[postgis-users] How to tell if 2 geometries are spatially equal

Tue Jun 3 10:01:17 PDT 2008

Discussions like this give we audience members a great deal of insight,
thanks to all!

Given Martin's references, could the PostGIS manual description of
st_equals() be updated, so as to benefit all & sundry moving forward?

ie the two sections

ST_Equals(geometry, geometry)

    Returns 1 (TRUE) if the given Geometries are "spatially equal". Use
this for a 'better' answer than '='. equals('LINESTRING(0 0, 10
10)','LINESTRING(0 0, 5 5, 10 10)') is true.

and

ST_Equals

    Test if an ST_Geometry value as spatially equal to another
ST_Geometry value.

    SQL-MM 3: 5.1.24

Martin Davis wrote:
> Andy,
>
> Can you send me the PDF that you found?  That link appears to be dead.
>
> I realize that the SFS doesn't actually define equal.  I was the
> designer of JTS and GEOS, so the definition is due to me.  I followed
> what I thought was a logical extension of the other definitions, and
> something that was expressible in terms of the DE-9IM.  I also
> provided "equalsExact", which corresponds to the other proposed
> definition that you give.
>
> I will note that in fact according to the SFS, in the geometry
> LINESTRING(0 0, 5 5, 10 10)' the point (5,5) is *not* a boundary
> point.  In fact, even in the geometry MULTILINESTRING((0 0, 5 5), (5
> 5, 10 10)) the point (5 5) is not on the boundary, due to the
> (slightly bizarre) 'mod-2' rule used by the SFS.
> There's plenty of references that support the definition I chose (in
> fact, I suspect I chose it based on other references I scanned at the
> time):
>
> * The IBM Spatial Datablade manual says: Using the *ST_Equals()*
> function is functionally equivalent to using
> *ST_IsEmpty*(*ST_SymDifference*(/a/,/b/)) 
> (http://publib.boulder.ibm.com/infocenter/idshelp/v10/index.jsp?topic=/com.ibm.spatial.doc/spat122.htm)
>
>
> ESRI gives the DE-9IM pattern of T*F**FFF* for ST_Equals, which is
> what JTS uses
> http://webhelp.esri.com/arcgisdesktop/9.2/index.cfm?TopicName=Spatial_relationships
>
>
> Egenhofer has a paper on "Point-Set Topological Spatial Relations"
> (http://www.spatial.maine.edu/~max/pointset.pdf)
>
> There's also all the references given in the SFS paper.
>
> In the end it all comes down to naming.  There are various kinds of
> equality, which are useful for different things.  Different systems
> name them differently, which is ok as long as the semantics are
> documented.  Of course, it's nice to have some standard names - and it
> looks to me like ST_equals is pretty well defined.
>
>
>
>
>
> Andy Anderson wrote:
>> On Jun 2, 2008, at 4:29 PM, Martin Davis wrote:
>>> I use "topologically equal" because the OGC SFS specification uses
>>> the term "topology" extensively in their discussion of the meaning
>>> of the DE-9IM model, on which the semantics of ST_equals is based.
>>
>> No doubt they do, because the spatial relationships that can be
>> determined by the DE-9IM are, generally speaking, topological in nature:
>>
>>     Disjoint, Touches, Crosses, Within and Overlaps
>>
>> These are the ones defined here:
>>
>>     http://portal.opengeospatial.org/files/?artifact_id=829
>>
>> Oddly, in this document they also mention "Equals" but they never
>> explicitly define it (though they claim to later in the document).
>> However, I did find a very complete description of DE-9IM here:
>>
>>     http://mlblog.osdir.com/gis.postgis/2004-02/pdfHaVE9FZPMj.pdf
>>
>> and they say that for "equals", the "Geometries must be identical:
>> – Same dimension
>> – Same geometry type
>> – Same number of vertices
>> – All x,y coordinates must be identical"
>>
>> So this definition would seem to agree with me that LINESTRING(0 0,
>> 10 10) and LINESTRING(0 0, 5 5, 10 10) are not topologically equal.
>> The best way to think of this is that the second is a *polyline*, and
>> the vertex (5, 5) is a boundary between two lines, and that changes
>> the DE-9IM.
>>
>> As you point out, however, ST_equals('LINESTRING(0 0, 10
>> 10)','LINESTRING(0 0, 5 5, 10 10)') returns true; perhaps this was by
>> design to distinguish it from 'LINESTRING(0 0, 10 10)'::geometry ~=
>> 'LINESTRING(0 0, 5 5, 10 10)'::geometry .
>>
>> If you can point to further discussion on this issue, I would be
>> interested.
>>
>>> I don't like the term "spatially-equal", because I think "spatially"
>>> is too vague and overloaded.  How about "point-set equal"?  The idea
>>> is that  A = B iff every point of A is in B and every point of B is
>>> in A.
>>
>> Personally, I don't have a problem with "spatially equal", it says to
>> me "they fill space in the same way", which in fact they do because a
>> point has no extent.
>>
>> -- Andy
>>
>>> Andy Anderson wrote:
>>>> I wouldn't call this example "topologically" equal; one has two
>>>> vertices and the other has three, and that's the only
>>>> characteristic that's relevant in topology (not even their
>>>> positions :-)
>>>>
>>>> "Coincident" is probably a better term, though "spatially equal" is
>>>> probably just as good, and contrasts well with the term
>>>> "geometrically equal" that the manual uses to describe the ~=
>>>> operator.
>>>>
>>>> -- Andy
>>>>
>>>> On May 30, 2008, at 7:54 PM, Martin Davis wrote:
>>>>
>>>>> Will ST_equals do what you want?  It reports whether two
>>>>> geometries are topologically equal.
>>>>>
>>>>> (So for example, ST_equals('LINESTRING(0 0, 10 10)','LINESTRING(0
>>>>> 0, 5 5, 10 10)') is true)
>>>>>
>>>>> Obe, Regina wrote:
>>>>>> I recall this having come up before.  I always thought that ~= would
>>>>>> tell me if 2 geometries are spatially equal but it doesn't seem to.
>>>>>>
>>>>>> The only way I can figure to determine spatial equality is if
>>>>>> ST_Within(A,B)  And  ST_Within(B,A)  (or ST_Difference(A,B) AND
>>>>>> ST_Difference(B,A) both return an empty geometry collection)
>>>>>>
>>>>>> --So case in point
>>>>>>
>>>>>> SELECT geom1 ~= geom2 as what, ST_Within(geom1, geom2) AND
>>>>>> ST_Within(geom2, geom1) As spatial_equal,
>>>>>>    ST_AsText(ST_Difference(geom1, geom2)) as diffgeom12,
>>>>>> ST_AsText(ST_Difference(geom2, geom1)) as diffgeom21 FROM (SELECT
>>>>>> 'LINESTRING(1 1, 1 2, 1 3)'::geometry As geom1,     'LINESTRING(1
>>>>>> 1, 1 3)'::geometry As geom2) As foo
>>>>>>
>>>>>> Results:
>>>>>>
>>>>>> what | spatial_equal |        diffgeom12        |        diffgeom21
>>>>>> ------+---------------+--------------------------+----------------------
>>>>>>
>>>>>> ----
>>>>>> f    | t             | GEOMETRYCOLLECTION EMPTY | GEOMETRYCOLLECTION
>>>>>> EMPTY
>>>>>>
>>>>>>
>>>>>> Is there a function / operator that does that (also what does
>>>>>> geom1 =
>>>>>> geom2 compare - is it just bounding boxes or is that the
>>>>>> spatially equal
>>>>>> operator I am looking for?)
>>>>>>
>>>>>> Thanks,
>>>>>> Regina
>>>>>>
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>>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>> -- 
>>>>> Martin Davis
>>>>> Senior Technical Architect
>>>>> Refractions Research, Inc.
>>>>> (250) 383-3022
>>>>>
>>>>> _______________________________________________
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>>>>
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>>>
>>> -- 
>>> Martin Davis
>>> Senior Technical Architect
>>> Refractions Research, Inc.
>>> (250) 383-3022
>>>
>>> _______________________________________________
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>>> http://postgis.refractions.net/mailman/listinfo/postgis-users
>>
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>

-- 
Regards,

Chris Hermansen         mailto:chris.hermansen at timberline.ca
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