Slashgeo

The PostGIS/Refractions web site announces: "The 1.3.2 release of PostGIS is now available". This release includes bug fixes and some minor feature enhancements, such as improvements in the TIGER geocoder, fix for better OS/X support, fix to WKB parser to do simple validity checks, etc.

[this is old news from July and sharing it with our users to make sure they're aware of it] Spatially Adjusted linked in July to a BostonGIS article named "Cross Compare SQL Server 2008 Spatial, PostgreSQL/PostGIS 1.3-1.4, MySQL 5-6". Previous such comparison is over 1.5 years old, see also related stories below. From the associated blog entry: "A few people have been asking us what are the pros and cons of using SQL Server 2008 Spatial and PostGIS and as a Windows user, why would you still consider using PostGIS. Rather than simply providing some hand-waving saying "well if you just care about displaying data, then use whatever you feel comfortable with, but if you want to do real intensive sophisticated spatial analysis and geometric processing without having to purchase a bunch of expensive software, then PostGIS is probably better for you. Hell why must you think in either or propositions - just use both using the strengths of each.", we have tried really hard to quantify the similarities and differences between the 2 and to boot - we have also added in MySQL."

Boston GIS offers a nice guide named Getting Started With SQL Server 2008 Spatial: An almost Idiot's Guide. Late last year, the same team published another guide named Getting Started With PostGIS: An almost Idiot's Guide. Regarding MS SQL Server 2008, the blog entry: "We have started to take a really hard look at what SQL Server 2008 offers. Aside from the usual stuff that makes a database lover's heart go thumpety thump - * More SQL constructs * Enhancements to Reporting Services * New expansion of SQL Server database storage to use filesystem for large document storage AKA (FILESTREAM storage) * Powershell integration * Introduction of sparse columns more suitable for datewarehouse type stuff * And of course introduction of spatial which makes a spatial database analysts heart go thumpety thump thump." See also related stories below, including a recent cross comparison of SQL Server, MySQL and PostgreSQL.

Clever elephant informs us of an important upgrade for PostGIS users: "The PostGIS spatial index is built on top of GiST, so for any production table where entries are being deleted or updated, this bug could actually cause errors to crop up. Data would not be lost, but it would occasionally not be found in index-enabled searches. If you are using PostGIS on PostgreSQL 8.3, upgrade to 8.3.5 as soon as possible." Some previous PostGIS stories copied below.

From the BostonGIS blog, the titles says it all, but here is some of their summary : "Well we knew this day would come when we would have to start experimenting with Clouds. Now it seems a lot more cloud providers are coming on line. For our first experimentation we chose GoGrid because they offer a free 1 month/50$ trial plus we needed to test out Windows 2008 Server as well as Linux and they had an offering for both where as Amazon seems to only offer Windows 2003 and its very new. We were hesitant to go the Windows 2008 Server 64-bit route since we aren't sure how well PHP works in 64-bit IIS 7 and in general I've had nightmares with IIS in 64-bit mode e.g. the fact that they will not be releasing 64-bit jet drivers and in many cases there is no alternative in the ADO.Net world and so forth."

APB links to an upcoming presentation to be given at the MySQL Conference named Spatial SQL: who needs a traditional GIS. APB also points to the MySQL Forge GIS Functions page. From the former link: "Conclusion: Vast quantities of spatial data and accompanying attributes can easily be stored and rapidly retrieved using MySQL’s spatial functions and indexing. Numerous spatial functions allow this data to be analysed in ways that have been traditionally the preserve of expensive, proprietary GIS systems. Some very sophisticated analysis can be done directly using SQL functions, however, the open standards supported by MySQL make it easy to import/export spatial data for visualization or further analysis. A programming language like Java, with good libraries in areas such as graphics, XML, and threading in conjunction with a MySQL backend can be used to build sophisticated, distributed, customized applications with all of the capabilities of a traditional GIS system." See also related stories below.

Stuart Moffatt writes "The GIS in the Cloud (App Engine + JTS) reference project is now available at http://giscloud.appspot.com/ with the source code available at http://giscloud.googlecode.com/ (documentation forthcoming). While many GIS/spatial App Engine discussions center on the python SDK (with pre-computing grids or geocells and heavy lifting done with set membership in the datastore), this reference project uses the Java Topology Suite (http://www.vividsolutions.com/jts/jtshome.htm) within the App Engine server to demonstrate point-in-polygon and polygon-in- polygon spatial queries. The GIS in the Cloud app is pure Java and was built with * Google App Engine SDK for Java * Google Plugin for Eclipse * Google Web Toolkit * Google Web Toolkit API Libraries — Google Maps 1.0 Library * Java Topology Suite The Java Topology Suite was ported to C++ and became GEOS, which was embedded in PostgreSQL to become PostGIS, allowing users access to spatial functions within SQL. While App Engine does not give us spatial functions in GQL, the GIS in the Cloud app will demonstrate a GQL/JTS combination to accomplish the same effect."

Great news. The open source spatial RDBMS software PostGIS 1.4.0 has been released. This is a major update. From the announcement: "This new version of PostGIS includes substantial performance enhancements, more detailed reference documentation, new output formats (GeoJSON) and an improved internal testing system. PostGIS 1.4 also supports the recent PostgreSQL 8.4 release." See the full announcement for new features and enhancements. See also previous related stories below.