Baloon is a command-line tool and Python library for converting between geospatial vector formats. Convert BLN, Shapefile, GeoJSON, KML, GeoPackage, and SVG files quickly and easily.

Features

• CLI and Python API: Use on the command line or import in your scripts
• Single files and directories: Convert one file or entire folders (recursive)
• Any-to-any conversion: Convert between supported formats
  • BLN is read-only (input only); SVG is write-only (output only)
• Supported formats: BLN, Shapefile (.shp), GeoJSON (.geojson/.json), KML (.kml), GeoPackage (.gpkg), SVG (.svg)

Installation

# Using uv (recommended)
uv add baloon

# Using pip
pip install baloon

Usage

Command Line

Note: Options must come before positional arguments.

Basics (auto-detect by extension):

uv run baloon input.bln output.geojson
uv run baloon data.geojson output.shp
uv run baloon map.kml output.gpkg

Help and usage:

uv run baloon --help

Explicit formats (ambiguous extensions or forcing a format):

# When extensions are ambiguous
uv run baloon --input-format bln --output-format geojson input.txt output.json

# Force output format regardless of extension
uv run baloon --output-format shp input.geojson output.data

Overwrite behavior (single file conversions):

# Overwrite existing output file
uv run baloon --overwrite input.bln output.geojson

Directory conversions (recursive):

# Convert all supported readable files under ./data to GeoJSON in ./out-geojson
uv run baloon --output-format geojson ./data ./out-geojson

# Convert all supported readable files under ./project to Shapefile in ./out-shp
uv run baloon --output-format shp ./project ./out-shp

Notes for directory conversions:

• The output path must be a directory; it will be created if it does not exist.
• Input formats are auto-detected per file. Unsupported formats and write-only inputs (e.g., SVG) are skipped with a warning.
• The relative directory structure is preserved in the output.
• Existing output files are overwritten.

Advanced bash loops (custom naming and filters):

# Convert only KML files to GPKG, preserving stems next to inputs
find data -type f -name '*.kml' -print0 | while IFS= read -r -d '' f; do
  out="${f%.*}.gpkg"
  uv run baloon "$f" "$out"
done

# Convert mixed inputs to GeoJSON into ./out, mirroring structure
find data -type f \( -name '*.bln' -o -name '*.kml' -o -name '*.shp' -o -name '*.gpkg' -o -name '*.geojson' -o -name '*.json' \) -print0 \
| while IFS= read -r -d '' f; do
  rel="${f#data/}";
  base="${rel%.*}";
  mkdir -p "out/$(dirname "$base")";
  uv run baloon "$f" "out/${base}.geojson"
done

# Convert to multiple target formats (two passes)
for fmt in geojson shp; do
  uv run baloon --output-format "$fmt" ./data "./out-$fmt"
done

Path tips:

• Quote paths with spaces: uv run baloon "My Data/input.kml" "Out/maps.gpkg".
• Shapefile outputs create a set of files (.shp, .shx, .dbf, etc.) next to the .shp path you provide.
• BLN is input-only; SVG is output-only. Reading SVG in single-file mode will error; in directory mode SVG inputs are skipped.

Python API

Quick conversions (any format → any format):

import baloon

# Prefer simple aliases: convert, convert_dir, read_bln

# Convert single file (auto-detects by extension)
baloon.convert('input.bln', 'output.geojson')
baloon.convert('data.geojson', 'boundaries.shp')

# For ambiguous extensions, prefer the CLI with --input-format/--output-format
# (BLN is input-only; SVG is output-only)

Batch convert directories (Python API):

import baloon

# Convert all supported readable files in a directory to GeoJSON
# - Preserves relative structure
# - Skips write-only inputs (e.g., SVG)
baloon.convert_dir('./data/', 'geojson')

Working with BLN data:

from baloon import read_bln
from pathlib import Path

# Parse BLN file
records = read_bln(Path('boundary.bln'))
print(f'Found {len(records)} coordinate points')

# Access coordinates
for record in records:
    print(f'Point: {record.x}, {record.y}')

Load any format as GeoDataFrame:

from baloon.formats import load_any
from pathlib import Path

# Load any supported format as GeoDataFrame
gdf = load_any(Path('data.geojson'))  # or .shp, .kml, .gpkg, .bln
print(f'Loaded {len(gdf)} features')
print(gdf.head())

Supported Formats

Format	Extension	Read	Write	Description
BLN	.bln	✅	❌	Golden Software polygon files
Shapefile	.shp	✅	✅	ESRI standard with components
GeoJSON	.geojson, .json	✅	✅	RFC 7946 feature collections
KML	.kml	✅	✅	Google Earth format
GeoPackage	.gpkg	✅	✅	OGC SQLite-based format
SVG	.svg	❌	✅	Scalable vector graphics

Tips

• If your file has a non-standard extension, use CLI format flags:
  • uv run baloon --input-format bln --output-format geojson input.txt output.txt
• Use the Python API for batch conversions and programmatic workflows.

License

This project is licensed under the GPL-3.0-or-later. See the LICENSE file for details.