[postgis-users] Projection(s) for global point-and-radius searches

[Paul Ramsey]

No, because the functions on Geometry(4326) don't return metric answers.

SELECT
  ST_Distance('SRID=4326;POINT(0 0)'::geometry, 'SRID=4326;POINT(1
1)'::geometry) as geom,
  ST_Distance('POINT(0 0)'::geography, 'POINT(1 1)'::geography) as geog;

Geography understands that it's on a sphere and does the Right Thing.
Geometry(4326) still operates on a cartesian plane, it just has
"units" of degrees (which is pretty nonsensical for any kind of
measurement calculation).

P

On Wed, Jul 7, 2010 at 2:03 PM, David Jantzen <djantzen at ql2.com> wrote:
> Ok, interesting.  Is it equivalent then to using a GEOMETRY type with SRID 4326?
>
> On Jul 7, 2010, at 12:25 PM, Paul Ramsey wrote:
>
>> On Wed, Jul 7, 2010 at 12:25 PM, Paul Ramsey <pramsey at opengeo.org> wrote:
>>> ST_Buffer(geography, float8) returns geography
>>> ST_Intersection(geography, geography) returns geography
>>
>> These last two actually *do* carry out projections under the covers,
>> so watch out.
>>
>> P
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