GIS Tools for Hadoop

Looking at data without location, most of the time seems like looking at just part of a story. Including location and geography in analysis reveals patterns and associations that otherwise are missed. As Big Data emerges as a new frontier for analysis, including location in Big Data is becoming significantly important.

Data that includes location, and that is enhanced with geographic information in a structured form, is often referred to as Spatial Data. Doing Analysis on Spatial data requires an understanding of geometry and operations that can be preformed on it. Enabling Hadoop to include spatial data and spatial analysis is the goal of this Esri Open Source effort.

GIS Tools for Hadoop is an open source toolkit intended for Big Spatial Data Analytics. The toolkit provides different libraries:

• Esri Geometry API for Java: A generic geometry library, can be used to extend Hadoop core with vector geometry types and operations, and enables developers to build MapReduce applications for spatial data.
• Spatial Framework for Hadoop: Extends Hive and is based on the Esri Geometry API, to enable Hive Query Language users to leverage a set of analytical functions and geometry types. In addition to some utilities for JSON used in ArcGIS.
• Geoprocessing Tools for Hadoop: Contains a set of ready to use ArcGIS Geoprocessing tools, based on the Esri Geometry API and Spatial Framework for Hadoop. Developers can download the source code of the tools and customize it; they can also create new tools and contribute it to the open source project. Through these tools ArcGIS users can move their spatial data and execute a pre-defined workflow inside Hadoop.

The GIS Tools for Hadoop toolkit allows users, who want to leverage the Hadoop Framework, to do spatial analysis on spatial data; for example:

1.    Run Filter and aggregate operations on billions of spatial data records inside Hadoop based on spatial criteria.

2.    Define new areas represented as polygons, and run Point in Polygon analysis on billions of spatial data      records inside Hadoop.

3.    Visualize analysis results on a map with rich styling capabilities, and a rich set of base maps.

4.    Integrate your maps in reports, or publish them as map applications online.

Getting started

Developers can get started at Spatial Framework for Hadoop.

ArcGIS users can get started at Geoprocessing Tools for Hadoop.

How it all works?

Overall there are four Github projects that make up the toolkit.

Firstly, the Esri Geometry API for Java: project. This is a generic library that includes geometry objects, spatial operations, and spatial indexing, it can be used to spatially enable Hadoop. By deploying the Esri geometry API library (as a jar) within Hadoop, developers are able to build Map/Reduce applications that are spatially enabled, by leveraging the Esri Geometry API along with the other Hadoop APIs in their application.

Secondly, the Spatial Framework for Hadoop project. This library includes the user defined objects that extend Hive with the capabilities of the Esri Geometry API. By enabling this library in Hive, users are able to construct queries that are very SQL like using HQL. In this case, users don’t have to write a Map/Reduce application, they can interact with Hive, write their SQL like queries and get answers directly from Hadoop. Queries in this case can include spatial operations and values.

Thirdly, the Geoprocessing Tools for Hadoop project. These tools are specifically used in ArcGIS. Through the tools, users can connect to Hadoop from ArcGIS. Connecting to Hadoop from ArcGIS is really useful to the toolkit users, since they can import their analysis result in ArcGIS for Visualization. They can also do more complex and sophisticated analysis now that they narrowed down their data to a specific subset. Additionally, users can leverage the ArcGIS platform capabilities to publish their maps to web and mobile apps, and can integrate it with BI reports.

Finally, the GIS Tools for Hadoop project. This project is intended as a place to include multiple samples that leverage the toolkit. The samples can leverage the low level libraries, or the Geoprocessing tools. A couple of samples are available to help you test the deployment of the spatial libraries with Hadoop and Hive, and make sure everything runs with no issues before you start leveraging the setup from your HQL queries, or from the GP tools. To check your deployment, for Hive and GP tools usage, the sample point-in-polygon-aggregation-hive can be utilized. The sample leverages the data and lib directories on the same path.