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Robin Wilson

@robintw.bsky.social
547 followers 389 following 131 posts

Freelance geospatial software engineer and data scientist. PhD in satellite imaging. Blogger (blog.rtwilson.com) author of the FreeGISData site (freegisdata.rtwilson.com) & the British Placename Mapper (placenames.rtwilson.com)

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Robin Wilson @robintw.bsky.social · 25/07/2026
If you attended the lace making workshop at #emfcamp and would like some help, support or follow-up then my wife Olivia is running a Zoom help session at 8pm UK time on Sat 1st August. Register here: docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1F...
docs.google.com
Lace debugging and catch-up session
This form is to register to attend a follow-up Zoom call for people who attended Olivia Wilson's lace making workshop at EMF 2026. The aim of the call is to help you debug problems you've run into whi...
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Electromagnetic Field @emfcamp.bsky.social · 16/06/2026
Our talk and workshop line-up is live! Please favourite things to help our scheduling robot make sensible decisions. www.emfcamp.org/schedule/2026 Keep an eye on the list - Family Workshops, Music, and installations will be announced in the coming weeks.
emfcamp.org
Line-up
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Jonty Wareing @jonty.bsky.social · 27/05/2026
[deep sigh] After being let down again, I call upon the powers of the network: Does anybody have an inflatable planetarium they would be willing to bring (or lend) to @emfcamp.bsky.social?
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OSGeo:UK @uk.osgeo.org · 02/05/2026
In case you missed it FOSS4G UK 2026 is happening this year in Leeds! The conference will take place on 12th and 13th of October. We are actively looking for sponsors to take part, please contact osgeouk@gmail.com uk.osgeo.org/foss4guk2026/
uk.osgeo.org
FOSS4G:UK 2026 Leeds
OSGeo:UK
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Robin Wilson @robintw.bsky.social · 02/05/2026
FOSS4G UK is always a great conference - I'm already thinking about what talk I could submit...
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json singh @jsonsingh.com · 30/03/2026
For the upcoming 'London "Geo" Meetup #2', we have our 2nd speaker Gabriella Edghill, from Rebalance Earth presenting on "UK Power at Risk: Using open-source to assess power loss risk from flooding" RSVP and more details here: lgm.jsonsingh.com #OSM #OSGeo #Geospatial #Opensource #London #meetup
Gabriella Edghill will be presenting on "UK Power at Risk: Using open-source software to assess power loss risk from flooding" at the 'London "Geo" Meetup #2' on 8th April, Wednesday at Geovation, 65 Goswell Road, London. Event starts at 6PM
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Robin Wilson @robintw.bsky.social · 11/03/2026
I'm looking forward to PyData Southampton next week - talks on Azure AI Foundry, astronomical image alignment and AI for sign language. Sign up at www.meetup.com/pydata-south... and come along at 7pm Tues 17th at Carnival's HQ, Southampton @pydatasoton.bsky.social #pydata #python #ml #ai
meetup.com
PyData Southampton - 22nd Meetup, Tue, Mar 17, 2026, 7:00 PM | Meetup
**Venue**: Carnival House, 100 Harbour Parade, Southampton, SO15 1ST **📢 Want to speak 📢: [submit your talk proposal](https://bit.ly/pydataSoton-talks)** **Main Talks**
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Robin Wilson @robintw.bsky.social · 05/02/2026
This article is in the paper copy of the FT today, which is nice :) Quite chuffed that my little data analysis project has ended up in a national newspaper. And I think it's an important topic too. #uk #health #pharmacy #data #datanalysis
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Robin Wilson @robintw.bsky.social · 04/02/2026
Did you know that the number of pharmacies in England open after 9pm has decreased by 95% in just three years? I did some data analysis on this, inspired by needing an out of hours pharmacy over Christmas, and it has been featured in the Financial Times today: as.ft.com/r/4333cab1-6...
as.ft.com
Number of late-night pharmacies in England plummets
[FREE TO READ] Decline comes after cash-strapped chemists reduced opening hours to cut costs
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Kurt Schwehr @kurtschwehr.bsky.social · 01/12/2025
2025 GDAL User Survey is now active for the entire month of December! Visit gdal.org/survey/ & tell the project how you use it, where you get help, what it should do in the future, & how/if it should use LLMs going forward. (optionally) give us your email, we'll even enter you to win a GDAL t-shirt!
gdal.org
2025 GDAL User Survey
In 2024, the GDAL User Survey solicited feedback to help focus GDAL Sponsorship Program activities. Your contribution mattered. Last years' results triggered the project to embark on the GDAL CLI Mode...
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OSGeo:UK @uk.osgeo.org · 17/10/2025
We have now uploaded all the recorded sessions from #FOSS4GUK 2025 in Leeds. 📹🦉 We would now invite everyone else to our youtube channel if you would like to catch up on the 35 recorded session. www.youtube.com/watch?v=qCKv...
youtube.com
Welcome to FOSS4G:UK 2025
YouTube video by FOSS4G:UK
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Robin Wilson @robintw.bsky.social · 01/10/2025
Very proud of my former student (now colleague!), Gabi, who just gave her first conference presentation at #foss4guk in Leeds. #geospatial #gis #osgeo #postgis
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Robin Wilson @robintw.bsky.social · 30/09/2025
The new 'gdal raster neighbours' function is pretty cool - it does convolution across a raster, with configurable kernels and other options. Not yet released, but available in dev builds. See gdal.org/en/latest/pr... for details.
gdal.org
gdal raster neighbors — GDAL documentation
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Robin Wilson @robintw.bsky.social · 28/09/2025
Looking forward to #foss4guk this week in Leeds. I'll be attending with a colleague, running a workshop on producing live vector tiles from PostGIS and my colleague will be giving a talk. Now just to hope that the trains work better than last year: I got stuck in Bristol TM because the lift broke!
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Robin Wilson @robintw.bsky.social · 27/09/2025
Debated about buying some heavy water today...for my #emfcamp talk/demo but a) it's very expensive and b) it'd probably get me put on a list. I'm consoling myself by buying high wattage halogen lamps instead.
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Elizabeth Garrett Christensen @sqlliz.bsky.social · 17/09/2025
@pwramsey.bsky.social and I are hosting PostGIS Day again this year! The call for papers and registration is open now. Join us! www.snowflake.com/postgis-day-...
snowflake.com
PostGIS Day | November 20
Learn how others are making use of PostGIS, pick up some tips and tricks, and share stories about bringing this excellent tool into your organizations.
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Robin Wilson @robintw.bsky.social · 23/08/2025
Does anyone know any good books about the UK telephone network? Ideally I'd be interested in a history of the network, exchange development, memories of working on the network, big events (eg. phONEday etc) - but I can't seem to find anything like this
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Eric Ness @eric.ness.net · 08/08/2025
Orbio Earth just open-sourced their full methane detection pipeline—models, tools, synthetic-plume engine & validation notebooks—for Sentinel-2, Landsat 8/9, and EMIT. #Methane #ClimateTech #OpenSource - orbio-earth.github.io/Project-Euca...
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Robin Wilson @robintw.bsky.social · 07/08/2025
So, TIL that a MultiPolygon is invalid if any of its polygon parts touch at more than a single point. Eg. a MultiPolygon where two 'polygon parts' share an edge is invalid. I can see why this is the case - those two polygon parts should be merged, but it's a bit annoying. #gis
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Robin Wilson @robintw.bsky.social · 05/08/2025
I won't be able to make this as my wife is in the US at the time and so I'm needed at home - but I've had a great time at PyCon UK in the past, and I'm already looking forward to watching the videos of some of these talks.
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Robin Wilson @robintw.bsky.social · 05/08/2025
Pleased to announce that I'll be giving a workshop at #foss4guk entitled 'Live Vector Tiles from PostGIS with pg_tileserv: A Hands-on Workshop' - I'll take you through the full process of using pg_tileserv to serve vector tiles to web maps (using MapLibre, Leaflet etc) and QGIS. Come along!
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Robin Wilson @robintw.bsky.social · 04/08/2025
The Placing Technology blog (placing.technology) is utterly fascinating - someone blogging parts of their PhD research about the history of GIS and geospatial technologies in general.
placing.technology
Placing Technologies
The latest entries posted on Placing Technologies
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Robin Wilson @robintw.bsky.social · 25/07/2025
The bubble mixture recipe for big bubbles on this blog is awesome - easy to make and works far better than others I've tried in the past! juliawise.net/misc-parenti... Thanks @juliawise.bsky.social
juliawise.net
Misc parenting ideas for summer • Otherwise
Assorted tips and activities I've used lately
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Robin Wilson @robintw.bsky.social · 22/07/2025
Just reviewed the list of talks/workshops for #foss4g2025 in Auckland - there are loads of really cool submissions. Such a shame I won't be able to be there, but I'll look forward to the videos. You can review them too at 2025.foss4g.org/attend/call-... Very simple to review, just 4 options!
2025.foss4g.org
FOSS4G Auckland 2025
FOSS4G stands for Free and Open Source Software for Geospatial, a conference hosted in partnership with OSGeo.
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Electromagnetic Field @emfcamp.bsky.social · 20/07/2025
We are finally ready to announce that EMF 2026 will happen on July 16-19, 2026, at Eastnor Castle Deer Park, Herefordshire. Expect more updates soon as we start spinning up the organisation again.
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Robin Wilson @robintw.bsky.social · 14/07/2025
Surprised to find out today that my talk on UK railway signalling at #emfcamp from a few years ago has now had over 3,500 views! It's at www.youtube.com/watch?v=cryU... if you'd like to watch it.
youtube.com
Robin Wilson: Learning from accidents: an introduction to railway signalling in the UK
YouTube video by Electromagnetic Field
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Alastair @ajgwords.bsky.social · 08/07/2025
🚨 Alert. Alert. The closing date for presentation submissions for #FOSS4GUK is rapidly approaching. Submit your talks here: uk.osgeo.org/foss4guk2025... It can be opinions, about projects, new ideas, breaking down technical concepts. Whatever topic you want, just involve open geospatial!
uk.osgeo.org
FOSS4G:UK 2025 Leeds Call for Talks
OSGeo:UK
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Robin Wilson @robintw.bsky.social · 30/06/2025
Found a cool feature of ogr2ogr: you can use SQL like 'SELECT * EXCEPT (col1, col2) FROM table' with the -sql parameter to exclude a few fields from the conversion process. Handy when you've got lots of fields and don't want to list them all out in the SELECT. See gdal.org/en/stable/us... #gis #gdal
gdal.org
OGR SQL dialect — GDAL documentation
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Robin Wilson @robintw.bsky.social · 21/06/2025
Thinking of proposing a workshop at FOSS4G UK 2025 on on-the-fly tile generation for webmaps. Could cover MVT generation using PostGIS and pg_tileserv, raster tile generation using Titiler etc, or both? Any preferences? Or particular things I should cover? #foss4g #foss4guk #osgeo #gis
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Robin Wilson @robintw.bsky.social · 18/06/2025
Just bought my ticket for @uk.osgeo.org's FOSS4G UK conference in October. Excited to attend on behalf of Rebalance Earth, and with some colleagues. Now just to write my workshop proposal... #gis #foss4g
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Robin Wilson @robintw.bsky.social · 14/06/2025
New-ish post on my blog: it's another links post - that's all I seem to be able to get round to writing at the moment. Anyway blog.rtwilson.com/more-links-j... has links on a range of topics including #python #geospatial #gis #stac #postgres and #3dprinting. Enjoy!
blog.rtwilson.com
More links – June 2025 « Robin's Blog
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Robin Wilson @robintw.bsky.social · 13/06/2025
This new functionality for seasonal grouping in xarray is nice: xarray.dev/blog/season-... - In one of the talks I gave about xarray years ago (at @ajgwords.bsky.social's Rasters Revealed, I think) I was asked a question about the season grouping being N Hemisphere focused - now I have a solution!
xarray.dev
Ergonomic seasonal grouping and resampling
Introducing new SeasonalGrouper and SeasonResampler objects
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SpacePolicyOnline @spacepolicyonline.bsky.social · 04/06/2025
USGS, which operates the Landsat satellites, just announced that Landsat 7 was officially decommissioned today. Landsat 8 and 9 continue operations. www.usgs.gov/news/nationa...
usgs.gov
End of an Era: Landsat 7 Decommissioned After 25 Years of Earth Observation
After 25 years of capturing Earth's changing landscape, the Landsat 7 satellite received its final transmission from the U.S. Geological Survey and was officially decommissioned June 4, closing a rema...
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Robin Wilson @robintw.bsky.social · 30/05/2025
Quite chuffed that my paper on Py6S - a Python interface I developed to the 6S Atmospheric Radiative Transfer model has now got to 200 citations. Not bad for a "software paper that will never get cited" as some people told me at the time! #python #science #remotesensing
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OSGeo:UK @uk.osgeo.org · 21/05/2025
Registration for #FOSS4G:UK 2025 is open! Early bird tickets are £80, until the end of July, which is the same date when the call for presentations closes. NB conference t-shirts and tickets for the social evening optional. uk.osgeo.org/foss4guk2025... www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/foss4guk-2...
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Robin Wilson @robintw.bsky.social · 10/05/2025
Just released another #3dprinting model - a lacemaking pin pusher. These are devices used by lacemakers to push little pins into their lace pillow (to hold the lace) without hurting their fingers. Available at makerworld.com/en/models/14... and probably coming to #emfcamp for a workshop!
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Martin Fleischmann @martinfleischmann.net · 28/04/2025
Ever needed to simplify street networks? I did. And it is a pain. So we wrote an algorithm that does that for us. And can do for you, as it is available as a Python package called `neatnet`. Here's a short blog about it - martinfleischmann.net/simplificati... and package - uscuni.org/neatnet
Original network on the left, simplified one on the right.Diagram of the neatnet's workflow.Image of face artifacts.
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Robin Wilson @robintw.bsky.social · 28/03/2025
New blog post: Learning resources for GIS in Python with cloud-native geospatial, PostGIS and more: blog.rtwilson.com/learning-res... I recently sent a list of learning resources to a MSc student I'm working with, and (with her permission) am sharing. #python #gis #remotesensing #geospatial
blog.rtwilson.com
Learning resources for GIS in Python with cloud-native geospatial, PostGIS and more « Robin's Blog
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Robin Wilson @robintw.bsky.social · 28/03/2025
Quite chuffed, I've got to 200 downloads of 3D models I've created and published on MakerWorld: makerworld.com/en/@robintw Check them out - there are some models of bits of my body (from CT scans), railway signalling things, craft stuff, jokes and more! #3dprinting
A 3d printed model of a human pelvisA zoomed-in view of a 3D printed model of an interlocking system from a mechanical railway signal boxA 3D printed tag or keyring tag saying 'MEASURE TWICE CUT ONC' as a joke
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Koen Hufkens, PhD @koen-hufkens.mastodon.social.ap.brid.gy · 26/03/2025
Anyone know if there are WorldClim mirrors around with COG (geotiff) or Zarr cloud ready support. The main repo is glacial. #rstats #rspatial
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Robin Wilson @robintw.bsky.social · 25/03/2025
We're looking for another speaker at PyData Southampton for our meetup on 15th April. If you can get to Southampton, UK (just 1hr15 by train from London!) you'll be sure of a warm welcome. Anything Python, data science, machine learning, AI etc welcome. @pydatasoton.bsky.social #python #pydata
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Robin Wilson @robintw.bsky.social · 24/03/2025
Recently came across the FILTER keyword in the Postgres SQL dialect. Looks really handy. Allows things like SELECT COUNT(*) as total_count, COUNT(*) FILTER (WHERE a > 5) as a_gt_5 See stokerpostgresql.blogspot.com/2025/02/how-... and www.crunchydata.com/blog/using-p... for details #sql #postgres
stokerpostgresql.blogspot.com
How PostgreSQL's Aggregate FILTER Will Spoil You
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Kyle Barron @kylebarron.dev · 24/03/2025
Obstore v0.6 brings simple, painless integration with Microsoft Planetary Computer! - *Automatic token refresh*. No need to manually fetch SAS tokens and never think about token expiration times again. - STAC API integration developmentseed.org/obstore/late...
developmentseed.org
Releasing obstore 0.6! - obstore
The simplest, highest-throughput Python interface to S3, GCS & Azure Storage, powered by Rust.
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Robin Wilson @robintw.bsky.social · 21/03/2025
Love it when I do a quick search for a QGIS plugin and find exactly what I want - today I wanted an easy way for a non-GIS specialist to find a UK postcode in QGIS. The ZoomToPostcode plugin (plugins.qgis.org/plugins/Zoom...) does exactly what I want! #gis #qgis
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Robin Wilson @robintw.bsky.social · 17/03/2025
Love this post! A GeoParquet backend for stac-fastapi sounds really useful for something I am working on (github.com/stac-utils/s...), and it's great to see some work on authentication for STAC - a problem I got part-way through trying to solve at a previous client (github.com/developments...)
github.com
GitHub - stac-utils/stac-fastapi-geoparquet: A stac-fastapi server implementation with a stac-geoparquet backend
A stac-fastapi server implementation with a stac-geoparquet backend - stac-utils/stac-fastapi-geoparquet
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Robin Wilson @robintw.bsky.social · 17/03/2025
New blog post: A load more links, at blog.rtwilson.com/a-load-more-... Basically just a load more links that I've collected over the past weeks/months, mostly with a geospatial/data/Python theme but not entirely. #gis #gischat #python
blog.rtwilson.com
A load more links « Robin's Blog
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Robin Wilson @robintw.bsky.social · 17/03/2025
Reposting for the work-hours GIS crowd - I've had some really interesting responses already, and am going to write up all the responses in a blog post later this week.
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Robin Wilson @robintw.bsky.social · 15/03/2025
If I wanted to persuade someone who only knows ArcGIS/ESRI products that they should look at QGIS/open-source tools, what particular features should I point to? Aside from being free and open-source - what wow features do they have? What can you do easily that you can't in Arc? #gis #gischat #foss4g
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Guy Shrubsole @guyshrubsole.bsky.social · 06/03/2025
Huge win! Government announces plans to open up the Land Registry. If delivered, will finally reveal more about who owns land in England and Wales. Read my blog post for more details & how you can write to the Minister to make sure this now happens: whoownsengland.org/2025/03/06/h... 🧵1/
whoownsengland.org
Huge win! Government announces plan to open up Land Registry
This post is by Guy Shrubsole. Today the UK Government has announced plans to open up the Land Registry – which, if delivered, will finally reveal more about who owns land in England and Wale…
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Robin Wilson @robintw.bsky.social · 25/02/2025
The raster labelling feature in the latest release of QGIS looks really cool. I've had to do a poor-man's version of this before by converting to a vector grid. Also gonna use it for updating some of the images I use for teaching. qgis.org/project/visu... #gis #qgis #raster
qgis.org
Changelog for QGIS 3.42 · QGIS Web Site
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