PostGIS in Action, Second Editon has officially launched. You cna save 50% on it January 22,2013 with Promotional code pgislaunchau at
http://www.manning.com/obe2/Now that we have started writing, we'd like to fill people in on what they can expect for the second edition.
First of all, the main focus will be PostgreSQL 9.1-9.3 and PostGIS 2.0-2.1 (and maybe 2.2 if development is far along
to make it predictable). Last edition, we were naive to think we could complete a book in 6 months. It took 2 years - yikes.
Though there is a lot of overlap in Second Edition, a lot has changed and you can do more with PostGIS now. So expect the second
edition to be a bit chunkier than the first and cover new territory -- new raster changes, introduction of topology. We've marked out about a 12 months
to write this second edition.
Here is a brief outline of what you can expect. We'd be happy to hear people's comments while there is still time to
revise the road plan. We are looking at about 17 chapters this go round as opposed to our 13 of last. Part of the reason
for that is the Spatial Techniques chapter was just too long and really should have been at least 2 chapters.
- Thinking spatially - much like 1st edition with some sections covering topology and raster.
- Spatial Types -- overview of geometry, geography, raster, and topology and when you should use each. Also coverage
of the various meta views and tables for each.
- Spatial Reference consideration -- this is pretty much what was in the 1st except moved up a couple of chapters.
- Data Modeling -- much like first accept we'll talk about raster storage and topology storage as well
and we'll probably drop discussion of rules since rules are passe in 9.1+.
- Working with real data -- much like first edition, accept with addition of loading and exporting raster data
and loading topology data
- Geometry and Geography Functions
- Raster Functions
- Topology Functions
- Relating 2 or more spatial objects - this will be much like 1st edition with the introduction of geography, topology, and raster relations
and intermingling with geometry objects
- Proximity analysis and Data Tagging
- Geometry Processing
- Raster processing and stats
- Topology usage -- will cover simplification, editing etc
- Performance Tuning -- much like 1st but with some considerations for topology and raster
- Enhancing SQL with add-ons -- this will have same coverage as last edition but probably with different examples
and will also have a section on PLV8JS/PLCoffee, and more indepth coverage of PgRouting (might be it's own chapter).
- Using PostGIS in web applications - much the same as 1st edition except we'll cover TinyOWS/Mapserver combo and new QGIS Mapping Server, Generating tiles with TileMill (hopefully),
and we'll be getting rid of GeoExt in favor of JQuery. We will also provide coverage of Leaflet and how it compares with OpenLayers.
- Using PostGIS in a desktop environment - addition here will be coverage of Topology e.g. QGIS support for topology and raster.
Geoserver support for raster.
- Appendix A - Additional Resources: much the same as old but with updated links and content.
- Appendix B - Installing, Compiling, and Upgrading
- Appendix C - SQL Primer - much like old but will cover the improved Windowing support and ordered aggs in PostgreSQL 9.0+
- Appendix D: PostgreSQL Features - This will be amended to cover some of the new features that came out since 9.0.
E.g. new backup options, things like LATERAL, range types, json
This year has been action packed for us both for good and bad. On the positive side we've gotten more involved in PostGIS and PostgreSQL work on many fronts in writing, consulting, and general project involvement. On the more somber side, we were stric
Tracked: Sep 30, 00:09