New to ZigGIS (Sell it to me!)

[JonB]

Hi All,

I have just stumbled across ZigGIS and I am intrigued. However, I
can't find much about what it does (other than connect to PostGIS.
Maybe that is all it does, which brings me to my next question.

What are the advantages of using a PostGIS databases through ZigGIS vs
File-based Geodatabases. Is this just a pragmatic approach to data
interoperability or are there any other benefits?

I'd much appreciate comments and views.

Thanks

[Paolo Corti]

Hello Jonahthan

I have just stumbled across ZigGIS and I am intrigued.  However, I
can't find much about what it does (other than connect to PostGIS.
Maybe that is all it does, which brings me to my next question.

It does exactly this, without needing ArcSde and ArcEditor (for editing data).
 

What are the advantages of using a PostGIS databases through ZigGIS vs
File-based Geodatabases.  Is this just a pragmatic approach to data
interoperability or are there any other benefits?

File-based Geodatabase, like Personal GDB and shapefiles are generally ricommended for single user GIS analysis. If you work for enterprise, if you typically need that many people needs access for reading and writing GIS data, you need to store them in a RDBMS.
ArcGIS lets you do this by using ArcSde, but it may be an expensive option for many organizations. This is why there is zigGis: with it and with a simple ArcGis license you may directly connect to your data in a excellent RDBMS (Postgres with PostGis) and you will be able to view, edit and make analysis with your data in a enterprise scenario

best regards
Paolo 

[JonB]

Thanks for the reply Paulo.

What I am doing is not so much allowing lots of people to connect to
our data, but I want to run a lot of processes toanalyse huge amounts
of data as quickly as possible. I usually don't need multiple writes
and rarely multiple reads as each process will access a separate
dataset (my data are tiled). In other words, this is not a
traditional Enterprise GIS situation at all.

So, I wonder if there is any other advantage of storing my data in
PostGIS over using a file-based geodatabase (how does direct read
through ZigGIS compare in terms of speed to using a geodatabase for
instance)?

Also can you use ZigGIS in a Python environment?

Thanks in advance.

[Volkmar Herbst GCI]

You can't really do much concerning geodata inside an Access database
(actually nothing). In PostgreSQL/ PostGIS you can add a lot of GIS
functions and process your data in many ways. You can add Trigger functions
which will run during insert or update.
Analysis in PostGIS are very flexible and efficient. In Access you can
forget about anything like that. Check out the capabilities of PostGIS and
see if you can do your analysis in the database. You will find that there
are lot's of possibilities. Programming in psql (which you can use in
PostgreSQL) is also quite straight forward. There is lot's of information
about PostGIS in the web. Just get into it and you will find the connector
which displays the results of your analysis in ArcMap most useful.

Volkmar

-----Ursprüngliche Nachricht-----
Von: zig...@googlegroups.com [mailto:zig...@googlegroups.com] Im Auftrag von
JonB
Gesendet: Donnerstag, 29. Oktober 2009 17:26
An: zigGIS
Betreff: Re: New to ZigGIS (Sell it to me!)

[Obe, Regina]

Jonathan,

What sort of processes are you thinking of automating? I would say one of the benefits of using PostGIS over a file-based geo-database
is the spatial functions built-in to PostGIS partnered with the advanced SQL features of PostgreSQL.

With the extensive array of PostGIS functions, you can automate a lot of stuff without even using ArcGIS.
Also PostgreSQL supports Python as a stored proc language, so there is a lot you can do in PostgreSQL -- by installing PLPython. You could for example call OSGEO.gdal python library etc.

You might find some of these links helpful

http://www.postgresonline.com/journal/index.php?/categories/51-plpython

http://www.postgis.org/documentation/manual-svn/

Hope that helps,
Regina

________________________________________
From: zig...@googlegroups.com [zig...@googlegroups.com] On Behalf Of JonB [jonath...@realtimeworlds.com]
Sent: Thursday, October 29, 2009 12:25 PM
To: zigGIS
Subject: Re: New to ZigGIS (Sell it to me!)

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[JonB]

Thanks for the replies. A lot of the process I'm doing require
functionality that cannot be had 'out-of-the-box' with PostGIS (by the
looks of the documentation). I would need a work-around to achieve
it. Even in ArcGIS I am using the full ArcINFO version and even
ArcEditor doesn't have the full functionality I'm using. That said,
there is always more than one way of achieving things and if I can
justify the development pain of not having all the toys I want against
some other gain, then the argument is clear.

I think the raster capabilities of OSGEO GDAL libraries go a long way
to offsetting some of my concerns. Being able to read PostGIS
directly in ArcGIS is a huge benefit too. I think what I have to do
now is create the setup and try to port some of my scripts to PostGIS.

I would still like to know if ZigGIS can be used in a Model Builder
environment and/or a Python script. Is this possible or is it .NET
only?

Thanks again.

[Abe Gillespie]

I think Paolo could answer this better ... but as long as python is
COM-aware then yes, theoretically you can automate some zigGIS tasks
with python. However, since zigGIS isn't really intended as an API,
your mileage will vary. The source code is public for inspection so
you can probably figure out things by inspecting it. Look here to get
started with instantiating a layer:

http://svn.obtusesoft.com/core/trunk/Ui/AddForm.cs

I doubt you'll have much luck with Model Builder.

-Abe

[Obe, Regina]

Jon,
If you are interested in Raster, you may want to look at WKT Raster.

I haven't played much with it myself unfortunately, but plan to in the coming month for the PostGIS book we are currently writing.

For Windows we have experimental binaries for 8.3/8.4 (PostGIS 1.4/1.5)

http://www.postgis.org/download/windows/experimental.php

Its a separate package from PostGIS, but in PostGIS 2.0 due out around April or May of next year, the two projects will be merged.

More details can be found here

http://trac.osgeo.org/postgis/wiki/WKTRaster
http://mateusz.loskot.net/2009/03/30/crunching-wkt-rasters/

There is a separate project going on in GDAL/OGR2OGR land that adds loader/dumper bindings to the GDAL library to load and dump raster into PostGIS.

http://trac.osgeo.org/gdal/wiki/SoCProjects

Hope that helps,
Regina

-----Original Message-----
From: zig...@googlegroups.com [mailto:zig...@googlegroups.com] On Behalf Of Abe Gillespie
Sent: Friday, October 30, 2009 10:35 AM
To: zig...@googlegroups.com
Subject: Re: New to ZigGIS (Sell it to me!)