geojson.io: In-browser spatial data creation and sharing. Finally.

geojsonio1

Today on its blog, the open-source geo wizard repository MapBox has announced a new project to create, share, and edit geospatial data in your browser. It’s called geojson.io, and it’s set to sweep the nation! Or at least, the nation of those who like creating, sharing and editing spatial data.

As far as I can tell, the product (so far) has the following features:

  • Draw points, lines, or polygons on the Leaflet map and receive GeoJSON output
  • Edit data attributes in table or JSON format
  • Edit GeoJSON files and gists containing GeoJSON from GitHub repositories
  • Upload a file in one several formats for conversion to GeoJSON*

There is also a Chrome extension (for all you GitHub users out there) that adds a button to GitHub repos and gists containing geojson for easy editing in geojson.io. This has huge implications for data collaboration; the two datasets mentioned in the MapBox post are bars that have free wi-fi (currently a Washington, DC-focused dataset) and favorite running routes. The possibilities are endless! What data will you create?

The project is open source, which means that anyone can add to it and help make it better! To contribute, fork the GitHub repo and have at it. Remember: with open source, no contribution is too small! For more information on contributing to open source projects and open source in general, check out this great explanation.

*Still unsure about GeoJSON? Not entirely sure what GitHub is? Check out this post.