PostGIS in Action

522 Pages·2011·15.85 MB·English

IN ACTION
Regina O. Obe
Leo S. Hsu
FOREWORD BY PAUL RAMSEY
M A N N I N G
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PostGIS in Action
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PostGIS in Action
REGINA O. OBE
LEO S. HSU
MANNING
Greenwich
(74° w. long.)
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ISBN: 9781935182269
Printed in the United States of America
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brief contents
PART 1 LEARNING POSTGIS..................................................... 1
1 ■ What is a spatial database? 3
2 ■ Geometry types 33
3 ■ Organizing spatial data 53
4 ■ Geometry functions 80
5 ■ Relationships between geometries 117
6 ■ Spatial reference system considerations 153
7 ■ Working with real data 173
PART 2 PUTTING POSTGIS TO WORK ................................... 201
8 ■ Techniques to solve spatial problems 203
9 ■ Performance tuning 241
PART 3 USING POSTGIS WITH OTHER TOOLS ....................... 277
10 ■ Enhancing SQL with add-ons 279
11 ■ Using PostGIS in web applications 312
12 ■ Using PostGIS in a desktop environment 345
13 ■ PostGIS raster 371
v
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vi BRIEF CONTENTS
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contents
foreword xv
preface xvii
acknowledgments xix
about this book xxi
about the cover illustration xxviii
PART 1 LEARNING POSTGIS . ....................................... 1
1 What is a spatial database? 3
1.1 Thinking spatially 3
Introducing the geometry data type 6
1.2 Modeling 7
Imagine the possibilities 8
1.3 Introducing PostgreSQL and PostGIS 9
PostgreSQL strengths 9 ■ PostGIS, adding GIS to
PostgreSQL 13 ■ Alternatives to PostgreSQL and
PostGIS 14 ■ What works with PostGIS 15
1.4 Getting started with PostGIS 16
Verifying version of PostGIS and PostgreSQL 17 ■ Creating
geometries with PostGIS 17
vii
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viii CONTENTS
1.5 Working with real data 20
Loading comma-separated data 21 ■ Spatializing flat file
data 22 ■ Loading data from spatial data sources 25
1.6 Using spatial queries to analyze data 28
Proximity queries 29 ■ Viewing spatial data with
OpenJUMP 30
1.7 Summary 31
2 Geometry types 33
2.1 Geometry columns in PostGIS 34
The geometry_columns table 34 ■ Interacting with the
geometry_columns table 37
2.2 A panoply of geometries 38
What’s a geometry? 38 ■ Points 39 ■ Linestrings 40
Polygons 41 ■ Collection geometries 43 ■ Curved
geometries 47 ■ 3D geometries 51
2.3 Summary 52
3 Organizing spatial data 53
3.1 Spatial storage approaches 53
Heterogeneous geometry columns 54 ■ Homogeneous geometry
columns 56 ■ Table inheritance 57
3.2 Modeling a real city 60
Modeling using a heterogeneous geometry column 61
Modeling using homogeneous geometry columns 64
Modeling using inheritance 66
3.3 Using rules and triggers 69
Rules versus triggers 69 ■ Using rules 71
Using triggers 73
3.4 Summary 78
4 Geometry functions 80
4.1 Constructors 81
Creating geometries from well-known text and well-known binary
representations 81 ■ Autocasting in PostgreSQL/PostGIS 83
4.2 Outputs 84
Well-known text and well-known binary 85 ■ Keyhole Markup
Language 85 ■ Geography Markup Language 86
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CONTENTS ix
Geometry JavaScript Object Notation 86 ■ Scalable Vector
Graphics 86 ■ Geohash 87 ■ Examples of output
functions 87
4.3 Accessor functions: getters and setters 88
Getting and setting spatial reference system 88 ■ Transform to
a different spatial reference 89 ■ Geometry type 90
Coordinate and geometry dimensions 91 ■ Geometry
validity 92 ■ Number of points that define a geometry 93
4.4 Measurement functions 94
Planar measures for geometry types 95 ■ Geodetic measurement
for geometry types 96 ■ Measurement with geography type 98
4.5 Decomposition 99
Boxes and envelopes 99 ■ Coordinates 101
Boundaries 102 ■ Point marker for a geometry: centroid,
point on surface, and nth point 103 ■ Breaking down multi
and collection geometries 105
4.6 Composition 108
Making points 108 ■ Making polygons 110 ■ Promoting
single to multi geometries 112
4.7 Simplification 112
Coordinate rounding using ST_SnapToGrid 113
Simplifying geometries 114
4.8 Summary 115
5 Relationships between geometries 117
5.1 Introducing spatial relationship functions 118
5.2 Intersections 119
Segmenting linestrings with polygons 120 ■ Clipping polygons
with polygons 121
5.3 Specific intersection relationships 123
Interior, exterior, and boundary of a geometry 123 ■ Contains
and Within 125 ■ Covers and CoveredBy 127
ContainsProperly 128 ■ Overlapping geometries 129
Touching geometries 129 ■ Crossing geometries 130
Disjoint geometries 131
5.4 The remainder: ST_Difference and ST_SymDifference 131
5.5 Nearest neighbor 134
Intersects with tolerance 135 ■ Finding N closest objects 135
Using SQL Window functions to number results 137
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