---
id: flexpolyline
version: "0.1.0"
license: MIT
license_treatment: permissive
maintenance: dormant
---

# flexpolyline — Flexible Polyline encoding: a lossy compressed representation of a list of coordinate pairs or triples

License: permissive · Maintenance: dormant · Downloads: 139.5K/mo

## What it is and what it does

FlexPolyline is a Python implementation of the Flexible Polyline encoding standard, a lossy compression format for geographic coordinate sequences. It reduces coordinate data by rounding decimal precision, encoding only offsets from the previous point, using variable-length encoding, and representing the result in URL-safe characters. The package provides symmetric encode/decode operations for both 2D (latitude, longitude) and 3D coordinates (with altitude, elevation, level, or custom dimensions), and supports both tuple and dictionary input/output formats.

The primary use case is compressing GPS traces, route paths, or other coordinate-heavy geographic data for efficient storage or transmission. With no external dependencies and a simple API, it integrates easily into mapping applications, location services, or any system that needs to serialize coordinate sequences compactly.

Use it for:

- Compress GPS traces from mobile or IoT devices for efficient storage or API transmission.
- Encode route polylines in mapping or navigation applications to reduce payload size.
- Store 3D coordinate paths (with altitude or elevation) in a compact, URL-safe string format.
- Decode polyline strings received from external mapping services or APIs back into coordinate tuples.
- Serialize geographic boundaries or multi-point geometries with configurable precision trade-offs.

## Worth the install?

AI-flagged interpretation of the facts above — verify before relying.

Encodes and decodes geographic coordinate sequences into a compressed string format using the Flexible Polyline algorithm, supporting 2D and 3D coordinates with configurable precision.

Yes, if you need polyline encoding/decoding. The package is stable, dependency-free, permissively licensed, and handles both 2D and 3D coordinates with flexible precision. Dormancy is not a concern for a mature, single-purpose codec. Verify Python version compatibility for your target runtime.

## Install

pip install flexpolyline
uv add flexpolyline
poetry add flexpolyline

## Installing flexpolyline

Before you install: Low friction install with no runtime dependencies. Package is dormant (last release 2020-11-21, last commit 2024-09-24) but remains functional.

License in practice: MIT license permits free use, modification, and distribution with minimal restrictions—suitable for most projects including commercial ones.

Quickstart:

pip install flexpolyline

import flexpolyline as fp

example = [(50.1022829, 8.6982122), (50.1020076, 8.6956695)]
encoded = fp.encode(example)
decoded = fp.decode(encoded)

Verify before relying:

- Whether precision parameter values (0 to 15) are actually enforced or validated by the implementation.
- Performance characteristics when encoding or decoding very large coordinate sequences.
- Compatibility with modern Python versions beyond 3.7, given classifiers list only up to 3.7.

## Package facts

- License: MIT (permissive)
- Python support: unspecified
- Install friction: low
- Maintenance: dormant
- Downloads: 139.5K/month (top 15,000 on PyPI)
- Known vulnerabilities: none known

## Tags

polyline encoding decoding, coordinate compression, flexible polyline format, geographic path encoding, lat lng compression, lossy coordinate encoding, polyline string format, geospatial, compression, encoding

[View on SkillFed](https://skillfed.io/packages/flexpolyline) · [View on PyPI](https://pypi.org/project/flexpolyline/)