[postgis-users] rasters in PostGIS...

[Jeff D. Hamann]

I've been unable to weigh in on the raster support in postgis, but

Please god yes...

It would be great to have a place to store data in a ISO 1912X (or whatever 
it is) compliant tool that would break us free from the ESRI/M$ chains and 
give gis users a real option. GRASS is alright, but it's underdeveloped and 
there are too few developers to handle the effort. I've been thinking about 
a way to get rasters into a RDMS (not for long mind you) because of the 
types of processes I need to use for spatial analysis. Much of what I need 
to do utilizes both raster and vector equivalently and have a great tool 
(postgis) for storing vector attributes is great, but it falls short of 
being an option for storing data because of the lack of raster support. I'm 
using GRASS more these days, when I get the chance, and since almost all of 
the other tools I use (home grown, php, R, etc.) tools I need can make use 
of SQL, then having a RDMS is perfect, expect for the fact that I have to 
store raster data somewhere else...

I would be willing to pay money to have raster support for postgis so I 
could store all my data there. I know this is somewhat of a screed, but I 
drives me crazy that I have to pay money for all those M$ "features" I never 
use in Office and I haven't purchased (read refuse to purchase) ESRI since 
they've started messing up arc/info (remember command line programming?) 
becuase they still can't provide a simple tool that utilizes SQL for data 
manipulation and simple analysis. And what's with that "you should use 
shapefiles, okay everybody, now store everything as shapefiles..." business? 
what part of spatially explicit don't they get...

The tasks that I need to perform that would utilize raster caps would 
include:

1) Image classification (queries for training areas)
2) Generalization (lumping,filtering,etc.)
3) Simple map algebra (think GRASS mapcalc?)

It would be enough to simply store the data in postgis so all my data could 
be stored in a single location (think data management, backups, tapes, 
etc...) rather than trying to solve all the raster handling problems within 
the RDMS. I know it's a daunting task (the docs for Oracle spatial are over 
600 pages!) but there has to be some effort otherwise PostGIS looks like 
another "hey look what I did, isn't it cool" tool that has no real staying 
power and application.


IMHO of course...

Jeff.



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Jeff D. Hamann
Forest Informatics, Inc.
PO Box 1421
Corvallis, Oregon USA 97339-1421
541-754-1428
jeff.hamann at forestinformatics.com
www.forestinformatics.com