Show HN: Libgd-GIS – Render maps and GIS data directly in Ruby (GeoJSON → Image)

Hi HN I’ve been building libgd-gis, a pure-Ruby GIS rendering engine on top of the GD graphics library. The goal is simple: generate maps, tiles, and geospatial visualizations directly from Ruby — without external services, native GIS stacks, or heavyweight dependencies. What it does • Render GeoJSON layers to PNG • Draw markers, paths, polygons, labels • Generate map tiles server-side • Support animated GIF output • YAML-based styling system • No browser or JS required Why I built it Ruby has strong web tooling but very limited options for high-performance image generation and GIS rendering. Existing tools are often slow, unmaintained, or depend on external processes. This project aims to provide: deterministic server-side rendering lightweight deployment full control over output suitability for APIs, reports, or offline generation Example use cases • Static map generation for APIs • Logistics / tracking dashboards • Reports and PDFs • IoT / telemetry visualization • Educational tools • Lightweight tile servers Tech stack Ruby C extension bindings to libgd (via ruby-libgd) GeoJSON ingestion Coordinate projection handling Raster rendering pipeline Links GitHub: https://github.com/ggerman/libgd-gis https://github.com/ggerman/libgd-gis RubyGems: https://rubygems.org/gems/libgd-gis https://rubygems.org/gems/libgd-gis