Thread: [GENERAL] What is the purpose of PostGIS on PostgreSQL?

I recently came across this question: "What is the purpose of PostGIS on PostgreSQL?" and wanted to know what this mailing list had to respond with.

​Thanks,

On 01/23/2017 09:08 AM, Kased, Razy (Chemistry and Geosciences) wrote:
> I recently came across this question: "What is the purpose of PostGIS on
> PostgreSQL?" <http://gis.stackexchange.com/q/223487/35779> and wanted to
> know what this mailing list had to respond with.

See the paragraph under the heading below:

http://postgis.org/

What is PostGIS?

>
>
> ​Thanks,
>
>
>


--
Adrian Klaver
adrian.klaver@aklaver.com

On Mon, Jan 23, 2017 at 11:08 AM, Kased, Razy (Chemistry and
Geosciences) <rkased@monroecc.edu> wrote:
> I recently came across this question: "What is the purpose of PostGIS on
> PostgreSQL?" and wanted to know what this mailing list had to respond with.

PostGIS is a SQL wrapper to the GEOS library which lets you do a large
number of really complex things that relate to coordinate systems on a
precise level.

Postgres geo types are useful for a very small set of uses cases with
a small but important overlap with PostGIS: indexed bounded box
lookups which is a fairly common requirement.

All else being equal, less dependencies are good so if that's all you
need work off the built in types.  If you need PostGIS though you
really need it.  For example, I heavily use the ST_UNION aggregate
function to build large market boundaries from smaller zip code
boundaries and it works beautifully.  There is no analog to that in
the built in stuff.

merlin

On 01/23/2017 11:08 AM, Kased, Razy (Chemistry and Geosciences) wrote:
> I recently came across this question: "What is the purpose of PostGIS on PostgreSQL?"
<http://gis.stackexchange.com/q/223487/35779>and wanted to know what this mailing list had to respond with. 
>
>
> ​Thanks,
>
>

PostGIS is to shapefile
as PostgreSQL is to csv

-Andy

On 25/01/17 14:12, Andy Colson wrote:
> On 01/23/2017 11:08 AM, Kased, Razy (Chemistry and Geosciences) wrote:
>> I recently came across this question: "What is the purpose of PostGIS
>> on PostgreSQL?" <http://gis.stackexchange.com/q/223487/35779> and
>> wanted to know what this mailing list had to respond with.
>>
>>
>> ​Thanks,
>>
>>
>
> PostGIS is to shapefile
> as PostgreSQL is to csv
>
> -Andy
>
>
What is 'shapefile'?

I don't recall ever coming across that term!


Cheers,
Gavin

On 25/01/17 20:14, Johann Spies wrote:
>
>
> On 25 January 2017 at 08:32, Gavin Flower
> <GavinFlower@archidevsys.co.nz <mailto:GavinFlower@archidevsys.co.nz>>
> wrote:
>
>
>
>
>     What is 'shapefile'?
>
>     I don't recall ever coming across that
>     term!https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shapefile
>
>
>  See https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shapefile
>
> Regards
> Johann
>
> --
> Because experiencing your loyal love is better than life itself,
> my lips will praise you.  (Psalm 63:3)

Thanks!

This might prove very useful for a project of mine that is almost
nothing to do with GIS!!!


Cheers,
Gavin