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Percona Software for PostgreSQL Documentation

Spatial data manipulation

Version added: 14.8

Organizations dealing with spatial data need to store it somewhere and manipulate it. PostGIS is the open-source extension for PostgreSQL that allows doing just that. It adds support for storing the spatial data types such as:

  • Geographical data like points, lines, polygons, GPS coordinates that can be mapped on a sphere.
  • Geometrical data. This is also points, lines and polygons but they apply to a 2D surface.

To operate with spatial data inside SQL queries, PostGIS supports spatial functions like distance, area, union, intersection. It uses the spatial indexes like R-Tree and Quadtree for efficient processing of database operations. Read more about supported spatial functions and indexes in PostGIS documentation .

By deploying PostGIS with Percona Distribution for PostgreSQL, you receive the open source spatial database that you can use in various areas without vendor lock-in.

When to use PostGIS

You can use PostGIS in the following cases:

  • To store and manage spatial data, create and store spatial shapes, calculate areas and distances
  • To build the software that visualizes spatial data on a map,
  • To work with raster data, such as satellite imagery or digital elevation models.
  • To integrate spatial and non-spatial data such as demographic or economic data in a database

When not to use PostGIS

Despite its power and flexibility, PostGIS may not suit your needs if:

  • You need to store only a couple of map locations. Consider using the built-in geometric functions and operations of PostgreSQL
  • You need real-time data analysis. While PostGIS can handle real-time spatial data, it may not be the best option for real-time data analysis on large volumes of data.
  • You need complex 3D analysis or visualization.
  • You need to acquire spatial data. Use other tools for this purpose and import spatial data into PostGIS to manipulate it.

Next steps

Deployment

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