Mark Cave-Ayland

Integrating Map data with PostGIS

PostGIS provides a set of OGC-standard geometric types and operators that allow developers to store spatial data within PostgreSQL. This allows an application to be made spatially-aware, asking questions such as "Return a list of restaurants within a 500m radius of my current location" using normal SQL. In addition to being a geometric data store, PostGIS also provides a rich set of processing functions for the calculation of geometric predicates such as Union, Intersection, and Difference. These can be used to generate geometries "on the fly" which can be visualised using a number of popular open source applications, or even displayed within Google Maps.

Bio

Mark has been developing applications using PostGIS for over 5 years, including working on large-scale and near real-time geospatial datastores. Now working full-time for Sirius, he is a regular contributor to the PostgreSQL/PostGIS mailing lists as well as being a frequent developer on the PostGIS project.