One workbench, eight research tools
Spatial Research joins street-level imagery, private GIS imports, shared 2D map drawing, selected-satellite pass calculations, public transit, Canadian air-quality and camera evidence, dated imagery comparison and Scene Director. Open the workspace through the Advanced research tools area or Help; registered 2D maps also offer a Spatial tools launcher.
Panoramax and KartaView previews retain capture dates, source attribution and individual licensing limits. Declared panoramas support interactive viewing. Optional Mapillary uses your own encrypted API Connection and remains owner-private.
Private geographic work and deliberate sharing
GeoJSON, KML, KMZ and GPX imports are parsed locally. Pin, path and area tools add named annotations with spherical-Earth measurements. Save explicitly in this browser's account namespace and export a backup; these layers and scenes are not cloud-synchronized or added to public Search/MCP.
Scene Director captures camera views, layer references, notes and optional public evidence. Reorder shots, play or pause, restore the prior view, and export a scene definition. Referenced private geometry is excluded from exported scenes unless you explicitly include it. Captured camera metadata does not archive old image frames.
Source-dated observations and imagery
The initial enabled transit feeds cover TTC, Hamilton, Durham, MBTA, Netherlands OVapi and Norway Entur. These are source-reported positions, not a complete world fleet or simulated movement; native clocks, route IDs and speed units are retained. ECCC AQHI preserves Canada's 1–10+ scale. DriveBC, Calgary and Toronto provide public camera references/stills with source and rights qualifications.
NASA HLS discovery retains acquisition dates, granule footprints and cloud metadata for 30-metre products. A/B previews require confirmed pixels for the selected dates and area; a 250-metre VIIRS daily overview is also available. Differences in cloud, season, sensor and illumination must be considered before interpreting apparent change.
Visible limits and a revised handbook
Satellite passes are SGP4 estimates for a selected observer, not observations or guaranteed optical visibility. The existing CelesTrak collector remains paused with older retained elements at this release's audit; current planning refuses stale elements. Explicit historical reconstruction and locally supplied newer OMM files are supported. Ontario511 and the unqualified Austin download remain source gaps.
The extended guide now has 51 chapters covering 79 registered tabs, with a 75-page PDF and editable Markdown. The new spatial chapter explains all eight workflows, browser-local persistence, source clocks, limits and sharing controls.