MapBench Guides
Geographic explainers, methods and practical map workflows.
A practical guide to latitude/longitude: what decimal degrees and DMS really mean, why datums matter, and how many decimal places you actually need.
The practical differences between the three most common geographic file formats — when to use each, what they lose in conversion, and how to move between them.
Why flat-Earth math fails past a few kilometres, what the haversine formula does, and how big the difference to a full ellipsoidal geodesic really is.
A complete weekend-warrior workflow: stops, optimized order, fuel budget, drive-time sanity checks and a GPX file for the car — all without a single paid app.
Great-circle distance is the planet's honest answer, but roads, borders and rivers charge a tax. A field guide to knowing which distance your question needs.
KML from Google My Maps, GPX from the bike computer, GeoJSON from the analyst — a practical workflow for converting without losing what matters.
Those lumpy drive-time shapes are the city telling you its secrets. How to read fingers, holes and lobes — and use them for real decisions.
Five decimals, one metre, and other promises your phone can't keep. What GPS precision actually means, and how to store coordinates honestly.
Golden hour is an altitude band, not a clock time. How to plan light with solar tools — windows, horizons and the moon's bonus — instead of guessing.
City, county, state, postcode, country: five overlapping geographies that disagree on purpose. A gentle tour of the layers under your feet.
Seed packets speak in zones, nurseries in vibes. How to read your hardiness zone and Köppen code honestly — and garden with the microclimate, not against it.
From a beach, a cliff or a cabin deck: the horizon has a distance, two observers have a sum, and terrain has a verdict. A walk through visibility math.
Cost indices, density, daylight curves and meeting windows: the four-number framework that turns a scary move into a readable spreadsheet.