G'day Regina,
On 31/12/2008, at 5:00 AM, "Paragon Corporation" <[email protected]> wrote:
1) How you use PostGIS?
We are using it to manage and store and analyse data on trade, and
linked to MapServer to produce outputs. We primarily chose it because
we can dynamically manage the data being available at different
resolutions on the fly, and convert point data to lines, find which
parts of it are within polygons and look for bottlenecks. Although we
previously used MySQL, this has driven the increased use of PostgreSQL.
We have also used it in disease mapping and spread applications, which
we are likely to use more in the future.
2) What you find useful about it over anything else?
The native integration into PostgreSQL at one end, and the lovely
linking to MapServer at the other make it ideal for our use,
especially because nothing satisfies a client (anyone really) more
than being able to look at their data on a dynamic map.
We are also using R for statistical analysis of data, so being able to
pre-process in the database rather than in the R environment has
simplified analysis.
3) Why you think there should be any book written focused on its use
and of
course if such a thing were to exist, would you buy it?
In reverse, I would probably buy it, but one of the strengths in my
limited experience is the mailing list. The PostGIS documentation is
sharp and to the point, and the examples are certainly good enough to
get started. The mailing list (and archives) are exceptional and it
would seem to me that most of the people trying to use it are working
through to a point happily by themselves and then asking sensible
stuff... and getting reasonable respectful answers. The real benefit
of a book might be for those people that want a slightly more guided
introduction, or aren't quite so ambitious in what they think PostGIS
should be able to do for them to help them to find out just what it
can do.
Good luck with the book. I very rarely use desktop GIS for any
processing any more, it is faster (and easier to repeat) using postgis.
cheers
Ben
--
Ben Madin
REMOTE INFORMATION
t : +61 8 9192 5455
f : +61 8 9192 5535
m : 0448 887 220
Broome WA 6725
[email protected]
Out here, it pays to
know...
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