PostGIS 2.5.0 is here!

The PostGIS development team released version 2.5.0 of PostGIS, a spatial database extender for PostgreSQL, yesterday. PostGIS 2.5.0 explores new features, breaking changes, improvements, and fixes. 

PostGIS is an open source software program which provides support for geographic objects to the PostgreSQL object-relational database. PostGIS comprises simple features for SQL specification from the Open Geospatial Consortium (OGC).

New Features

ST_OrientedEnvelope (Returns a minimum rotated rectangle enclosing a geometry) and ST_QuantizeCoordinates  (Sets least significant bits of coordinates to zero) have been added in PostGIS 2.5.0.

Apart from that, other new features such as ST_FilterByM (Filters vertex points based on their m-value) and ST_ChaikinSmoothing (Returns a “smoothed” version of the given geometry with the help of Chaikin algorithm) have also been added in PostGIS 2.5.0.

Breaking Changes

The Version number has been removed from address_standardize lib file in PostGIS 2.5.0. The raster support functions can be loaded only in the same schema with core PostGIS functions. The dummy pgis_abs type has been removed from aggregate/collect routines. Support has been removed for drop support GEOS < 3.5 and PostgreSQL < 9.4.

Improvements and bug Fixes

• There’s been performance improvement for sorting POINT geometries in PostGIS 2.5.0.
• An external raster band index has been added to ST_BandMetaData. Also, there’s an added Raster Tips section in Documentation for information about Raster behavior (e.g. Out-DB performance, maximum open files).
• The use of GEOS in topology implementation has been reduced in PostGIS 2.5.0.
• A bug that created MVTs with incorrect property values under parallel plans has been fixed.
• Geometry in PostGIS 2.5.0 has been simplified using map grid cell size before generating MVT.
•  BTree sort order has now been defined on collections of EMPTY and same-prefix geometries in PostGIS 2.5.0.
• Hashable geometry feature enables direct use in CTE signatures in PostGIS 2.5.0.
• PostGIS 2.5.0 will not be accepting EMPTY points as topology nodes.
• ST_GeometricMedian now provides support for point weights in PostGIS 2.5.0.
• Duplicated code in lwgeom_geos has been removed.

For more information on other updates and fixes in PostGIS 2.5.0, check out the official release notes.

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