[postgis-users] PostGIS and LIDAR Massive Point Sets

[collin at socrates.Berkeley.EDU]

I am participating in a project to improve LIDAR processing.  We have a
20 gigabyte dataset of filtered x,y,z points in ascii files.

I have questions:
1. Can PostGIS handle that kind of data at usable speeds? We are using a
new Sun Blade server running solaris.
2. What data types are the point arrays? text? float? Text could cause an
unusable overhead on a dataset this massive.
3. How large a dataset has anyone tried so far? And what have been the
problems/limitations?

Any help, commentary, or opinions would be appreciated.

Thanks,

Collin Bode
GIS Informatics Researcher
UC Berkeley