PostGIS ST_Intersection of Polygons: Why Intersections Can Return Lines

postgis

When clipping the polygons of one table with polygons in another, ST_Intersection can return a set of results that can be handled with ST_Dump. The returned multiple geometries are not necessarily ST_Polygon but also ST_LineString (probably also a point). So when running a query 

INSERT INTO c (geom)
  (SELECT (ST_Dump(ST_Intersection(a.geom,b.geom))).geom
  FROM a INNER JOIN b ON ST_Intersects(a.geom, b.geom));

when trying to populate the table "c" with clipped polygons, it fails with
ERROR: Geometry type (LineString) does not match column type (Polygon)

I did another nested SELECT statement so only the polygon geometries came through, like: 

INSERT INTO c (geom)
  (SELECT geom FROM
    (SELECT (ST_Dump(ST_Intersection(a.geom,b.geom))).geom
    FROM a INNER JOIN b ON ST_Intersects(a.geom, b.geom))) AS cl
    WHERE ST_GeometryType(cl.geom)='ST_Polygon');

As this is a bit cumbersome I am wondering if there is a more elegant solution for dropping invalid geometries?

Best Answer

This might be a good spot to use an SQL-language function. Here's a quick one that should work for this situation: 

CREATE OR REPLACE FUNCTION PolygonalIntersection(a geometry, b geometry)
RETURNS geometry AS $$
SELECT ST_Collect(geom)
FROM 
(SELECT (ST_Dump(ST_Intersection(a, b))).geom 
UNION ALL
-- union in an empty polygon so we get an 
-- empty geometry instead of NULL if there
-- is are no polygons in the intersection
SELECT ST_GeomFromText('POLYGON EMPTY')) SQ
WHERE ST_GeometryType(geom) = 'ST_Polygon';
$$ LANGUAGE SQL;

This will retain the polygonal components of an intersection, but throw away everything else. It always returns a MultiPolygon, even if you have one or no components.

WITH 
      square   as (SELECT ST_GeomFromText('POLYGON ((0 0, 0  1,  1  1,  1  0, 0 0))') AS geom),
biggersquare   as (SELECT ST_GeomFromText('POLYGON ((0 0, 0 10, 10 10, 10  0, 0 0))') AS geom),
adjacentsquare as (SELECT ST_GeomFromText('POLYGON ((0 0, 1  0,  1 -1, -1 -1, 0 0))') AS geom)   

SELECT ST_AsText(PolygonalIntersection(square.geom, biggersquare.geom))
  FROM square, biggersquare;
--"MULTIPOLYGON(((0 0,0 1,1 1,1 0,0 0)))"

SELECT ST_AsText(PolygonalIntersection(square.geom, adjacentsquare.geom))
  FROM square, adjacentsquare;
--"MULTIPOLYGON(EMPTY)"
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