[postgis-devel] new geometry types in PostGIS

[Mathieu Le Serre]

Hi,
I'm currently implementing new types in PostGIS(TIN and
POLYHEDRALSURFACE, described in the SFS1.2.0 norm).
For the moment in PostGIS, geometries types are coded on 8 bits this way:
1 for HASBBOX,
1 for HASSRID,
1 for HASZ ,
1 for HASM 
4 bits for the type of geometry(POINT, LINESTRING...)

 This representation allows 16 types and there allready exist 15. I saw
three weird types which are POINTTYPEI, LINETYPEI and POLYGONTYPEI. They
cannot be used because they're not present in the parser of PostGIS. For
testing my new types, I replaced two of them by TIN and POLYHEDRALSURFACE.
Can you explain me the aim of these 3 unused types? Is it possible to
replace them?

Another solution is to code the types of geometries on 16 bits instead
of 8. This solution  will necessitate some changes in PostGIS and GEOS
for WKB reading.
Has something be done or suggested for this problem?

Thank you for thinking about it.