Map of Abil in NetCDF format
A map built from OpenStreetMap data, ready to download
Customize the map
Open this place's area in the constructor and adjust everything to your needs
Open in constructor →Map passport
What this map contains by default
This is how the map is built as-is — every setting can be changed in the constructor.
About NetCDF
Map of Abil in NetCDF — an export of real OpenStreetMap data for the selected area.
NetCDF is a self-describing binary format for scientific data and the de facto standard in climate science, oceanography, and satellite remote sensing (ERA5, CMIP6, MODIS). On osm2cdr the OSM to .nc export works honestly like this: for each layer we take feature centroids (longitude/latitude) plus their attributes and write them through xarray as variables sharing a feature-index axis. The result is a compact point dataset with metadata (title, source, bbox), not a ready-made climate density grid cube — that would require a separate aggregation step. The file opens in xarray, Panoply, GDAL, and any NetCDF tool.
Which layers are in the file
This file for the selected area contains:
- Water
- Greenery
Coordinate systems
WGS 84 (EPSG:4326), selectable in the wizard
Units
Meters (projected in the chosen coordinate system)
| Category | GIS |
| File extension | .nc |
| Tier | Open Beta |
How to use NetCDF for Abil
- Panoply (free, NASA GISS) — open the .nc and quickly see which variables and how many objects are inside, without writing any code.
- Python and xarray — xarray.open_dataset("map.nc") and then the usual work with a dataset: slices, merging with your own arrays, export into other formats.
- ncdump -h map.nc — show the file structure in a terminal in a second: variables, dimensions, global attributes.
Programs that open NetCDF
FAQ: NetCDF for Abil
Is this a ready climate POI-density grid cube?
No. Our export honestly writes feature centroids (lon/lat) and their attributes as NetCDF variables. A full gridded analytics product (per-cell density, CF-1.11 axes) would need a separate aggregation step — that is not what the current exporter produces.
How does NetCDF differ from HDF5?
NetCDF-4 is technically built on top of HDF5 with extra (CF) conventions for climate data. Here both formats ship the same thing — centroid coordinates and attributes — in different packaging.
How do I open a .nc file?
Easiest is Panoply (free NASA GUI) for quick-look, or xarray (open_dataset) in Python. For CLI structure inspection — ncdump -h.
Is the shape of buildings and road lines preserved?
No. The file receives object centroids — one point per building, road or square — together with the attributes. If you need outline geometry, take GeoJSON, GeoPackage or Shapefile.
Which coordinates are the points written in?
Longitude and latitude in WGS84, as ordinary numeric variables, plus the area bounds in the file's global attributes. There is no full CF-conventions axis layout here — this is a point dataset, not a regular grid.
