# Geospatial Viewers

> This skill should be used when viewing, previewing, or inspecting geospatial files from the command line. Covers interactive raster viewing (viewtif), interactive vector viewing (viewgeom), and non-interactive terminal-inline viewing (viewinline) for GeoTIFF, Shapefile, GeoJSON, GeoPackage, GeoParquet, CSV, HDF, NetCDF, and more.

- Skill: `isaaccorley/geospatial-viewers` (Agent Skill, multi-file: 4 files)
- Install (CLI): `npx skillmds@latest add isaaccorley/geospatial-viewers`
- Raw SKILL.md: https://api.skillmd.com/api/skills/isaaccorley/geospatial-viewers/raw
- Safety review: pending
- Works with: Claude Code, Claude.ai, OpenAI Codex
- Category: Data & Analytics
- Author: isaaccorley (https://skillmd.com/u/isaaccorley)
- Updated: 2026-09-17
- Page: https://skillmd.com/skills/isaaccorley/geospatial-viewers

---


# Geospatial Viewers

Three CLI tools for quick-look inspection of geospatial data. Always run them via `uvx` so they are auto-installed without polluting the project environment.

| Tool | Purpose | PyPI |
|------|---------|------|
| **viewtif** | Interactive Qt viewer for rasters (GeoTIFF, HDF, NetCDF, FileGDB) | `uvx viewtif` |
| **viewgeom** | Interactive Qt viewer for vector datasets | `uvx viewgeom` |
| **viewinline** | Non-interactive terminal-inline viewer (rasters, vectors, CSV, Parquet) | `uvx viewinline` |

## Choosing the Right Tool

- **Need interactive zoom/pan/contrast?** Use `viewtif` (rasters) or `viewgeom` (vectors).
- **Quick inline preview in iTerm2/WezTerm/Konsole?** Use `viewinline` (no GUI window, renders in terminal).
- **CSV/Parquet analysis (stats, histograms, SQL)?** Use `viewinline`.
- **Vector file as table (describe, filter, sort)?** Use `viewinline --table`.
- **Headless server / SSH / HPC?** Use `viewinline` (renders on local terminal, no X11 needed).

## Running with uvx

Always prepend `uvx` to auto-install and run without modifying the local environment:

```bash
uvx viewtif file.tif
uvx viewgeom boundaries.geojson
uvx viewinline file.tif
```

For optional extras, use the `--from` flag:

```bash
uvx --from "viewtif[geo]" viewtif raster.tif --shapefile overlay.shp
uvx --from "viewtif[netcdf]" viewtif data.nc
uvx --from "viewgeom[parquet]" viewgeom data.geoparquet
```

## Quick Reference

```bash
# Raster inspection
uvx viewtif image.tif
uvx viewtif image.tif --shapefile boundaries.shp
uvx viewtif image.tif --rgb 4 3 2
uvx viewtif image.tif --vmin 280 --vmax 320
uvx viewtif huge_raster.tif --scale 10

# NetCDF / HDF
uvx --from "viewtif[netcdf]" viewtif data.nc --subset 1 --timestep 100

# FileGDB raster
uvx viewtif "OpenFileGDB:/path/to.gdb:RasterName"

# Remote files
AWS_NO_SIGN_REQUEST=YES uvx --from "viewtif[geo]" viewtif s3://bucket/raster.tif --shapefile local.shp

# Vector inspection
uvx viewgeom boundaries.geojson
uvx viewgeom landuse.shp --column area_sqkm
uvx viewgeom earthquake.geojson --filter "mag > 5"
uvx viewgeom earthquake.geojson --duckdb "SELECT * FROM data WHERE mag > 5"
uvx viewgeom earthquake.geojson --duckdb "SELECT mag FROM data WHERE mag > 5" --save filtered.geojson

# Terminal-inline preview
uvx viewinline file.tif --colormap
uvx viewinline sentinel2.tif --rgb 4 3 2
uvx viewinline boundaries.geojson --color-by population
uvx viewinline file.nc --subset 1 --timestep 10

# CSV / Parquet analysis
uvx viewinline data.csv --describe
uvx viewinline data.csv --hist area_km2 --bins 30
uvx viewinline data.csv --scatter longitude latitude
uvx viewinline data.csv --sql "SELECT State, AVG(Income) FROM data GROUP BY State"

# Vector as table
uvx viewinline counties.shp --table --describe
uvx viewinline data.geoparquet --table --where "POP > 100000" --sort POP --desc

# Image gallery
uvx viewinline outputs/ --gallery 4x3
```

## References

- `references/viewtif.md`
- `references/viewgeom.md`
- `references/viewinline.md`