Geo Comp/Analysis 2025 course
Geocomputation and geospatial analysis
Teachers
M.Sc. Saverio Mancino
Online teaching: April 2025, 2 weeks (12h)
Lecture 1: Tuesday, 1 April at 15:00 - 17:45* CET (everyone)
Catch-up session 1: Wednesday, 2 April at 15:00 - 16:00 CET (everyone)
Lecture 2: Thursday, 3 April at 15:00 - 17:45* CET (everyone)
Lecture 3: Tuesday, 8 April at 15:00 - 17:45* CET (everyone)
Catch-up session 2: Wednesday, 9 April at 15:00 - 16:60 CET (everyone)
Lecture 4: Thursday, 10 April at 15:00 - 17:45* CET (everyone)
*15min break
In-Person Coding Hackathon: April 2025, Lecce, Italy
Hands-on session 1a: Tuesday, 15 April at 8:30 - 17:00* CET (PhD students/candidates)
Hands-on session 1b: Wednesday,16 April at 9:00 - 17:00* CET (PhD students/candidates)
Hands-on session 2a: Thursday, 17 April at 8:30 - 17:00* CET (Technical employee- PhD students/candidates*)
Hands-on session 2b: Friday, 18 April at 9:00 - 17:00* CET (Technical employee - PhD students/candidates*)
*PhD students/candidates are welcome to extend their participation to the second session (April 17-18) if they wish to stay longer.
In-person week working hours (6 working-hours/day)
08:30 - 09:00 Registration (only Tuesday and Thursday)
09:00 - 11:00 Hands-on
11:00 - 11:30 Coffee break
11:30 - 13.00 Hands-on
13:00 - 14:30 Lunch Break
14:30 - 17:00 Hands-on
Course objectives
On this course, students will be introduced to an array of powerful open-source geocomputation tools (GDAL & python) under Linux environment. Students who have never been exposed to programming under Linux are expected to reach a stage where they feel confident to understand and modify advanced open source data processing routines. Our aim is to equip attendees with powerful tools and hone their ability for independent study afterwards. The acquired skills will be beneficial, not only for GIS related applications, but also for general data processing and applied statistical computing in a number of fields. We aim to provide a sound foundation for career development as a geographic data scientist.
All the class will be recorded. The video link will be posted in the syllabus below
Class roster
Syllabus overview
| Subject | n. lectures |
| LINUX bash: | 1 |
| LINUX gdal: | 1 |
| LINUX python: | 2 |
Detailed syllabus
Below we are going to list day by day the final syllabus with the relatives links to the materials and recorded video. Full video playlist cam be found here
Lecture 1: Tuesday, 1 April 2025.
Getting started: knowing each other and course introduction.
This session introduces the objectives of the course followed by an introductory round among the students and teachers.
Recorded lecture can be found here
Transcript summary lecture can found here
15:00 - 15:10 Tushar Sethi: background/interest & course objective - communication/administration role.
15:10 - 15:25 Giuseppe Amatulli: background/interest & bash/gdal.
15:25 - 15:40 Saverio Mancino: background/interest & geopython.
16:40 - 17:00 OSGeoLive 16.0 Virtual Machine installation review, QA & troubleshooting.
17:00 - 17:15 Break
17:15 - 17:45 Linux BASH
During this session we explore and practice the basics of BASH terminal command line. The acquired skills will be used in all following sections.
Unix/Linux command line (Hands-on tutorial)
Starting with Bash
Special characters and Quoting
The most important commands - Unix/Linux Command Reference
Meta-characters and regular expression, their use.
Concatenate process (pipe).
String manipulation
Additional Material: Manipulate text files in bash (Hands-on tutorial)
Pattern matching
Sorting a file
Append the command result to a file
For loop and the use of variables
If condition in a for loop
Checking the flow statement
Debugging
Suggested assignments:
These assignments do not need to be delivered nonetheless we suggest doing it in order to get familiar with the bash command line topics. Below, some suggestions of possible operations:
watch the following videos for additional bash command lines.
Get fast in navigating up and down in the directory using only the command line.
Copy/move files from a directory to another directory.
Search and use a command for copy file from you pc to a Linux remote server.
Get fast on using keyboard shortcuts.
Perform a data download operation using wget or curl.
Unzip/untar files.
Get familiar with apt update && apt upgrade && apt install to maintain your OSGeoLIve Linux Virtual Machine and install new software.
Catch-up session 1: Wednesday, 2 April 2025
Recorded lecture can be found here
Transcript summary lecture can found here
This session is dedicate to the students that encounter problems for the OSGeoLive 16.0 Virtual Machine installation.
Installation and introduction to the OSGeoLIve Linux Virtual Machine (Hands-on tutorial)
Be sure that following OSGeoLive 16.0 Virtual Machine features are present:
The OSGeoLive 16.0 Virtual Machine internet connection is working fine - open a browser and search for something.
The OSGeoLive 16.0 Virtual Machine screen is wide and you can expand and switch back to your native OS without issues.
The shared folder has been correctly installed. Check if the /media/sf_LVM_shared is visible.
The /home/user/SE_data/ has been download and that the /media/sf_LVM_shared/my_SE_data is visible and you can see the sub-folder.
The OSGeoLive 16.0 Virtual Machine Keyboard Layout has been set in accordance to your keyboard, and that the letter that you type correspond in what you see.
If one or more of these features are not working properly show up in the Catch-up session.
Lecture 2: Thursday, 3 April 2025.
Manipulate geographical data with GDAL/OGR (Giuseppe Amatulli).
Recorded lecture can be found here.
Transcript summary lecture can found here.
This section introduces data manipulation for geospatial data processing on the command line using GDAL & OGR libraries.
GDAL/OGR for raster and vector analysis.
Understanding NoData Value
Openev & QGIS for raster and vector visualization
The use of .VRT for splitting and merging images
Suggested assignments:
These assignments do not need to be delivered now, nonetheless do it in order to get familiar with the gdal/ogr command line topics. In two weeks, when all the geographic tools will be covered, you will need to handling a scripting procedure that prepare the geographic dataset for your final project, so better to start now :-).
Below, some suggestions of possible operations:
Start to prepare the geographic dataset for your final project.
Using wget and/or curl download geographic dataset from an official repository
Assess and re-align geographic extent and pixel resolution (gdal_edit.py)
Using gdal command performs: cropping, merging (vrt+gdal_translate), re-projecting.
Additional material on the use PKTOOLS.
Lecture 3: Tuesday, 8 April 2025.
Jump start into Python programming (Saverio Mancino)
Recorded lecture can be found here.
Transcript summary lecture can found here.
Catch-up session 2: Wednesday, 9 April 2025
This online catch-up session is dedicate mainly to the students that encounter problems in using the Jupyter enviroment, but it’s also open to clarify something regarding the previous lesson. Students will meet online with the teacher to review past material and solve additional doubts.
Recorded of the QA can be found here.
Transcript summary lecture can found here
Lecture 4: Thursday, 10 April 2025.
Python libraries for geospatial data analysis (Saverio Mancino).
Python libraries for geospatial data analysis
Exploring Matplotlib and Seaborn for scientific plots,
Exploring Rasterio for raster processing and visualization,
Exploring Geopandas for vector processing and visualization.