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I am trying to dissolve polygons based on a column type using PostGIS 10.4. I am pre-compiling tables, so time requirements are not really an issue. ST_Union does almost everything that I want straight out of the box. However, the ST_Union is has left lots of artifact lines inside the polygon as seen in the pictures below. Is anyone aware of a way to remove the lines inside the polygons? I am not sure if there is a better way to make the union call or rather to clean the polygons up after the union.

INSERT into new_table (count_field, geom) SELECT count_comp, ST_Union(geom) as geom FROM old_table GROUP BY count_field; enter image description here

punkfacenat
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    I'd say that's most likely due to small gaps between those polygons, i.e. a topology issue. – geozelot Jun 16 '18 at 07:36
  • if this indeed are tiny gaps and holes, it's a little tricky to get them out while preserving those inner rings you want. you could first check your dissolved polygons with ST_NumInteriorRings and see if they have plenty. you can get the outer ring as linestring with ST_ExteriorRing or a set of all rings with ST_DumpRings (use ST_MakePolygon with either to get back polygons). this get's more complicated if any of those rings are invalid. see this excellent blog on the topic. – geozelot Jun 16 '18 at 09:58
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    Possible duplicate of Deleting small gaps (slivers) between polygons? – Andre Silva Jun 17 '18 at 01:49
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    I have seen this a lot and it can be solved by doing a small positive buffer, ST_Buffer(geom, x) before ST_Union and then reverse this after with ST_Buffer(geom, -x). You could also try using ST_SnapToGrid on the input polygons. It is likely to be cause by minor precision issues or small gaps as @ThingumaBob pointed out. – John Powell Jun 17 '18 at 11:07
  • @JohnPowellakaBarça +1 for simplicity ,) – geozelot Jun 17 '18 at 11:55

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After following advice from tThingumaBob and JohnPowellakaBarça, I was able to remove the slivers. ST_NumInteriorRings, ST_ExteriorRing, ST_DumpRings didn't work for me, but ST_Buffer() did.
Just for reference, if anyone else is working at the parcel level scale, the x value that ended up working for me was 0.00001. So my final query was INSERT into new_table (count_field, geom) SELECT count_field, ST_Buffer(ST_Union(ST_Buffer(geom, 0.00001)), -0.00001) as geom FROM old_table GROUP BY count_field;

Thanks for everyone's help

punkfacenat
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Have you tried to st_snap polygon to each other with ST_Snap?

PPH
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