The recent sale of 43 global ports by Li Ka-shing—including two along the Panama Canal—has drawn international attention. I attempted to develop an interactive Cesium visualization showing these ports' geographic distribution, but news reports only mentioned quantities without specific coordinates. This required manual data collection.
PS: Video demonstration available on MalaGIS Video Channel.
In a previous article, I introduced a streamlined workflow using DeepSeek + QGIS (Beyond the Hype: Practical Integration of DeepSeek in GIS Workflows). It's undeniable that large language models like ChatGPT and DeepSeek are profoundly transforming the GIS industry. Recently, the domestic AI editor Trae officially launched. After testing it, I'm convinced this tool is essential—it significantly accelerates workflows for both GIS development and data processing!
If you're unfamiliar with Trae, you might recognize Cursor; if not Cursor, perhaps Windsurf? If those don't ring a bell, have you encountered Cline, CodeGPT, v0, Bolt.new, Tongyi Lingma, or Douban MarsCode? If none sound familiar, it's time to catch up with AI advancements.
Simply put, Trae is a competitor to Cursor—the pioneering AI editor that redefined coding. Unlike autocomplete plugins (e.g., GitHub Copilot), AI IDEs like Trae and Cursor enable comprehensive code modification, refactoring, documentation, and commenting. They support multi-model integration, provide repository-wide intelligence, debug in real-time, and offer interactive AI conversations like DeepSeek.
While I previously used Cursor, its unstable performance in China limited my recommendations. But with DeepSeek's open-source release and localized optimizations, ByteDance's Trae delivers exceptional quality—highly recommended!
When creating thematic maps in ArcGIS or QGIS, thematic coloring (choropleth mapping) is a common technique where different regions are colored according to their data values, revealing spatial patterns. Recently, our management requested integrating this functionality into our business system. While we could publish pre-rendered maps from ArcGIS/QGIS through servers like GeoServer, this lightweight feature doesn't warrant heavy infrastructure. Instead, I explored coloring GeoJSON features directly and discovered colormap - an elegant solution.
While updating to QGIS 3.40.3, I stumbled upon a surprising fact: QGIS is now 23 years old – possibly older than many of its users. It’s remarkable that this powerful open-source GIS software, used worldwide for mapping, data processing, and service publishing, was born in the dial-up internet era. Since Gary Sherman wrote its first line of code in Germany in 2002, QGIS has quietly revolutionized spatial technology for 23 years. Debuting five years before the iPhone and thirteen years before TensorFlow, this open-source GIS has not only survived three technological earthquakes (the dot-com crash, mobile revolution, and AI explosion) but evolved from a basic map viewer into global geospatial infrastructure. Let’s journey through time to uncover how this "living tech fossil" defied commercial giants to become king.
From late last year to early this year, DeepSeek has undoubtedly dominated the tech landscape. My social feeds—public accounts and short videos—have featured daily updates about DeepSeek, from model comparisons to website glitches and workarounds for full-featured access. Concurrently, industries and institutions have launched an "arms race," with corporate announcements flooding newsfeeds about xxx adopting DeepSeek. Sectors like internet services, finance, construction, and even government agencies are rushing to deploy DeepSeek solutions, as if falling behind would mean obsolescence. The GIS industry is no exception—software vendors and GIS practitioners alike have publicly announced their DeepSeek integrations.
This prompts a question for GIS professionals like myself: After integrating DeepSeek, what comes next? Where are the practical applications for DeepSeek + GIS?
Red Layer is a sketch annotation plugin for QGIS 3 that enables rapid hand-drawn annotations directly on your map canvas. A sample output is shown below:
Share a WKT configuration for Bonne projection in QGIS. For those needing to apply Bonne projection in QGIS, this reference may prove useful.
PROJCRS["Bonne_WGS84",
BASEGEOGCRS["WGS 84",
DATUM["World Geodetic System 1984",
ELLIPSOID["WGS 84",6378137,298.257223563,
LENGTHUNIT["metre",1]],
ID["EPSG",6326]],
PRIMEM["Greenwich",0,
ANGLEUNIT["Degree",0.0174532925199433]]],
CONVERSION["unnamed",
METHOD["Bonne",
ID["EPSG",9827]],
PARAMETER["latitude_of_origin",45,
ANGLEUNIT["Degree",0.0174532925199433]],
PARAMETER["Longitude of natural origin",0,
ANGLEUNIT["Degree",0.0174532925199433],
ID["EPSG",8802]]],
CS[Cartesian,2],
AXIS["(E)",east,
ORDER[1],
LENGTHUNIT["metre",1,
ID["EPSG",9001]]],
AXIS["(N)",north,
ORDER[2],
LENGTHUNIT["metre",1,
ID["EPSG",9001]]]]Bezier Editing is an open-source plugin for QGIS that specializes in precision vector graphic editing, particularly suited for complex curve design scenarios like roads, rivers, and landscape boundaries. By introducing Bezier curve control points, it transforms rigid polylines into smooth, natural curves, significantly enhancing both cartographic aesthetics and data accuracy.
Valentine’s Day is here again, and the GIS community group at Malagis is buzzing with excitement. Watching the lively discussions makes one nostalgic for youthful enthusiasm. On such a romantic day, shouldn't everything—including GIS—have its own charm? Let’s explore two GIS-inspired romantic ideas shared by the group.
Do you still remember the Bonne projection? Or have your cartography lessons faded into memory? Here's what it looks like:
Since U.S. President Donald Trump's executive order on his first day in office renamed the Gulf of Mexico to the "Gulf of America," the ripple effects have begun to spread. Recent reports indicate that major map service providers like Google Maps have already followed suit. But how does this change affect GIS professionals in China, and how should we respond? This article provides a brief analysis.
After reviewing services like Google Maps, Bing Maps, OpenStreetMap, and Cesium, here’s a summary of how each platform is handling the name change.
Google Maps was one of the first to react. Here's how it looks now:
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