Version 0.7.2 includes a number of fixes to the pgsql2shp and shp2pgsql support programs. Some fixes in obscure functions and a little bit of preparation for PgSQL 7.3 are also included.
The August 2002 issue of GeoWorld magazine includes a feature article by Paul Ramsey reviewing open source GIS technology, specifically PostGIS/PostgreSQL and UMN Mapserver.
PostGIS developers Dave Blasby and Chris Hodgson will be attending the Ottawa Symposium on GeoSpatial Theory from July 8-11, 2002. If you are attending also, you can find them at the DM Solutions booth on the trade show floor, and ask them all your PostGIS questions. In addition to answering your questions, Dave and Chris will be showing some PostGIS/Mapserver demonstrations and handing out the lovely new PostGIS tri-fold brochures.
The June 2002 issue of Geospatial Solutions magazine includes a column by Jonathan Lowe reviewing open source GIS technology, with some great references to UMN Mapserver and PostGIS/PostgreSQL.
The first group-funded PostGIS development project has committed results to the CVS! Intevation, Imagelinks and Rod Anders of ACM all contributed to the funding of the 7.2 index support project. Chris Hodgson and Dave Blasby of Refractions Research did the work. The goal of the project was to expedite the support of PostgreSQL 7.2 GiST indexing in PostGIS. The new indexes are more robust (null safe) and allow PostGIS users to take advantage of all the other PostgreSQL 7.
On April 9, 2002, Paul Ramsey gave a presentation at GeoTec2002 on open-source relational databases in a session on open-source GIS technologies. The presentation slides are available (PPT|PPT Japanese).
Version 0.7.0 includes two major improvements over the last release: Support for PostgreSQL 7.2 Support for coordinate reprojection inside the database In addition there have been numerous bug fixes and minor improvements.
The [postgis-users] mailing list has been moved onto the main PostGIS site,along with the online list archives. Subscription information, archives, and searching are all available from the postgis-users page.
The CVS version currently is way ahead of the release version in feature richness. Apologies, but this is because features are being added for consulting projects and we do not have time to do a release and all the accompanying documentation etc. Reprojection is supported via the PROJ4 library. The SQL function name is transform(<geom>,<srid>). Now you have a reason to populate that SPATIAL_REF_SYS table like you've always wanted.
