Regina Obe has just announced that PostGIS in Action book website launched. It is http://postgis.us
Archive for the ‘books’ Category
postgis dot us
Sunday, February 7th, 2010PostGIS explains DE-9IM
Sunday, December 6th, 2009
I am happy I belong to the hordes of PostGIS users. Recently I asked for a very small addition to the PostGIS manual that will explain the three basic terms of the geospatial geometry: interior, boundary and exterior.
Kevin Neufeld delivered a very well written chapter about Dimensionally Extended 9 Intersection Model (DE-9IM) with series of excellent visualisations of the non-trivial mathematics.
Moreover, Kevin started completing the PostGIS Functions Reference with visual presentation of geometric problems together with SQL commands using various PostGIS functions that can be applied to solve particular situations. For example, what does the ST_Buffer function, how boolean predicates like ST_Contains check spatial relation of two geometries or what’s the difference between ST_Difference and ST_SymDifference.
Clearly, I’ve got way way more than I asked for or I expected. On behalf of myself and users who are about to start their adventure with PostGIS, I’d like to give big kudos to Kevin for this fantastic work!
Together with the recently documented PostgreSQL PostGIS Types and Function Support Matrix, PostGIS team is making abrupt manual a pleasant reading book.
By the way, here is a bunch of references about DE-9IM I found very useful myself:
- Dimensionally Extended Nine-Intersection Model (DE-9IM) by Christian Strobl
- Encyclopedia of GIS by Hui Xiong, page 242
Spatial Relations for Dummies
Sunday, June 28th, 2009My friend Jo asked on GEOS mailing list for approachable explanation of spatial relations and Dale Lutz from Safe Software suggested something I’ve not came across myself before and what (in generalised form) I’d consider as a great idea for…a book really :-)
PostGIS In Action
Thursday, May 7th, 2009It really must be very hot and fresh news, so the virtual devil spirit of social networking hasn’t fished it out yet and also Google (check this if you haven’t heard yet about this local family company) lists less than 15 pages.
PostGIS provides over 300 spatial operators, spatial functions, spatial data types and spatial indexing enhancements. If you add to the mix the complimentary features that PostgreSQL and other PostgreSQL related projects provide, then you’ve got one jam-packed powerhouse at your disposal well suited for hardcore work as well as a valuable training tool for spatial concepts.
Three words: PostGIS In Action. The first book about PostGIS spatial database being written by Regina O. Obe and Leo S. Hsu with release planned for the beginning of 2010. First chapter of the book has been published and is freely available as PDF file through the Manning Early Access Program. Chapter two and three are also available for MAEP subscribers.
Next to the early access, another cool thing about the way Manning Publications release their books is possibility to comment chapters and discuss with authors directly through Manning Sandbox forums. There is no exception for the PostGIS in Action :-)
Update 2009-05-08T23:08:21+00:00: The book official announcement has been posted on postgis-devel and postgresqlonline.com.
I’m looking forward to grab the book!
Pierre, check the TOC for chapter thirteen. Cool, isn’t it?
C++ Concurrency in Action
Friday, August 22nd, 2008By the beginning of the year 2009, new must-read book for C++ hackers is rolling around. Anthony Williams is writing book titled: C++ Concurrency in Action (ISBN: 1933988770):
I will be covering all aspects of multithreaded programming with the new C++0x standard, from the details of the new C++0x memory model and atomic operations to managing threads and designing parallel algorithms and thread-safe containers. The book will also feature a complete reference to the C++0x Standard Thread Library.
from Anthony’s blog
Since June, Anthony’s book is available through Manning Early Access Program. The final release is planned on February 2009.
In the meantime, Anthony has published an article Simpler Multithreading in C++0x introducing multithreading support and thread library as a new feature in the C++0x standard.
Extended STL
Sunday, February 25th, 2007
The Extended STL is a new C++ book written by Matthew Wilson. The first volume Collections and Iterators will be available in June 2007. Second volume Algorithms, Functions and Exotic Matter been also planned but it is still very much up in the air. The book will discuss:
principles and practices of STL extension, many of which are used in the implementation of the STLSoft libraries
The first Matt Wilson’s book – The Imperfect C++ – presented C++ language programming in a very practical way. This book has two faces. It is a C++ introductory book and it also presents various C++ weaknesses and their solutions at the same time. The Extended STL will be a kind of continuation and focus on the Standard Template Library. According to my understanding, Matt will try to present programmers with solutions of how to use C++ techniques and STL concepts with existing code bases and technologies, for instance how to use STL collections with COM objects.
Certainly, the range of topics will be much wider. As presented in the TOC, most of must-understand concepts will be presented there, like RAII, constraints and contract programming, and much more.
I think the new book will also be a perfect completion to Nicolai M. Josuttis’ The C++ Standard Library – A Tutorial and Reference.
