SPATIARI

A Java library for offline indexing of large spatial datasets (polygons, multipolygons, ring-polygons, and points) and fast runtime point-in-region lookup. SPATIARI powers reverse-geocoding workloads that need to resolve GPS coordinates to geographic regions using pre-built spatial indexes.

Also known internally as geoinformatics_lib_spatial_lookup.

Features

• Offline R-Tree indexing of shapefile and text (TSV/CSV) inputs into compact datapack (.dp) files
• Fast runtime lookup with minimal object allocation on the search path
• Polygon, multipolygon, ring-polygon, and point geometry support
• Radial / nearby search with distance ranking and confidence scoring
• Language-neutral datapack format for cross-language index reuse (see datapack format docs)

Prerequisites

• Java Development Kit (JDK): 8 or higher
• Build tool: Maven 3.x
• Optional: Sample shapefile or text data for indexing tests

Building

mvn clean package

CI runs mvn verify on every PR and master push (see .github/workflows/ci.yml).

Installation

SPATIARI is published to Maven Central:

<dependency>
  <groupId>com.yahoo.spatiari</groupId>
  <artifactId>spatiari</artifactId>
  <version>1.0.0</version> <!-- use the latest release -->
</dependency>

SPATIARI depends on GeoTools (gt-shapefile), which is not on Maven Central. Add the OSGeo repository to your build:

<repositories>
  <repository>
    <id>osgeo</id>
    <name>OSGeo Release Repository</name>
    <url>https://repo.osgeo.org/repository/release/</url>
  </repository>
</repositories>

Releases before 1.0.0 were published under the coordinates com.yahoo.geoinformatics:geoinformatics_lib_spatial_lookup (through 4.0.3).

Releasing

Releases are cut from master by pushing a tag. Version numbers come from the tag; nothing is committed back to master.

1. Make sure master CI is green.
2. Tag and push: git tag v1.0.0 && git push origin v1.0.0
3. release.yml builds, GPG-signs and publishes com.yahoo.spatiari:spatiari:1.0.0 to Maven Central, then creates the GitHub Release with generated notes.

Publishing needs these repository Actions secrets: MAVEN_CENTRAL_USERNAME and MAVEN_CENTRAL_PASSWORD (a Sonatype Central Portal user token), plus MAVEN_GPG_PRIVATE_KEY and MAVEN_GPG_PASSPHRASE.

Documentation

• Spatial .dp file format (R-Tree datapack) — binary layout for language-neutral vs Java-serialized encodings, header fields, R-Tree node and polygon record layout, and relationship to Storage / SpatialIndexer.

License

Copyright 2015-2026 Yahoo Inc.

Licensed under the Apache License, Version 2.0. See LICENSE and NOTICE for details.

Versioning

SPATIARI follows Semantic Versioning. Release versions come from vX.Y.Z tags (see Releasing). pom.xml on master carries the upcoming -SNAPSHOT version. Historical releases under geoinformatics_lib_spatial_lookup remain on the legacy line (through 4.0.3).

Known users

This library is consumed by Yahoo reverse-geocoding services. Changes may affect downstream systems — please coordinate with the Location Platforms team before modifying public APIs.

Release history

• [4.0.0] Optional WOE_ID as polygon attribute index
• [3.1.7] Support for text file reader
• [3.1.6] Speed up language-neutral datapack loading; buffering support in datapack creation and loading
• [3.1.5] Renaming the library from geoinformatics_lib_polygon_lookup to geoinformatics_lib_spatial_lookup
• [3.1.3] Use bounding box centroid instead of polygon centroid to calculate confidence
• [3.1.2] Current finding for polygon inside another polygon; simplified comparison layer for admin region
• [3.1.1] Using radius attribute from data for polygon data
• [3.1.0] Indexing radius values for point data
• [3.0.5] Remove dependency on yjava_jdk
• [3.0.1] Support for BDAI data testing; RHEL7 migration
• [2.0.22] OS-independent build (no RHEL6 dependency)
• [2.0.21] Location-coverage in output (API breaking change)
• [2.0.17] Language-neutral datapack reading (API breaking change)
• [2.0.15] Language-neutral datapack creation for C++ reverse-geocoder reuse
• [2.0.14] Point-only input indexing
• [1.0.1] Initial version — offline R-Tree indexing and fast lookup

See git history for the full changelog.

CI

• ci.yml: Maven verify on pull requests and master
• codeql.yml: CodeQL analysis on pull requests, master and weekly
• release.yml: Maven Central and GitHub Release on vX.Y.Z tags