When it comes to GIS, the first thing that comes to mind is where something is located. Once you can locate places using a set of coordinates, questions such as the following arise, which always involve some kind of distance calculation: How far is my house from the nearest expressway? How many pizza joints are within a mile drive? What’s the average distance that people have to commute to work? What are the 10 closest parks to me? How many people live in my city and make more than me?
In this chapter we’ll cover the key functions and operators PostGIS provides for doing proximity analysis. These functions are the foundation of most location based queries. We’ll also cover the various options limitations based on which spatial type you choose wheter it be geometry or geography.
pgRouting: A Practical Guide is available in Hardcopy from Hardcopy from Amazon. E-Book or Bulk discounts on Hard-copy from Locate Press.