ERROR: GEOSIntersects: TopologyException: side location conflict

Question

I have PostgreSQL 9.2.4. Here is the table I am using to find out some geometrical intersection result:

             Column              |           Type           | Modifiers 
---------------------------------+--------------------------+-----------
 id                              | integer                  | 
 full_resolution                 | character varying(2000)  | 
 full_resolution_path            | character varying(256)   | 
 feature_id                      | text                     | 
 full_resolution_initiated_order | character varying(64)    | 
 true_image_feature_footprint_id | integer                  | 
 true_image_tile_footprint_id    | integer                  | 
 full_resolution_time_created    | timestamp with time zone | 
 feature_geom                    | geometry                 | 
 tile_geom                       | geometry                 | 

Now the query:

create Temp table temp4_test as
select id, ST_Intersects(feature_geom,tile_geom),full_resolution
     , full_resolution_path, feature_id, full_resolution_initiated_order
     , true_image_feature_footprint_id, true_image_tile_footprint_id
     , full_resolution_time_created
from temp3_test;

is giving me this error:

ERROR: GEOSIntersects: TopologyException: side location conflict at -122.42466 47.085999999999999

Can anyone point me what I am doing wrong here?

Answer 1

I found an answer by "Martin Davis" in this thread:

This occurs because the geometries are invalid, and the current intersects algorithm used in JTS/GEOS has kittens when invalid geometries are used as input. The core dump thing is unfortunate (and obviously got fixed in later versions).

Obviously, the same invalid data caused a core dump in PostGis v1.5, but raises an exception in v2.0

Answer 2

This can also be the result of trying to run

SELECT ST_Intersection(a.geom, b.geom)     
FROM table a, table b
WHERE ST_Intersects(a.geom, b.geom) ;

if there are combination of various geometry types, particularly points and linestrings. By running ST_MakeValid(geom) on all geometries and then excluding all but MultiPolygons and Polygons from the query, the problem goes away. In other words, ST_Isvalid(geom)='t' is not necessarily a sufficient condition to avoid this error.