Chapter 4. Using PostGIS: Data Management and Queries

The OGC and ISO specifications define both text and binary representations for geometry objects, WKT and WKB. Both representations include information about the type of the object and the coordinates that form the object.

Examples of the text representations (WKT) of the spatial objects of the features are as follows:

The OpenGIS specification also requires that the internal storage format of spatial objects include a spatial referencing system identifier (SRID). The SRID is required when creating spatial objects for insertion into the database.

Input/Output of these formats are available using the following interfaces:

bytea WKB = ST_AsBinary(geometry);
text WKT = ST_AsText(geometry);
geometry = ST_GeomFromWKB(bytea WKB, SRID);
geometry = ST_GeometryFromText(text WKT, SRID);

For example, a valid insert statement to create and insert an OGC spatial object would be:

INSERT INTO geotable ( the_geom, the_name )
  VALUES ( ST_GeomFromText('POINT(-126.4 45.32)', 312), 'A Place');

OGC formats only support 2d geometries, and the associated SRID is *never* embedded in the input/output representations.

PostGIS extended formats are currently superset of OGC one (every valid WKB/WKT is a valid EWKB/EWKT) but this might vary in the future, specifically if OGC comes out with a new format conflicting with our extensions. Thus you SHOULD NOT rely on this feature!

PostGIS EWKB/EWKT add 3dm,3dz,4d coordinates support and embedded SRID information.

Examples of the text representations (EWKT) of the extended spatial objects of the features are as follows. The * ones are new in this version of PostGIS:

Input/Output of these formats are available using the following interfaces:

bytea EWKB = ST_AsEWKB(geometry);
text EWKT = ST_AsEWKT(geometry);
geometry = ST_GeomFromEWKB(bytea EWKB);
geometry = ST_GeomFromEWKT(text EWKT);

For example, a valid insert statement to create and insert a PostGIS spatial object would be:

INSERT INTO geotable ( the_geom, the_name )
  VALUES ( ST_GeomFromEWKT('SRID=312;POINTM(-126.4 45.32 15)'), 'A Place' )

The "canonical forms" of a PostgreSQL type are the representations you get with a simple query (without any function call) and the one which is guaranteed to be accepted with a simple insert, update or copy. For the postgis 'geometry' type these are:

- Output
  - binary: EWKB
	ascii: HEXEWKB (EWKB in hex form)
- Input
  - binary: EWKB
	ascii: HEXEWKB|EWKT 

For example this statement reads EWKT and returns HEXEWKB in the process of canonical ascii input/output:

=# SELECT 'SRID=4;POINT(0 0)'::geometry;

geometry
----------------------------------------------------
01010000200400000000000000000000000000000000000000
(1 row)

The SQL Multimedia Applications Spatial specification extends the simple features for SQL spec by defining a number of circularly interpolated curves.

The SQL-MM definitions include 3dm, 3dz and 4d coordinates, but do not allow the embedding of SRID information.

The well-known text extensions are not yet fully supported. Examples of some simple curved geometries are shown below:

	PostGIS prior to 1.4 does not support compound curves in a curve polygon, but PostGIS 1.4 and above do support the use of Compound Curves in a Curve Polygon.

	All floating point comparisons within the SQL-MM implementation are performed to a specified tolerance, currently 1E-8.

The geography type only supports the simplest of simple features. Standard geometry type data will autocast to geography if it is of SRID 4326. You can also use the EWKT and EWKB conventions to insert data.

The new geography fields don't get registered in the geometry_columns. They get registered in a new view called geography_columns which is a view against the system catalogs so is always automatically kept up to date without need for an AddGeom... like function.

Now, check the "geography_columns" view and see that your table is listed.

You can create a new table with a GEOGRAPHY column using the CREATE TABLE syntax. Unlike GEOMETRY, there is no need to run a separate AddGeometryColumns() process to register the column in metadata.

CREATE TABLE global_points ( 
    id SERIAL PRIMARY KEY,
    name VARCHAR(64),
    location GEOGRAPHY(POINT,4326)
  );

Note that the location column has type GEOGRAPHY and that geography type supports two optional modifier: a type modifier that restricts the kind of shapes and dimensions allowed in the column; an SRID modifier that restricts the coordinate reference identifier to a particular number.

Allowable values for the type modifier are: POINT, LINESTRING, POLYGON, MULTIPOINT, MULTILINESTRING, MULTIPOLYGON. The modifier also supports dimensionality restrictions through suffixes: Z, M and ZM. So, for example a modifier of 'LINESTRINGM' would only allow line strings with three dimensions in, and would treat the third dimension as a measure. Similarly, 'POINTZM' would expect four dimensional data.

The SRID modifier is currently of limited use: only 4326 (WGS84) is allowed as a value. If you do not specify an SRID, the a value 0 (undefined spheroid) will be used, and all calculations will proceed using WGS84 anyways.

In the future, alternate SRIDs will allow calculations on spheroids other than WGS84.

Once you have created your table, you can see it in the GEOGRAPHY_COLUMNS table:

-- See the contents of the metadata view
SELECT * FROM geography_columns;

You can insert data into the table the same as you would if it was using a GEOMETRY column:

-- Add some data into the test table
INSERT INTO global_points (name, location) VALUES ('Town', ST_GeographyFromText('SRID=4326;POINT(-110 30)') );
INSERT INTO global_points (name, location) VALUES ('Forest', ST_GeographyFromText('SRID=4326;POINT(-109 29)') );
INSERT INTO global_points (name, location) VALUES ('London', ST_GeographyFromText('SRID=4326;POINT(0 49)') );

Creating an index works the same as GEOMETRY. PostGIS will note that the column type is GEOGRAPHY and create an appropriate sphere-based index instead of the usual planar index used for GEOMETRY.

-- Index the test table with a spherical index
  CREATE INDEX global_points_gix ON global_points USING GIST ( location );

Query and measurement functions use units of meters. So distance parameters should be expressed in meters, and return values should be expected in meters (or square meters for areas).

-- Show a distance query and note, London is outside the 1000km tolerance
  SELECT name FROM global_points WHERE ST_DWithin(location, ST_GeographyFromText('SRID=4326;POINT(-110 29)'), 1000000);

You can see the power of GEOGRAPHY in action by calculating the how close a plane flying from Seattle to London (LINESTRING(-122.33 47.606, 0.0 51.5)) comes to Reykjavik (POINT(-21.96 64.15)).

-- Distance calculation using GEOGRAPHY (122.2km)
  SELECT ST_Distance('LINESTRING(-122.33 47.606, 0.0 51.5)'::geography, 'POINT(-21.96 64.15)':: geography);

-- Distance calculation using GEOMETRY (13.3 "degrees")
  SELECT ST_Distance('LINESTRING(-122.33 47.606, 0.0 51.5)'::geometry, 'POINT(-21.96 64.15)':: geometry);

The GEOGRAPHY type calculates the true shortest distance over the sphere between Reykjavik and the great circle flight path between Seattle and London.

Great Circle mapper The GEOMETRY type calculates a meaningless cartesian distance between Reykjavik and the straight line path from Seattle to London plotted on a flat map of the world. The nominal units of the result might be called "degrees", but the result doesn't correspond to any true angular difference between the points, so even calling them "degrees" is inaccurate.

The new GEOGRAPHY type allows you to store data in longitude/latitude coordinates, but at a cost: there are fewer functions defined on GEOGRAPHY than there are on GEOMETRY; those functions that are defined take more CPU time to execute.

The type you choose should be conditioned on the expected working area of the application you are building. Will your data span the globe or a large continental area, or is it local to a state, county or municipality?

Refer to Section 13.10, “PostGIS Function Support Matrix” for compare between what is supported for Geography vs. Geometry. For a brief listing and description of Geography functions, refer to Section 13.3, “PostGIS Geography Support Functions”

The spatial_ref_sys table is a PostGIS included and OGC compliant database table that lists over 3000 known spatial reference systems and details needed to transform/reproject between them.

Although the PostGIS spatial_ref_sys table contains over 3000 of the more commonly used spatial reference system definitions that can be handled by the proj library, it does not contain all known to man and you can even define your own custom projection if you are familiar with proj4 constructs. Keep in mind that most spatial reference systems are regional and have no meaning when used outside of the bounds they were intended for.

An excellent resource for finding spatial reference systems not defined in the core set is http://spatialreference.org/

Some of the more commonly used spatial reference systems are: 4326 - WGS 84 Long Lat, 4269 - NAD 83 Long Lat, 3395 - WGS 84 World Mercator, 2163 - US National Atlas Equal Area, Spatial reference systems for each NAD 83, WGS 84 UTM zone - UTM zones are one of the most ideal for measurement, but only cover 6-degree regions.

Various US state plane spatial reference systems (meter or feet based) - usually one or 2 exists per US state. Most of the meter ones are in the core set, but many of the feet based ones or ESRI created ones you will need to pull from spatialreference.org.

For details on determining which UTM zone to use for your area of interest, check out the utmzone PostGIS plpgsql helper function.

The SPATIAL_REF_SYS table definition is as follows:

CREATE TABLE spatial_ref_sys (
  srid       INTEGER NOT NULL PRIMARY KEY,
  auth_name  VARCHAR(256),
  auth_srid  INTEGER,
  srtext     VARCHAR(2048),
  proj4text  VARCHAR(2048)
)

The SPATIAL_REF_SYS columns are as follows:

In versions of PostGIS prior to 2.0.0, geometry_columns was a table that could be directly edited, and sometimes got out of synch with the actual definition of the geometry columns. In PostGIS 2.0.0, GEOMETRY_COLUMNS became a view with the same front-facing structure as prior versions, but reading from database system catalogs Its structure is as follows:

\d geometry_columns

             View "public.geometry_columns"
      Column       |          Type          | Modifiers
-------------------+------------------------+-----------
 f_table_catalog   | character varying(256) |
 f_table_schema    | character varying(256) |
 f_table_name      | character varying(256) |
 f_geometry_column | character varying(256) |
 coord_dimension   | integer                |
 srid              | integer                |
 type              | character varying(30)  |

The column meanings have not changed from prior versions and are:

Creating a table with spatial data, can be done in one step. As shown in the following example which creates a roads table with a 2D linestring geometry column in WGS84 long lat

CREATE TABLE ROADS ( ID int4
	  	, ROAD_NAME varchar(25), geom geometry(LINESTRING,4326) );

We can add additional columns using standard ALTER TABLE command as we do in this next example where we add a 3-D linestring.

ALTER TABLE roads ADD COLUMN geom2 geometry(LINESTRINGZ,4326);

For backwards compability, you can still create a spatial table in two stages using the management functions.

Here is an example of SQL used to create a table and add a spatial column (assuming that an SRID of 128 exists already):

CREATE TABLE parks (
  park_id    INTEGER,
  park_name  VARCHAR,
  park_date  DATE,
  park_type  VARCHAR
);
SELECT AddGeometryColumn('parks', 'park_geom', 128, 'MULTIPOLYGON', 2 );

Here is another example, using the generic "geometry" type and the undefined SRID value of 0:

CREATE TABLE roads (
  road_id INTEGER,
  road_name VARCHAR
);
SELECT AddGeometryColumn( 'roads', 'roads_geom', 0, 'GEOMETRY', 3 );

The AddGeometryColumn() approach creates a geometry column and also registers the new column in the geometry_columns table. If your software utilizes geometry_columns, then any geometry columns you need to query by must be registered in this view. Starting with PostGIS 2.0, geometry_columns is no longer editable and all geometry columns are autoregistered.

However they may be registered as a generic geometry column if the column was not defined as a specific type during creation.

Two of the cases where this may happen, but you can't use AddGeometryColumn, is in the case of SQL Views and bulk inserts. For these cases, you can correct the registration in the geometry_columns table by constraining the column. Note in PostGIS 2.0+ if your column is typmod based, the creation process would register it correctly, so no need to do anything.

--Lets say you have a view created like this
CREATE VIEW  public.vwmytablemercator AS
	SELECT gid, ST_Transform(geom,3395) As geom, f_name
	FROM public.mytable;
	
-- For it to register correctly in PostGIS 2.0+ 
-- You need to cast the geometry
--
DROP VIEW public.vwmytablemercator;
CREATE VIEW  public.vwmytablemercator AS
	SELECT gid, ST_Transform(geom,3395)::geometry(Geometry, 3395) As geom, f_name
	FROM public.mytable;
	
-- If you know the geometry type for sure is a 2D POLYGON then you could do
DROP VIEW public.vwmytablemercator;
CREATE VIEW  public.vwmytablemercator AS
	SELECT gid, ST_Transform(geom,3395)::geometry(Polygon, 3395) As geom, f_name
	FROM public.mytable;

--Lets say you created a derivative table by doing a bulk insert
SELECT poi.gid, poi.geom, citybounds.city_name
INTO myschema.my_special_pois
FROM poi INNER JOIN citybounds ON ST_Intersects(citybounds.geom, poi.geom);

--Create 2d index on new table
CREATE INDEX idx_myschema_myspecialpois_geom_gist
  ON myschema.my_special_pois USING gist(geom);
  
-- If your points are 3D points or 3M points, 
-- then you might want to create an nd index instead of a 2d index
-- like so
CREATE INDEX my_special_pois_geom_gist_nd 
	ON my_special_pois USING gist(geom gist_geometry_ops_nd);

--To manually register this new table's geometry column in geometry_columns
-- Note that this approach will work for both PostGIS 2.0+ and PostGIS 1.4+
-- For PostGIS 2.0 it will also change the underlying structure of the table to
-- to make the column typmod based.
-- For PostGIS prior to 2.0, this technique can also be used to register views
SELECT populate_geometry_columns('myschema.my_special_pois'::regclass); 

--If you are using PostGIS 2.0 and for whatever reason, you
-- you need the old constraint based definition behavior 
-- (such as case of inherited tables where all children do not have the same type and srid)
-- set new optional  use_typmod argument to false
SELECT populate_geometry_columns('myschema.my_special_pois'::regclass, false); 

Although the old-constraint based method is still supported, a constraint-based geomentry column used directly in a view, will not register correctly in geometry_columns, as will a typmod one. In this example we define a column using typmod and another using constraints.

CREATE TABLE pois_ny(gid SERIAL PRIMARY KEY
   , poi_name text, cat varchar(20)
   , geom geometry(POINT,4326) );
SELECT AddGeometryColumn('pois_ny', 'geom_2160', 2160, 'POINT', 2, false);

If we run in psql

\d pois_ny;

We observe they are defined differently -- one is typmod, one is constraint

                                  Table "public.pois_ny"
  Column   |         Type          |                       Modifiers

-----------+-----------------------+------------------------------------------------------
 gid       | integer               | not null default nextval('pois_ny_gid_seq'::regclass)
 poi_name  | text                  |
 cat       | character varying(20) |
 geom      | geometry(Point,4326)  |
 geom_2160 | geometry              |
Indexes:
    "pois_ny_pkey" PRIMARY KEY, btree (gid)
Check constraints:
    "enforce_dims_geom_2160" CHECK (st_ndims(geom_2160) = 2)
    "enforce_geotype_geom_2160" CHECK (geometrytype(geom_2160) = 'POINT'::text 
        OR geom_2160 IS NULL)
    "enforce_srid_geom_2160" CHECK (st_srid(geom_2160) = 2160)

In geometry_columns, they both register correctly

SELECT f_table_name, f_geometry_column, srid, type 
	FROM geometry_columns 
	WHERE f_table_name = 'pois_ny';

f_table_name | f_geometry_column | srid | type
-------------+-------------------+------+-------
pois_ny      | geom              | 4326 | POINT
pois_ny      | geom_2160         | 2160 | POINT

However -- if we were to create a view like this

CREATE VIEW vw_pois_ny_parks AS 
SELECT * 
  FROM pois_ny 
  WHERE cat='park';
  
SELECT f_table_name, f_geometry_column, srid, type 
	FROM geometry_columns 
	WHERE f_table_name = 'vw_pois_ny_parks';

The typmod based geom view column registers correctly, but the constraint based one does not.

   f_table_name   | f_geometry_column | srid |   type
------------------+-------------------+------+----------
 vw_pois_ny_parks | geom              | 4326 | POINT
 vw_pois_ny_parks | geom_2160         |    0 | GEOMETRY

This may change in future versions of PostGIS, but for now To force the constraint based view column to register correctly, we need to do this:

DROP VIEW vw_pois_ny_parks;
CREATE VIEW vw_pois_ny_parks AS 
SELECT gid, poi_name, cat
  , geom
  , geom_2160::geometry(POINT,2160) As geom_2160 
  FROM pois_ny 
  WHERE cat='park';
SELECT f_table_name, f_geometry_column, srid, type 
	FROM geometry_columns 
	WHERE f_table_name = 'vw_pois_ny_parks';

   f_table_name   | f_geometry_column | srid | type
------------------+-------------------+------+-------
 vw_pois_ny_parks | geom              | 4326 | POINT
 vw_pois_ny_parks | geom_2160         | 2160 | POINT

PostGIS is compliant with the Open Geospatial Consortium’s (OGC) OpenGIS Specifications. As such, many PostGIS methods require, or more accurately, assume that geometries that are operated on are both simple and valid. For example, it does not make sense to calculate the area of a polygon that has a hole defined outside of the polygon, or to construct a polygon from a non-simple boundary line.

According to the OGC Specifications, a simple geometry is one that has no anomalous geometric points, such as self intersection or self tangency and primarily refers to 0 or 1-dimensional geometries (i.e. [MULTI]POINT, [MULTI]LINESTRING). Geometry validity, on the other hand, primarily refers to 2-dimensional geometries (i.e. [MULTI]POLYGON) and defines the set of assertions that characterizes a valid polygon. The description of each geometric class includes specific conditions that further detail geometric simplicity and validity.

A POINT is inheritably simple as a 0-dimensional geometry object.

MULTIPOINTs are simple if no two coordinates (POINTs) are equal (have identical coordinate values).

A LINESTRING is simple if it does not pass through the same POINT twice (except for the endpoints, in which case it is referred to as a linear ring and additionally considered closed).

(a)	(b)
(c)	(d)

(a) and (c) are simple LINESTRINGs, (b) and (d) are not.

A MULTILINESTRING is simple only if all of its elements are simple and the only intersection between any two elements occurs at POINTs that are on the boundaries of both elements.

(e)

(f)

(g)

(e) and (f) are simple MULTILINESTRINGs, (g) is not.

By definition, a POLYGON is always simple. It is valid if no two rings in the boundary (made up of an exterior ring and interior rings) cross. The boundary of a POLYGON may intersect at a POINT but only as a tangent (i.e. not on a line). A POLYGON may not have cut lines or spikes and the interior rings must be contained entirely within the exterior ring.

(h)	(i)	(j)
(k)	(l)	(m)

(h) and (i) are valid POLYGONs, (j-m) cannot be represented as single POLYGONs, but (j) and (m) could be represented as a valid MULTIPOLYGON.

A MULTIPOLYGON is valid if and only if all of its elements are valid and the interiors of no two elements intersect. The boundaries of any two elements may touch, but only at a finite number of POINTs.

(n)

(o)

(p)

(n) and (o) are not valid MULTIPOLYGONs. (p), however, is valid.

Most of the functions implemented by the GEOS library rely on the assumption that your geometries are valid as specified by the OpenGIS Simple Feature Specification. To check simplicity or validity of geometries you can use the ST_IsSimple() and ST_IsValid()

-- Typically, it doesn't make sense to check
-- for validity on linear features since it will always return TRUE.
-- But in this example, PostGIS extends the definition of the OGC IsValid
-- by returning false if a LineString has less than 2 *distinct* vertices.
gisdb=# SELECT
   ST_IsValid('LINESTRING(0 0, 1 1)'),
   ST_IsValid('LINESTRING(0 0, 0 0, 0 0)');

 st_isvalid | st_isvalid
------------+-----------
      t     |     f

By default, PostGIS does not apply this validity check on geometry input, because testing for validity needs lots of CPU time for complex geometries, especially polygons. If you do not trust your data sources, you can manually enforce such a check to your tables by adding a check constraint:

ALTER TABLE mytable
  ADD CONSTRAINT geometry_valid_check
	CHECK (ST_IsValid(the_geom));

If you encounter any strange error messages such as "GEOS Intersection() threw an error!" or "JTS Intersection() threw an error!" when calling PostGIS functions with valid input geometries, you likely found an error in either PostGIS or one of the libraries it uses, and you should contact the PostGIS developers. The same is true if a PostGIS function returns an invalid geometry for valid input.

	Strictly compliant OGC geometries cannot have Z or M values. The ST_IsValid() function won't consider higher dimensioned geometries invalid! Invocations of AddGeometryColumn() will add a constraint checking geometry dimensions, so it is enough to specify 2 there.

It is sometimes the case that the typical spatial predicates (ST_Contains, ST_Crosses, ST_Intersects, ST_Touches, ...) are insufficient in and of themselves to adequately provide that desired spatial filter.

For example, consider a linear dataset representing a road network. It may be the task of a GIS analyst to identify all road segments that cross each other, not at a point, but on a line, perhaps invalidating some business rule. In this case, ST_Crosses does not adequately provide the necessary spatial filter since, for linear features, it returns true only where they cross at a point. One two-step solution might be to first perform the actual intersection (ST_Intersection) of pairs of road segments that spatially intersect (ST_Intersects), and then compare the intersection's ST_GeometryType with 'LINESTRING' (properly dealing with cases that return GEOMETRYCOLLECTIONs of [MULTI]POINTs, [MULTI]LINESTRINGs, etc.). A more elegant / faster solution may indeed be desirable.

A second [theoretical] example may be that of a GIS analyst trying to locate all wharfs or docks that intersect a lake's boundary on a line and where only one end of the wharf is up on shore. In other words, where a wharf is within, but not completely within a lake, intersecting the boundary of a lake on a line, and where the wharf's endpoints are both completely within and on the boundary of the lake. The analyst may need to use a combination of spatial predicates to isolate the sought after features: ST_Contains(lake, wharf) = TRUE ST_ContainsProperly(lake, wharf) = FALSE ST_GeometryType(ST_Intersection(wharf, lake)) = 'LINESTRING' ST_NumGeometries(ST_Multi(ST_Intersection(ST_Boundary(wharf), ST_Boundary(lake)))) = 1 ... (needless to say, this could get quite complicated)

So enters the Dimensionally Extended 9 Intersection Model, or DE-9IM for short.

4.3.6.1. Theory

According to the OpenGIS Simple Features Implementation Specification for SQL, "the basic approach to comparing two geometries is to make pair-wise tests of the intersections between the Interiors, Boundaries and Exteriors of the two geometries and to classify the relationship between the two geometries based on the entries in the resulting 'intersection' matrix."

Boundary

The boundary of a geometry is the set of geometries of the next lower dimension. For POINTs, which have a dimension of 0, the boundary is the empty set. The boundary of a LINESTRING are the two endpoints. For POLYGONs, the boundary is the linework that make up the exterior and interior rings.

Interior

The interior of a geometry are those points of a geometry that are left when the boundary is removed. For POINTs, the interior is the POINT itself. The interior of a LINESTRING are the set of real points between the endpoints. For POLYGONs, the interior is the areal surface inside the polygon.

Exterior

The exterior of a geometry is the universe, an areal surface, not on the interior or boundary of the geometry.

Given geometry a, where the I(a), B(a), and E(a) are the Interior, Boundary, and Exterior of a, the mathematical representation of the matrix is:

	Interior	Boundary	Exterior
Interior	dim( I(a) ∩ I(b) )	dim( I(a) ∩ B(b) )	dim( I(a) ∩ E(b) )
Boundary	dim( B(a) ∩ I(b) )	dim( B(a) ∩ B(b) )	dim( B(a) ∩ E(b) )
Exterior	dim( E(a) ∩ I(b) )	dim( E(a) ∩ B(b) )	dim( E(a) ∩ E(b) )

Where dim(a) is the dimension of a as specified by ST_Dimension but has the domain of {0,1,2,T,F,*}

• 0 => point

• 1 => line

• 2 => area

• T => {0,1,2}

• F => empty set

• * => don't care

Visually, for two overlapping polygonal geometries, this looks like:

	Interior Boundary Exterior Interior dim(...) = 2 dim(...) = 1 dim(...) = 2 Boundary dim(...) = 1 dim(...) = 0 dim(...) = 1 Exterior dim(...) = 2 dim(...) = 1 dim(...) = 2

Read from left to right and from top to bottom, the dimensional matrix is represented, '212101212'.

A relate matrix that would therefore represent our first example of two lines that intersect on a line would be: '1*1***1**'

-- Identify road segments that cross on a line
SELECT a.id
FROM roads a, roads b
WHERE a.id != b.id 
AND a.geom && b.geom
AND ST_Relate(a.geom, b.geom, '1*1***1**');

A relate matrix that represents the second example of wharfs partly on the lake's shoreline would be '102101FF2'

-- Identify wharfs partly on a lake's shoreline
SELECT a.lake_id, b.wharf_id
FROM lakes a, wharfs b
WHERE a.geom && b.geom
AND ST_Relate(a.geom, b.geom, '102101FF2');

For more information or reading, see:

• OpenGIS Simple Features Implementation Specification for SQL (version 1.1, section 2.1.13.2)

• Dimensionally Extended Nine-Intersection Model (DE-9IM) by Christian Strobl

• GeoTools: Point Set Theory and the DE-9IM Matrix

• Encyclopedia of GIS By Hui Xiong

If you can convert your data to a text representation, then using formatted SQL might be the easiest way to get your data into PostGIS. As with Oracle and other SQL databases, data can be bulk loaded by piping a large text file full of SQL "INSERT" statements into the SQL terminal monitor.

A data upload file (roads.sql for example) might look like this:

BEGIN;
INSERT INTO roads (road_id, roads_geom, road_name)
  VALUES (1,ST_GeomFromText('LINESTRING(191232 243118,191108 243242)',-1),'Jeff Rd');
INSERT INTO roads (road_id, roads_geom, road_name)
  VALUES (2,ST_GeomFromText('LINESTRING(189141 244158,189265 244817)',-1),'Geordie Rd');
INSERT INTO roads (road_id, roads_geom, road_name)
  VALUES (3,ST_GeomFromText('LINESTRING(192783 228138,192612 229814)',-1),'Paul St');
INSERT INTO roads (road_id, roads_geom, road_name)
  VALUES (4,ST_GeomFromText('LINESTRING(189412 252431,189631 259122)',-1),'Graeme Ave');
INSERT INTO roads (road_id, roads_geom, road_name)
  VALUES (5,ST_GeomFromText('LINESTRING(190131 224148,190871 228134)',-1),'Phil Tce');
INSERT INTO roads (road_id, roads_geom, road_name)
  VALUES (6,ST_GeomFromText('LINESTRING(198231 263418,198213 268322)',-1),'Dave Cres');
COMMIT;

The data file can be piped into PostgreSQL very easily using the "psql" SQL terminal monitor:

psql -d [database] -f roads.sql

The shp2pgsql data loader converts ESRI Shape files into SQL suitable for insertion into a PostGIS/PostgreSQL database either in geometry or geography format. The loader has several operating modes distinguished by command line flags:

In addition to the shp2pgsql command-line loader, there is an shp2pgsql-gui graphical interface with most of the options as the command-line loader, but may be easier to use for one-off non-scripted loading or if you are new to PostGIS. It can also be configured as a plugin to PgAdminIII.

An example session using the loader to create an input file and uploading it might look like this:

# shp2pgsql -c -D -s 4269 -i -I shaperoads.shp myschema.roadstable > roads.sql
# psql -d roadsdb -f roads.sql

A conversion and upload can be done all in one step using UNIX pipes:

# shp2pgsql shaperoads.shp myschema.roadstable | psql -d roadsdb

The most straightforward means of pulling data out of the database is to use a SQL select query to reduce the number of RECORDS and COLUMNS returned and dump the resulting columns into a parsable text file:

db=# SELECT road_id, ST_AsText(road_geom) AS geom, road_name FROM roads;

road_id | geom                                    | road_name
--------+-----------------------------------------+-----------
	  1 | LINESTRING(191232 243118,191108 243242) | Jeff Rd
	  2 | LINESTRING(189141 244158,189265 244817) | Geordie Rd
	  3 | LINESTRING(192783 228138,192612 229814) | Paul St
	  4 | LINESTRING(189412 252431,189631 259122) | Graeme Ave
	  5 | LINESTRING(190131 224148,190871 228134) | Phil Tce
	  6 | LINESTRING(198231 263418,198213 268322) | Dave Cres
	  7 | LINESTRING(218421 284121,224123 241231) | Chris Way
(6 rows)

However, there will be times when some kind of restriction is necessary to cut down the number of fields returned. In the case of attribute-based restrictions, just use the same SQL syntax as normal with a non-spatial table. In the case of spatial restrictions, the following operators are available/useful:

Next, you can use these operators in queries. Note that when specifying geometries and boxes on the SQL command line, you must explicitly turn the string representations into geometries by using the "ST_GeomFromText()" function. The 312 is a fictitious spatial reference system that matches our data. So, for example:

SELECT road_id, road_name
  FROM roads
  WHERE ST_OrderingEquals(roads_geom , ST_GeomFromText('LINESTRING(191232 243118,191108 243242)',312) ) ;

The above query would return the single record from the "ROADS_GEOM" table in which the geometry was equal to that value.

When using the "&&" operator, you can specify either a BOX3D as the comparison feature or a GEOMETRY. When you specify a GEOMETRY, however, its bounding box will be used for the comparison.

SELECT road_id, road_name
FROM roads
WHERE roads_geom && ST_GeomFromText('POLYGON((...))',312);

The above query will use the bounding box of the polygon for comparison purposes.

The most common spatial query will probably be a "frame-based" query, used by client software, like data browsers and web mappers, to grab a "map frame" worth of data for display. Using a "BOX3D" object for the frame, such a query looks like this:

SELECT ST_AsText(roads_geom) AS geom
FROM roads
WHERE
  roads_geom && ST_MakeEnvelope(191232, 243117,191232, 243119,312);

Note the use of the SRID 312, to specify the projection of the envelope.

The pgsql2shp table dumper connects directly to the database and converts a table (possibly defined by a query) into a shape file. The basic syntax is:

pgsql2shp [<options>] <database> [<schema>.]<table>

pgsql2shp [<options>] <database> <query>

The commandline options are:

GiST stands for "Generalized Search Tree" and is a generic form of indexing. In addition to GIS indexing, GiST is used to speed up searches on all kinds of irregular data structures (integer arrays, spectral data, etc) which are not amenable to normal B-Tree indexing.

Once a GIS data table exceeds a few thousand rows, you will want to build an index to speed up spatial searches of the data (unless all your searches are based on attributes, in which case you'll want to build a normal index on the attribute fields).

The syntax for building a GiST index on a "geometry" column is as follows:

CREATE INDEX [indexname] ON [tablename] USING GIST ( [geometryfield] ); 

The above syntax will always build a 2D-index. To get the an n-dimensional index supported in PostGIS 2.0+ for the geometry type, you can create one using this syntax

CREATE INDEX [indexname] ON [tablename] USING GIST ([geometryfield] gist_geometry_ops_nd);

Building a spatial index is a computationally intensive exercise: on tables of around 1 million rows, on a 300MHz Solaris machine, we have found building a GiST index takes about 1 hour. After building an index, it is important to force PostgreSQL to collect table statistics, which are used to optimize query plans:

VACUUM ANALYZE [table_name] [(column_name)];
-- This is only needed for PostgreSQL 7.4 installations and below
SELECT UPDATE_GEOMETRY_STATS([table_name], [column_name]);

GiST indexes have two advantages over R-Tree indexes in PostgreSQL. Firstly, GiST indexes are "null safe", meaning they can index columns which include null values. Secondly, GiST indexes support the concept of "lossiness" which is important when dealing with GIS objects larger than the PostgreSQL 8K page size. Lossiness allows PostgreSQL to store only the "important" part of an object in an index -- in the case of GIS objects, just the bounding box. GIS objects larger than 8K will cause R-Tree indexes to fail in the process of being built.

Ordinarily, indexes invisibly speed up data access: once the index is built, the query planner transparently decides when to use index information to speed up a query plan. Unfortunately, the PostgreSQL query planner does not optimize the use of GiST indexes well, so sometimes searches which should use a spatial index instead default to a sequence scan of the whole table.

If you find your spatial indexes are not being used (or your attribute indexes, for that matter) there are a couple things you can do:

When constructing a query it is important to remember that only the bounding-box-based operators such as && can take advantage of the GiST spatial index. Functions such as ST_Distance() cannot use the index to optimize their operation. For example, the following query would be quite slow on a large table:

SELECT the_geom
FROM geom_table
WHERE ST_Distance(the_geom, ST_GeomFromText('POINT(100000 200000)', 312)) < 100

This query is selecting all the geometries in geom_table which are within 100 units of the point (100000, 200000). It will be slow because it is calculating the distance between each point in the table and our specified point, ie. one ST_Distance() calculation for each row in the table. We can avoid this by using the && operator to reduce the number of distance calculations required:

SELECT the_geom
FROM geom_table
WHERE ST_DWithin(the_geom,  ST_MakeEnvelope(90900, 190900, 100100, 200100,312), 100)

This query selects the same geometries, but it does it in a more efficient way. Assuming there is a GiST index on the_geom, the query planner will recognize that it can use the index to reduce the number of rows before calculating the result of the ST_distance() function. Notice that the ST_MakeEnvelope geometry which is used in the && operation is a 200 unit square box centered on the original point - this is our "query box". The && operator uses the index to quickly reduce the result set down to only those geometries which have bounding boxes that overlap the "query box". Assuming that our query box is much smaller than the extents of the entire geometry table, this will drastically reduce the number of distance calculations that need to be done.

	Change in Behavior
	As of PostGIS 1.3.0, most of the Geometry Relationship Functions, with the notable exceptions of ST_Disjoint and ST_Relate, include implicit bounding box overlap operators.

The examples in this section will make use of two tables, a table of linear roads, and a table of polygonal municipality boundaries. The table definitions for the bc_roads table is:

Column      | Type              | Description
------------+-------------------+-------------------
gid         | integer           | Unique ID
name        | character varying | Road Name
the_geom    | geometry          | Location Geometry (Linestring)

The table definition for the bc_municipality table is:

Column     | Type              | Description
-----------+-------------------+-------------------
gid        | integer           | Unique ID
code       | integer           | Unique ID
name       | character varying | City / Town Name
the_geom   | geometry          | Location Geometry (Polygon)

SELECT sum(ST_Length(the_geom))/1000 AS km_roads FROM bc_roads;

km_roads
------------------
70842.1243039643
(1 row)

SELECT
  ST_Area(the_geom)/10000 AS hectares
FROM bc_municipality
WHERE name = 'PRINCE GEORGE';

hectares
------------------
32657.9103824927
(1 row)

SELECT
  name,
  ST_Area(the_geom)/10000 AS hectares
FROM
  bc_municipality
ORDER BY hectares DESC
LIMIT 1;

name           | hectares
---------------+-----------------
TUMBLER RIDGE  | 155020.02556131
(1 row)

SELECT
  m.name,
  sum(ST_Length(r.the_geom))/1000 as roads_km
FROM
  bc_roads AS r,
  bc_municipality AS m
WHERE
  ST_Contains(m.the_geom,r.the_geom)
GROUP BY m.name
ORDER BY roads_km;

name                        | roads_km
----------------------------+------------------
SURREY                      | 1539.47553551242
VANCOUVER                   | 1450.33093486576
LANGLEY DISTRICT            | 833.793392535662
BURNABY                     | 773.769091404338
PRINCE GEORGE               | 694.37554369147
...

CREATE TABLE pg_roads as
SELECT
  ST_Intersection(r.the_geom, m.the_geom) AS intersection_geom,
  ST_Length(r.the_geom) AS rd_orig_length,
  r.*
FROM
  bc_roads AS r,
  bc_municipality AS m
WHERE  m.name = 'PRINCE GEORGE' AND ST_Intersects(r.the_geom, m.the_geom);

SELECT
  sum(ST_Length(r.the_geom))/1000 AS kilometers
FROM
  bc_roads r,
  bc_municipality m
WHERE  r.name = 'Douglas St' AND m.name = 'VICTORIA'
	AND ST_Contains(m.the_geom, r.the_geom) ;

kilometers
------------------
4.89151904172838
(1 row)

SELECT gid, name, ST_Area(the_geom) AS area
FROM bc_municipality
WHERE ST_NRings(the_geom) > 1
ORDER BY area DESC LIMIT 1;

gid  | name         | area
-----+--------------+------------------
12   | SPALLUMCHEEN | 257374619.430216
(1 row)