[postgis-users] Raster suggestions?

[Jeshua Lacock]

On Mar 8, 2008, at 11:31 AM, guido.lemoine at jrc.it wrote:

> If your raster data is only for display purposes, it does not
> make sense to put them in a data base. You should look
> at an efficient raster access protocol. Google's SuperOverlay
> mechanism (image pyramids) is very interesting. Creation of
> SuperOverlay was recently implemented in GDAL.
>
> You can always keep the metadata in the database, to do
> fast searches on your coverage. SuperOverlays can be extended
> to handle local projection, if you need something else than longlat
> (which is usually the case).

Greetings Guido,

Yes - my products are UTM, however, I am not sure what projection the  
online version will be as I don't want to have to deal with multiple  
zones...

> If you somehow need programmatic access to your raster data (e.g.
> extracts, image processing) you need to develop some geo-spatial
> application server layer, which would combine your PostGIS feature
> data with the rasters in the SuperOverlay structures.

Thanks for the information about SuperOverlay - sounds perfect - I  
will check it out now.

> What puzzles me is the combination of 10 TB of data and a shoestring
> budget. This requires some nasty server solution, whatever the
> mechanism you want to use. It's the playing ground of the Google,
> Virtual Earths, NASA WorldWind kind of folks.
> Not really the shoestring kind.

Yes - I understand your point. I am self-funded (been working on my  
solution for 10 years now). I am starting out with about 50 GB of  
imagery and working my way up (each quad is about 120 MB in imagery +  
pyramids). I am past my initial startup phase (I have product in  
stores) and the more products I have the better my budget will be.

Also, now that I have product in stores, I am looking at putting it  
online which will be done one quad at a time (I plan to have a free  
viewer and sell higher resolution [with vector art] downloadable  
PDFs). I have two types of products planned - a provisional  
autonomously created product and a manually updated current product.

I am getting close to letting my system "rip" on entire states for the  
provisional version. As I add more and more products online and in  
stores, I should have more and more capital to invest.

In other words, I am not just going to start out with 10 TB - that is  
sometime down the road. And thanks to Moore's law - storage and more  
powerful servers will be much more affordable by the time I have 10 TB  
to serve.


Ciao,

Jeshua Lacock
Founder/Programmer
3DTOPO Incorporated
<http://3DTOPO.com>
Phone: 877.240.1364