It’s a big day as we officially launch NeatoGeo!

We started NeatoGeo to help the ‘accidental geographer’. But who is that?

Who we call the ‘accidental geographer’ is some expert who is trying to solve problems in their field, and who has to use locations or ‘spatial data’ in their work. For example, they might be a mariner, a backcountry ranger, a fisherman, or a remote sensing scientist. They might be a biologist, or work for a land office. They might be a student pulling an all-nighter, a drone pilot mapping power lines, or they might be a hydrographer with a tight deadline for a seafloor map. These folks need to SOLVE PROBLEMS, and spatial data and tools are just the means to their end. Nobody really wants to learn how to install GDAL or (gasp!) deal with ESRI licensing, when they just need something done. Nobody really wants to learn the obscure details of spatial data formats when they just need to convert a shapefile to GeoJSON. Certainly nobody wants to deal with setting up web servers, cloud services, databases, and this-and-that when they want to share a quick map with a remote colleague, or give a download link to a collaborator. That is why we’re here. Simple, quick, and easy - that’s our way.

What’s in the beta? Well, we’ve launched NeatoGeo with a basic (but valuable) set of tools that transform and translate a lot of common spatial file formats - all totally free! Someone who has a bunch of KML files, for instance, can easily turn them into GeoJSON or GeoPackage and vice versa. Those dealing with troublesome ESRI shapefiles can convert them to something easier to deal with. We even have a basic tool to do build small amounts of raster map tiles. Soon, we’ll launch the ability to see and publish these files and tiles as shareable web maps, so you can quickly see your data or share it with others.

But this is just the start. The list of ideas and features we want to add to NeatoGeo is very, very long! We’ll have a lot of exciting announcements in the months ahead about additional features and capabilities to make your work even easier. Most importantly, though, we want to hear from you. What problems do YOU face with your files, with your mapping data? What’s a daily hassle for you that we can help solve? Let us know. We’re here to help.