Re: [GENERAL] GIS/GPS Experiences with pgsql?

On Tue, 16 Feb 1999, Bryan Mattern wrote:

> I'm working on a personal project to develop some sort of GPS software
> for Linux. I was talking with a friend the other day and he let me
> borrow a "TIGER/Line CD" (!1990!) from the US Bureau of the Census. I
> know the data is old, but I just wanted to test it with PostgreSQL. I
> don't know all that much about GIS maps, there might be a better source
> I don't know about, but the data seems pretty easy to rip apart and
> pitch into PostgreSQL.
>
> Has anyone done anything like this? If so, is there any info on the
> web? I checked the old mailing list archives, but they were not much
> help.
>
> I'm using perl to get lat./long./velocity from a GPS sensor and would
> like to extract data from PostgreSQL to draw/label the maps.
>
> Any ideas or help would be great.

Hmmm, I'm not sure how the TIGER/Line CD will import, as I don't know the
format, but you'll want to look at the geometric types that PostgreSQL
supports.

Infact, it was both GIS and Astronomy that made me implement their support
in the JDBC driver in the first place :-)

If the TIGER/Line data is raster, and each feature (polygon, line,
circle, etc) doesn't exceed the block size, then postgresql should be able
to handle it.

I have in the works some Java code to draw the geometric types, and some
GPS code as well, but it's mainly aimed at the Astronomical rather than
GIS use.

Peter

--
Peter T Mount peter(at)retep(dot)org(dot)uk
Main Homepage: http://www.retep.org.uk
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