postgis/doc/introduction.xml

262 lines
9.6 KiB
XML

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
<chapter>
<title>Introduction</title>
<para>PostGIS was developed by Refractions Research Inc, as a spatial
database technology research project. Refractions is a GIS and database
consulting company in Victoria, British Columbia, Canada, specializing in
data integration and custom software development. We plan on supporting and
developing PostGIS to support a range of important GIS functionality,
including full OpenGIS support, advanced topological constructs (coverages,
surfaces, networks), desktop user interface tools for viewing and editing
GIS data, and web-based access tools.</para>
<para>PostGIS is an incubation project of the OSGeo Foundation. PostGIS is being continually improved and funded by many FOSS4G Developers as well
as corporations all over the world that gain great benefit from its functionality and versatility.</para>
<sect1 id="psc">
<title>Project Steering Committee</title>
<para>
The PostGIS Project Steering Committee (PSC) coordinates the general direction,
release cycles, documentation, and outreach efforts for the PostGIS project. In addition
the PSC provides general user support, accepts and approves patches from the general PostGIS community
and votes on miscellaneous issues involving PostGIS such as developer commit access, new PSC members
or significant API changes.
</para>
<variablelist>
<varlistentry>
<term>Mark Cave-Ayland</term>
<listitem>
<para>Coordinates bug fixing and maintenance effort, alignment of
PostGIS with PostgreSQL releases, spatial index selectivity and binding, loader/dumper, and Shapefile GUI Loader, integration of new
and new function enhancements.</para>
</listitem>
</varlistentry>
<varlistentry>
<term>Chris Hodgson</term>
<listitem>
<para>General development, site and buildbot maintenance, OSGeo incubation management</para>
</listitem>
</varlistentry>
<varlistentry>
<term>Regina Obe</term>
<listitem>
<para>Documentation, general user support on PostGIS newsgroup, windows production and experimental builds,
X3D support, Tiger Geocoder Support, management functions, and
smoke testing new functionality or major code changes.</para>
</listitem>
</varlistentry>
<varlistentry>
<term>Paul Ramsey (Chair)</term>
<listitem>
<para>Co-founder of PostGIS project. General bug fixing, geography support, geography and geometry index support (2D, 3D, nD index and anything spatial index), underlying geometry internal structures, GEOS functionality integration and alignment with
GEOS releases, loader/dumper, and Shapefile GUI loader.</para>
</listitem>
</varlistentry>
<varlistentry>
<term>Sandro Santilli</term>
<listitem>
<para>Bug fixes and maintenance and integration of new GEOS functionality and alignment with GEOS releases, Raster support, and Topology support.</para>
</listitem>
</varlistentry>
</variablelist>
</sect1>
<sect1 id="credits">
<title>Contributors Past and Present</title>
<variablelist>
<varlistentry>
<term>Kevin Neufeld</term>
<listitem>
<para>Prior PSC Member. Documentation and documentation support tools, advanced user support
on PostGIS newsgroup, and PostGIS maintenance function enhancements.</para>
</listitem>
</varlistentry>
<varlistentry>
<term>Dave Blasby</term>
<listitem>
<para>The original developer/Co-founder of PostGIS. Dave wrote the server side
objects, index bindings, and many of the server side analytical
functions.</para>
</listitem>
</varlistentry>
<varlistentry>
<term>Jeff Lounsbury</term>
<listitem>
<para>Original development of the Shape file loader/dumper. Current PostGIS Project Owner representative.</para>
</listitem>
</varlistentry>
<varlistentry>
<term>Olivier Courtin</term>
<listitem>
<para>Input output XML (KML,GML)/GeoJSON functions, 3D support and bug fixes.</para>
</listitem>
</varlistentry>
<varlistentry>
<term>Mark Leslie</term>
<listitem>
<para>Ongoing maintenance and development of core functions. Enhanced curve support. Shapefile GUI loader.</para>
</listitem>
</varlistentry>
<varlistentry>
<term>Pierre Racine</term>
<listitem>
<para>Raster overall architecture and programming support</para>
</listitem>
</varlistentry>
<varlistentry>
<term>Nicklas Avén</term>
<listitem>
<para>Distance function enhancements (including 3D distance and relationship functions) and additions, Windows testing, and general user support</para>
</listitem>
</varlistentry>
<varlistentry>
<term>Jorge Arévalo</term>
<listitem>
<para>Raster development</para>
</listitem>
</varlistentry>
<varlistentry>
<term>Bborie Park</term>
<listitem>
<para>Raster image output (JPEG, PNG, etc) and raster analytic functions</para>
</listitem>
</varlistentry>
<varlistentry>
<term>Mateusz Loskot</term>
<listitem>
<para>Raster support</para>
</listitem>
</varlistentry>
<varlistentry>
<term>David Zwarg</term>
<listitem>
<para>Raster development</para>
</listitem>
</varlistentry>
<varlistentry>
<term>Other contributors: Individuals</term>
<listitem>
<para>In alphabetical order: Alex Bodnaru, Alex Mayrhofer, Andrea Peri, Barbara
Phillipot, Ben Jubb, Bernhard Reiter, Bruce Rindahl, Bruno Wolff
III, Carl Anderson, Charlie Savage, Dane Springmeyer, David Skea,
David Techer, Eduin Carrillo, Frank Warmerdam, George Silva,
Gerald Fenoy, Gino Lucrezi, Guillaume Lelarge, IIDA Tetsushi, Jeff Adams, Kashif Rasul, Klaus Foerster, Kris Jurka, Loic Dachary, Leo Hsu,
Mark Sondheim, Markus Schaber, Maxime Guillaud, Maxime van Noppen, Michael Fuhr, Nikita Shulga, Norman Vine, Rafal Magda,
Ralph Mason, Steffen Macke, Stephen Frost, Vincent Picavet</para>
</listitem>
</varlistentry>
<varlistentry>
<term>Other contributors: Corporate Sponsors</term>
<listitem>
<para>These are corporate entities that have contributed developer time, hosting, or direct monetary funding to the PostGIS project</para>
<para>In alphabetical order: Arrival 3D, Azavea, Cadcorp, CampToCamp, Clever Elephant Solutions, City of Boston (DND), Deimos Space, Faunalia, Geographic Data BC, Hunter Systems Group, Lidwala Consulting Engineers, LisaSoft,
Logical Tracking &amp; Tracing International AG, Michigan Tech Research Institute, OpenGeo,
OSGeo, Oslandia, Paragon Corporation, Refractions Research, Regione Toscana-SIGTA, Safe Software,
Sirius Corporation plc, Stadt Uster,UC Davis Center for Vectorborne Diseases, University of Laval, Zonar Systems</para>
</listitem>
</varlistentry>
<varlistentry>
<term>Important Support Libraries</term>
<listitem>
<para>The <ulink url="http://trac.osgeo.org/geos/">GEOS</ulink>
geometry operations library, and the algorithmic work of Martin
Davis in making it all work, ongoing maintenance and support of
Mateusz Loskot, Sandro Santilli (strk), Paul Ramsey and others.</para>
<para>The <ulink url="http://trac.osgeo.org/gdal/">GDAL</ulink>
Geospatial Data Abstraction Library, by Frank Warmerdam and others is used to
power much of the raster functionality introduced in PostGIS 2.0.0. In kind, improvements needed in GDAL
to support PostGIS are contributed back to the GDAL project.</para>
<para>The <ulink url="http://trac.osgeo.org/proj/">Proj4</ulink>
cartographic projection library, and the work of Gerald Evenden and
Frank Warmerdam in creating and maintaining it.</para>
<para>Last but not least, the <ulink url="http://www.postgresql.org">PostgreSQL DBMS</ulink>,
The giant that PostGIS stands on. Much of the speed and flexibility of PostGIS would not be possible without
the extensibility, great query planner, GIST index, and plethora of SQL features provided by PostgreSQL.</para>
</listitem>
</varlistentry>
</variablelist>
</sect1>
<sect1>
<title>More Information</title>
<itemizedlist>
<listitem>
<para>The latest software, documentation and news items are available
at the PostGIS web site, <ulink
url="http://www.postgis.org">http://www.postgis.org</ulink>.</para>
</listitem>
<listitem>
<para>More information about the GEOS geometry operations library is
available at<ulink url="http://trac.osgeo.org/geos/">
http://trac.osgeo.org/geos/</ulink>.</para>
</listitem>
<listitem>
<para>More information about the Proj4 reprojection library is
available at <ulink
url="http://trac.osgeo.org/proj/">http://trac.osgeo.org/proj/</ulink>.</para>
</listitem>
<listitem>
<para>More information about the PostgreSQL database server is
available at the PostgreSQL main site <ulink
url="http://www.postgresql.org">http://www.postgresql.org</ulink>.</para>
</listitem>
<listitem>
<para>More information about GiST indexing is available at the
PostgreSQL GiST development site, <ulink
url="http://www.sai.msu.su/~megera/postgres/gist/">http://www.sai.msu.su/~megera/postgres/gist/</ulink>.</para>
</listitem>
<listitem>
<para>More information about MapServer internet map server is
available at <ulink
url="http://mapserver.gis.umn.edu/">http://mapserver.gis.umn.edu</ulink>.</para>
</listitem>
<listitem>
<para>The &quot;<ulink url="http://www.opengeospatial.org/standards/sfs">Simple Features for
Specification for SQL</ulink>&quot; is available at the OpenGIS Consortium
web site: <ulink url="http://www.opengeospatial.org/">http://www.opengeospatial.org/</ulink>.</para>
</listitem>
</itemizedlist>
</sect1>
</chapter>