[pgpointcloud] Nature of patches

[Howard Butler]

On Jun 27, 2014, at 8:14 PM, Stephen Mather <stephen at smathermather.com> wrote:

> Hi All,
> 
> So, patches in pointcloud-- they are multidimensional like the data organized in them, or are they organized in x/y rectangles independent of z, intensity, color, and other possible dimensions?

I think I understand what you're asking, and I'll take a crack at it.

Patches are organized by their x/y bounding box. Patches *may* overlap extents, though the most efficient querying pattern is to construct your patches so they don't (currently how PDAL's chipper works). 

There's nothing automagic, but you could construct overlapping patches of different attribute sets. The common model is to simply chunk up the multidimensional array of data into something that adapts well to existing spatial indexes. 

Did you have something different in mind? Point cloud-like data that aren't point clouds? I'm interested in what prompts the question...

Howard