[postgis-users] Enormous file geodatabase feature class > PostgreSQL/PostGIS? + attribute column standardization app or process?

[dnrg]

Is there a utility for importing an ESRI file
geodatabase into PostgreSQL/PostGIS? I know there's a
tool for importing shapefiles, but that won't help--or
will it?

I (will soon) have a large feature class of ~14
counties of parcel data, with the attributes already
standardized, stored in a single feature class in a
geodatabase. Not sure of the size, but it could easily
be ~7 gig. Ultimately, I want to import parcel data
for 100 counties into PostgreSQL.

Short of exporting a 14 to 100 county file geodatabase
back out to one gynormous shapefile (at least on
Windows, I imagine that might break file size
limitations), do I have any other options? Is there
some other format (CAD?) I could export out of a file
geodatabase for importing into PostgreSQL/PostGIS?

I know I could import the shapefiles one-by-one, but I
don't have an application that would standardize
parcel attributes going in--the standardization
already performed may have been done as a (tedious)
manual process.

That said, does anyone have an attribute column
standardizer app (preferably written in Python so I
could tweak it), where I could feed it a field mapping
/ lookup table of all the counties and which source
fields should become target fields in the merged data
set?

And are there any known limitations on the size of
feature classes (or whatever they may be called in
PostGIS) you can manipulate with reasonable speeds?
e.g. anyone here storing terabytes of polygon or line
data in PostGIS and having no trouble with it? I mean
for massive concurrent access, not just as a
single-user DSS. My system will be an OLAP, not an
OLTP--so once the data is loaded, there won't be much
editing to speak of. New parcel data, per county, over
time will replace old parcel data.

Finally, does it look like ESRI will ever open its
geodatabase format in the way they've opened up the
shapefile? I tend to doubt it, considering all the
stored procedures and triggers it must use to maintain
the consistency of the data. But still, someone could
do an implementation of it if the geodatabase format
was fully documented and opened to others like they
did with the shapefile.

Otherwise, I see no real commitment to
interoperability--with the geodatabase being ESRI's
format / data model / whatever you want to call it /
of choice.

Thanks.

Dana
 


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