PostGIS 1.5.8 Manual i PostGIS 1.5.8 Manual SVN Revision (10685) PostGIS 1.5.8 Manual ii Contents 1 Introduction 2 1.1 Project Steering Committee . .2 1.2 Contributors Past and Present . .2 1.3 More Information . .3 2 Installation 4 2.1 Short Version . .4 2.2 Requirements . .4 2.3 Getting the Source . .5 2.4 Installation . .5 2.4.1 Configuration . .6 2.4.2 Building . .7 2.4.3 Testing . .7 2.4.4 Installation . .9 2.5 Create a spatially-enabled database . .9 2.6 Create a spatially-enabled database from a template . 10 2.7 Upgrading . 10 2.7.1 Soft upgrade . 10 2.7.2 Hard upgrade . 10 2.8 Common Problems . 11 2.9 JDBC ......................................................... 11 2.10 Loader/Dumper . 12 3 Frequently Asked Questions 13 4 Using PostGIS: Data Management and Queries 17 4.1 GIS Objects . 17 4.1.1 OpenGIS WKB and WKT . 17 4.1.2 PostGIS EWKB, EWKT and Canonical Forms . 18 4.1.3 SQL-MM Part 3 . 19 4.2 PostGIS Geography Type . 19 PostGIS 1.5.8 Manual iii 4.2.1 Geography Basics . 20 4.2.2 When to use Geography Data type over Geometry data type . 21 4.2.3 Geography Advanced FAQ . 22 4.3 Using OpenGIS Standards . 22 4.3.1 The SPATIAL_REF_SYS Table and Spatial Reference Systems . 23 4.3.2 The GEOMETRY_COLUMNS Table . 24 4.3.3 Creating a Spatial Table . 24 4.3.4 Manually Registering Geometry Columns in geometry_columns . 25 4.3.5 Ensuring OpenGIS compliancy of geometries . 26 4.3.6 Dimensionally Extended 9 Intersection Model (DE-9IM) . 30 4.3.6.1 Theory . 32 4.4 Loading GIS Data . 35 4.4.1 Using SQL . 35 4.4.2 Using the Loader . 35 4.5 Retrieving GIS Data . 36 4.5.1 Using SQL . 36 4.5.2 Using the Dumper . 37 4.6 Building Indexes . 38 4.6.1 GiST Indexes . 38 4.6.2 Using Indexes . 39 4.7 Complex Queries . 39 4.7.1 Taking Advantage of Indexes . 39 4.7.2 Examples of Spatial SQL . 40 5 Using PostGIS: Building Applications 43 5.1 Using MapServer . 43 5.1.1 Basic Usage . 43 5.1.2 Frequently Asked Questions . 44 5.1.3 Advanced Usage . 45 5.1.4 Examples . 46 5.2 Java Clients (JDBC) . 47 5.3 C Clients (libpq) . 48 5.3.1 Text Cursors . 48 5.3.2 Binary Cursors . 49 PostGIS 1.5.8 Manual iv 6 Performance tips 50 6.1 Small tables of large geometries . 50 6.1.1 Problem description . 50 6.1.2 Workarounds . 50 6.2 CLUSTERing on geometry indices . 51 6.3 Avoiding dimension conversion . 51 6.4 Tuning your configuration . 52 6.4.1 Startup . 52 6.4.2 Runtime . 52 7 PostGIS Reference 53 7.1 PostgreSQL PostGIS Types . 53 7.1.1 box2d . 53 7.1.2 box3d . 53 7.1.3 box3d_extent . 54 7.1.4 geometry . 54 7.1.5 geometry_dump . 55 7.1.6 geography . ..