[mapserver-users] PostGIS 0.5 Released

[Paul Ramsey]

Refractions Research is pleased to announce the 0.5 release of PostGIS :
Geographic Objects for the PostgreSQL object-relational database server.
PostGIS/PostgreSQL is a spatial database much like ESRI's SDE and
Oracles OracleSpatial.

PostGIS/PostgreSQL includes the following functionality:

- Simple Features as defined by the OpenGIS Consortium (OGC)
- Support for Well-Known Text and Well-Known Binary representations of
GIS objects
- Fast spatial indexing using GiST
- Geospatial analysis functions
- PostgreSQL JDBC extension objects corresponding to the geometries
- Support for OGC access functions as defined by the Simple Features
Specification

The 0.5 release of PostGIS includes support for the MapServer internet
web mapping server from the University of Minnesota
(http://mapserver.gis.umn.edu). Download the latest CVS version of
MapServer to use PostGIS as a internet web mapping backend.

Other changes:

- New functions
  - Dimension()
  - GeometryType()
  - Envelope()
  - X(), Y(), Z()
  - NumPoints()
  - PointN()
  - ExteriorRing()
  - NumInteriorRings()
  - InteriorRingN()
  - NumGeometries()
  - GeometryN()
  - Length_Spheroid()
  - Length3D_Spheroid()
  - AsBinary() + XDR and NDR variants
  - force_collection()
- New Objects
  - SPHEROID(<NAME>,<SEMIMAJOR AXIS>,<INVERSE FLATTENING>)
    To be used with the length_spheroid functions for accurate
    length calculations on lat/lon data. (Thanks to Geographic 
    Data BC and David Skea)
- Minor bug fixes
- Internal Functions
  - Extra constructors to make geometry manipulation easier
- Structural Reorganization
  - Broke postgis.c up into four new files
    postgis_debug.c -- debugging functions
    postgis_fn.c -- generic functions (like length())
    postgis_ops.c -- operators and indexing functions
    postgis_inout.c -- type support functions and data conversion 
         functions