2025 FOSS4G NA | Cloud Native Geospatial Metadata with Stac Geoparquet - Pete Gadomski
In this session from FOSS4G NA 2025, Pete Gadomski of Element 84 presents Cloud Native Geospatial Metadata with STAC GeoParquet. Pete explores the practical application of the SpatioTemporal Asset Catalog (STAC) specification and how the emerging GeoParquet format is addressing the scalability limitations of traditional static and API-based metadata catalogs.
The presentation compares traditional "static" (JSON blobs on blob storage) and "dynamic" (API/database-backed) access patterns, highlighting where each falls short when handling millions of items. Pete demonstrates how STAC GeoParquet provides a middle ground—enabling bulk metadata access, efficient full-scans, and direct-to-file searching without the overhead of a database. He also showcases "stac-map," a browser-based visualizer that uses DuckDB to filter and display GeoParquet files directly in the browser, and discusses how organized metadata snapshots can be used to feed and train Large Language Models (LLMs).
Highlights:
🛰️ The STAC Journey: A brief history of the SpatioTemporal Asset Catalog and its recent adoption as an OGC Community Standard
🔄 Static vs. API Patterns: A critical look at the trade-offs between cheap, simple blob storage and powerful but complex database-backed APIs
🧩 Enter STAC GeoParquet: How converting JSON metadata to a columnar format results in massive storage savings—from 21MB down to 200KB for 10,000 items
⚙️ Performance at Scale: Real-world results from a 10-million-item glacier dataset, showing how sorted GeoParquet files can reduce search times from 187 seconds to just 3 seconds
🌐 Universal Compatibility: Why using Parquet allows non-geospatial tools like DuckDB to analyze STAC metadata without specialized GIS libraries
🏢 The "One STAC" Vision: Moving toward a world where every database provides a GeoParquet snapshot for easier crawling and cross-catalog discovery
🏗️ STAC-Map Demo: A look at a new public tool for snapshotting STAC searches and uploading bundles for interactive browser-based filtering
For more content like this check out www.projectgeospatial.com
#Geospatial #FOSS4G #STAC #GeoParquet #Metadata #CloudNative #BigData #GIS #OpenSource #DuckDB #DataEngineering #Element84 #ProjectGeospatial #DataDiscovery #Xarray
