Manifold 8.0 supports PostGIS and SQL Server 2008 Spatial

BostonGIS BostonGIS Home About Postgres OnLine Journal PostGIS in Action

Sunday, September 02. 2007

Posted by Regina Obe in gis, manifold, postgis postgresql, sql server 2008

Comments (9)
Trackbacks (0)

Manifold 8.0 supports PostGIS and SQL Server 2008 Spatial

I see that Manifold 8.0 is out and sounds like a great leap forward from prior Manifold versions and just a great leap forward period.

I've heard a lot about Manifold lately via various blogs e.g A manifold blogger and just general web stumbling. For example we see James blog has a lot of rants and raves about Manifold and Simon Greener, seems to like it and details it in his Mainfold Tips and Tricks, granted those tips are kind of old. Ironically I haven't physically come into contact with anyone using Manifold. Most of what I get when I ask my GIS neighbors is "What's that?"

Just from my general readings of it - it sounds like a database spatial analysts / .NET Windows developer's dream tool.

Supports Oracle Spatial, ESRI Geodatabase, Shape, and the new version 8.0 supports - PostGIS, IBM DBII Spatial Blade, and SQL Server 2008 Spatial Katmai which hasn't even come out yet.
A free Manifold Spatial Extender for SQL Server 2005 that provides spatial index capability to SQL Server 2005
The price is fairly affordable compared to ArcGIS and MapInfo tools.
Relatively inexpensive add-ons for doing sophisiticated GIS processing
A GIS tool that is an honest to goodness 64-bit capable - not running in some WOW64 emulation layer.
Direct SFSQL and database access - not some funky middleware to hop thru.
IronPython scripting and I assume other .NET scripting as well.

If this product is even 25% as good as it sounds like - it is a REALLY REALLY good value.

Given that there seem to be very few of us, at least in my neck of the woods, (those who are intimately familiar and love the power of relational databases but are enamored with the even greater power that a relational database married with GIS capabilities can bring and I'm not talking about a database as a passive storage container for GIS objects) and the fact that I don't think Manifold markets as much as ESRI, I would say I'm not too surprised that few I have run into use Manifold. I really hope the kingdom of database spatial analysts is growing and I feel it is, which from my cursory guess can only be a good thing for Manifold.

Of course I guess having a checklist of bullets is not the final test. There is stability, speed, ease of use and all that other good stuff that you can't easily qualify in bullets.

This document that details differences between doing tasks in Manifold and ArcGIS does make it look pretty user friendly. I am eager to try Manifold out and see how good its new PostGIS and SQL Server 2008 capabilities are in particular. I'm also equally interested in hearing from people who have used Manifold (especially if they have used the new one and with PostGIS) and how it compares to other tools they have used e.g MapInfo, ArcGIS, Intergraph, QGIS, uDig, GRASS etc.

Trackbacks

Trackback specific URI for this entry

No Trackbacks

Comments

Display comments as (Linear | Threaded)

It is a truly phenomenal package. I have been using it and ArcGIS for nearly six years and I always prefer to use Manifold. Not only it is rock solid (crashing is par for the course with Arc, but a rare event with Manifold), contains absurdly cool and fast spatial SQL functions but the development team is very attentive to user requests. You'd probably get better answers to your questions on PostGIS and Katmai in the User Forums, where many of the beta testers (who have had access to these features for a bit) and other experienced users frequently answer questions.

#1 Will on 2007-09-02 14:01 (Reply)

Will, Thanks for the tip on looking into the newsgroups. I did a quick scan of the newsgroup and it appears there seem to be a lot of major issues with using PostGIS even as of entries 8/30/07. For example issues if you are connecting to UTF-8 database format. There are workarounds such as saving your geometry fields as wkb format which kind of defeats the purpose of having PostGIS. So all in short :( - I guess I will wait for a point release before I reinvestigate since that was the main reason I was excited about Manifold; To provide a more accessible interface to those who don't necessarily like dealing with the Raw database. Kind of as a replacement for MapInfo, that is PostGIS friendly. Very few commercial products support PostGIS as of yet. ArcGIS is not planned for support until I think 9.3 or 9.4. MapInfo I don't think at all. Manifold's SQL Server 2005 support (not sure about Katmai) looks much better I gather just because most of the examples I've seen of the Manifold SQL seem like SQL Server or MS Access dialect of SQL e.g. lots of use of TOP etc (and TRANSFORM PIVOT for cross tab queries - I've only seen that in MS Access even SQL Server 2005 doesn't have that which I miss in every other db I have dealt with; I wonder if that is available to other Manifold dbs) and SFSQL functions taking in what look like record IDs rather than geometries. I may consider looking at it sooner if not only for its SQL Server 2005 support. All in all the SFSQL functions I've seen presented look pretty good - ADJACENT, VORONOI etc. This video by Arthur J.Lembo Jr. on Spatial SQL in Manifold - http://dspace.library.cornell.edu/bitstream/1813/2489/2/spatialSQL.wmv looks pretty slick. Though I saw a slight logical error in one of his SQL statements :).

#1.1 Regina Obe (Homepage) on 2007-09-04 09:30 (Reply)

Ahh, well now you're getting into the thick of it from "outside", which means this may be a bit convoluted. The Spatial SQL that you have been looking at is Manifold's proprietary engine. The syntax is very much like JET, but entirely their creation. With the exception spatial index of the SQL Server spatial extender, all Spatial SQL happens inside the application. On the other hand, Manifold is very flexible in the way that it connects to databases and allows drawing creation; you could easily link a drawing to a view that utilizes a database's spatial functions. Forgoing the view, one could even write the query directly from Manifold and link from that. the thing about IDs is just something of an alias, it is interchangeable with the [geom (i)] column. I know exactly what you mean about transform pivots, I'm a huge fan. SQL Server 2005 has a PIVOT (and even an UNPIVOT) statement to create crosstabs. I like the JET version a bit better as the SQL Server version requires you to name (and therefore know) the grouping columns. I use a fairly simple sproc to generate the list for me. I had not heard of the issue you mentioned with PostGIS until now (I stick to mostly SQL Server and some Oracle). I'm sure they'll have it resolved soon. Art is a good guy. I've met him a couple times at Manifold gatherings. He is also pretty active (read helpful) on forum.manifold.net (BTW, are you aware that your comments posting doesn't play well with Firefox?)

#1.1.1 Will on 2007-09-04 15:07 (Reply)

Actually I'm looking at it in firefox. It looks fine except its missing the paragraph breaks. I think that is just some stupid setting I forgot to enable in my serendipity configuration. Is that what you are referring to? Thanks, Regina

#1.1.1.1 Regina Obe (Homepage) on 2007-09-04 16:50 (Reply)

Sounds like a big mistake to put out official support for something that haven't even started a beta cycle yet. It's almost bound to not work without an update for the final release anyway.

#2 Pete on 2007-09-02 14:01 (Reply)

@Pete Here's the thing, though: Manifold regularly releases patches. If a change in Katmai affects Manifold, they would release a fix very shortly after. From what I understand, Manifold also has VERY close ties with Microsoft. I would venture that they are well ahead of the game in regards to adjusting their product as Katmai progresses. Heck, by the time SQL Server 2008 comes out as a release, Manifold 8x may have already be released. In any case, this is one of those 'use it if you want to situations'. It allows those of us that want/need to start looking at next generation technology now, enabling more informed business decisions.

#3 Will on 2007-09-02 18:24 (Reply)

Regarding PostgreSQL - that was a version skew issue. The initial Release 8 download works fine with the PostgreSQL/PostGIS distributions used during development but not with some more current releases. Yesterday's Manifold update adds support for now-current PostgreSQL/PostGIS distributions (8.2.4 and 1.3.1, if I recall correctly). PostgreSQL people are now happy. :-)

#4 Dimitri (Homepage) on 2007-09-13 01:33 (Reply)

Dimitri, That's great news. I hope to start using it in the next month or so and if I like it, I'll make sure to spread the word. Thanks, Regina

#4.1 Regina Obe (Homepage) on 2007-09-13 03:58 (Reply)

I wrote this bash script to find all of my sieaefhlps and generate the shp2pgsql commands as a separate script. Perhaps someone else may find this useful:#! /bin/bash## User Variables: ##SEARCHDIR= /my_shapefile_directory/geochem/ SCHEMA= geochem DBNAME= GIS_Database # SRID is the Spatial Reference ID (SRID)SRID= 1234 OUTPUTDIR= /home/user ## Program Variables ##TEMPFILE= $OUTPUTDIR/$SCHEMA.t OUTPUTFILE= $OUTPUTDIR/import-$SCHEMA.sh echo -e #! /bin/bash\n#`date` > $OUTPUTFILEfind $SEARCHDIR -nowarn -name *.shp > $TEMPFILEcat $TEMPFILE | while read linedoNOSPACE=`echo ${line} | tr _'`echo shp2pgsql -s $SRID \ ${line}\ $SCHEMA.`basename $NOSPACE .shp` | psql -d $DBNAME >> $OUTPUTDIR/import-$SCHEMA.sh donechmod +x $OUTPUTFILErm $TEMPFILEecho -e Import script for:\nSchema: $SCHEMA\nDatabase: $DBNAME\noutputted to: $OUTPUTFILE\n`date`\n exit 0

#4.2 Kim (Homepage) on 2012-03-13 13:14 (Reply)

Add Comment

Name
Email
Homepage
In reply to
Comment	E-Mail addresses will not be displayed and will only be used for E-Mail notifications. To prevent automated Bots from commentspamming, please enter the string you see in the image below in the appropriate input box. Your comment will only be submitted if the strings match. Please ensure that your browser supports and accepts cookies, or your comment cannot be verified correctly. Enter the string from the spam-prevention image above:
	Remember Information? Subscribe to this entry