Thanks, Paul! Appreciate these thoughts - and considerations. I'll keep these ideas in mind as I proceed and see where I end up. Definitely trying to keep things simpler than not all things considered... we'll see! Best, Mike
On Thu, Jan 15, 2026 at 1:16 PM Paul Ramsey <[email protected]> wrote: > > > On Jan 15, 2026, at 9:46 AM, Mike Treglia <[email protected]> wrote: > > Is there an obvious or more optimal way to do that > st_union(st_exteriorring(geom)) step for large datasets? > > > Just spitballing… > > Starting with an ST_Subdivide on all the rings, writing out the ring > segments and a unique key into a staging table. > Then do the st_union on a gridded basis. I think that should be safe? > The part I worry about is doing the polygon building, unless you do the > build with overlapping grid cells to select potential input ring segments, > and then post-filter the polygon collection you get to remove any > overlapping/duplicated polygons. My concern is that a very large input > polygon relative to the grid size might fail to be built, if all its > component pieces do not happen to fall into a single grid cell. > At some point you end up building something of the scale and complexity of > the topology module, and maybe you would be able to get some good results > starting there instead. > P. >
