[postgis-users] Union of 7 datasets

Obe, Regina robe.dnd at cityofboston.gov
Thu Aug 23 08:48:42 PDT 2007


BASIC TRICK:  If you want to get all records with no matching including those that match - put what you would normally put in your WHERE clause in the JOIN clause and use a LEFT JOIN. 

Unfortunately as I have come across before if you need an either or (if in table 1 or table 2 - ideally you would use a FULL JOIN but for some reason Postgres chokes when you use postgis functions in the FULL JOIN clause for the cases I have tried).  In that case you need a workaround using a set of UNIONS.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------
Simplest case - get all records in g1 one or union of g1 and g2 that intersect
NOTE: COALESCE is an ANSI SQL function that will return the first non-null - when you do a geomunion of a geometry and null you get null which is why we need COALESCE

SELECT g1.field1, g1.field2, COALESCE(geomunion(g1.the_geom, g2.the_geom), g1.the_geom) AS newgeom
FROM g1 LEFT JOIN g2 ON (g1.the_geom && g2.the_geom AND intersects(g1.the_geom, g2.the_geom))

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Either of case - get all geometries in g1 or g2 or union if there is a match - workaround for full joins not working right

SELECT g1.field1, g1.field2, geomunion(g1.the_geom, g2.the_geom) AS newgeom
FROM g1 INNER JOIN g2 ON (g1.the_geom && g2.the_geom AND intersects(g1.the_geom, g2.the_geom))
UNION
SELECT g1.field1, g1.field2, g1.the_geom AS newgeom
FROM g1 LEFT JOIN g2 ON (g1.the_geom && g2.the_geom AND intersects(g1.the_geom, g2.the_geom))
WHERE g2.the_geom IS NULL
UNION
SELECT g1.field1, g1.field2, g2.the_geom AS newgeom
FROM g2 LEFT JOIN g1 ON (g1.the_geom && g2.the_geom AND intersects(g1.the_geom, g2.the_geom))
WHERE g1.the_geom IS NULL



Hope that helps,
Regina









-----Original Message-----
From: postgis-users-bounces at postgis.refractions.net [mailto:postgis-users-bounces at postgis.refractions.net] On Behalf Of Andreas Laggner
Sent: Thursday, August 23, 2007 11:32 AM
To: PostGIS Users Discussion
Subject: Re: [postgis-users] Union of 7 datasets

Obe, Regina schrieb:
> Oh the g1 g2 .. was just for example - I don't actually call my tables meaningless names like that.  
>
> You should be doing a join on something or have a where clause unless one of your tables has only one record.  Otherwise you are doing what is called a CROSS JOIN (cartesian product)  which gives you an nxm records where n is the number of records in your first table and m is the number in second table.  This is generally a big NO NO.  In certain rare cases you do want to do something like that, but is usually the exception.
>
>   
I think the records in my targed table must be added (more or less) and 
not multiplied! My Aim is a table that contains the areas of all the 7 
sourcetables and the information which refuges are inside and wich not. 
Perhaps i must use the intersection!? If i do my query with a gist like 
this: where t1.the_geom && t2.the_geom; than the operation is very fast 
(about one minute) but i only have the Polygons covered by BOTH 
datasets, and i want to have as well those, which are covered by one 
dataset only!! But my operation without the where clause runs for 4 
hours now - that shows me there is something wrong  ;-)
> Its hard for me to tell if you need a cartesian product in this case since I'm not quite sure what for example nature and biosphere represent.  I would guess that is wrong and you should first figure out which sets of say nature records you need to geomunion with biosphere and then join by that field or set of fields.
>
> It would help a bit if you could provide some sample questions you expect to answer with your statistical analysis.  My guess is you may be better off with more than one table. 
>
>   
Sample question: give me all areas (all polygons) from germany where 
landuse=arable land and soils=good and precipitation>600 and any (of 7) 
reserves and so on.......
I need the values in my table to calculate the potential yield or other 
things...
And i want to analyse such questions with a statistical software (SAS), 
so it seems to me i need one table to import in SAS (or to query from 
SAS directly to the postgresql).

Thanks for your help, i will be back in my office in Monday.......Andreas

> Which structure is best really boils down to what questions you hope to answer because one approach may make one question easy and fast and another question slow and cumbersome.
>
> Hope that helps,
> Regina
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: postgis-users-bounces at postgis.refractions.net [mailto:postgis-users-bounces at postgis.refractions.net] On Behalf Of Andreas Laggner
> Sent: Thursday, August 23, 2007 10:04 AM
> To: PostGIS Users Discussion
> Subject: Re: [postgis-users] Union of 7 datasets
>
> Obe, Regina schrieb:
>   
>> Andreas,
>>
>> It would help to know what your table structure looks like and why do you want to put them all in a single geometry?
>>   
>>     
> My table structures are a little bit different. I want to have them in a 
> single geometry to intersect them with other data and built a large 
> table to run statistics over it (production site analysis over germany).
>   
>> I'm imaging you are you doing something like
>>
>> SELECT g1.somefield, geomunion(geomunion(g1.the_geom, g2.the_geom), g3.the_geom)
>> FROM g1 INNER JOIN g2 on g1.somefield = g2.somefield INNER JOIN g3 on g2.somefield = g3.somefield
>> GROUP BY g1.somefield
>>
>>   
>>     
> That´s an interesting method with inner join..why go you call your 
> tables g1. g2. and so on?
> That´s my method i am using right now (geomunion 1 to 3 from 6), seems 
> to be a pedestrian method :-(
>
> create table natura2000
>     (ffh_name character varying(80), ffh_land character varying(3), ffh 
> smallint, ffh_id smallint,
>      spa_name character varying(80), spa_land character varying(3), spa 
> smallint, spa_id smallint) with oids;
> select 
> addgeometrycolumn('','natura2000','the_geom','31467','MULTIPOLYGON',2);
> alter table natura2000 drop constraint enforce_geotype_the_geom;
> insert into natura2000
>     select 
> t1.ffh_name,t1.ffh_land,t1.ffh,t1.ffh_id,t2.spa_name,t2.spa_land,t2.spa,t2.spa_id,
>             geomunion(t1.the_geom, t2.the_geom)
>             from ffh_rep t1, spa_rep t2;
>
> create table sg71
>     (ffh_name character varying(80), ffh_land character varying(3), ffh 
> smallint, ffh_id smallint,
>      spa_name character varying(80), spa_land character varying(3), spa 
> smallint, spa_id smallint,
>      bio_name character varying(70), bio smallint, bio_id smallint) with 
> oids;
> select addgeometrycolumn('','sg71','the_geom','31467','MULTIPOLYGON',2);
> alter table sg71 drop constraint enforce_geotype_the_geom;
> insert into sg71
>     select t1.ffh_name, t1.ffh_land, t1.ffh, t1.ffh_id, t1.spa_name, 
> t1.spa_land, t1.spa, t1.spa_id,
>             t2.name,t2.bio,t2.bio_id,geomunion(t1.the_geom, t2.the_geom)
>             from natura2000 t1, biosphere t2;
>
> create table sg72
>        (ffh_name character varying(80), ffh_land character varying(3), 
> ffh smallint, ffh_id smallint,
>     spa_name character varying(80), spa_land character varying(3), spa 
> smallint, spa_id smallint,
>     bio_name character varying(70), bio smallint, bio_id smallint,
>     np_name character varying(60), np smallint, np_id smallint) with oids;
> select addgeometrycolumn('','sg72','the_geom','31467','MULTIPOLYGON',2);
> alter table sg72 drop constraint enforce_geotype_the_geom;
> insert into sg72
>     select t1.ffh_name, t1.ffh_land, t1.ffh, t1.ffh_id, t1.spa_name, 
> t1.spa_land, t1.spa, t1.spa_id,
>             t1.bio_name,t1.bio,t1.bio_id,t2.np_name,t2.np,t2.np_id,
>             geomunion(t1.the_geom, t2.the_geom)
>             from sg71 t1, np t2;
> AND SO ON......
>   
>> or 
>>
>> SELECT g1.somefield, geomunion(gt.the_geom)
>> FROM (SELECT somefield, the_geom FROM g1 UNION SELECT somefield, the_geom FROM g2 ...) gt
>> GROUP BY gt.somefield
>>
>>
>> If I have 7 different tables that have pretty much the same structure, but for logistical or other technical reasons (such as each has additional attributes distinct from one another), I need to keep them as separate tables, then I usually use inherited tables for that. That way when I need to join all datasets at once, I can simply query the parent table and it will automatically drill down to the child tables. Not sure if that helps more than it confuses your situation.
>>
>> Then instead of the above I can simply do
>>
>> SELEG myparenttable.somefield, geomunion(myparenttable.the_geom)
>> FROM myparenttable
>> GROUP by gh.somefield
>>
>>
>>   
>>     
> ok - i have to think about your suggestions......that´s my second week 
> with postgis.
> Can you tell me from my SQL-Statements which method will be best? So i 
> try to understand that one.....
>
> Thanks for your reply!!!
>   
>> Hope that helps,
>> Regina
>>
>> -----Original Message-----
>> From: postgis-users-bounces at postgis.refractions.net [mailto:postgis-users-bounces at postgis.refractions.net] On Behalf Of Andreas Laggner
>> Sent: Thursday, August 23, 2007 9:11 AM
>> To: PostGis_Mailinglist
>> Subject: [postgis-users] Union of 7 datasets
>>
>> Hi users,
>>
>> i want to put together 7 datasets to have all the different refuges in 
>> one table (and in one geometry). Am i doing right with 6 times geomunion 
>> (that´s much to type with all the attributes) or is there a more 
>> effective way?
>>
>> cheers Andreas
>>
>>   
>>     
>
>
>   


-- 
Dipl. Geoökologe Andreas Laggner
Institut für Ländliche Räume (LR)
Bundesforschungsanstalt für Landwirtschaft (FAL)

Institute of Rural Studies
Federal Agricultural Research Centre (FAL)

Bundesallee 50
D-38116 Braunschweig

Tel.: (+49) (0)531 596 5515
Fax: (+49) (0)531 596 5599
E-mail: andreas.laggner at fal.de
Homepage: http://www.lr.fal.de/ 

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