PostGIS 2.0 has hit the shelves (so to speak) this week. One of my projects this weekend is to get it up and running on my MacBook Pro and start working with all the new features. There are a ton of new features, but I’m going to pull these off of the announcement because I do think they are some of the best:
- Raster data and raster/vector analysis in the database
- Topological models to handle objects with shared boundaries
- PostgreSQL typmod integration, for an automagical geometry_columns table
- 3D and 4D indexing
- Index-based high performance nearest-neighbour searching
- Many more vector functions including
- ST_Split
- ST_Node
- ST_MakeValid
- ST_OffsetCurve
- ST_ConcaveHull
- ST_AsX3D
- ST_GeomFromGeoJSON
- ST_3DDistance
- Integration with the PostgreSQL 9.1 extension system
- Improved commandline shapefile loader/dumper
- Multi-file import support in the shapefile GUI
- Multi-table export support in the shapefile GUI
- A geo-coder optimized for free US Census TIGER (2010) data
The BostonGIS blog has more details on the new GUI shapefile loader that has been improved quite a bit. Loading data into PostGIS is as easy as ever these days. You can download and get started right here.
Spatially Adjusted 