After working with PostGIS for five years we have had the need to extend it to incorporate new functionalities accessing to GEOS objects and creating new stored procedures in C. The PostGIS source code is not easy to understand especially for users that are not computer science expertise. In many cases PostGIS users are cartographic engineers, geographers, etc. which are really capable to analysis maps, design cartographic models, solve geodesic problems, etc. but as we said before they are not computer science experts, so we wanted to create a spatial database which is easier to extend and to use a programming language which could be easier to understand too. We think that JASPA accomplish that goal and moreover it can be used with other databases besides PostgreSQL.

Future plans to developed Jaspa include tolerances, hybrid topology systems, cartographic models and other capacities, which proved difficult to implement in PostGIS. Even though talking about functionality current JASPA and PostGIS 1.4 are similar products, JASPA can walk away from PostGIS in the future.

Jaspa does not aim to be a competitor of PostGIS. We think PostGIS is nowadays the best open source spatial database indeed.

The current main goal of JASPA is to be a research product which students and faculty can use to teach and experience how to understand a spatial database and to develop their own research algorithms and functionality.

There are two versions of JASPA. JASPA for PostgreSQL (JASPA4PG) and JASPA for H2 (JASPA4H2). Currently we are working to support H2SQLDB.

JASPA has been developed in the department of Cartographic Engineering, Geodesy and Photogrammetry of the Universidad Politecnica de Valencia (Spain) by:

Yes, JASPA supports the Simple Features for SQL standard and some of the SQL/MM standard. The conformance is similar to the PostGIS one. Besides that, JASPA implements an extra amount of functions that are not included in these standards but are necessary in a spatial database.

Of course, JASPA is released under a GPL license. Now, we do not have the suitable infrastructure (SVN repository, etc.) but you can get the JASPA source code from the forge and to contribute through the mail list and the feature request (tracker) at http://forge.osor.eu/projects/jaspa/

Please, if you are interested in JASPA do not hesitate to subscribe to the mail list. I would be pleased to know that you are using JASPA. http://lists.forge.osor.eu/mailman/listinfo/jaspa-users

Do not worry if your browser throws you a security warning. It is a safe place, trust me.

You can find the official JASPA manual at http://jaspa.forge.osor.eu/

There you will find a full description and examples of every JASPA SQL command, how to install or build it, etc.

So far, this is a pretty weak point of JASPA. You just can display the spatial data using UMN MapServer and JASPA4PG.

We are talking with several open source desktop GIS and spatial libraries to support JASPA.

You can use the shp2jaspapg and shp2jaspah2 converters.

JASPA4PG supports spatial indexes using Gist in a similar way PostGIS does. JASPA4H2 does not support spatial indexes. We hope the H2 and HSQLDB developers can make it in the future.

Edit the file /etc/hosts and the hostname of your linux machine. For instance if your machine is called "virtual_machine" add the line: 127.0.1.1 alumno-virtual-machine

Install the ldconfig command from the package manager of your Linux distribution. Usually this command is in the packages glibc or glibc-devel

Possibly there is at least an active connection (a terminal psql, pgadmin3, a GIS desktop software or any other software). The solution is to end all connections.

Check if there is any file pljava.dll or pljava.jar in the lib folder of the postgres installation directory and delete it.