If you want to go the tiling route and want to try that: Create a layer of 
tiles (boxes) at the size you want. Then run the following query:

            CREATE TABLE
               tiled_geo_units as
            SELECT
               ST_Intersection(a.geometry, b.geometry) AS geometry,
               a.*,
               b.*
            FROM
               geo_units as a,
               tiles as b
            WHERE
               ST_Intersects(a.geometry, b.geometry)

Where "geo_units" is the table with your geological units, and "tiles" is the 
table of boxes you created. This will intersect both layers and split the 
polygons at the tile boundaries. You can also add to the WHERE clause if you 
want to filter out just the "large" polygons, otherwise this will tile all your 
polygons. For this ST_NPoints will probably useful.

Arnold

-----Original Message-----
From: postgis-users-boun...@postgis.refractions.net 
[mailto:postgis-users-boun...@postgis.refractions.net] On Behalf Of Peter N. 
Schweitzer
Sent: Thursday, March 03, 2011 13:21
To: pcr...@pcreso.com
Cc: PostGIS Users Discussion
Subject: Re: [postgis-users] A way to split polygons?

On 03/03/2011 04:00 PM, pcr...@pcreso.com wrote:
> It sounds like you are wanting to tile your polygons. Not really ideal, as 
> each polygon is rendered via tiles, so you need to render them without 
> borders to hide the tiles, then often plot the border as well, which still 
> has all the vertices. Lots more work.

Hmmm.  But in my KML, I'm not drawing the boundaries, so perhaps that 
disadvantage doesn't cause trouble in this situation?

> You might look at simplifying your polygons to reduce the number of vertices 
> in each. If you manage your data topologically, this process will work better 
> at retaining shared boundaries.

Mike Toews has suggested ST_Simplify or ST_SimplifyPreserveTopology, but I'm 
unsure of what value to use for the tolerance.  The CRS is geographic, not 
projected.

> If you can use Google to provide vector zoom layers, then as you zoom 
> in you can get less & less simplified versions... just like pyramid'ed 
> rasters. Zoomed out you can't see so don't provide the unnecessary detail.

Use Google?  I don't understand--is there some service they provide which might 
be used for data like these?  Or are you referring to a way to describe the 
data in KML that I'm not familiar with?  Either is plausible--I'm not being 
snarky here!  I'm just writing KML with a PHP script that queries the 
PostgreSQL db, and have used these technologies in only simple ways so far.  So 
when I say "Google" I mean only that the people who use these data typically 
open them with Google Earth, at least, those who experience this problem report 
it so.

Peter
--
Peter N. Schweitzer (MS 954, U.S. Geological Survey, Reston, VA 20192)
(703) 648-6533  FAX: (703) 648-6252  email: pschweit...@usgs.gov 
<http://geology.usgs.gov/peter/> _______________________________________________
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