PostGIS comes with several functions for use on digital elevation model (DEM) rasters to solve terrain-related problems. Though these problems have historically been in the hydrology domain, they can now be found elsewhere; for example, finding the most fuel-efficient route from point A to point B or determining the best location on a roof for a solar panel. PostGIS 2.0 introduced ST_Slope(), ST_Aspect(), and ST_HillShade() while PostGIS 2.1 added the new functions ST_TRI(), ST_TPI(), and ST_Roughness(), and new variants of existing elevation functions.
Executing DEM operations
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