Jamie Popkin
Full-stack spatial developer
I turn maps, sensors and big geographic data into fast, interactive software that runs anywhere, from PostGIS pipelines and Node APIs to browser-native WebGL terrain. 28 years, from hydrographic charts to real-time viewsheds.
- years of spatial software
- 28
- public commits to bcgov repositories
- 683
- engagements delivered
- 50+
- continents: North America, Oceania, Africa
- 3
Skywatch, a real-time viewshed in the browser
An interactive 3D line-of-sight engine: pick any point on real terrain and see exactly what's visible from it, computed and rendered live with WebGL. This is the deep-tech end of my work, DEM meshing, viewshed maths, and Rust compiled to WebAssembly, and the piece I'm proudest of. More lab than product, but it's where the geomatics gets serious.
Selected work
Verifiable, not vapourware. Where a deployment has since been re-platformed it is labelled, not linked.
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2018–26
BC Road Value Assessment
BC Ministry of Forests, Coastal Engineering. Sole developer.
Provincial-scale DEM and road-network conflation in PostGIS, a bridge-asset “network-crawl” tool, and a forest-engineering dashboard modernised to SvelteKit and MapLibre vector tiles.
3,750+ hoursCurrentPostGIS, SvelteKit, MapLibre, Node.js
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2020–21
BC Telemetry Warehouse
BC Ministry of Forests, via Quartech
Wildlife GPS-collar telemetry data warehouse: database endpoints, authentication, and React Hooks state migration.
301 commitsbcgov/bctw-uiReact, Vue, Leaflet, PostGIS
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2020–22
BC Invasive Species (InvasivesBC)
BC Ministry of Environment, via Quartech
Province-wide invasive-species tracking: field-data mobile app, admin portal, GeoJSON coastline processing, Metabase reporting.
179 commitsbcgov/invasivesbcReact, OpenLayers, GeoServer, PostGIS
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2019–20
BC LNG Portal
BC Gov Exchange Lab, via Quartech
Public LNG-project tracking and engagement portal with document management and public mapping.
142 commitsbcgov/lngcanada-publicReact, Leaflet, Node.js, OpenShift
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2024
Northeast Restoration Tracker
BC Ministry of Environment, via Quartech
Environmental-restoration tracking: search API, MapLibre performance tuning, React Hooks render optimisation.
61 commitsbcgov/nert-restoration-trackerReact, MapLibre, TypeScript, Node.js
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2022–23
Mines Digital Trust
BC Energy and Mines, Exchange Lab, via Quartech
Digital-trust and compliance platform for the BC mining sector: WebRTC feature work, REST API enhancements, knowledge transfer.
2,862 hoursGovernment, no public linkReact, Vue, WebRTC, OpenShift
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2019–now
GlobalMaps, telecom planning
Research ICT Solutions, six African nations
Telecom-infrastructure planning across South Sudan, Namibia, Malawi, Uganda, Ethiopia and Kenya: radio-propagation dashboards, MapLibre 3D terrain, and viewshed in Rust and WebAssembly.
InternationalBehind a firewallSvelteKit, MapLibre, Rust/WASM, PostGIS
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2012–21
VSLS and MoTI corporate spatial web
BC Ministry of Transportation and Infrastructure
Real-time highway variable-speed-sign API (WebSocket, HA-clustered) and long-running DriveBC and corporate spatial-web maintenance; replaced a licensed mapping framework with open source.
About 1,500 hoursSince re-platformedNode.js, OpenLayers, GeoServer, Oracle
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2010–24
New Zealand spatial platforms
Lat37 Ltd. and Keewai, private sector
Commercial spatial apps: Catch Analyst lobster-fishery monitoring (millions of records), a Manuka-honey hive-management tool with real-time field data, and an offline-capable crayfish field-data PWA.
14 yearsPrivate, under NDANode.js, PostGIS, AWS, D3
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R&D
Skywatch, interactive viewshed
Little Earth, browser-native 3D line of sight
WebGL terrain viewshed engine (Three.js with Rust/WASM). The technical showpiece; see the feature above.
Live demoOpen SkywatchThree.js, WebGL, Rust/WASM, DEM
Things you can actually click
Self-hosted and durable.
- Skywatch 3D viewshedReal-time line of sight over terrain, in WebGL.
- Web map exampleInteractive vector web mapping.
- Pottymouth data visualizationA data-visualisation experiment.
- CodePen experimentsSmaller front-end and mapping sketches.
- Field NotesWrite-ups, including the Skywatch build.
On GitHub
57 stars across 16 original repositories, plus 683 public commits to bcgov. Figures fetched 26 October 2026.
| Repository | What it does | Language | Stars |
|---|---|---|---|
| maplibre-transition | Animated transitions plugin for MapLibre | TypeScript | 20 |
| polymorph | Morphs one SVG path into another, from a 2015 Field Note | LiveScript | 18 |
| gobble | Code from a Linux Journal article on watching processes remotely | Perl | 6 |
| maptiler-js | Works out which map tiles cover a given extent | Python | 5 |
| geojson2czml | Converts GeoJSON to CZML for Cesium | LiveScript | 4 |
| azimuth-swath | QGIS plugin: a walking-transect polygon from a point, length and bearing | Python | 1 |
| webrtc | Encrypted peer-to-peer data without a signalling server | Svelte | 0 |
| 3d-printing-vancouver-island | A GIS to physical model journey | HTML | 0 |
Capabilities
GIS, geomatics and web mapping.
- Languages
- JavaScript (~20 yr), TypeScript, SQL / PL-SQL (~24 yr), Python, Perl, Bash, R, Elixir, Rust
- Frontend
- React, Vue, SvelteKit, Angular, D3; Leaflet, OpenLayers, MapLibre GL (3D), Turf, offline-first PWAs
- Backend
- Node.js / Express, Django, Phoenix, REST / WebSockets; PostgreSQL, Oracle Spatial, GeoServer, Martin
- GIS and geomatics
- PostGIS, ArcGIS / ArcInfo / AML, QGIS, GDAL / OGR, GRASS, FME, CARIS; DEM and terrain analysis, viewshed, vector tiles, H3
- DevOps and cloud
- Linux (~24 yr), Docker, OpenShift, Kubernetes, AWS, GitHub Actions, CI/CD, Git
Available for work
Remote, corp-to-corp.
- popkinj@littleearth.ca
- Phone
- (250) 616-9581
- Web
- littleearth.ca
- GitHub
- github.com/popkinj
Little Earth Spatial Programming Inc., Lantzville, BC. Full-stack spatial development for BC Government, Canadian natural-resource agencies, and international clients. Commit counts verified against public bcgov repositories.
Little EarthSpatial Programming Inc.Lantzville, BC