Geolibre-Inaturalist-Extraction-Plugins

Geolibre plugin for Fetches iNaturalist observations and adds them to the map as a GeoJSON layer

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Data and platform

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Repo

Fetches iNaturalist observations and adds them to the map as a GeoJSON layer. Click any point to open a popup with the observation’s species, observer, date, quality grade and iconic taxon — plus a small photo strip whenever that observation actually has a photo attached (no photo → the popup just skips that section, it never shows a broken/empty image).

• Repository: https://github.com/Defani/Geolibre-Inaturalist-Extraction-Plugins

• Plugin id: geolibre-inaturalist-extractor ·

• License: GPL-2.0-or-later (see License)

• Sources and references: see Credits, sources & references

This plugin merges the feature set of the rinat R package and the QGIS “iNaturalist Extractor” plugin into GeoLibre’s own plugin API, so it isn’t just a bounding-box fetcher.

What it does¶

Advanced filters (rinat)¶

Files¶

geolibre-inaturalist-extractor/   # the plugin itself (this is what gets published)
  plugin.json                     # manifest (id/name/version must match index.js's exports)
  index.js                        # self-contained ES module (no bundler needed, no imports)
  style.css                       # scoped .geolibre-inat-* styles, theme-aware
  LICENSE                         # GNU GPL v2 (used under "or any later version")
marketplace/
  registry-entry.json             # entry for opengeos/geolibre-plugins
docs/
  installation.md                 # install from file, manifest URL or marketplace
  publishing.md                   # how to submit / update the marketplace entry
.github/                          # issue and pull request templates
CHANGELOG.md
CONTRIBUTING.md
LICENSE
README.md

Installing it¶

• Quickest (any GeoLibre build): Settings → Manage Plugins → Settings → Install from file → zip plugin.json, index.js and style.css from geolibre-inaturalist-extractor/ (see docs/installation.md) and pick it, or point GeoLibre at a manifest URL serving plugin.json from wherever you host these files.

• From the GeoLibre marketplace: once the entry below is merged into opengeos/geolibre-plugins, the plugin appears in GeoLibre’s Manage Plugins dialog.

  {
    "id": "geolibre-inaturalist-extractor",
    "name": "iNaturalist Extractor",
    "version": "1.5.0",
    "description": "Fetch georeferenced iNaturalist observations by map view or layer extent, with species, date, observer, quality-grade and advanced (taxon ID, place ID, photo license, project, annotation) filters, and a photo popup.",
    "author": "Defani Arman (Alfitriansyah)",
    "homepage": "https://github.com/Defani/Geolibre-Inaturalist-Extraction-Plugins",
    "manifestUrl": "plugins/geolibre-inaturalist-extractor/plugin.json",
    "categories": ["Data"],
    "minGeoLibreVersion": "3.0.0"
  }

Notes / limitations¶

• Coordinates from iNaturalist’s geojson field are already WGS84 lon/lat, so no reprojection is needed (unlike the QGIS version of this extractor, which has to transform into the project CRS).

• “Active layer extent” reads whichever layer is currently selected in the Layers panel via getSelectedLayerId(); if nothing is selected, pick a layer from the dropdown that appears once “Active layer extent” is chosen.

• The iNaturalist iconic_taxa=Animalia filter is narrower than it looks: the API (and website) treat “Animalia” as animals not covered by any other iconic taxon (so mostly invertebrates other than molluscs, insects and arachnids), not literally every animal. This is iNaturalist’s own behaviour, not something this plugin can change.

• Place ID and Project are still limited by the Area (the API ANDs every filter), so a place outside the current map view returns nothing. Tick Ignore the Area in the advanced section to search the whole place or project; it requires at least one other filter so it can’t pull the latest observations from the entire world.

• A photo license filter only matches observations that have a photo under that license, so photo-less observations are excluded when it is set.

• Annotations, taxon IDs and place IDs are exact IDs from iNaturalist (see its “How to use iNaturalist Search URLs” help page); the annotation dropdowns cover the six most common controlled terms.

• The browser can’t set a custom User-Agent header the way the QGIS plugin does, so requests go out with whatever the browser sends. Paging still respects the “small/medium batch” limit in the UI, and requests are spaced ~250 ms apart.

• The plugin declares engines: ["maplibre"] only — it uses app.getMap() directly for click/hover handling, which returns null on the Cesium globe or the Mapbox renderer.

Credits, sources & references¶

Everything this plugin builds on, in one place. “Reviewed” gives the version or date of the material that was actually read while developing it.

Data and API — iNaturalist¶

Feature reference — rinat (R package)¶

rinat: Access ‘iNaturalist’ Data Through APIs — reviewed version 0.1.10 (2025-08-31). Authors: Vijay Barve, Edmund Hart and Stéphane Guillou (maintainer). Licensed MIT + file LICENSE (Copyright 2014 Edmund Hart).

• Website: https://docs.ropensci.org/rinat/

• Source: https://github.com/ropensci/rinat

• CRAN: https://CRAN.R-project.org/package=rinat

This plugin does not include or run any rinat code. rinat was the functional reference for which filters to expose and how they map to the API:

rinat’s own changelog dates these features: place_id (0.1.6), annotation (0.1.9) and photo_license (0.1.10). Its documentation also recommends quality = "research" for more reliable data, which is why Research grade is one of the dropdown choices.

Behaviour reference — QGIS “iNaturalist Extractor” plugin¶

iNaturalist Extractor (QGIS plugin) by Jules Grillot — reviewed version 1.1.3. Licensed GPL-2.0-or-later.

• Repository: https://framagit.org/JulesGrillot/plugin_inaturalist_extractor/

• Documentation: https://plugin-inaturalist-extractor-52906a.frama.io/

This plugin re-implements the QGIS plugin’s workflow for GeoLibre and follows it closely: extraction limited to an extent (the QGIS plugin offers a drawn extent or a layer’s extent; this one offers the current map view or a layer’s extent); the request shape (order_by=id, order=desc, spam=false, paged bounding-box queries); the 200-per-page limit; the API-recommended-practices warning; the “verifiable only” option (now the quality-grade dropdown); up to three photos per observation (shown here in a popup); and the “data provided by iNaturalist” credit. No files from the QGIS plugin are included in this repository. Because the behaviour follows it this closely, this repository uses the same license family — see License.

Platform, plugin API and publishing docs — GeoLibre¶

Map engine¶

MapLibre GL JS — https://maplibre.org. GeoLibre’s map engine; the plugin declares engines: ["maplibre"] and uses queryRenderedFeatures and project for click detection and the popup. It is provided by the host, so nothing is bundled.

Using the data and photos¶

Each observation, and each photo, carries its own license chosen by the observer — observations are licensed separately from the media they contain, and by default the API returns observations regardless of license. The popup shows the photographer attribution when iNaturalist provides it. If you reuse or redistribute photos, use the Photo license filter and check the license of each item first. The panel credits “the iNaturalist community” for data and photos.

License¶

Copyright (c) 2026 Defani Arman (Alfitriansyah).

This program is free software; you can redistribute it and/or modify it under the terms of the GNU General Public License as published by the Free Software Foundation; either version 2 of the License, or (at your option) any later version. It is distributed in the hope that it will be useful, but WITHOUT ANY WARRANTY; without even the implied warranty of MERCHANTABILITY or FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE. See the LICENSE file for the full text.

The QGIS plugin this one follows is GPL-2.0-or-later, so this repository uses the same terms. The other projects listed above (rinat, iNaturalistAPI, geolibre-nasa-opera) are MIT-licensed and are referenced only; none of their code is included.

The icons (raven and the sidebar section icons) are from Google’s Material Symbols, licensed under Apache-2.0, and are inlined as SVG paths.

Disclaimer¶

This is an independent project. It is not affiliated with or endorsed by iNaturalist, the rinat authors, GeoLibre, or the author of the QGIS plugin.