<html xmlns:v="urn:schemas-microsoft-com:vml" xmlns:o="urn:schemas-microsoft-com:office:office" xmlns:w="urn:schemas-microsoft-com:office:word" xmlns:m="http://schemas.microsoft.com/office/2004/12/omml" xmlns="http://www.w3.org/TR/REC-html40"><head><meta http-equiv=Content-Type content="text/html; charset=utf-8"><meta name=Generator content="Microsoft Word 15 (filtered medium)"><style><!--
/* Font Definitions */
@font-face
{font-family:"Cambria Math";
panose-1:2 4 5 3 5 4 6 3 2 4;}
@font-face
{font-family:Calibri;
panose-1:2 15 5 2 2 2 4 3 2 4;}
/* Style Definitions */
p.MsoNormal, li.MsoNormal, div.MsoNormal
{margin:0in;
margin-bottom:.0001pt;
font-size:12.0pt;
font-family:"Times New Roman",serif;}
a:link, span.MsoHyperlink
{mso-style-priority:99;
color:blue;
text-decoration:underline;}
a:visited, span.MsoHyperlinkFollowed
{mso-style-priority:99;
color:purple;
text-decoration:underline;}
p
{mso-style-priority:99;
mso-margin-top-alt:auto;
margin-right:0in;
mso-margin-bottom-alt:auto;
margin-left:0in;
font-size:12.0pt;
font-family:"Times New Roman",serif;}
span.EmailStyle18
{mso-style-type:personal-reply;
font-family:"Calibri",sans-serif;
color:#1F497D;}
.MsoChpDefault
{mso-style-type:export-only;
font-family:"Calibri",sans-serif;}
@page WordSection1
{size:8.5in 11.0in;
margin:1.0in 1.0in 1.0in 1.0in;}
div.WordSection1
{page:WordSection1;}
--></style><!--[if gte mso 9]><xml>
<o:shapedefaults v:ext="edit" spidmax="1026" />
</xml><![endif]--><!--[if gte mso 9]><xml>
<o:shapelayout v:ext="edit">
<o:idmap v:ext="edit" data="1" />
</o:shapelayout></xml><![endif]--></head><body lang=EN-US link=blue vlink=purple><div class=WordSection1><p class=MsoNormal><span style='font-size:11.0pt;font-family:"Calibri",sans-serif;color:#1F497D'>Nathan,<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal><span style='font-size:11.0pt;font-family:"Calibri",sans-serif;color:#1F497D'><o:p> </o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal><span style='font-size:11.0pt;font-family:"Calibri",sans-serif;color:#1F497D'>I think thinking about geometries as just representing physical space is a bit short-sighted. <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal><span style='font-size:11.0pt;font-family:"Calibri",sans-serif;color:#1F497D'>There are so many things in this world that lend themselves to a spatial representation that aren't physical or at least not physical in the way most people think about physical.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal><span style='font-size:11.0pt;font-family:"Calibri",sans-serif;color:#1F497D'><o:p> </o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal><span style='font-size:11.0pt;font-family:"Calibri",sans-serif;color:#1F497D'>We use linestrings for representing date and time ranges where we have discontinuity and need to represent as a single unit without having to resort to storing as arrays.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal><span style='font-size:11.0pt;font-family:"Calibri",sans-serif;color:#1F497D'>The built in functions for ranges in PostgreSQL are much less powerful than what PostGIS offers for lines and by extension time lines.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal><span style='font-size:11.0pt;font-family:"Calibri",sans-serif;color:#1F497D'><o:p> </o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal><span style='font-size:11.0pt;font-family:"Calibri",sans-serif;color:#1F497D'>For example if you have a time line where you have 2017-04-01 10:00 AM – 2017-04-01 11:00 AM and then a break that then continues 2017-04-05 10 PM – 2017-04-05 11 PM<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal><span style='font-size:11.0pt;font-family:"Calibri",sans-serif;color:#1F497D'>It's computationally easier to store as a multilinestring than resort to using tsrange arrays. <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal><span style='font-size:11.0pt;font-family:"Calibri",sans-serif;color:#1F497D'><o:p> </o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal><span style='font-size:11.0pt;font-family:"Calibri",sans-serif;color:#1F497D'>We've found it much more useful to use PostGIS to represent these than the built in PostgreSQL temporal ranges. We usually use with dateranges, but should work just as well with tsrange.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal><span style='font-size:11.0pt;font-family:"Calibri",sans-serif;color:#1F497D'><o:p> </o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal><span style='font-size:11.0pt;font-family:"Calibri",sans-serif;color:#1F497D'>PostGIS offers a ton of functions you can use on lines such as the aggregation and intersection functions you can use for aggregating and breaking timelines. There is no equivalent of such things in PostgreSQL for range types, though it would be nice if there was.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal><span style='font-size:11.0pt;font-family:"Calibri",sans-serif;color:#1F497D'><o:p> </o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal><span style='font-size:11.0pt;font-family:"Calibri",sans-serif;color:#1F497D'>This is particularly handy in healthcare when computing things like length of stay of a patient in a hospital or in finance stock market fluctuations in a compact way.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal><span style='font-size:11.0pt;font-family:"Calibri",sans-serif;color:#1F497D'><o:p> </o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal><span style='font-size:11.0pt;font-family:"Calibri",sans-serif;color:#1F497D'>We have slides and a video that describes the approach:<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal><span style='font-size:11.0pt;font-family:"Calibri",sans-serif;color:#1F497D'><o:p> </o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal><span style='font-size:11.0pt;font-family:"Calibri",sans-serif;color:#1F497D'><a href="http://postgis.us/presentations/PGConfUS2017_PostGISTop10.html#/9">http://postgis.us/presentations/PGConfUS2017_PostGISTop10.html#/9</a><o:p></o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal><span style='font-size:11.0pt;font-family:"Calibri",sans-serif;color:#1F497D'><o:p> </o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal><span style='font-size:11.0pt;font-family:"Calibri",sans-serif;color:#1F497D'>Video:<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal><span style='font-size:11.0pt;font-family:"Calibri",sans-serif;color:#1F497D'><a href="https://youtu.be/6yTFkLMOY_s?t=1115">https://youtu.be/6yTFkLMOY_s?t=1115</a><o:p></o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal><span style='font-size:11.0pt;font-family:"Calibri",sans-serif;color:#1F497D'><o:p> </o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal><span style='font-size:11.0pt;font-family:"Calibri",sans-serif;color:#1F497D'><o:p> </o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal><span style='font-size:11.0pt;font-family:"Calibri",sans-serif;color:#1F497D'>Thanks,<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal><span style='font-size:11.0pt;font-family:"Calibri",sans-serif;color:#1F497D'>Regina<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal><span style='font-size:11.0pt;font-family:"Calibri",sans-serif;color:#1F497D'><o:p> </o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal><span style='font-size:11.0pt;font-family:"Calibri",sans-serif;color:#1F497D'><o:p> </o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal><span style='font-size:11.0pt;font-family:"Calibri",sans-serif;color:#1F497D'><o:p> </o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal style='margin-left:.5in'><b><span style='font-size:11.0pt;font-family:"Calibri",sans-serif'>From:</span></b><span style='font-size:11.0pt;font-family:"Calibri",sans-serif'> postgis-users [mailto:postgis-users-bounces@lists.osgeo.org] <b>On Behalf Of </b>Darafei "Kom?pa" Praliaskouski<br><b>Sent:</b> Tuesday, May 23, 2017 4:27 AM<br><b>To:</b> PostGIS Users Discussion <postgis-users@lists.osgeo.org><br><b>Subject:</b> Re: [postgis-users] Linestring and tsrange<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal style='margin-left:.5in'><o:p> </o:p></p><p style='margin-left:.5in'>Hi, <br>Please try not to break abstractions when designing something that would live more than an hour. <br>Linestring is for geometry (with at least two dimensions), tsrange is for 1D temporal intervals. <o:p></o:p></p><p style='margin-left:.5in'>If you lack any functionality you gain by breaking abstraction better implement it directly. <o:p></o:p></p><p class=MsoNormal style='margin-left:.5in'><o:p> </o:p></p><div><div><p class=MsoNormal style='margin-left:.5in'>On аў, 23 мая 2017, 06.12 Nathan Lai <<a href="mailto:nathanwh71@gmail.com">nathanwh71@gmail.com</a>> wrote:<o:p></o:p></p></div><blockquote style='border:none;border-left:solid #CCCCCC 1.0pt;padding:0in 0in 0in 6.0pt;margin-left:4.8pt;margin-right:0in'><div><div><div><div><p class=MsoNormal style='mso-margin-top-alt:0in;margin-right:0in;margin-bottom:12.0pt;margin-left:.5in'>Hi all,<o:p></o:p></p></div><p class=MsoNormal style='mso-margin-top-alt:0in;margin-right:0in;margin-bottom:12.0pt;margin-left:.5in'> Both linestring (using just X axis) and tsrange can represent time ranges. When is linestring more preferrable than tsrange?<o:p></o:p></p></div><p class=MsoNormal style='mso-margin-top-alt:0in;margin-right:0in;margin-bottom:12.0pt;margin-left:.5in'> Thanks!<o:p></o:p></p></div><p class=MsoNormal style='margin-left:.5in'>Nathan <o:p></o:p></p></div><p class=MsoNormal style='margin-left:.5in'>_______________________________________________<br>postgis-users mailing list<br><a href="mailto:postgis-users@lists.osgeo.org" target="_blank">postgis-users@lists.osgeo.org</a><br><a href="https://lists.osgeo.org/mailman/listinfo/postgis-users" target="_blank">https://lists.osgeo.org/mailman/listinfo/postgis-users</a><o:p></o:p></p></blockquote></div></div></body></html>