No, it works directly on the sphere, both for the indexes and the
calculations (for a select list of functions):

ST_AsText(geography) returns text
ST_GeographyFromText(text) returns geography
ST_AsBinary(geography) returns bytea
ST_GeogFromWKB(bytea) returns geography
ST_AsSVG(geography) returns text
ST_AsGML(geography) returns text
ST_AsKML(geography) returns text
ST_AsGeoJson(geography) returns text
ST_Distance(geography, geography) returns double
ST_DWithin(geography, geography, float8) returns boolean
ST_Area(geography) returns double
ST_Length(geography) returns double
ST_Covers(geography, geography) returns boolean
ST_CoveredBy(geography, geography) returns boolean
ST_Intersects(geography, geography) returns boolean
ST_Buffer(geography, float8) returns geography
ST_Intersection(geography, geography) returns geography

On Wed, Jul 7, 2010 at 12:19 PM, David Jantzen <[email protected]> wrote:
> Sweet!  It must do on-the-fly projections under the covers, right?  That's a 
> huge improvement since I used PostGIS last time.
>
> On Jul 7, 2010, at 11:40 AM, Paul Ramsey wrote:
>
>> David,
>>
>> Consider using the GEOGRAPHY type if your queries are just going to be
>> ST_DWithin style. That will remove all projection issues.
>>
>> P.
>>
>> On Wed, Jul 7, 2010 at 11:19 AM, David Jantzen <[email protected]> wrote:
>>> Hey All,
>>>
>>> It's been a couple years but happily I have a reason to work with PostGIS 
>>> again!  I'm rusty, and this is pretty a basic question, so if you just 
>>> specify the chapter in TFM I'll happily go read it.
>>>
>>> I need to do simple point-and-radius searches for some properties in 
>>> Germany.  Very soon I'll need to do this same thing across Europe and North 
>>> America, and some in Asia.  My understanding is that the accuracy of such 
>>> measurements will degrade as I use projections covering larger and larger 
>>> geographical areas.
>>>
>>> So, some questions:
>>> 1) Is there a single global projection that I could use for all such 
>>> calculations?  How bad would the distortions be and where?
>>> 2) Assuming the correct path is to switch projections depending on area of 
>>> focus, what are some strategies for this kind of dynamic switching in SQL 
>>> queries?
>>>
>>> Thanks for your help (and patience),
>>> David
>>> _______________________________________________
>>> postgis-users mailing list
>>> [email protected]
>>> http://postgis.refractions.net/mailman/listinfo/postgis-users
>>>
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