Robin's Blog

Archive

2026

January 5th Favourite books I read in 2025

2025

June 12th More links – June 2025
March 28th Learning resources for GIS in Python with cloud-native geospatial, PostGIS and more
March 17th A load more links
March 14th My talk at FOSS4G UK South West 2024

2024

November 26th The Feynman approach to small monetary compensation
November 4th Join the GeoTAM hackathon to work out business turnovers!
October 9th How to convert hex-encoded WKB geometries in PostGIS
October 1st I won two British Cartographic Society awards!
July 11th Searching an aerial photo with text queries – a demo and how it works
July 7th Who reads my blog? Send me an email or comment if you do!
June 28th A load of links…
June 17th Accessing Planetary Computer STAC files in DuckDB
June 10th Introducing offline_folium
June 3rd Introducing pyAURN – a Python package for accessing UK air quality data
May 28th How to install the Python triangle package on an Apple Silicon Mac
May 20th How to subscribe to releases on Github
May 16th Some matplotlib tips – a reblog
May 13th I was interviewed on a podcast!
May 9th New Projects page on my website
May 7th Simple segmentation of geospatial images
April 30th What’s the largest building in Southampton? Find out with 5 lines of code
April 23rd Free GIS Data site update – all links now working!
April 20th British Placename Mapper – follow-up and links to cool maps
April 15th How to display images with custom paths relative to the project in QGIS Attribute Forms
April 9th More book recommendations from 2020 onwards – Part 1
April 3rd Simple self-hosted OpenStreetMap routing using Valhalla and Docker
April 1st Some easy recipes
March 30th Explore UK place names on a map – my new web app
March 26th My geospatial PDF talk at FOSS4G 2021
March 23rd Fixing SQL error ‘invalid reference to FROM-clause entry for table’
March 19th One reason for getting a ‘No HTTP triggers found’ error when using Azure Functions with Python V2 programming model
March 15th How to speed up appending to PostGIS tables with ogr2ogr
March 6th How to create a Windows USB boot stick using Ventoy
February 21st How to fix GeoPandas drop_duplicates on geometry column not getting rid of all duplicates?
February 20th How to easily reload a QGIS layer
February 18th How to create an x64 (Intel) conda environment on your Apple Silicon Mac (ARM) conda install
February 14th How to get segment-geospatial working on Microsoft Planetary Computer

2023

October 7th Upcoming talks: Cafe Sci Oxford & PyData Southampton
September 12th Pandas-FSDR: a simple function for finding significant differences in pandas DataFrames
September 1st How to get GeoParquet support in GDAL/OGR from conda-forge
March 6th Travel times, over time
January 17th Beach wheelchairs at Sandown, Isle of Wight and Barry, South Wales
January 11th Karabiner Elements and Goku for custom keyboard shortcuts in MacOS

2021

June 15th Py6S v1.9.0 released – plus code cleanup and how I got M1 support for the underlying 6S model

2020

November 19th Pint + SQLAlchemy = Unit consistency and enforcement in your database
November 16th A Python sqlite3 context manager gotcha
January 20th Favourite books I read in 2019
January 10th Talks I’m giving this year

2019

December 10th Creating an email service for my son’s childhood memories with Python
December 4th Automatically downloading nursery photos from ParentZone using Selenium
November 26th Using SQLAlchemy to access MySQL without frustrating library installation issues
November 20th A couple of handy zsh/bash functions for Python programmers
November 14th Easily specifying colours from the default colour cycle in matplotlib
November 6th Markdown in WordPress – and writing blog posts is fun again
October 29th Five new-ish Python things – Part 1
October 23rd Setting limits for a choropleth layer manually with leaflet-choropleth
October 14th Automatically generating a legend for a choropleth layer in Leaflet
October 8th Easily hiding items from the legend in matplotlib
October 2nd Calculating Rayleigh Reflectance using Py6S
September 26th Automatically annotating a boxplot in matplotlib
September 22nd Matplotlib titles have configurable locations – and you can have more than one at once!
September 12th I am now a freelancer in Remote Sensing, GIS, Data Science & Python
January 30th Less than a week left to bid for a day’s work from me
January 16th Bid for a day’s work from me

2018

October 23rd I give talks – on science, programming and more
October 18th Mismatch between 6S atmospheric correction results & those from coefficients
October 15th PyCon UK 2018: My thoughts – including childcare review
September 28th PyCon UK 2018: My talk on xarray
May 21st Automatic PDF calendar generation with pcal
May 17th Assumptions in Remote Sensing
May 14th BankClassify: simple automatic classification of bank statement entries
May 11th Android + OpenCV = Confusion…
May 8th Cloud frequency map for Europe & update to cloud frequency web app
May 3rd Attending EGU in a wheelchair
April 30th Blogroll
April 23rd Some recent papers of mine
April 17th Roadside leafiness from space – Part 2
April 3rd Roadside leafiness from space – Part 1
March 10th Quick way to delete columns from a shapefile

2016

August 20th Regression in Python using R-style formula – it’s easy!
August 11th Reminder about cross-platform case-sensitivity differences
August 3rd ‘Got multiple values for argument’ error with keyword arguments in Python classes
July 25th Showing code changes when teaching
July 17th Reading AERONET data in Pandas: a simple helper function
June 14th Conda revisions: letting you ‘rollback’ to a previous version of your environment
June 8th Data sources for parameterising Radiative Transfer Models & atmospheric correction algorithms
June 8th Non-traditional references to my work – and why they’re important
May 31st Resources for learning Python for Remote Sensing – or switching from IDL
May 24th Software Sustainability in Remote Sensing
May 1st I’m an academic in a wheelchair – why is it so difficult?
April 28th How to: speed up viewing Samba network shares in OS X
April 21st How to: rescue lost code from a Jupyter/IPython notebook
April 15th Previously Unpublicised Code: RPiNDVI
April 6th My thesis writing timeline – analysed using Dropbox and Python
March 31st How to: Set the Python executable used to run .py files from the command-line on Windows
March 23rd How to: Get Sublime Text style editing in the IPython/Jupyter notebook
March 17th Ten Little IDL programs in Python
March 9th Programming link clearance 2015: Python edition
March 3rd How to: Get Python packages which need a C compiler installed easily on Windows
March 1st Job: Research Assistant with Python & Remote Sensing/Image Processing experience
February 24th Hacking the Worcester Wave thermostat in Python – Part 3
February 18th How to: add simple new commands to LaTeX to help with writing papers
February 11th Hacking the Worcester Wave thermostat in Python – Part 2
February 5th Hacking the Worcester Wave thermostat in Python – Part 1
January 28th My MSc project: a simple ray-tracing radiative transfer model (with code!)
January 20th Deprecating AutoZotBib
January 14th Behind the paper: Are visibility-derived AOT estimates suitable for parameterising satellite data atmospheric correction algorithms?
January 6th Previously Unpublicised Code: PyMicrotops

2015

December 30th My 2015 Python life
December 23rd My top 5 ‘new’ Python modules of 2015
December 19th An easy way to install Jupyter Notebook extensions
December 15th Convolution in python – which function to use?
December 12th Previously Unpublicised Code: manifestoclouds
December 7th Bokeh plots with DataFrame-based tooltips
December 1st Scientific software metrics with Depsy – a great new tool!
November 24th Calculating percentiles in Python – use numpy not scipy!
November 17th van Heuklon ozone model now available on PyPI and conda
November 11th Happy 7th Birthday Blog!
November 10th Orthogonal Distance Regression in Python
November 6th Previously Unpublicised Code: RTWIDL
November 3rd Blue Marble: From Apollo 17 to DSCOVR, an EPIC journey
October 26th Two great IPython extensions
October 18th How to: get nice vector graphics in your exported PDF ipython notebooks
August 28th Introducing recipy: effortless provenance tracking with Python
August 3rd How I became Dr Robin Wilson: Part 2
July 29th Interactive cloud frequency web map, with Google Earth Engine
July 25th How I became Dr Robin Wilson: Part 1
July 13th How to: load the Google Maps Places library through Google API Loader
June 29th IPython tips, tricks & notes – Part 1
May 31st How to: Log electricity usage from a CurrentCost EnviR – Part 2
May 24th How to: Log electricity usage from a CurrentCost EnviR – Part 1
May 24th Note: Mounting over an existing directory ‘hides’ the files

2014

September 19th Review: High Performance Python by Gorelick and Ozsvald
August 6th Behind the paper: Spatial variability of the atmosphere over southern England, and its effects on scene-based atmospheric corrections
July 24th What’s new in Py6S
June 13th How to: Fix weird ENVI startup file issues
May 13th Simple parameter files for Python class-based algorithms
May 1st How to: Find out what modules a Python script requires
April 25th How to: Solve GDAL error ‘An error occurred while writing a dirty block’
April 21st How effective is my research programming workflow? The Philip Test – Part 4
April 15th How to: Create a Landsat Metadata database, so you can select images by various criteria
April 8th How effective is my research programming workflow? The Philip Test – Part 3
March 31st Software choices in remote sensing
March 25th How effective is my research programming workflow? The Philip Test – Part 2
March 19th How to: Fix ‘WARNING: terminal is not fully functional’ error on Windows with Cygwin/Msysgit
March 15th Review: Rackspace Cloud (+ free open-source project hosting)
March 10th How effective is my research programming workflow? The Philip Test – Part 1
March 5th How to: Convert OSM waypoints defining polygons into Shapefile
March 3rd How to: Fix Flask WSGI webapp hanging when importing a module (such as numpy or matplotlib)
March 3rd Py6S now has Continuous Integration & better tests
March 1st New Py6S and RTWTools websites
January 25th How to batch export PDFs to other filetypes in Adobe Acrobat

2013

November 10th The benefits of an academic website
November 10th You’ve done your literature review – what about a data review as well?
September 5th Configuring legends in ArcGIS – a (slightly) less horrible way to do it
August 30th Encouraging citation of software – introducing CITATION files
May 10th Beware: Latitude/Longitude co-ordinates in ENVI may not be in WGS-84
April 13th van Heuklon Ozone model implementation in Python
March 25th Please specify a license for your software (and even your code samples!)
March 24th A simple way to improve sustainability, reproducibility and releasability of your code and data
March 18th Review: Programming ArcGIS 10.1 with Python Cookbook
March 13th John Snow’s Cholera data in more formats
March 12th Resources for Sustainable Software and Reproducible Research in Remote Sensing presentation
March 5th Converting latitude/longitude co-ordinates to Landsat WRS-2 paths/rows
March 3rd Can I atmospherically-correct my images with Py6S?
January 7th Py6S: Run a radiative transfer model with a user-defined input spectrum
January 1st My first academic paper – on Py6S
January 1st Major update to Free GIS Data site

2012

December 29th Review: Code – The Hidden Language of Computer Hardware and Software by Charles Petzold
September 30th Validating the validation?
September 25th Updated Snow GIS data
September 20th I signed the Science Code Manifesto – and you should too!
September 7th In praise of ProjectTemplate for reproducible research
August 15th Announcing bib2coins – convert BibTeX files to COINS metadata
August 10th How to: Make your Sphinx documentation compile with ReadTheDocs when you’re using Numpy and Scipy
May 2nd How to: Set raster values to NoData easily in ArcGIS 10
May 1st Announcing DateRangeParser: Parse strings like “27th-29th June 2010”
February 24th Producing polar contour plots with matplotlib
January 6th John Snow’s famous cholera analysis data in modern GIS formats

2011

November 15th How to: Solve the ‘Ctrl-Space (auto-complete) not working’ problem in Eclipse
November 13th How to choose a co-ordinate transformation in ArcGIS
November 10th Free Julian Day calendar poster download
November 2nd Please use sensible colours in your maps
October 24th Interesting Remote Sensing Applications #1: Estimating shop profits from space
October 23rd Standard test images for Remote Sensing
October 22nd Rules of thumb in Remote Sensing
October 2nd Fun with the OS Gazetteer
October 2nd Thoughts on academic conferences, or “Conferences aren’t lectures!”
August 26th Get more detailed messages for maths errors in IDL
July 15th The new iPython is awesome!
July 5th Reading data from instruments via RS-232 simply in Linux
July 3rd How to: Fix a network printer suddenly showing as offline in Windows Vista, 7 or 8
July 2nd Essential OS X software #1 – Mail Attachment Reminder Plugin
June 21st Using PyDev with with the Enthought Python Distribution
June 16th Categorised list of Free GIS Datasets
May 23rd Why I hate my Toshiba laptop
May 22nd Review: Dreamhost web hosting
May 21st Alfred – the new Quicksilver?
May 21st My programming journey
May 20th An ode to PDFs (and PDFs as a first class filetype)
May 20th Review: Asonic External USB 2.0 8 Channel Sound Card
May 11th The best debugger is a good compiler
April 29th How to: Consolidate your internet presence
April 26th Review: Machine Learning: An Algorithmic Perspective by Stephen Marsland
April 21st Finally – a way to move an ArcGIS map to another computer without breaking it
April 14th Programming << Pointers << Parallel Programming
April 14th Review: Matplotlib for Python Developers by Sandro Tosi
April 8th My LaTeX preamble
April 3rd Amazing software you haven’t heard of
April 2nd Git helps me get round to using source control
March 19th Want to write some code? Get away from your computer!
March 19th How to: Set up a simple service to run in the background on a Linux machine (using daemontools)
March 11th Review: R Graphs Cookbook by Hrishi Mittal
March 4th My new bookcase – arranged by the XKCD ‘Purity’ comic
March 2nd Review: Python Geospatial Development by Erik Westra
February 14th How to: Fix ArcGIS 9.3 Licensing Error 96,7 – Valid name, but no record
February 14th Review: The Geek Atlas by John Graham-Cumming
January 27th My favourite OS X software
January 22nd Git + DTerm = Great Source Control in OS X
January 17th Review: R in a Nutshell by Joseph Adler
January 10th Small Notes from a French Country
January 9th How to: Reset the Software Update URL in OS X
January 4th Reproducible Research: Why it’s great, and why I’ll do it
January 1st Review: Statistical Analysis with R: Beginner’s Guide by John M. Quick

2010

December 15th Coughs on a train
December 12th My 3 favourite things about my MacBook Pro
December 11th Lessons learnt from: My dissertation
December 2nd How to: Fix problem where EndNote only shows the EndNote Web toolbar in Word
December 2nd Review: A Thousand Years of Nonlinear History by Manuel De Landa
November 30th Review: Image Analysis, Classification and Change Detection in Remote Sensing (with algorithms for ENVI/IDL) by M. J. Canty
November 24th Finally…a nice way to download satellite images!
September 6th Leaky abstractions in science
September 3rd Default deny: A signal of academic maturity?
August 26th Producing grids of plots in R with ggplot2: A journey of discovery
August 23rd How to: Fix sudden VPN problem in Vista
August 18th How to: Find closest objects in ArcGIS with Python
August 2nd Aeolian Philosophy or “What is a sand dune?”
August 1st My academic values
July 26th How to: Snap points to lines in ArcGIS with Python
June 16th Art: in other words?

2009

March 6th Rats got unfairly blamed for bubonic plague

2008

November 11th Wisdom and Knowledge