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Adam Świderski
Adam Świderski

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Geo Viewer in IntelliJ Idea is cool

Hello old friend

Thanks to Poznań Java User Group randomly selecting me during a meetup to get a JetBrains IntelliJ Idea Ultimate license, I started using it daily. It's not entirely new software for me. I've been using Android Studio for almost a decade now, occasionally working on side projects in the Community Edition of IntelliJ. Recently at work, I've been using VS Code and NeoVim. Quite a different IDE philosophy with the latter.

I happen to work on the backend currently, and IntelliJ is an absolute beast with built-in tools for everything you can imagine.

Next to the usual language support for TypeScript, SQL, and build configs, there are nice database tools. Data display is similar to an Excel spreadsheet, allows filtering, can generate DDL code, draw diagrams, etc. Nothing too special; other tools make this happen.

But this is just inside the IDE, so it is easy to reach without changing the context.

Geo Viewer

I noticed the Geo Viewer tool by accident.

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I'm dealing with some geographic data, like areas and points. Geo Viewer works out of the box. No plugins or configs are required. At least for Postgres with Postgis setup.

It may seem like unnecessary visuals, but it's actually useful for debugging. Think about having a query that returns points from one table, inside the area defined in another one. How great it is to see the result on the actual map.

Let's put it to work

I used ChatGPT to generate data for Poland's voivodships. It's not entirely bad... They are kinda in the right places, just way too small.

Data for city locations is OK.

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To visualize cities and areas on a single Geo View, I used a simple SQL view. I haven't touched SQL since university, so this is also a fun experience :D

-- Enable PostGIS extension if not already enabled  
CREATE EXTENSION IF NOT EXISTS postgis;  

-- Create vovoidships table  
CREATE TABLE vovoidships (  
    id SERIAL PRIMARY KEY,  
    name VARCHAR(255) NOT NULL,  
    bounds GEOMETRY NOT NULL  
);  

-- Create cities table  
CREATE TABLE cities (  
    id SERIAL PRIMARY KEY,  
    name VARCHAR(255) NOT NULL,  
    coordinates GEOMETRY NOT NULL  
);  

-- Insert Polish voivodeship capitals into cities table  
INSERT INTO cities (name, coordinates) VALUES  
    ('Warsaw', ST_SetSRID(ST_MakePoint(21.0122, 52.2297), 4326)),  -- Mazowieckie  
    ('Kraków', ST_SetSRID(ST_MakePoint(19.9449, 50.0647), 4326)),  -- Małopolskie  
    ('Łódź', ST_SetSRID(ST_MakePoint(19.456, 51.7592), 4326)),     -- Łódzkie  
    ('Wrocław', ST_SetSRID(ST_MakePoint(17.0385, 51.1079), 4326)), -- Dolnośląskie  
    ('Poznań', ST_SetSRID(ST_MakePoint(16.9286, 52.4064), 4326)),  -- Wielkopolskie  
    ('Gdańsk', ST_SetSRID(ST_MakePoint(18.646, 54.352), 4326)),    -- Pomorskie  
    ('Szczecin', ST_SetSRID(ST_MakePoint(14.5528, 53.4289), 4326)),-- Zachodniopomorskie  
    ('Bydgoszcz', ST_SetSRID(ST_MakePoint(18.0076, 53.1235), 4326)), -- Kujawsko-Pomorskie  
    ('Lublin', ST_SetSRID(ST_MakePoint(22.5686, 51.2465), 4326)),   -- Lubusz  
    ('Białystok', ST_SetSRID(ST_MakePoint(23.1641, 53.1325), 4326)), -- Podlaskie  
    ('Katowice', ST_SetSRID(ST_MakePoint(19.039, 50.2583), 4326)), -- Śląskie  
    ('Opole', ST_SetSRID(ST_MakePoint(17.9213, 50.6644), 4326)),    -- Opolskie  
    ('Rzeszów', ST_SetSRID(ST_MakePoint(21.9981, 50.0415), 4326)),  -- Podkarpackie  
    ('Gorzów Wlkp.', ST_SetSRID(ST_MakePoint(15.2299, 52.7387), 4326)), -- Lubusz  
    ('Zielona Góra', ST_SetSRID(ST_MakePoint(15.5061, 51.9353), 4326)); -- Lubusz  

-- Insert Polish voivodeships into vovoidships table with corrected boundaries  
INSERT INTO vovoidships (name, bounds) VALUES  
    ('Mazowieckie', ST_SetSRID(ST_GeomFromText('POLYGON((20.5937 52.4304, 20.7031 52.2398, 21.0994 52.1985, 21.4855 52.2738, 21.7426 52.5456, 21.4822 52.6935, 20.8778 52.6281, 20.5937 52.4304))'), 4326)),  
    ('Małopolskie', ST_SetSRID(ST_GeomFromText('POLYGON((19.0013 49.6121, 19.3004 49.2235, 19.8534 49.1386, 20.1253 49.2158, 20.3469 49.7248, 20.1154 49.9501, 19.0013 49.6121))'), 4326)),  
    ('Łódzkie', ST_SetSRID(ST_GeomFromText('POLYGON((18.9224 51.6847, 19.5032 51.5472, 19.7415 51.7594, 19.6886 52.0549, 19.1579 52.0201, 18.9224 51.6847))'), 4326)),  
    ('Dolnośląskie', ST_SetSRID(ST_GeomFromText('POLYGON((16.2795 50.1585, 16.6575 49.9253, 17.1573 49.8861, 17.3046 50.3278, 17.1566 50.4869, 16.6676 50.5302, 16.2795 50.1585))'), 4326)),  
    ('Wielkopolskie', ST_SetSRID(ST_GeomFromText('POLYGON((16.4570 52.0254, 16.9745 51.8472, 17.4446 51.8598, 17.8387 52.0295, 17.5519 52.3232, 16.4570 52.0254))'), 4326)),  
    ('Pomorskie', ST_SetSRID(ST_GeomFromText('POLYGON((17.9927 54.0531, 18.7247 54.0065, 18.7840 53.8160, 18.5911 53.7163, 17.9927 54.0531))'), 4326)),  
    ('Zachodniopomorskie', ST_SetSRID(ST_GeomFromText('POLYGON((14.2102 53.4019, 14.8960 53.3481, 15.0853 53.3305, 15.0006 53.0747, 14.2102 53.4019))'), 4326)),  
    ('Kujawsko-Pomorskie', ST_SetSRID(ST_GeomFromText('POLYGON((17.8260 53.0401, 18.2550 52.9635, 19.1827 52.9581, 19.1902 53.1355, 18.0730 53.1274, 17.8260 53.0401))'), 4326)),  
    ('Lubuskie', ST_SetSRID(ST_GeomFromText('POLYGON((14.3215 52.2755, 14.7083 52.2985, 15.0293 52.4335, 15.0641 52.5437, 14.3215 52.2755))'), 4326)),  
    ('Podlaskie', ST_SetSRID(ST_GeomFromText('POLYGON((22.7210 53.6851, 22.9785 53.4699, 23.4987 53.4057, 23.7810 53.6431, 22.7210 53.6851))'), 4326)),  
    ('Śląskie', ST_SetSRID(ST_GeomFromText('POLYGON((18.6704 50.1671, 19.0423 50.1492, 19.3875 50.2675, 19.5927 50.2046, 19.1676 50.0395, 18.6704 50.1671))'), 4326)),  
    ('Opolskie', ST_SetSRID(ST_GeomFromText('POLYGON((17.2070 50.5458, 17.4982 50.3454, 17.7513 50.2998, 17.8897 50.5008, 17.2070 50.5458))'), 4326)),  
    ('Podkarpackie', ST_SetSRID(ST_GeomFromText('POLYGON((21.1791 49.8919, 21.4867 49.8395, 21.9074 49.7579, 22.0595 49.8491, 21.1791 49.8919))'), 4326));  

CREATE VIEW CombinedVoivodeshipsCitiesView AS  
SELECT  
    'Voivodeship' AS type,  
    v.id AS id,  
    v.name AS name,  
    NULL AS latitude,  
    NULL AS longitude,  
    v.bounds AS geometry  
FROM vovoidships v  

UNION ALL  

SELECT  
    'City' AS type,  
    c.id AS id,  
    c.name AS name,  
    ST_Y(c.coordinates) AS latitude,  
    ST_X(c.coordinates) AS longitude,  
    c.coordinates AS geometry  
FROM cities c;
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Influenced by Kacper Koza presentation on last JUGtoberfest I started using more IntelliJ shortcuts. And turned off tabs. So far so good, my mouse is getting some rest.

What's your latest discovery in the tools you use?

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