Neural compression and/or decompression of spatial data

A method implemented by one or more processors, the method comprising:

• obtaining an instance of spatial data that is stored with a first quantity of bytes and that defines, for each of a plurality of geographical segments of a geographic coordinate system (GCS), a corresponding value for each of one or more variables;
• projecting the instance of spatial data into a plurality of images,
• each of the images being for a corresponding unique geographical area that encompasses a corresponding unique contiguous set of the geographical segments and being generated based on projecting the corresponding values for the corresponding unique contiguous set of the geographical segments, and
• each of the images having an image dimension that includes one or more image channels and a height and a width for each of the image channels;
• generating, using a neural network encoder, a corresponding compressed representation for each of the images,
• wherein each of the corresponding compressed representations have a reduced dimension that is reduced relative to the image dimension, and
• wherein the corresponding compressed representations are collectively stored with a second quantity of bytes that is lesser than the first quantity of bytes with which the instance of spatial data is stored;
• and
• storing the corresponding compressed representations in one or more computer-readable media.