Appendix A. Other Geospatial Python Libraries

We have covered many libraries and examples but we haven't covered them all. This appendix is meant to quickly go over the other libraries out there that play a special role in the Python geospatial working environment. This list is definitely not complete and I have not had the pleasure of working with all these libraries at the time of writing.

The listing is a resource for further reading and experiments that will, hopefully, provide you with a step in the right direction to solve your specific problems. Each description of a library starts with the official library name followed by a short description and a link to the web page:

Library name	Description	Website
Rtree	This is a Python wrapper of libspatialindex that provides advanced spatial indexing features	http://toblerity.org/rtree
rasterio	This is a Mapbox creation that aims at working with rasters in an easier manner	https://github.com/mapbox/rasterio
Fiona	This focuses on reading and writing data in the standard Python I/O style	http://toblerity.org/fiona
geopy	This helps geocoding in Python	http://www.geopy.org
PyQGIS	This is the Python interface to QGIS (formerly known as Quantum GIS) that helps extend QGIS and more	http://pythongisbook.com
GeoPandas	This is an extension of the pandas library and handles geospatial database	http://geopandas.org/
MapFish	This is Python's geospatial web framework	http://mapfish.org
PyWPS	This client interacts with various open geospatial standard services	http://pywps.wald.intevation.org
pycsw	This provides a metadata catalog interface	http://pycsw.org
GeoNode	This provides Python geospatial content management for the Web and is built on the Django web framework and GeoServer	http://geonode.org
mapnik	This is a map visualization library to create maps for web tile cache	http://mapnik.org
cartopy	This is mapping made easy in Python-shapely	http://scitools.org.uk/cartopy
Kartograph	This creates SVG maps or web maps	http://kartograph.org
basemap	This is an extension of matplotlib in combination with descartes	http://matplotlib.org/basemap
SciPy	This is a collection of Python libraries for scientific data analysis that are bundled or available as individual installations	http://www.scipy.org
GeoAlchemy	This is a spatial extension to SQLAlchemy that works with the spatial database PostGIS	http://geoalchemy.org
pyspatialite	This helps you work with spatialite databases of geospatial data	https://pypi.python.org/pypi/pyspatialite
gpxpy	This helps when working with GPS data in the standard GPX format in a Python - friendly format	http://www.trackprofiler.com/gpxpy/index.html
ShaPy	This is a pure Python version of Shapely with no dependencies	https://github.com/karimbahgat/Shapy
pyshp	This reads and writes Shapefiles in pure Python	https://github.com/GeospatialPython/pyshp
TileCache	This is an implementation of a WMS-C (catalog) Tile Mapping Server (TMS) server	http://tilecache.org
TileStache	This is a Python-based server application that can serve up map tiles based on rendered geographic data	http://www.tilestache.org
FeatureServer	This is a restful feature service to easily get, edit, delete, and update features over the Web with the help of HTTP	http://featureserver.org
GeoScript	This is an implementation of Python, giving spatial analysis functionality to other scripting languages and Python is one of them; it is similar to Shapely	http://www.geoscript.org
karta	This is a Leatherman for geographic analyses	http://ironicmtn.com/karta