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The Fastest Way to Download Foursquare's new POI Dataset

· One min read
Max Lenormand
Developer Advocate @ Fused
Sina Kashuk
CEO @ Fused

Foursquare just released an open dataset of over 100M global places of interest.

We at Fused have partitioned these points into easily accessible GeoParquet files, and hosted them on Source Cooperative

On top of that, we've build a publicly available User Defined Function (UDF) that anyone can use to easily look at & download to GeoJSON, all from the browser


Try it out for yourself!

You don't need to login or create an account to easily access the Foursquare POI points

How I Got Started Making Maps with Python and SQL

· 4 min read
Stephen Kent
Data Engineering and Visualization

I am a self taught developer and data enthusiast. I first came across the spatial data community when I saw a Matt Forrest video on LinkedIn where he demonstrated how to visualize buildings from the Vida Combined Building Footprints dataset with DuckDB. Immediately I thought, what if you could see all the buildings in a country, say, Egypt? I set out to do just that and made this map with DuckDB and Datashader.

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Buildings in Egypt.

Discovering NYC Chronotypes with Fused

· 3 min read
Elizabeth Cutrone
Director of Data Science @ Precisely

Neighborhoods within a city have consistent characteristics but often have ill-defined boundaries. Some neighborhoods are more similar than others even though they’re not nearby. Understanding these local boundaries and the demographics, dynamics and behaviors of different areas affects a wide range of business applications, including advertising, site selection, business analytics, and many more.

DuckDB, Fused, and your data warehouse

· 3 min read
Stefano Bourscheid
Facilitating Engineer @ GLS

GLS (General Logistics Systems) is an international parcel delivery service provider, primarily operating in Europe and North America. To stay ahead in the fast-paced logistics industry, GLS launched GLS Studio—an innovation lab aimed at optimising and modernising its depots and processes through cutting-edge technology.

Stefano co-founded GLS Studio to build the next generation of data-driven products. In this post, he shares how GLS Studio uses Fused to drive efficiency and innovation in parcel delivery.

In this blog post, Stefano shows how his team powers GLS's ParcelPlanner app, which helps GLS evaluate delivery routes efficiently. The app uses Fused to query Snowflake and serve H3-partitioned geospatial data to the frontend, which is powered by Honeycomb Maps and DuckDB WASM.

The Strength in Weak Data Part 2: Zonal Statistics

· 3 min read
Kristin Scholten
Data Scientist @ Nationwide

A raster, a vector, and an array walk into a bar…

Ok I will spare you the corny jokes.

But seriously, I was facing a problem with these three data types when I approached Fused. It felt impossible to join this information together in a meaningful way. Fortunately, I was quickly proven wrong with the power of UDFs. Let me catch you up.

Analyzing traffic speeds from 100 billion drive records

· 4 min read
Christopher Kyed
Data Scientist @ Pacific Spatial

Over the last few decades, it has become increasingly evident that passenger vehicles are by far the most dangerous way to travel. As a result, it has become more and more important to find an efficient and effective method to predict traffic risk. However, predicting traffic accidents and where they are likely to occur is a very complex problem, with large amounts of data being needed for most meaningful predictions.

At Pacific Spatial Solutions, we are currently trying to tackle this problem by training a machine learning model to predict road and intersection risk in Japan nationwide. As we are trying to predict traffic risk on a national level it is only natural that the data we use cover the same area.

Creating cloud-free composite HLS imagery with Fused

· 4 min read
Marie Hoeger
Staff Software Engineer @ Pachama
Plinio Guzman
Founding Engineer @ Fused

High-quality satellite imagery is essential to assess the carbon impact of nature-based forest conservation and restoration projects [1]. However, getting that high quality imagery is uniquely difficult in areas that need carbon financing the most: tropical forests. Tropical forests present a unique challenge for satellite imagery analysis due to persistent cloud cover, which often renders optical imagery unusable and creates data gaps.

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Example composites highlight how the HLS-L30 product alone can have gaps when attempting to make a seasonal composite, as fewer cloud-free observations.

The Strength in Weak Data Part 1: Navigating the NetCDF

· 2 min read
Kristin Scholten
Data Scientist @ Nationwide

Ever tried to make sense of the myriad file types in spatial data science and felt like you've wandered into a linguistic labyrinth? Trust me, you're not alone. As a data scientist who's spent more time wrangling datasets than I care to admit, I thought I'd take a casual stroll down memory lane with an old high school friend: regression models. Just a simple plot of actual vs. predicted, right? But when spatial data's involved, you can't just sit back and relax—you've got to keep one eye on the geometries.

I'm currently working on an agricultural project, and growing up on a farm gives me a personal stake in this. This blog illustrates my solution to the geometry debacle. I'll first take you to the area where I grew up: Lyon County.

Enrich your dataset with GERS and create a Tile server

· 3 min read
Jennings Anderson
Software Engineer @ Meta
Plinio Guzman
Founding Engineer @ Fused

Overture is an open data project that publishes interoperable map datasets. It aims to foster an ecosystem of developers creating downstream map services around its data products. Fused emerged as a solution to enrich Overture datasets on the fly and serve them with XYZ Tile endpoints.

This clip shows how coverage expands in (top right) Astoria when I add building heights from the NSI dataset (as num_story * 3) to Overture buildings.

Six ways to use Fused

· 4 min read
Daniel Jahn
Platform Engineer @ Sylvera

Fused is a powerful and versatile tool that can do nearly anything with just Python. Its versatility is its strength, but it is also an obstacle. It's easy to walk about wondering: what, concretely, can Fused do for me?

Here are six concrete ways you can use Fused today.

Summarizing building energy ratings

· One min read
Isaac Brodsky
CTO @ Fused

In this video tutorial, I show a complete data app workflow in Fused. Starting with exploring the data in Fused, the tutorial walks through developing a UDF to serve the data, and then a Fused App to share results.

With Fused, this whole workflow takes just minutes from beginning to end. Fused helps me visualize the data at every step, iterate on my analytical logic, and finally publish a dashboard.

ML-less global vegetation segmentation at scale

· 4 min read
Kevin Lacaille
Senior Software Engineer @ Spexi

In an era where data-driven decisions are vital, accurate and scalable vegetation analysis plays a crucial role across various industries, from environmental monitoring to urban planning. While AI and machine learning have transformed image analysis, they often bring complexities and resource demands that aren't always practical for large-scale, real-time applications.

How Pachama creates maps on-the-fly with Fused

· 4 min read
Andrew Campbell
Senior Software Engineer @ Pachama
Plinio Guzman
Founding Engineer @ Fused

Pachama is a technology company that harnesses satellite data and AI to empower companies to confidently invest in nature. The engineering team at Pachama created a Land Suitability Tool to help landowners and project developers qualify parcels of land to implement carbon projects. They turned to Fused to simplify their data workflows.

Geospatial workflows of any size

· One min read
Isaac Brodsky
CTO @ Fused
Matt Forrest
Field CTO @ CARTO

Isaac Brodsky, the CTO of Fused, delved into the power of Fused during a LinkedIn live session with Matt Forrest. They discussed the contrast of Python vs. SQL for data analytics, the advantages of serverless geospatial processing, and showcased a live demo of the UDF Builder. During the demo, Isaac created a User Defined Function visualize Overture building footprints that are within a certain proximity of water.

DuckDB + Fused: Fly beyond the serverless horizon

· 6 min read
Sina Kashuk
CEO @ Fused
Isaac Brodsky
CTO @ Fused
File

The combination of Fused serverless operations and DuckDB offers blazing fast data processing. Fused embraced Python to create serverless User Defined Functions (UDFs). Now, with the help of DuckDB, Fused enables developers to leverage the ease and familiarity of SQL in these functions  -  without compromising performance and parallelism.