New Blog SQL for Geographers

November 1, 2005 3 Comments

Link – SQL for Geographers

This blog is dedicated to the integration between GIS and enterprise level relational databases. I am a Geographer by trade with a strong interest in relational databases. I have been in the GIS field for 10+ years and the database field for 7. The amount of data waiting to be spatially enabled within enterprise databases is extraordinary. I hope to show in this blog working examples of database-GIS interaction. Many examples that I will show are implemented within Oracle 9.2 and ESRI’s SDE 8.3. Hopefully most of the SQL algorithms will transfer to your implementation.

Jeremy over at Mapdex has let us know about a new blog he’s put together about GIS and relational databases. He’s already posted twice and if these entries are any indication it will be a real treat. Great job Jeremy!

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About James Fee
Chief Evangelist for WeoGeo.com

3 Responses to New Blog SQL for Geographers

  1. Phillip Holmstrand says:
    November 1, 2005 at 12:16 pm

    GeoNorth’s “GeoClarity” product is the most robust implementation of GIS-SQL that I have seen. Its built on ArcObjects and allows for not only tabular output but rendering maps as well.

    Its extraordinarily flexible and extensible through “custom functions” that can be built using ArcObjects and VB/C#.

    Its pretty much at the core of all of our server side GIS/Web stuff here at the City of Portland. Once you get used to using SQL statements to query and analyze your GIS data there is no going back.

    Best part: You don’t need Oracle. =o)

    -Phillip

  2. Jeremy says:
    November 1, 2005 at 1:44 pm

    Thanks James.

    Where I am at GIS is a newcomer to the Enterprise architecture. We have had to bring GIS to the database. There have been so many functions/procedures/packages built before GIS was a big player. The exciting part of the process is showing the non-GIS people how easy (and visually powerful) it is to spatially-enable traditional RDBMS databases.

    I am extremely excited for SDE 9.2. The spatial type for Oracle is going to be a boon for our organization.

    Jeremy

  3. Chris Tweedie says:
    November 1, 2005 at 4:26 pm

    Unfortunately, for a lot of people interested in the rdbms side of GIS, id suspect most wouldnt have access to SDE (or perhaps even oracle). Hopefully people can apply the same sort of principles using postGIS before jumping in head first :)

    After all, the licenses are expensive and sometimes SDE is overkill for small organisations.