[postgis-users] ArcGIS Mobile slightly off-topic question

Fri Sep 19 09:37:01 PDT 2008

That's correct - in a Personal GDB, the BLOB field holding the geometry 
has the same format as individual geometries in the Shapefile format.

Reading a PGDB is thus relatively easy.  Writing them is probably a 
whole lot harder, because there's a bunch of metadata/spatial index 
stuff that would need to be written as well IIRC.

Burgholzer,Robert wrote:
> Regina,
> The data I have had to work with on the Arc side has been point data, so I have just pulled the lat/lon field into pg, created a point shape, and done the geo-processing there - and in the reverse case, I have my Arc layers set up to use the lat/lon as their basis for generating points.  
>
> That said, I have it in my head that the shape info is stored in these tables in some sort of binary BLOB that is just the representation of the esri shape format, if so, they could be manipulated using the current open source toolbox for handling shapes -- but now I am just speculating (hoping perhaps).
>
> I most definitely would like to be able to use full shapes, not just points, so this is a point of interest for me as well.
>
> Robert W. Burgholzer
> Surface Water Modeler
> Office of Water Supply and Planning
> Virginia Department of Environmental Quality
> rwburgholzer at deq.virginia.gov
> 804-698-4405
> Open Source Modeling Tools:
> http://sourceforge.net/projects/npsource/
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: postgis-users-bounces at postgis.refractions.net [mailto:postgis-users-bounces at postgis.refractions.net] On Behalf Of Obe, Regina
> Sent: Friday, September 19, 2008 9:39 AM
> To: PostGIS Users Discussion
> Subject: RE: [postgis-users] ArcGIS Mobile slightly off-topic question
>
> Robert,
>
> Interesting.  You know I hadn't actually thought about using ODBC to try to talk to the personal geodatabase.  I always thought the attribute data was kept in some ESRI structure that I'd have to look at a bunch of meta tables to figure out.  That solution would be more appealing since it would take ArcGIS stuff completely out of the mix which would make my processing much lighter-weight and fewer dependencies (fewer dependecies sounds very very appealing since that usually means fewer points of failure).
>
> I already have a couple of .NET scheduled processes that pull data from various places that I can just tack this on as an extra process.
>
> On closer inspection I see they are just simple Access tables.
>
> So if I go down that path, I guess the only issue I have is how to update the binary field that holds the geometry.  Also If I need to worry about those GDB_ meta tables when I add/update data.
>
> Also how do you deal with the spatial data part using plain ODBC or do you not need to for your use-case.
>
> Thanks,
> Regina
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: postgis-users-bounces at postgis.refractions.net [mailto:postgis-users-bounces at postgis.refractions.net] On Behalf Of Burgholzer,Robert
> Sent: Friday, September 19, 2008 8:50 AM
> To: PostGIS Users Discussion
> Subject: RE: [postgis-users] ArcGIS Mobile slightly off-topic question
>
> Regina,
> If what you are tackling is something that does a cross-walk between a Esri-geodatabase and PostGIS db, I am very interested in this topic.  I am in a mixed media shop, which means I use PostGIS and everyone else uses MS/Esri-centric stuff, and this would really be a leg up for not only integrating PostGIS, but also getting the job done.
>
> I don't know what the appropriate stream for this is, but I will certainly follow any threads on this listserv, or if you want to take it off list, feel free to add my email to any (email in signature below).
>
> I work mainly in PHP, and have written some objects that talk to MSAccess files via ODBC (personal geodatabase), and do some exchange of data with postGres in this fashion.  My current thought on the matter is to simply create a daemon to run in the background and sync my PG database with the personal geodatabase every 5 minutes or so, but would be willing to get my hands dirty with Python if that was the optimal solution.
>
> Thanks, and good luck!
>
> Robert W. Burgholzer
> Surface Water Modeler
> Office of Water Supply and Planning
> Virginia Department of Environmental Quality
> rwburgholzer at deq.virginia.gov
> 804-698-4405
> Open Source Modeling Tools:
> http://sourceforge.net/projects/npsource/
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: postgis-users-bounces at postgis.refractions.net [mailto:postgis-users-bounces at postgis.refractions.net] On Behalf Of Paragon Corporation
> Sent: Wednesday, September 17, 2008 5:33 PM
> To: 'PostGIS Users Discussion'
> Subject: RE: [postgis-users] ArcGIS Mobile slightly off-topic question
>
> I want to thank everyone for their suggestions. I'm going to give them a
> try.
>
> Thanks,
> Regina 
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: postgis-users-bounces at postgis.refractions.net
> [mailto:postgis-users-bounces at postgis.refractions.net] On Behalf Of Gustavo
> Ces
> Sent: Wednesday, September 17, 2008 10:01 AM
> To: PostGIS Users Discussion
> Subject: Re: [postgis-users] ArcGIS Mobile slightly off-topic question
>
> Hi Regina,
>
>     easiest way is to create your model in Model Builder and then export it,
> as someone has mentionated. Then you can export it as script and modify it.
>     There isn´t a lot of info about this topic. Arcgis help is not very
> useful ( sometimes the help examples doesn´t work). You have to be careful
> with python versions supported by your arcgis version ( there is info in
> ESRI forums about how to change your python version, and wich are suported).
>
> There is a geoprocessor model pdf, but no info about toolboxes methods... 
> It´s a try-error process to understand each toolboxes' methods... And as you
> can find  in ESRI forums, sometimes it doesn´t work...
>     I´ve got some docs recopilated about this topic. If you´re interested
> send me a mail.
>
> Gus
>
>
>  
>
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Refractions Research, Inc.
(250) 383-3022