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DuckDB

2026

  • Optimizing DuckDB Spatial Queries: A technical deep-dive comparing spatial join performance between PostGIS and DuckDB, explaining how DuckDB's R-tree index fires only for single constant geometry comparisons while PostGIS auto-uses its GiST index — and showing that DuckDB's streaming SPATIAL_JOIN operator wins at scale when both datasets are large. [Keywords: DuckDB PostGIS spatial queries R-tree GiST spatial join performance geospatial]

  • spatial-access-measures: Web map using DuckDB-WASM and GeoParquet for in-browser SQL queries and filtering of Statistics Canada spatial access measures (transit, cycling, and walking accessibility to jobs, schools, and services). No server backend required — everything runs in the browser. Demo [Keywords: DuckDB-WASM GeoParquet deck.gl in-browser SQL accessibility Canada cloud-native]

  • Freestiler: R and Python tool for creating PMTiles vector tilesets from spatial data, including from DuckDB SQL queries. Uses a Rust tiling engine for in-process performance, producing single .pmtiles files compatible with Mapbox and MapLibre formats. [Keywords: PMTiles DuckDB R Python vector tiles cloud-native MapLibre geospatial]

  • GeoParquet Writing Cookbook: A practical guide with best practices and recipes for creating GeoParquet files using tools like GDAL, DuckDB, and geopandas, covering encoding strategies and optimization techniques for cloud-native geospatial workflows. [Keywords: GeoParquet DuckDB GDAL cloud-native geospatial spatial queries Python]