[postgis-users] Raster Support...

[Jeff Hoffmann]

Paul Ramsey wrote:

> To repeat:  once you get your rasters in the database, what are you  
> going to do with them?

I used to have that same question the same time anybody the topic got 
brought up.  I think that, if you try, you can come up with some ways 
raster data might be useful integrated into the database (even if it's 
not the best or only way of doing something).  Perhaps too many people 
think of raster data as essentially photographic and not as a giant 
array of geo-referenced data points and they just dismiss it out of 
hand.  If you're just storing a bunch of photos in your database, I 
agree with the sentiment that it just makes your life difficult.  If, on 
the other hand, you have a DEM (for example) where the data points are 
elevation, you could query it to find the elevation at a point.  Or take 
it a step further and add a Z coordinate to all that 2-D vector data in 
case you ever want to visualize it in 3-D.

I guess the first thing I'd do if I were that interested in adding 
raster support is collect a bunch of possible use cases and categorize 
them to figure out what sort of functionality people would be interested 
in seeing.  I think it'd be interesting to see what people would use it 
for & maybe would inspire some interest in the wider community.

-- 
Jeff Hoffmann
Head Plate Spinner
PropertyKey.com