uber/h3
H3
H3 is an open-source library that provides a hierarchical hexagonal grid system for geospatial indexing. It projects the Earth onto an icosahedron and tiles each face with hexagons to minimize distortion, then encodes each hexagon as a 64-bit integer that stores its resolution and position in the hierarchy. This integer encoding enables fast bitwise operations for grid navigation and spatial analysis.
The library offers a comprehensive set of grid topology algorithms for computing neighbor relationships, distances, and paths between cells directly on the hexagonal grid without geographic coordinate calculations. It supports multi-resolution spatial indexing, allowing users to convert geographic coordinates into hexagonal cell identifiers at varying levels of precision, and to convert between coarser and finer resolution levels within the hierarchy. H3 also provides functions for retrieving cell geometry, such as center points and boundary polygons, and for performing spatial analysis including nearest-neighbor search, shortest-path routing, and radius queries.
The core library is written in C and compiled via CMake, with language-specific bindings that expose hexagonal indexing functions to Go, Java, JavaScript, Python, Rust, PostgreSQL, and SQLite3. It can be built from source or installed through package managers like pip, npm, or brew.
Features
- Hierarchical Hexagonal Grid Systems - Divides the Earth into nested hexagon layers using a base icosahedron projection for multi-resolution spatial indexing.
- Geospatial Visualization Libraries - Provides hexagonal grid indexing, coordinate conversion, and spatial relationship computations for geographic data.
- Radius Queries - Returns all hexagon cells whose centers fall within a specified geographic distance from a point.
- Icosahedron-Based Projections - Projects the Earth onto an icosahedron and tiles each face with hexagons to minimize distortion.
- Cross-Source Joins - Matches records from different sources by hexagonal cell IDs for fast cross-dataset joins.
- Spatial Querying - Computes adjacency, containment, and distance between hexagon cells for spatial analysis.
- Hexagonal Cell Boundary Retrievers - Returns the geographic polygon vertices of a hexagon cell for spatial boundary analysis.
- Hexagonal Cell Center Retrievers - Returns the geographic center point of an H3 cell as a latitude/longitude pair.
- Hexagonal Grid Distance Calculators - Calculates the number of hexagon steps between two cells on the grid.
- Hexagonal Grid Neighbor Finders - Finds adjacent hexagon cells that share an edge with a given cell.
- Spatial Aggregation Functions - Groups geographic data into hexagonal cells for multi-resolution spatial aggregation and analysis.
- Spatial Indexing - Converts a latitude/longitude pair into a hexagonal cell index at a specified resolution.
- Hexagonal Grid Indexing - Converts geographic coordinates into hexagonal cell identifiers for spatial indexing at multiple resolution levels.
- Icosahedron-Based Grid Projections - Implements an icosahedron-based hexagonal grid projection for global spatial indexing with minimal distortion.
- Geospatial Indexers - Converts a latitude/longitude coordinate into the H3 cell index that contains it.
- Icosahedron-Based Projections - Projects the Earth onto an icosahedron and tiles each face with hexagons to minimize distortion.
- Spatial Data Analysis Tools - Groups and analyzes geographic data by hexagonal cells at user-chosen grid levels.
- Hierarchical Hexagon Encodings - Encodes each hexagon as a 64-bit integer for fast bitwise operations across nested resolution levels.
- Geospatial Coordinate Transformations - Transforms latitude/longitude pairs into hexagon cell identifiers and back.
- C-Shared Library Bindings - Exposes core grid algorithms through a C library with wrappers for multiple languages.
- Grid Distance Calculators - Computes neighbor relationships, distances, and paths between cells using hexagonal grid topology.
- Hierarchical Cell Identifier Encodings - Represents each hexagon as a 64-bit integer encoding its resolution and position for fast bitwise operations.
- Spatial Grid Traversal Algorithms - Runs spatial operations like nearest neighbor search and shortest path on the hexagonal grid.
- Hexagonal Grid Topology Algorithms - Computes neighbor relationships, distances, and paths between cells using hexagonal grid topology.
- Hierarchical Grids - Indexes geographic coordinates into a hierarchical hexagonal grid system for spatial analysis and data aggregation.
- Grid Level Navigators - Navigates between parent and child hexagon cells across multiple resolution levels for multi-scale queries.
- Hierarchical Hexagonal Grid Systems - Divides the Earth into nested hexagon layers from coarse to fine scales for spatial indexing.
- Geospatial Toolkits - Computes distances, neighbors, boundaries, and flow patterns on a hexagonal grid for geospatial modeling.
- Grid Resolution Converters - Changes hexagon index resolution between coarser and finer levels within the hierarchical grid.
- Flow Modelers - Analyzes movement or flow patterns using the hexagonal grid structure.
- Geospatial Dataset Joins - Combines data from different sources by matching their hexagonal cell locations for fast cross-dataset joins.
- Indexed Data Aggregations - Groups indexed data across different hexagon sizes for multi-resolution analysis.
- Multi-Resolution Spatial Aggregations - Groups and analyzes geographic data by hexagonal cells at user-chosen grid levels from coarse to fine scales.
- Multi-Language Bindings - Ships multi-language bindings exposing hexagonal indexing functions to Go, Java, JavaScript, Python, Rust, and database extensions.
- Grid Resolution Conversions - Changes the resolution of a hexagon index to a coarser or finer level within the hierarchical grid system.
- C Geospatial Libraries - Hexagonal hierarchical geospatial indexing system.
- Low Level Geospatial Libraries - Implements hexagonal hierarchical geospatial indexing.
- Mapping and Geospatial - Implements hexagonal hierarchical geospatial indexing.
