Geoutil.com – Measure distances, areas, and convert geo data in the browser

130 pointsposted 4 months ago
by FreeGuessr
(geoutil.com)

25 Comments

FreeGuessr

4 months ago

I built GeoUtil.com to provide a free, browser-based toolkit for geographic data analysis.

It offers: - Interactive Map Tools: Measure distances and areas directly on the map. - Data Format Converters: Convert between TopoJSON and GeoJSON formats seamlessly. - Coordinate Utilities: Perform conversions and other coordinate-based operations.

No sign-up required, and all tools run client-side for privacy and speed.

Built with open standards and designed for developers, educators, and anyone interested in geographic data.

Feedback and suggestions are welcome!

elsjaako

3 months ago

Some coordinate conversions need a date (as the plates shift over time). Are you planning to add that?

korkoros

3 months ago

I think adding something like (or awareness of datum transformations generally) would make the tool harder to use for its intended audience. If you need the level of precision where tectonic plate movement matters, then you need professional level tools.

FreeGuessr

3 months ago

Exactly unless I am not aware how much they move and it's significant number

elsjaako

3 months ago

The worst distances you can expect are around 1.5m (comparing australia in 2001 when gps accuracy was improved to now). But that number can be hard to figure out if you don't have a tool that allows you to set the time of conversion :)

bouk

3 months ago

Could you how a decimal point in the distance measuring tool? I want to measure distances in my backyard from the satellite photo and the rounded number makes it hard to be accurate

FreeGuessr

3 months ago

Good idea, I will add it! I did that before for Area tool but it's missing in distance tool. Thank you for the feedback!

eitau_1

3 months ago

à propos the distance tool, please let the user:

- type coordinate pairs by hand

- copy coordinates entered by clicking

otherwise, it's a great tool!

FreeGuessr

3 months ago

Thank you for the suggestion! I will add it.

XnoiVeX

3 months ago

GPX file support would be a great addition! Thank you.

FreeGuessr

3 months ago

Adding to TODO list. Thank you for the suggestion

croisillon

3 months ago

you should have made it a Show HN, thanks for the discovery and for paintmymap!

sebosp

3 months ago

I made something like this around 10 years ago to show wireless frequency coverage, luckily the country I was living in is small enough and close to the equator, I didn't support the curvature of the earth so I can't start to imagine how difficult it must have been to visualize it in the browser https://sourceforge.net/projects/waire/ in my case the earth was kinda flat lol, it was fun parsing the map data available back then and playing with SVGs, back then the rendering engine from Opera browser was unmatched

kattagarian

3 months ago

This is really cool! I was doing some research last year on OpenStreetMap and wishing that there was tools like distance measurement there by default. Thanks for building and sharing this!

Aachen

3 months ago

I've been using map.meurisse.org for probably >10 years now, if distance measurement is all you need!

I also really like the scroll behavior there, no waiting for the previous zoom level to animate before it lets you zoom to e.g. city level

bluber84

3 months ago

What are your future plans? Will you open source the code? Will deploy a library that everybody could implement it in their apps…etc??

cwmma

3 months ago

If you read the about page it lists the open source tools it used to make it, primarily turf.js so a library for others to do it already exists.

FreeGuessr

3 months ago

Exactly. I didn't think about open-sourcing but it's interesting idea, allow others to add more e.g. file formats to convert etc.. code would be need to be cleaned up more thought :D

jdc0589

3 months ago

im consistently surprised there aren't more tools like this. I also started playing with one earlier this year, and was pretty shocked how easy it is to get going with Leaflet as the backbone

notachatbot123

3 months ago

Is it AI coded (aka derivative of illegally slurped-up third-party code)?

admaiora

3 months ago

Has a very strong AI code smell. Still it seems to be a decent turf.js wrapper for GIS professionals who don't have too much JS experience. Most should be able to use CLI tools at least for all of this.

stocksinsmocks

3 months ago

I would expect GIS professionals to use ESRI or QGIS. This is an interesting showcase. It seems a little too simple given the variety of options for geographic projection. I’m not quite sure what the value proposition is, but it’s interesting.

FreeGuessr

3 months ago

The entire site is a result of me building different tools for geography guessing game, GuessWhereYouAre.com. At first, I needed them for myself (parsing JSONs, working a lot with Leaflet maps and Turf). Then I added some of them to the guide page in the game, and later I thought — why not create a dedicated site, polish the experience, and make them available as simple geography tools for people like me?

I’m not sure how useful they might be for professionals who use ESRI or QGIS, but I know I needed tools like that for the game’s development and couldn’t find anything easy to use and simple — at least not all in one place.

So technically, this site is a result of another project.

czbond

3 months ago

Thanks for mentioning turf. My Geo experience is generally in Python and the visualization for end users is always difficult.