[postgis-devel] [postgis-users] PostGIS case usages

Wed Oct 31 21:06:22 PDT 2018

Would love to go to Australia sometime.  Unfortunately too far of a trek for
us.  Someday.

> -----Original Message-----
> From: Simon Greener [mailto:simon at spatialdbadvisor.com]
> Sent: Wednesday, October 31, 2018 11:39 PM
> To: 'PostGIS Users Discussion' <postgis-users at lists.osgeo.org>; Regina Obe
> <lr at pcorp.us>
> Cc: 'PostGIS Development Discussion' <postgis-devel at lists.osgeo.org>
> Subject: Re: [postgis-users] PostGIS case usages
> 
> Regina,
> 
> Some very good points.
> 
> I stopped using the term years ago given that I concentrate on applying
> spatial data and functions to solving business problems.
> 
> One problem is that the "spatial" industry is dominated by "GIS" vendors
and
> practitioners: it isn't easy to find new non-GIS work.
> 
> In fact, I think this is one of the problems with FOSS4G technologies:
they are
> marketed and sold as specific toolsets in opposition to the vendor
products
> but on the same playground.
> 
> I have a few examples I can provide you with, just give me a bit of time
to
> write them up.
> 
> As you going to FOSS4G in Melbourne this month?
> 
> regards
> Simon
> 
> On Thu, 01 Nov 2018 10:17:04 +1100, Regina Obe <lr at pcorp.us> wrote:
> 
> > Tom,
> >
> > That's a pretty nice use case and one I've thought of coming from a
> Bioelectronics/Biomechanics educational background.
> >
> > I think a lot more people would be using PostGIS if they saw it as a
tool set
> of tools for visualizing and analyzing space, instead of "a toolset for
GIS"
> > The GIS word seems to be a turn-off for a lot of people who have spatial
> problems to solve but don't think of themselves as GIS practioners.
> >
> > I much prefer the term "Spatial" than GIS because it really focuses on
what I
> think makes PostGIS great - "A tool for analyzing space"
> >
> > Thanks,
> > Regina
> >
> >> -----Original Message-----
> >> From: postgis-users [mailto:postgis-users-bounces at lists.osgeo.org] On
> >> Behalf Of Tom Kazimiers
> >> Sent: Wednesday, October 31, 2018 3:16 PM
> >> To: PostGIS Users Discussion <postgis-users at lists.osgeo.org>
> >> Cc: 'PostGIS Development Discussion' <postgis-devel at lists.osgeo.org>
> >> Subject: Re: [postgis-users] PostGIS case usages
> >>
> >> Hi Regina,
> >>
> >> It might not really fit the book, because it's not exactly GIS, but
> >> our PostGIS use case is certainly an interesting one as well: As a
> >> software engineer at the Howard Hughes Medical Institute, I work on a
> >> collaborative neuron reconstruction and analysis software called
> >> CATMAID [1] [2] (screenshot: [3]), which is used for neuroscience
> >> research. We use PostGIS to represent neurons in a 3D space. They
> >> consist of 3D points that reference their parent nodes or are the
> >> root [=soma of neuron] if they have no parent). Together with
> >> synapses, point clouds and TIN meshes for modeling compartments in a
> >> dataset, they model the spatial aspects of our neuroscience world.
> >> Users create those neuron reconstructions manually in a collaborative
> >> fashion plus segmentation programs can be used as additional data
> >> source. Using its spatial indices, PostGIS helps us to quickly query
> >> neurons in a particular field of view. The space of a single project
> >> contains sometimes 100s of millions of interconnected individual
> >> points. We also do bounding box intersection queries between neurons
> and compartment meshes, which then refine in the front-end by doing more
> precise intersection tests.
> >>
> >> This software is used by quite a few research labs and as far as I
> >> know they all do their own hosting with a dedicated server and this is
what
> we do as well.
> >> The reason being mainly that wth larger datasets, we benefit from
> >> machines with a lot of RAM (>256G), fast SSD/NVMe drives and many
> >> CPUs as well as fast local data access for e.g. image data.
> >>
> >> Thanks so much for making PostGIS work well in non-GIS contexts
> >> too---it makes my live much easier! Looking forward to the book!
> >>
> >> Cheers,
> >> Tom
> >>
> >> [1] https://www.catmaid.org
> >> [2] https://github.com/catmaid/CATMAID
> >> [3] https://twitter.com/tomkazimiers/status/1057657843174772737
> >>
> >> On Fri, Oct 26, 2018 at 01:05:52PM -0400, Regina Obe wrote:
> >> >Hey all.  So we've been in talks with our editor about having a 3rd
> >> >Edition of PostGIS hopefully to be released around the same time as
> >> >PostGIS
> >> 3.0.
> >> >
> >> >I think they are more or less sold on the idea except they did ask
> >> >about current market share and usage.
> >> >
> >> >Part of the reason for that is our previous editions focused a lot
> >> >on "How do I use this function or do this weird sounding thing that
> >> >only GIS people can make sense of"  instead of "How do I do this
> >> >real world
> >> thing"
> >> >
> >> >So one of the thoughts was having our table of contents be more like
> >> >"How do I do this with PostGIS" in somewhat laymen terms that most
> >> >people can relate to - like Political Districting, Real Estate
> >> >analysis (walk scores, elevation measurements to determine
> >> >viablility of building on a plot of
> >> >land)
> >> > without scaring people off with "real world things" they can't
> >> >relate to or in overly techy terms.
> >> >
> >> >Also since the 2nd Edition (which was in 2015 super ancient now
> >> >since the New shiny version at the time was 2.1 and 2.1 is not even
> >> >supported anymore).
> >> >Other major thing changed is a lot of people are deploying PostGIS
> >> >on cloud offerings like Amazon RDS, Microsoft Azure, and Google
> >> >PostgreSQL for Cloud so we plan to cover a bit about some things
> >> >relevant in those that may not be relevant when deploying on your own
> server.
> >> >
> >> >That said, if people can respond with what things they are currently
> >> >using PostGIS for and also what hosting they are using for PostGIS,
> >> >that would be helpful for us to get a better idea of focus points.
> >> >
> >> >It'd be great if you posted on the list, but if you are shy or need
> >> >your usage anonymized, you can write directly to me.
> >> >
> >> >Thanks,
> >> >Regina
> >> >
> >> >_______________________________________________
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> >> >postgis-users at lists.osgeo.org
> >> >https://lists.osgeo.org/mailman/listinfo/postgis-users
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> 
> 
> --
> Regards
> Simon
>
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