this @thrivegeo.bsky.social interview, @yayyyimee.bsky.social breaks it down β from NASAβs cloud migration to why geospatial needs its own βAmazon fulfillment centerβ moment.
Great listen!
scenefromabove.podbean.com/e/scene-from...
Just published: our story working with the Vanuatu Bureau of Statistics to make climate science and satellite data practical for local decision-making.
Tutorials & an interactive dashboard are open and reusable.
Read more: ds.io/vanuatu
Join us on Tuesday, Feb 24th, for an epic send-off for our Washington, DC office. Food, beverages, music, community & memories!
RSVP: luma.com/d8leo2k9
β’ STAC-based discovery
β’ Browser-based visualisation
β’ Reproducible openEO workflows
β’ No downloads
Explore: explorer.eopf.copernicus.eu
Read more: developmentseed.org/blog/2026-02...
Webinar on March 9: www.tickettailor.com/events/thriv...
π§΅2/2
Sentinel data is moving to Zarr.
The real question: is the ecosystem ready?
We built the EOPF Sentinel Zarr Explorer with @esa.int , @eox.at & @thrivegeo.bsky.social to demonstrate cloud-native Sentinel workflows in practice:
𧡠1/2
Fun part of my job is testing out new shirts. This one looks cool but the graphic is like crunchy. I had a hard time picking a shirt color for this graphic but ultimately just went blue on blue.
@kylebarron.dev released v0.14 last week: developmentseed.org/lonboard/lat...
The CIA just stopped publishing their World Factbook and took every page, including the archived copies of previous versions!
This sucks. It was public domain, so I recovered the 2020 edition (the last one published as a zip file) and shared it to GitHub simonwillison.net/2026/Feb/5/t...
I'll be in DC later this month. Stop by the @developmentseed.org spot for the last time and celebrate with us!
cutest little skateboard sticker for the fastest little visualization tool. #lonboard #geospatial #dataviz
art by real human: @gusbusdraws.bsky.social
Congrats to Overture for joining such an esteemed organization. π
After discussing with the creators of OSMCha and MapRoulette, both projects will become OSM US Programs. This transition enables OSM US to allocate a portion of our main budget to support the maintenance and development of both projects.
π openstreetmap.us/news/2026/01...
Itβs election season at OpenStreetMap US! We are seeking two mapping enthusiasts to fill the open seats. Nominations for the #OpenStreetMap US Board of Directors will open on Monday, January 26, 2026. If you are interested in running, check out this blog post:
ooooo I just did my first vibe coding using Cursor. Pretty dang cool. I know just enough to sort of follow along with what it did with my instructions, but not enough to have been able to do it myself. Now I'm just sitting here letting the possibilities sink in. π€―
I'm going to get one so I can look cool too!
I don't have a fancy microphone, so I'm just wondering. Do you have to have it really close when you talk into it, and that's why all the podcasters have their mic in frame? Or is it just to look cool?
I will never forgive Slack for not making the hyperlink/URL shortcut be command + k
I don't remember the last time I gave a talk (probably when I worked at UA), but I'm challenging myself to do some this year. Forcing myself to rip the band-aid off and give a talk next week to a small group about the cloud-native geospatial zine I made last year. Feeling pretty rusty!
βRain is a blessing counted drop by dropβ¦The desertβs children learn to be patientβ¦they like the land they live on, so they treat it well...They never hurt it. And the land knows.β ~Byrd Baylor, The Desert is Theirs, 1975
Will this year be the year that I have time to do this???
Found some zine inspiration at my local REI
Check out Lonboard examples or anything from @earthgenome.org
developmentseed.org/lonboard/lat...
Our team has learned a lot from years of working with scientists at NASA, and Anthony has crafted a great story about what we've learned and where we think the possibilities lie ahead.
Would love to hear your thoughts on this one.
developmentseed.org/blog/2025-11...
We're really excited about this new era for @stacspec.bsky.social - these are some highlights from @emmanuel.mathot.org
developmentseed.org/blog/2025-11...
