Good question! It’s mainly there to allow the user to serialise their index easily via Repr.to_bin_string or Repr.to_json_string or to pretty-print the whole thing. In retrospect, I think I should hide that serialisation behind a function that Rtree controls to avoid issues if the runtime representation of say the rectangle or tree changes. I was also thinking of providing the Vg rendering if the user adds a Repr.Attribute for rendering their values but I haven’t done that yet (not all rtree things are two-dimensional).
Thanks! And yes! I’ve been thinking of turning R* into an Outreachy project for the December round but first need to scope out the feasibility.