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    <title>DEV Community: Thale Jacobs</title>
    <description>The latest articles on DEV Community by Thale Jacobs (@thalej).</description>
    <link>https://dev.to/thalej</link>
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      <title>DEV Community: Thale Jacobs</title>
      <link>https://dev.to/thalej</link>
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    <item>
      <title>Geospatial Intelligence Services for Latin America</title>
      <dc:creator>Thale Jacobs</dc:creator>
      <pubDate>Sun, 24 May 2026 20:56:53 +0000</pubDate>
      <link>https://dev.to/thalej/geospatial-intelligence-services-for-latin-america-580k</link>
      <guid>https://dev.to/thalej/geospatial-intelligence-services-for-latin-america-580k</guid>
      <description>&lt;h2&gt;
  
  
  Building Geospatial Intelligence Services for Latin America
&lt;/h2&gt;

&lt;p&gt;Most geospatial tooling is built with North America and Europe in mind.&lt;/p&gt;

&lt;p&gt;We built OnCoord to provide geospatial services focused specifically on Latin America — where POI coverage, addressing, and mapping consistency can vary dramatically between regions.&lt;/p&gt;

&lt;p&gt;One application built on top of those services is Dorado, a location prospecting tool that scores neighborhoods using population density, economic activity, POI density, and nearby competitors.&lt;/p&gt;

&lt;p&gt;The interesting part isn't really the frontend.&lt;/p&gt;

&lt;p&gt;It's the APIs behind it.&lt;br&gt;
&lt;/p&gt;

&lt;div class="highlight js-code-highlight"&gt;
&lt;pre class="highlight javascript"&gt;&lt;code&gt;&lt;span class="kd"&gt;const&lt;/span&gt; &lt;span class="p"&gt;[&lt;/span&gt;&lt;span class="nx"&gt;poiResp&lt;/span&gt;&lt;span class="p"&gt;,&lt;/span&gt; &lt;span class="nx"&gt;actResp&lt;/span&gt;&lt;span class="p"&gt;,&lt;/span&gt; &lt;span class="nx"&gt;popResp&lt;/span&gt;&lt;span class="p"&gt;]&lt;/span&gt; &lt;span class="o"&gt;=&lt;/span&gt; &lt;span class="k"&gt;await&lt;/span&gt; &lt;span class="nb"&gt;Promise&lt;/span&gt;&lt;span class="p"&gt;.&lt;/span&gt;&lt;span class="nf"&gt;all&lt;/span&gt;&lt;span class="p"&gt;([&lt;/span&gt;
  &lt;span class="nf"&gt;fetch&lt;/span&gt;&lt;span class="p"&gt;(&lt;/span&gt;&lt;span class="s2"&gt;`/v1/poi_density?lat=&lt;/span&gt;&lt;span class="p"&gt;${&lt;/span&gt;&lt;span class="nx"&gt;lat&lt;/span&gt;&lt;span class="p"&gt;}&lt;/span&gt;&lt;span class="s2"&gt;&amp;amp;lon=&lt;/span&gt;&lt;span class="p"&gt;${&lt;/span&gt;&lt;span class="nx"&gt;lng&lt;/span&gt;&lt;span class="p"&gt;}&lt;/span&gt;&lt;span class="s2"&gt;`&lt;/span&gt;&lt;span class="p"&gt;),&lt;/span&gt;
  &lt;span class="nf"&gt;fetch&lt;/span&gt;&lt;span class="p"&gt;(&lt;/span&gt;&lt;span class="s2"&gt;`/v1/activity?lat=&lt;/span&gt;&lt;span class="p"&gt;${&lt;/span&gt;&lt;span class="nx"&gt;lat&lt;/span&gt;&lt;span class="p"&gt;}&lt;/span&gt;&lt;span class="s2"&gt;&amp;amp;lon=&lt;/span&gt;&lt;span class="p"&gt;${&lt;/span&gt;&lt;span class="nx"&gt;lng&lt;/span&gt;&lt;span class="p"&gt;}&lt;/span&gt;&lt;span class="s2"&gt;`&lt;/span&gt;&lt;span class="p"&gt;),&lt;/span&gt;
  &lt;span class="nf"&gt;fetch&lt;/span&gt;&lt;span class="p"&gt;(&lt;/span&gt;&lt;span class="s2"&gt;`/v1/population?lat=&lt;/span&gt;&lt;span class="p"&gt;${&lt;/span&gt;&lt;span class="nx"&gt;lat&lt;/span&gt;&lt;span class="p"&gt;}&lt;/span&gt;&lt;span class="s2"&gt;&amp;amp;lon=&lt;/span&gt;&lt;span class="p"&gt;${&lt;/span&gt;&lt;span class="nx"&gt;lng&lt;/span&gt;&lt;span class="p"&gt;}&lt;/span&gt;&lt;span class="s2"&gt;`&lt;/span&gt;&lt;span class="p"&gt;)&lt;/span&gt;
&lt;span class="p"&gt;]);&lt;/span&gt;
&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;

&lt;/div&gt;



&lt;p&gt;Dorado combines:&lt;/p&gt;

&lt;ul&gt;
&lt;li&gt;&lt;code&gt;/v1/population&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/li&gt;
&lt;li&gt;&lt;code&gt;/v1/activity&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/li&gt;
&lt;li&gt;&lt;code&gt;/v1/poi_density&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/li&gt;
&lt;li&gt;&lt;code&gt;/v1/poi_nearby&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/li&gt;
&lt;li&gt;&lt;code&gt;/v1/reverse&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/li&gt;
&lt;li&gt;&lt;code&gt;/v1/autocomplete&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/li&gt;
&lt;/ul&gt;

&lt;p&gt;The map itself uses a dynamic hexagonal grid generated directly in the browser. Each visible cell is scored in parallel, while competitor proximity is calculated client-side to avoid hundreds of API requests.&lt;br&gt;
&lt;/p&gt;

&lt;div class="highlight js-code-highlight"&gt;
&lt;pre class="highlight javascript"&gt;&lt;code&gt;&lt;span class="k"&gt;export&lt;/span&gt; &lt;span class="kd"&gt;function&lt;/span&gt; &lt;span class="nf"&gt;cellRadiusM&lt;/span&gt;&lt;span class="p"&gt;(&lt;/span&gt;&lt;span class="nx"&gt;zoom&lt;/span&gt;&lt;span class="p"&gt;)&lt;/span&gt; &lt;span class="p"&gt;{&lt;/span&gt;
  &lt;span class="k"&gt;if &lt;/span&gt;&lt;span class="p"&gt;(&lt;/span&gt;&lt;span class="nx"&gt;zoom&lt;/span&gt; &lt;span class="o"&gt;&amp;gt;=&lt;/span&gt; &lt;span class="mi"&gt;14&lt;/span&gt;&lt;span class="p"&gt;)&lt;/span&gt; &lt;span class="k"&gt;return&lt;/span&gt; &lt;span class="mi"&gt;250&lt;/span&gt;&lt;span class="p"&gt;;&lt;/span&gt;
  &lt;span class="k"&gt;if &lt;/span&gt;&lt;span class="p"&gt;(&lt;/span&gt;&lt;span class="nx"&gt;zoom&lt;/span&gt; &lt;span class="o"&gt;&amp;gt;=&lt;/span&gt; &lt;span class="mi"&gt;12&lt;/span&gt;&lt;span class="p"&gt;)&lt;/span&gt; &lt;span class="k"&gt;return&lt;/span&gt; &lt;span class="mi"&gt;500&lt;/span&gt;&lt;span class="p"&gt;;&lt;/span&gt;
  &lt;span class="k"&gt;return&lt;/span&gt; &lt;span class="mi"&gt;1000&lt;/span&gt;&lt;span class="p"&gt;;&lt;/span&gt;
&lt;span class="p"&gt;}&lt;/span&gt;
&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;

&lt;/div&gt;



&lt;p&gt;One of the goals behind OnCoord is making these services composable.&lt;/p&gt;

&lt;p&gt;The same APIs used by Dorado can also power logistics systems, mobility analysis, market research, geocoding workflows, and autonomous mapping applications.&lt;/p&gt;

&lt;h3&gt;
  
  
  The broader goal behind OnCoord is making geospatial infrastructure for Latin America easier to access programmatically.
&lt;/h3&gt;

&lt;ul&gt;
&lt;li&gt;Have a list of addresses in Latin America that need geocoding?&lt;/li&gt;
&lt;li&gt;Need elevations, slope, aspect, or population for a coordinate dataset?&lt;/li&gt;
&lt;/ul&gt;

&lt;p&gt;Send it to us — we're happy to process Latin America datasets for free. &lt;a href="mailto:support@oncoord.com"&gt;support@oncoord.com&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;

&lt;p&gt;If you're interested in geospatial APIs focused on Latin America, you can explore more at &lt;a href="https://www.oncoord.com" rel="noopener noreferrer"&gt;https://www.oncoord.com&lt;/a&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;

&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href="https://media2.dev.to/dynamic/image/width=800%2Cheight=%2Cfit=scale-down%2Cgravity=auto%2Cformat=auto/https%3A%2F%2Fdev-to-uploads.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fuploads%2Farticles%2F6odx2t1t15su776baaxn.png" class="article-body-image-wrapper"&gt;&lt;img src="https://media2.dev.to/dynamic/image/width=800%2Cheight=%2Cfit=scale-down%2Cgravity=auto%2Cformat=auto/https%3A%2F%2Fdev-to-uploads.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fuploads%2Farticles%2F6odx2t1t15su776baaxn.png" alt=" " width="800" height="371"&gt;&lt;/a&gt;``&lt;/p&gt;

</description>
      <category>api</category>
      <category>backend</category>
      <category>javascript</category>
      <category>showdev</category>
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