CalGIS 2025

DuckDB is an exciting new database system that brings the power and simplicity of spatial SQL into your python scripts.  It's fast and efficient with big data, imports a large variety of spatial file formats, and runs on your laptop -- no server or cloud required!  In this interactive workshop, we'll go over the basics of getting started with DuckDB, importing data, running spatial queries on your tables, and viewing outputs with the QDuckDB plugin for QGIS.   This is a great opportunity to get exposure to spatial SQL syntax and query patterns if you've always wondered, but never tried.  SQL is trending as the standard language for accessing data on many cloud geospatial platforms, so DuckDB is the perfect low-hanging fruit on which to practice your SQL skills without having to pay for cloud access.

Participants should provide their own laptops with QGIS and VSCode installed.  Familiarity with python and creating python environments is strongly advised.