Editing PostGIS (section)

==Features==

* Geometry types for Points, LineStrings, Polygons, MultiPoints, MultiLineStrings, MultiPolygons, GeometryCollections, 3D types TINS and polyhedral surfaces, including solids.
* Spheroidal types under the geography datatype Points, LineStrings, Polygons, MultiPoints, MultiLineStrings, MultiPolygons and GeometryCollections.
* raster type - supports various pixel types and more than 1000 bands per raster. Since PostGIS 3, is a separate PostgreSQL extension called postgis_raster.
* SQL/MM Topology support - via PostgreSQL extension postgis_topology.
* Spatial predicates for determining the interactions of geometries using the 3x3 [[DE-9IM]] (provided by the [[GEOS (software library)|GEOS]] software library).
* Spatial operators for determining geospatial measurements like area, distance, length and perimeter.
* Spatial operators for determining geospatial set operations, like union, difference, symmetric difference and buffers (provided by GEOS).
* [[R-tree]]-over-[[GiST]] (Generalized Search Tree) spatial indexes for high speed spatial querying.
* Index selectivity support, to provide high performance [[query plan]]s for mixed spatial/non-spatial queries.

The PostGIS implementation is based on "light-weight" geometries and indexes optimized to reduce disk and [[memory footprint]].  Using light-weight geometries helps servers increase the amount of data migrated up from physical disk storage into RAM, improving query performance substantially.

PostGIS is registered as "implements the specified standard" for "Simple Features for SQL" by the OGC.<ref>[http://www.opengeospatial.org/resource/products/details/?pid=509 OGC Implementing Product Details] Open Geospatial Consortium</ref> PostGIS has not been certified as compliant by the OGC.