[postgis-users] Raster Support...

[Stephen Woodbridge]

Jeff Hoffmann wrote:
> Paul Ramsey wrote:
> 
>> To repeat:  once you get your rasters in the database, what are you  
>> going to do with them?

Jeff,

I think there are two ways to look at this statement. One is it might be 
a dismissal, but I think the one that Paul is asking for is What are 
your use cases, so he can collect them as you suggest. It has been 
REALLY hard to get anyone to come forward with there specific needs in 
this area, beside just asking for the feature.

-Steve

> I used to have that same question the same time anybody the topic got 
> brought up.  I think that, if you try, you can come up with some ways 
> raster data might be useful integrated into the database (even if it's 
> not the best or only way of doing something).  Perhaps too many people 
> think of raster data as essentially photographic and not as a giant 
> array of geo-referenced data points and they just dismiss it out of 
> hand.  If you're just storing a bunch of photos in your database, I 
> agree with the sentiment that it just makes your life difficult.  If, on 
> the other hand, you have a DEM (for example) where the data points are 
> elevation, you could query it to find the elevation at a point.  Or take 
> it a step further and add a Z coordinate to all that 2-D vector data in 
> case you ever want to visualize it in 3-D.
> 
> I guess the first thing I'd do if I were that interested in adding 
> raster support is collect a bunch of possible use cases and categorize 
> them to figure out what sort of functionality people would be interested 
> in seeing.  I think it'd be interesting to see what people would use it 
> for & maybe would inspire some interest in the wider community.
>