Opened 10 months ago

Last modified 9 months ago

#5671 closed defect

Bug in ST_Area function with use_spheroid=false — at Initial Version

Reported by: azakh Owned by: pramsey
Priority: medium Milestone: PostGIS 3.3.7
Component: postgis Version: 3.3.x
Keywords: ST_Area, use_spheroid Cc: azakh

Description

ST_Area fails to calculate the area of the geography polygon with one inner ring, with use_spheroid=false:

SELECT ST_Area(
'POLYGON(
  (
    -111.772 33.307,
    -111.772 33.304,
    -111.783 33.304,
    -111.783 33.307,
    -111.772 33.307
  ),
  (
    -111.781442 33.304825,
    -111.776964 33.3048,
    -111.773047 33.304778,
    -111.773177 33.306408,
    -111.781442 33.304825
  )
)
'::geography, false);

The result is:

ERROR:  lwgeom_area_spher(oid) returned area < 0.0

use_spheroid=true version works and gives 270218.45392724127, but I would expect the on-the-sphere version also to work.

The polygon seems to be correct, though it has almost flat angle at the (-111.776964 33.3048) vertex. Let's call the vertex X.

If X is removed then ST_Area is 270337.25718276866.

If we retain X but make a cyclic shift of the inner ring: AXBCAXBCAX, then the function succeeds but gives 91737.85992092389 which is quite different from the correct value.

Let's give small amends to the X latitude with AXBCA vertex order:
X(-111.776964 (33.3048 + amend)).

  Amend    |        ST_Area
-------------------------------
-1.0e-05   |   269904.2853637372
-1.0e-06   |   270298.26808849035
-1.0e-07   |   270628.6930016738
-1.0e-08   |   269541.18027120724
-1.0e-09   |   315257.7589488026
-1.0e-10   |   ERROR:  lwgeom_area_spher(oid) returned area < 0.0
-1.0e-11   |   262120.12981526955
-1.0e-12   |    41142.8857341336
-1.0e-13   |   144916.06439020386
-1.0e-14   |    41142.8857341336
-1.0e-15   |   ERROR:  lwgeom_area_spher(oid) returned area < 0.0
 1.0e-15   |   ERROR:  lwgeom_area_spher(oid) returned area < 0.0
 1.0e-14   |   159848.6351422007
 1.5e-14   |   113982.3188750676
 5.0e-14   |   243067.1526449226
 7.5e-14   |    95027.49039558775
 1.0e-13   |    41142.8857341336
 5.0e-13   |   159848.59909125822
 7.5e-13   |   320241.96397413884
 1.0e-10   |   131857.65595877985
 2.5e-10   |   185479.48530059034
 1.0e-12   |    91867.01242231275
 2.5e-12   |   165036.9786292576
 5.0e-12   |   204984.361034764
 7.5e-12   |    35520.7773073109
 1.0e-11   |   116531.9857301203
 2.5e-11   |    64257.524312080175
 5.0e-11   |   253059.59064874944
 5.0e-10   |   261657.84858001219
 7.5e-10   |   260622.88009819158
 1.0e-09   |   265687.2263686325
 1.0e-08   |   270029.18385391496
 1.0e-07   |   270240.35224941676
 1.0e-06   |   270325.2882698695
 1.0e-05   |   270771.5448612002

Monotonous area growth is expected but oscillating behaviour alternating with ERRORs is observed.

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