pgSphere is a PostgreSQL extension for spherical geometry. It provides:


  • new data types: points; spherical polygons, paths, circles, ellipses, and coordinate ranges
  • input and output of data in various formats
  • membership, overlap, and other operators
  • circumference and area of objects
  • object rotation by Euler angles
  • indexing of spherical data types


    • Hence, you can do fast searches and analyses of objects on the unit sphere with PostgreSQL in astronomical, geographical, or other applications. For instance, you can manage data of geographical objects around the world and astronomical data like star and other catalogs conveniently using an SQL interface.


    The goal of pgSphere is providing uniform access to spherical data. And since PostgreSQL itself supports many other data types and indexing methods, you can thus use the same database for different utilities and applications.