1. Open Source Databases and GIS
Flexible Technologies for Flexible People

2. Open Source Databases What Open Source Databases are there? MySQL
PostgreSQL
Berkeley DB
mSQL
SAP DB
InterBase

3. Berkeley DB Embedded database Widely used in software Extremely fast
Sendmail
Netscape
Extremely fast
Only usable via language bindings
C, C++, TCL, Python
Commercially Supported
Sleepycat Software

4. MySQL Most widely used OSDB Very fast read access, good for web apps
SQL interface, ODBC, JDBC
Language bindings
C, C++, Perl, Python, TCL
Commercially supported
MySQL AB
NuSphere

5. PostgreSQL Most extensible OSDB Object relational design ACID database
SQL interface, ODBC, JDBC
Language bindings
C, C++, Perl, Python, TCL
Commercially supported
PgSQL Inc
Red Hat (as Red Hat Database)

6. Why Not Oracle? Complexity Overhead Cost Accessibility
OSDBs are relatively simple to install and administer
Overhead
OSDBs have a lighter system footprint
Cost
OSDBs have no licensing fees
Accessibility
OSDBs are not a black box

7. When to use an OSDB? When it is organizationally appropriate
When you are accessing data using standard APIs
When you are building web based applications
When you are building deployable applications
When you control the architecture from end to end

8. Spatial Data and RDBMs Spatial Databases
Spatial data and attributes reside together in the database
Complex hybrid queries are possible select area(forestpoly) from forestcover,history where forestcover.ageclass > 80 and history.restocking = true and forestcover.fid = history.fid and distance( forestcover.forestpoly, GeometryFromText(’POINT(514234, )’,26910) ) < 500
Very large seamless datasets can be stored
Unified data models are possible

9. Spatial Databases Proprietary software Open source software ArcSDE
DB2 Spatial
OracleSpatial
Open source software
PostGIS / PostgreSQL

10. PostGIS / PostgreSQL Spatial database functionality in PostgreSQL
OpenGIS “Simple Features for SQL” (SFSQL) as design guide

11. PostGIS Objects OpenGIS SFSQL Objects OpenGIS SFSQL Representations
POINT, LINESTRING, POLYGON, MULTIPOINT, MULTILINESTRING, MULTIPOLYGON, GEOMETRYCOLLECTION
OpenGIS SFSQL Representations
AsBinary()  Well-Known Binary
AsText()  Well-Known Text
POINT( )
MULTILINESTRING(( , ),( , ))

12. PostGIS Functionality
Spatial indexing for all object types
R-Tree on GiST Index
Analysis functions
Area()
Length()
Distance()
Transform()

13. PostGIS Data Access Loading / Dumping Java C/C++
Includes shp2pgsql and pgsql2shp utilities
OGR utility allows importing from multiple formats
E00Pg utility allows importing from E00 files
Java
Includes JDBC Extension Objects for Geometries
C/C++
Using Well-Known Binary over the PostgreSQL C/C++ API

14. PostGIS Data Visualization
Internet mapping with Mapserver
PHP/Mapscript and PHP/PgSQL to build interactive web mapping applications
ArcIMS emulator with Mapserver to view PostGIS data within Arc8
Java mapping with GeoTools
GeoTools has a beta PostGIS layer data source

15. PostGIS in the Real World (1)
Queensland, Australia Department of Natural Resources
Forestry permitting internal web application
Query database by attribute and return map of parcel area with supporting information from database
City of Boston, USA
Online property analysis internal web application
Identify parcels which are proximate and display results using Mapserver

16. PostGIS in the Real World (2)
I-Cubed Inc, USA
Large automated image processing system
Uses database to coordinate image processing functions, tracking spatial extents of incoming requests and required imagery and farming work out to client computers.
Intevation Gmbh, Germany
Massive multiplayer online game
Players will have mobile devices (pagers, cell phones) and their position recorded in the database. Extraction and visualization tools will be used to visualize game play.

17. PostGIS in the Real World (3)
Finnish Geodetic Institute
Creating nationwide distributed GIS network using the GeoServer OpenGIS WFS with PostGIS as the database backend
Refractions Research, Canada
Maintaining the Digital Road Atlas, a richly attributed provincial road network. Geometries are integrated into a complex data model including versioning, network integrity, and multiple views of the data.

18. In Conclusion
Open source databases have the capabilities to handle real world problems, and are in widespread use
Open source spatial databases (PostGIS) are new, but are already in use around the world
Many GIS database problems can now realistically be addressed with open source technology