Visualizing GIS data in JavaFX 2.0 beta using GeoTools

Geographic data mostly comprises of polygon coordinates sets along with attributes, like country or city name, etc. This is quite easy to visualize in JavaFX, which supports rendering for SVG paths. In the article, I show how to read such GIS data from…Geographic data mostly comprises of polygon coordinates sets along with attributes, like country or city name, etc. This is quite easy to visualize in JavaFX, which supports rendering for SVG paths. In the article, I show how to read such GIS data from…

Geographic data mostly comprises of polygon coordinates sets along with attributes, like country or city name, etc. This is quite easy to visualize in JavaFX, which supports rendering for SVG paths.
In the article, I show how to read such GIS data from ESRI type database files using open source library GeoTools.
The data itself comes for free from www.naturalearthdata.com.
Sample code can be found here:Browse on GitHub.

GIS data usually comes in form of SHP and DBF files. In order to read it, we use GeoTools parser. Following code iterates over so called “features” from within data filesand retrieves name attribute and shape geometry.

Next, we need to create JavaFX polygons for each feature from iteration. Small note here. Each feature may comprise of multiple polygons. For example “United States” shape may contain separate polygon for Alaska. So we need additional loop to generate such polygons.
In order to create a polygon in JavaFX, we use Path class along with MoveTo and LineTo path elements. Following snippet does the job.

The remaining part is to implement zoom and panning functionality. This is fairly easyin JavaFX. We can use translate and scale properties from main Group shape. Panning functionality is handled using following snippet:

Zoom is coded this way:

That’s it. Now we have basic GIS data viewer in JavaFX 2.

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Need to make a quick json fixes – JSONPath for rescue

From time to time I have a need to do some fixes in my json data. In a world of flat files I do this with grep/sed/awk tool chain. How to handle it for JSON? Searching for a solution I came across the JSONPath. It quite mature tool (from 2007) but I haven't hear about it so I decided to share my experience with others.

First of all you can try it without pain online: http://jsonpath.curiousconcept.com/. Full syntax is described at http://goessner.net/articles/JsonPath/



But also you can download python binding and run it from command line:
$ sudo apt-get install python-jsonpath-rw
$ sudo apt-get install python-setuptools
$ sudo easy_install -U jsonpath

After that you can use inside python or with simple cli wrapper:
#!/usr/bin/python
import sys, json, jsonpath

path = sys.argv[
1]

result = jsonpath.jsonpath(json.load(sys.stdin), path)
print json.dumps(result, indent=2)

… you can use it in your shell e.g. for json:
{
"store": {
"book": [
{
"category": "reference",
"author": "Nigel Rees",
"title": "Sayings of the Century",
"price": 8.95
},
{
"category": "fiction",
"author": "Evelyn Waugh",
"title": "Sword of Honour",
"price": 12.99
},
{
"category": "fiction",
"author": "Herman Melville",
"title": "Moby Dick",
"isbn": "0-553-21311-3",
"price": 8.99
},
{
"category": "fiction",
"author": "J. R. R. Tolkien",
"title": "The Lord of the Rings",
"isbn": "0-395-19395-8",
"price": 22.99
}
],
"bicycle": {
"color": "red",
"price": 19.95
}
}
}

You can print only book nodes with price lower than 10 by:
$ jsonpath '$..book[?(@.price 

Result:
[
{
"category": "reference",
"price": 8.95,
"title": "Sayings of the Century",
"author": "Nigel Rees"
},
{
"category": "fiction",
"price": 8.99,
"title": "Moby Dick",
"isbn": "0-553-21311-3",
"author": "Herman Melville"
}
]

Have a nice JSON hacking!From time to time I have a need to do some fixes in my json data. In a world of flat files I do this with grep/sed/awk tool chain. How to handle it for JSON? Searching for a solution I came across the JSONPath. It quite mature tool (from 2007) but I haven't hear about it so I decided to share my experience with others.

Agile Skills Project at my company

Unfulfilled programmers Erich Fromm, a famous humanist, philosopher and psychologist strongly believed that people are basically good. If he was right, then either our society is a mind-breaking dystopia or we have a great misfortune of working i... Unfulfilled programmers Erich Fromm, a famous humanist, philosopher and psychologist strongly believed that people are basically good. If he was right, then either our society is a mind-breaking dystopia or we have a great misfortune of working i...