Help

ST_PointOnSurface

Definition

ST_PointOnSurface takes an ST_Polygon or ST_MultiPolygon and returns an ST_Point guaranteed to lie on its surface.

Syntax

Oracle and PostgreSQL

sde.st_pointonsurface (polygon1 sde.st_geometry)
sde.st_pointonsurface (multipolygon1 sde.st_geometry)

SQLite

st_pointonsurface (polygon1 geometryblob)
st_pointonsurface (multipolygon1 geometryblob)

Return type

ST_Point

Example

The city engineer wants to create a label point for each historical building's footprint. The historical building footprints are stored in the hbuildings table that was created with the following CREATE TABLE statement:

The ST_PointOnSurface function generates a point that is guaranteed to be on the surface of the building footprints. The ST_PointOnSurface function returns a point that the ST_AsText function converts to text for use by the application.

Oracle

CREATE TABLE hbuildings (
 hbld_id integer,
 hbld_name varchar(40),
 footprint sde.st_geometry
);

INSERT INTO hbuildings (hbld_id, hbld_name, footprint) VALUES (
 1,
 'First National Bank',
 sde.st_polygon ('polygon ((0 0, 0 .010, .010 .010, .010 0, 0 0))', 4326)
);

INSERT INTO hbuildings (hbld_id, hbld_name, footprint) VALUES (
 2,
 'Courthouse',
 sde.st_polygon ('polygon ((.020 0, .020 .010, .030 .010, .030 0, .020 0))', 4326)
);

SELECT sde.st_astext (sde.st_pointonsurface (footprint)) Historic_Site
 FROM HBUILDINGS;

HISTORIC_SITE

POINT  (0.00500000 0.00500000)
POINT  (0.02500000 0.00500000)

PostgreSQL

CREATE TABLE hbuildings (
 hbld_id serial,
 hbld_name varchar(40),
 footprint sde.st_geometry
);

INSERT INTO hbuildings (hbld_name, footprint) VALUES (
 'First National Bank',
 sde.st_polygon ('polygon ((0 0, 0 .010, .010 .010, .010 0, 0 0))', 4326)
);

INSERT INTO hbuildings (hbld_name, footprint) VALUES (
 'Courthouse',
 sde.st_polygon ('polygon ((.020 0, .020 .010, .030 .010, .030 0, .020 0))', 4326)
);

SELECT sde.st_astext (sde.st_pointonsurface (footprint)) 
 AS "Historic Site"
 FROM hbuildings;

Historic Site

POINT  (0.00500000 0.00500000)
POINT  (0.02500000 0.00500000)

SQLite

CREATE TABLE hbuildings (
 hbld_id integer primary key autoincrement not null,
 hbld_name text(40)
);

SELECT AddGeometryColumn(
 NULL,
 'hbuildings',
 'footprint',
 4326,
 'polygon',
 'xy',
 'null'
);

INSERT INTO hbuildings (hbld_name, footprint) VALUES (
 'First National Bank',
 st_polygon ('polygon ((0 0, 0 .010, .010 .010, .010 0, 0 0))', 4326)
);

INSERT INTO hbuildings (hbld_name, footprint) VALUES (
 'Courthouse',
 st_polygon ('polygon ((.020 0, .020 .010, .030 .010, .030 0, .020 0))', 4326)
);

SELECT st_astext (st_pointonsurface (footprint)) 
 AS "Historic Site"
 FROM hbuildings;

Historic Site

POINT  (0.00500000 0.00500000)
POINT  (0.02500000 0.00500000)

Related topics