[postgis-users] detabase design question

[Willem Buitendyk]

Database design is a science unto itself.  I have only started designing 
databases myself not too long ago.  If all you want to do is store the 
data to interact with on a GIS or to work with each dataset individually 
then probably a good place to start would be to simply load the data as 
succinctly as possible i.e. one table for each major dataset.  At least 
from this point you can always break down and reorganize the data into 
something more elaborate or efficient later on.  However, if you plan on 
combining datasets to arrive at various solutions then you should do 
some planning (probably should so some planning regardless).  I've found 
the easiest approach is to figure out what questions you want to ask of 
the whole database first and then work backwards.  This gives you an 
idea for an outline.  Then you can look into normalizing the data 
tables, etc. 

Wikipedia has this on database normalizing:   
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Database_normalization

cheers,

willem

Andre Schoonbee wrote:
> I do not have years of experience and am faced with a challenge:
> My client have lots of vector data. Some are from a few years ago and they
> want to load all data into postgis. The data covering a wide spectrum -
> basically all spatial data for the country. This is census data, regions and
> the subsequent changes to the regions, National rainfall and also regional
> rainfall. Mining, roads and the changing of the roads the past 10 years.
> Boreholes from 10 years ago, and subsequently replaced by pipelines.
> Veterinarian data, etc...
>
> So some of the data is national data and some is regional data. But the
> regional data is not always related to the current region, because the
> regions have changed in the last couple of years. 
>
> So my question:  Is there a basic concept design that will cater for these
> kind of scenarios? Any ideas might help
>
> Thanks
>
> Andre
>
>
> _______________________________________________
> postgis-users mailing list
> postgis-users at postgis.refractions.net
> http://postgis.refractions.net/mailman/listinfo/postgis-users
>
>