Book Image

Mastering PostGIS

By : Dominik Mikiewicz, Michal Mackiewicz , Tomasz Nycz
Book Image

Mastering PostGIS

By: Dominik Mikiewicz, Michal Mackiewicz , Tomasz Nycz

Overview of this book

PostGIS is open source extension onf PostgreSQL object-relational database system that allows GIS objects to be stored and allows querying for information and location services. The aim of this book is to help you master the functionalities offered by PostGIS- from data creation, analysis and output, to ETL and live edits. The book begins with an overview of the key concepts related to spatial database systems and how it applies to Spatial RMDS. You will learn to load different formats into your Postgres instance, investigate the spatial nature of your raster data, and finally export it using built-in functionalities or 3th party tools for backup or representational purposes. Through the course of this book, you will be presented with many examples on how to interact with the database using JavaScript and Node.js. Sample web-based applications interacting with backend PostGIS will also be presented throughout the book, so you can get comfortable with the modern ways of consuming and modifying your spatial data.
Table of Contents (9 chapters)

The data


In this chapter, a few data sources will be used as examples. All these sources are freely available on the Internet.

For the data model explanation and first processing examples, we will use the Natural Earth national borders data, specifically the Admin 0 - countries layer. It is available for download at http://www.naturalearthdata.com/downloads/10m-cultural-vectors/.

The data simplification topic will be discussed using the Czech hydrological dataset, called DIBAVOD. It is considered public information and is therefore free to download and reuse. The data can be downloaded from http://www.dibavod.cz/index.php?id=27. We'll need the following layer (download links are visible after expanding the A section): A08 - hydrologické členění - povodí III.řádu - the watershed dataset.

Note

There is also a more detailed version - the A07 dataset with fourth-order watersheds. It can be also used, but it will take more time to process.