The CVS version now supports PostgreSQL version 7.3. This is currently untested beta support, so use at your own risk and report bugs to the mailing list.

Version 0.7.3 includes an important bug fix to the postgis.sql install file which is necessary for a successful install. Also some minor enhancements added since the release of 0.7.2 in automatic detection of required GiST bindings and an enhancement to transform() to support BOX3D types.

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 7.2 enhancements in their spatial databases.

The project also included funding to bring out a documented tarball release including the 7.2 indexes and all other enhancements placed in CVS since the 0.6.2 release. The full 0.7 release should be out by May 3rd.

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 0.7.1 includes an important bug fix to the spatial indexing and fixes to report compilation problems.

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.