GeoPoint Factory

Generate useful, RGeo-compatible geographic points located within a supplied shapefile.

Quick Start

Follow the RGeo installation instructions and install RGeo.
gem install geopoint_factory
Download an ESRI-compatible shapefile. (Cartographic boundary files from the US Census are a convenient source for these.)
Initialize an instance of GeoPointFactory::Generator with a shapefile and generate points:

require 'geopoint_factory'

generator = GeoPointFactory::Generator.new("path/to/shapefile") # omit file extension
point_inside = generator.generate
different_point_inside = generator.generate
yet_another_point_inside = generator.generate
generator.finalize

When done with a Generator instance, call #finalize.

Discussion

GeoPoint Factory was developed as a way to easily generate geographic coordinate data within a specific geographic area, while avoiding areas that may not be useful, such as in the ocean.

For example, using the US Census-supplied shapefile of San Francisco's boundaries, GeoPoint Factory can generate random points specifically within San Francisco's borders and avoid generating points within the Pacific Ocean or San Francisco Bay.

GeoPoint Factory was developed for use with the RGeo library.

Compatibility

Ruby 1.9.2+

Contributions, corrections, and improvements are always appreciated!

Created By

Josh Avant

License

This is licensed under a MIT/Beerware License:

Copyright (c) 2012 Josh Avant

Permission is hereby granted, free of charge, to any person obtaining a
copy of this software and associated documentation files (the "Software"),
to deal in the Software without restriction, including without limitation
the rights to use, copy, modify, merge, publish, distribute, sublicense,
and/or sell copies of the Software, and to permit persons to whom the
Software is furnished to do so, subject to the following conditions:

The above copyright notice and this permission notice shall be included in
all copies or substantial portions of the Software.

THE SOFTWARE IS PROVIDED "AS IS", WITHOUT WARRANTY OF ANY KIND, EXPRESS OR
IMPLIED, INCLUDING BUT NOT LIMITED TO THE WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTABILITY,
FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE AND NONINFRINGEMENT. IN NO EVENT SHALL THE
AUTHORS OR COPYRIGHT HOLDERS BE LIABLE FOR ANY CLAIM, DAMAGES OR OTHER
LIABILITY, WHETHER IN AN ACTION OF CONTRACT, TORT OR OTHERWISE, ARISING
FROM, OUT OF OR IN CONNECTION WITH THE SOFTWARE OR THE USE OR OTHER
DEALINGS IN THE SOFTWARE.

If we meet some day, and you think this stuff is worth it, you can buy me a
beer in return.