Identifying possible gas-flare operators from satellite heat signals. Mapping persistent NASA VIIRS thermal detections across Texas, then matching the strongest candidates to nearby on-schedule RRC wells and their operators.

I'm excited to share that I've received a grant from R Consortium to modernize R's tigris and tidycensus packages this summer. Over the past decade, tigris and tidycensus have become fixtures in R's demographic and spatial data ecosystems.

Understanding site accessibility by time-of-day is critical for emergency services, supply chain management, retail analytics, and more. Communicate this with @mapbox.com isochrones visualized with mapgl's new slider control in R.

mapgl 0.5.0 for R lets you sync up as many maps as your browser can handle. Shown here: 16 distinct demographic maps for the Atlanta area; interact with one, the other 15 are kept in sync. Now I'm not necessarily recommending a 16-panel map... but it's fun to see what's possible.

Vignette: optimized corridor routing over cost surfaces in R. Useful for pipeline routing, transmission line planning, trail planning, wildlife connectivity modeling, and more. walker-data.com/spopt-r/arti...

Version 0.2.0 of freestiler, a Rust-powered vector tiling engine for R and Python, has landed on CRAN and PyPI. The highlight: produce vector tiles with dynamic H3 hexagonal binning built-in. Learn how: walker-data.com/freestiler/a...

The new slider control in R's mapgl package (v0.5.0) isn't just for time-based filtering. Give it a list of paint expressions and you can animate changes over time on your map. Example: population changes at the tract level in Florida, animated in 3D.

A bivariate look at high-tech employment share and net migration across NUTS2 regions in Europe. Interactively mapped with R's mapgl using the new bivariate choropleth feature, now available in the package's 0.5.0 release. Credit to @milos-makes-maps.bsky.social for his inspirational examples!

Animated, hierarchical origin-destination commute flows in Dallas-Fort Worth, TX. Downtowns, medical districts, airports, and suburban job hubs light up from 2023 LODES data. Now available in R's mapgl 0.5.0. Credit to @ekotov.pro for the implementation and @ilyabo.bsky.social for Flowmap.gl!

The upcoming v0.5 release of mapgl for #rstats is going to be massive. Included: a slider control that allows for interactive data filtering - no Shiny required. Thanks to @ekotov.pro - brush a window over a histogram, see your data filter in real-time Lots more examples to share this week

Working on H3 integration into freestiler, my R/Python vector tiling tool. The new feature uses @duckdb.org internally to dynamically aggregate points into a multi-layer hexagonal tileset based on some function (summary stats, or your own custom SQL). Tiled here: 12M US groundwater wells

I grew up in Oregon without air conditioning, it seemed quite normal at the time, we just pulled out the box fans when it got hot in the summer. Fascinating to explore the patterns in this new Census data - lots of areas around Oregon / the US where AC prevalence isn't as high as you might expect.

Final reminder: today's the last day to grab my Census / mapping workshop catalog before the store shuts down tonight. Lifetime access to 25+ hours of recordings, 11 custom tutorials, $99. I really appreciate all of you who have bought it this week!

All workshops clearance bundle

CLEARANCE: All past workshops can be purchased together for only $99!Get access to over 25 hours of recordings for thousands of dollars in savings. Workshops will be retired May 22nd - so act now!

walkerdata.gumroad.com

Mapped: the % of occupied housing units without air conditioning by Census tract. Uses the new U.S. Census Bureau LACE dataset. Map the data yourselves: gist.github.com/walkerke/71e...

I'm archiving my R mapping & Census data workshop catalog permanently on Friday. walkerdata.gumroad.com/l/all-worksh... I've had a great time building examples for these workshops over the years. Here are a few of my favorites:

All workshops clearance bundle

CLEARANCE: All past workshops can be purchased together for only $99!Get access to over 25 hours of recordings for thousands of dollars in savings. Workshops will be retired May 22nd - so act now!

walkerdata.gumroad.com

146 million US jobs. Visualized by sector on a fast, filterable interactive map. Fly from market to market smoothly with @maptiler.bsky.social's geocoder. Explore for yourselves: walker-data.com/freestiler/l...

One of my favorite features in R's mapgl package: create custom, branded pop-ups for your interactive maps. Build a map template then use your AI agent to craft a pop-up that looks just the way you want. Learn how - workshops go away for good on Friday: walkerdata.gumroad.com/l/all-worksh...

The largest cities by area in the US that are not consolidated city-counties are: 1. Houston 2. Oklahoma City 3. Phoenix 4. San Antonio Here's NYC (inclusive of interior water) super-imposed over all four. Explore city sizes with my tool: walker-data.com/maps...

I'm retiring my R workshops. I'm as committed to R as ever, but the market for workshops has shifted & I'm focusing on other exciting ventures. I bundled the full catalog for $99; grab it (25+ hours, 11 tutorials) before I archive it on Friday. walkerdata.gumroad.com/l/all-worksh...

All workshops clearance bundle

CLEARANCE: All past workshops can be purchased together for only $99!Get access to over 25 hours of recordings for thousands of dollars in savings. Workshops will be retired May 22nd - so act now!

walkerdata.gumroad.com

City boundaries in the US can be strange. I built a tool to help you explore and compare them. Choose a city, drag it around the map, compare with other cities in the US. Try it out: walker-data.com/maps/city-co...

I love living in Fort Worth. And I think it's cool that we're now the 10th largest city by population in the US. But it's important to put this into context.

An interactive legend color picker is coming to the next release of R's mapgl package. Specify a list of color ramp functions when you generate your palette for mapping; your data will automatically re-style with no need for Shiny. Learn more: walker-data.com/mapgl/articl...

Lots of new features landing in R's mapgl package as it approaches an 0.5.0 release. Today's drop: - An interactive color ramp picker for your legends - Native bivariate choropleth mapping Learn more: walker-data.com/mapg...

Not "flashy" for social media, but some useful quality-of-life features have landed in the development version of R's mapgl package: - Bezier curves and Bezier polygons in the draw control; - A coordinates control to track your mouse position (decimal or DMS);

In geospatial right now there's so much focus on AI and automating our work. But I still think there's room for hands-on exploration and careful, expert-guided spatial analysis. Just recorded this quick walkthrough on some brand-new features in mapgl. riverside.com/shared/expor...

Kyle | Apr 27, 2026 001 - Riverside - HD Podcast & Video Software

riverside.com

spopt, an R package for spatial optimization, is now in general release on CRAN. spopt-r is inspired by the Python package of the same name. Features include: - Regionalization algorithms for building contiguous districts / territories; - Facility location solvers;

Putting Codex 5.5 through its paces today. Some really cool (and useful) features, like interactive attribute editing, will be landing in #rstats's mapgl shortly...

Mapping healthcare jobs clusters in Texas cities. Explore and filter the data yourselves: walker-data.com/free...

Clustering is a highly effective technique for visualizing dense geospatial point data. With freestiler, you can build cluster-aware tilesets that intelligently aggregate points until you hit a desired max cluster zoom level. Shown here: visualizing 5 million points smoothly with clustering.

146 million US jobs. Styled by category on a fast, filterable interactive map. Explore it here: walker-data.com/freestiler/l... The map is powered by {freestiler}, a Rust-powered vector tiling tool that is now available in general release on CRAN.