Eurostat GridMaker
Keywords
Principle 3, gridded geographies, open source, Python, INSPIRE
GridMaker is a tool that supports automated production of gridded datasets of various resolutions covering user-defined countries or regions. The tool also creates a standard INSPIRE compliant code for each grid cell.
Most standard GIS software packages include tools for creation of regular tesselations such as square grid cells. However, to automate the production of gridded datasets, Eurostat has created a standalone java based open source tool called GridMaker.
Figure 1. GridMaker produces GIS grid datasets of various resolutions covering user-defined countries or regions. Source: Eurostat
GridMaker is used at Eurostat-GISCO for the production of gridded datasets of various resolutions. It supports the creation of datasets representing statistical grids based on the European ETRS89-LAEA coordinate reference system (EPSG:3035), which are compliant with the Census 2021 regulation, the INSPIRE regulation and the GEOSTAT initiative.
However, the tool works with any officially recognised coordinate reference system (according to EPSG definitions). Each grid cell is identified with a standard INSPIRE compliant code such as CRS3035RES200mN1453400E1452800. The output grid cells can be saved as GeoPackage, Shapefile or GeoJSON files.
For python programmers there is also an alternative option for grid creation with pygridmap. The pygridmap package enable you to perform some basic geometric/set operations over large/big vector datasets, including regular grid maker (i.e., rasterisation) and grid overlay (i.e. intersection and union). The code takes advantage of multiprocessor capabilities for efficient tile-based processing.
More information
Both GridMaker and the pygridmap package are avaliable at GitHub: