Welcome to the Users PostGIS Wiki!

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What is PostGIS?

PostGIS is an extension to the ​PostgreSQL object-relational database system that allows ​GIS (Geographic Information System) objects to be stored in the database. PostGIS does for PostgreSQL what Oracle Spatial does for Oracle, ArcSDE does for Microsoft SQL Server/Oracle.

• ​NCGIS 2011 PostGIS 2.0 3D and Raster support enhancements Regina Obe and Leo Hsu
• ​Foss4G JP 2010 State of PostGIS video by Paul Ramsey
• ​Foss4G 2009 State of PostGIS video by Paul Ramsey
• ​PostGIS 1.5 and Beyond PGDay EU 2010 talk by Mark Cave-Ayland and Olivier Coutin outlines the techical details of upcoming PostGIS 2.0 -- the new disc format, new geometry types etc.
• ​PostGIS 1.5 and Beyond PGDay EU 2010 talk (more of a user perspective) by Vincent Picavet and Olivier Courtin

Overview

• ​PostGIS Manuals
• PostgreSQL/PostGIS version support matrix
• Features of PostGIS
• PostgreSQL/PostGIS GEOS/PostGIS version support matrix
• PostGIS Tutorials
• ​PostGIS as a part of PostgreSQL (Article)]
• Tools that support PostGIS
• Gallery Collection of applications using PostGIS in the backend.
• PostgreSQL Case Studies
• PostGIS Hosters
• PostGIS Support and Consulting Services
• ​PostGIS Wikipedia entry
• PostGIS and ESRI ArcSDE/ArcGIS Articles
• ​PostgreSQL general use user contributed functions and snippets

Contrast / Compare / Port Guides

Don't know if PostGIS is right for you or if another spatial db is more suited or you are porting from another/going to another and not sure the gotchas

• ​NCGIS 2011: Cross Comparison of Spatially Enabled Databases: PostGIS, SQL Server and JASPA
• ​Compare SQL Server 2008 R2, Oracle 11G R2, PostgreSQL/PostGIS 1.5 Spatial Features
• ​SQL Server 2008, PostGIS, MySQL function/feature Spatial compare
• ​Simon Greener's FOSS4G 2009 talk on Oracle Spatial/Locator and gotchas for porting between PostGIS/Oracle - ​complete with slides and sound

Compilation and Installation Guides

• Directions for PostGIS RPM Installation.
• Directions for PostGIS on Ubuntu.
• Directions for Compiling in Windows.
• ​Sami's Experimental Binaries for PostgreSQL 9.0 64-bit.
• Issues with Installing on Windows Vista Windows Vista Gotchas.
• Directions for ​Compiling PostGIS from source for CentOS/Fedora/RedHat EL After Yum Install of PostgreSQL.

PostGIS Books

• ​PostGIS official manuals for all versions and for PostGIS JDBC driver.
• ​PostGIS in Action Due out in hard-copy Early 2011. All chapter drafts currently completed and on MEAP. Manning Early E-Book (MEAP) purchaseable now and with that purchase you get all chapter drafts and updates. This includes PostGIS 1.3-1.5, PostgreSQL 8.3-9.0 (with upcoming highlights of PostgreSQL 9.1 and PostGIS 2.0). You can also pre-order from Amazon now and to lock in the lowest price. All code and data downloads available for free on the book site even if you don't buy the book. Chapter 1 is also a free download.

Examples of Spatial SQL

• Find Nearby Features
• Find Nearby Features in Lat/Lon (EPSG:4326)
• Find Features far from nearest neighbor - Anti-Near Neighbor
• Join Spatial and Non-Spatial Tables
• Overlay Geometries in one table with Geometries in another
• Find Features Inside a Particular Polygon
• Clean Invalid Polygon Topology
• Find points on interior rings within a certain distance to exterior ring
• Splitting a Polygon with a Linestring
• Generating a hexagonal grid
• MultiPoint centroids from Multi geometries
• Examples OGR Examples
• Create a network topology from a set of noded linestrings
• Geocode a point along a line with a left/right offset
• Determining spikes in polygons
• Searching for spikes and removes them
• Batch Load Shapefiles with shp2pgsql.exe on windows
• Set of functions for spatial overlay of 2 polygon tables
• Function finding overlapping polygons in a table and removing sliver overlappings

Extending PostGIS

• PostGIS EJB3 Integration
• Postgis Topology - to be moved somewhere else ;)
• Raster support
  • WKT Raster - The new raster implementation in PostGIS
  • ​PGCHIP - The GDAL Postgis driver for raster data - a corrected version can be found in current GDAL CVS
• WishList of features for the future.
• Code Sprint 2009 Notes
• SpatiaLite export from PostGIS
• pgRouting routing with PostGIS

Newbie Common Problems and Questions

• function addgeometrycolumn("unknown", "unknown", integer, "unknown", integer) does not exist
• What is the measurement returned by ST_Distance?
• What unit of measurement do PostGIS functions use?
• How to get distance measurement in meters?

Extras

• Geocoder TigerGeocoder

Notes

• Spatial Algorithm Web Sites

Useful Additional PL/PGSQL Functions

• PL/PGSQL Functions
• WKT Raster Helper Functions
• Neighbor Search Nearest Neighbor Search
• PL/PGSQL Pseudo Cascade Union Aggregate Function (use for pre-PostGIS 1.4

What is GEOS

​GEOS is a C++ port of the ​JTS Topology Suite. It is used by PostGIS to implement Topological functions.