viewgeom 0.1.2

Command line vector viewer for .shp, .geojson, .gpkg, .geoparquet, .kml, and .kmz with a simple Qt UI.

viewgeom

Quick viewer for vector datasets from the command line.

Supports:

• Shapefile (.shp)
• GeoJSON (.geojson, .json)
• GeoPackage (.gpkg)
• GeoParquet (.parquet, .geoparquet)
• KML, KMZ (.kml, .kmz — displayed as boundaries only)

It automatically detects numeric columns and allows switching visualization columns.

Installation

pip install viewgeom

Note: Requires Python 3.9 or later.

Usage

viewgeom <path> [--column <name>] [--layer <name>] [--limit N] [--simplify tol]

Option	Description
--column <name>	Choose numeric column for coloring
--layer <name>	Select layer in a .gpkg file
--limit N	Max number of features to load (default: 100000)
--simplify <tol/off>	Geometry simplification (default: 0.01, use off to disable)

Examples

# View a GeoJSON
viewgeom gadm41_JPN_1.json

# Color by a numeric column
viewgeom landuse.shp --column area_sqkm

# View a GeoPackage and its specific layer
viewgeom countries.gpkg --layer ADM_ADM_2

# View a geoparquet
viewgeom mangrove_with_EAD.geoparquet --limit 150000 --simplify off

Keyboard Controls

Key	Action
+ / -	Zoom in / out
Arrow keys	Pan
[ / ]	Switch numeric columns
M	Switch colormap
B	Toggle basemap
R	Reset view

Notes

• For fast performance, only the first 100,000 features are displayed by default. Adjust with --limit (e.g., --limit 500000 or --limit 0 for no limit).
• Complex geometries are simplified by default (--simplify 0.01).
Use --simplify off to fully disable simplification.
• Basemap requires an active internet connection.
• KML/KMZ files are rendered as outlines only (converted from polygons to boundary lines for faster display and compatibility).

Credit & License

viewgeom, which followed from viewtif, was inspired by the NASA JPL Thermal Viewer — Semi-Automated Georeferencer (GeoViewer v1.12) developed by Jake Longenecker (University of Miami Rosenstiel School of Marine, Atmospheric & Earth Science) while at the NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory, California Institute of Technology, with inspiration from JPL’s ECOSTRESS geolocation batch workflow by Andrew Alamillo. The original GeoViewer was released under the MIT License (2025) and may be freely adapted with citation.

Citation

Longenecker, Jake; Lee, Christine; Hulley, Glynn; Cawse-Nicholson, Kerry; Purkis, Sam; Gleason, Art; Otis, Dan; Galdamez, Ileana; Meiseles, Jacquelyn. GeoViewer v1.12: NASA JPL Thermal Viewer—Semi-Automated Georeferencer User Guide & Reference Manual. Jet Propulsion Laboratory, California Institute of Technology, 2025. PDF.

License

This project is released under the MIT License © 2025 Keiko Nomura.

If you find this tool useful, please consider supporting or acknowledging the author.

Useful links

• Featured by Matt Forrest!
• Demo at the initial release