Update on Postgis Connectors for ArcMap
Comments(6) I have made a little more progress with evaluating the various free options for accessing PostgreSQL/Postgis database tables from ArcMap. I have to confess that some of the problem was down to my own lack of experience with Postgis!
The issue that I had with PGarc was that it would fail with an error if you had deleted tables from a database. It turns out that this is because deleting tables using the PostgreSQL “DROP TABLE” syntax does not remove it’s reference in the “Geometry_Columns” table. This must be removed as well- either separately or by deleting the whole shebang in one go using the Postgis DropGeometryTable function. Since PGarc uses “Geometry_Columns” to populate its list of available tables, it fails at this point. RTFM next time, archaeogeek!
There were a number of people in the google group with similar problems to me regarding ZigGis- namely that it would not display some layers. This turned out to be a problem with projections, or the SRID. If a table had an SRID of -1, in other words no projection set, then ZigGis could not display it. This bug has been resolved in the latest release.
My opinions of the two packages haven’t really changed. ZigGis has nice configuration files, and works directly with the Postgis table, whereas PGarc relies on DSNs, and creates a temporary shape file on your hard drive to work with. However, the clincher for me is that using PGarc you can select data and query it, whereas with ZigGis, I could not do that.
In the comments to my previous post, JeffĂ‚Â kindly pointed out the trial version of Safe Software’s FME (Feature Manipulation Engine), which does include support for PostgreSQL databases. I haven’t had chance to try it out yet, and we are trying to work towards open-source solutions to our problems but I will evaluate it and post on my experiences.
You are correct about problems selecting features with zigGIS. That is a usability issue that’s high on our list for fixing. Please keep checking back. Comments like those in your blog are very helpful to us.
Hi Bill,
Many thanks for stopping by! I really look forward to continuing enhancements in zigGIS.
We’ve done alot of work to support PostGIS with FME, so I’d welcome your feedback — drop me a line if you have any questions or problems.
Have you had any more sucess with any of these packages ?
From what I have seen of the pgArc project it has’nt been updated since 19/9/2003 ( http://sourceforge.net/forum/forum.php?forum_id=311997)
Is it possible to get a copy of the software that you have been using with Arcgic ?
Hi David, thanks for stopping by!
Pgarc has been updated since then, but I don’t think anyone is really looking after the sourceforge page. Most discussions about it tend to be on the Postgis discussion list http://postgis.refractions.net/mailman/listinfo/postgis-users. The version that I have been using was a modified “test” version that Bruce Rindahl gave me last year some time, but I don’t know if he is still working on it or how that version relates to the versions on sourceforge. Try the dev version off sourceforge, and have a hunt around on the postgis list, and if you don’t have much luck or you need a hand with it, then give me a shout and I’ll email you what I’ve got.
Dale
Regarding FME – Here is my take on it.
http://postgis.refractions.net/pipermail/postgis-users/2006-September/013189.html
Note my frustration is with ESRI – not you.
Bruce