Retrieving Spatial Data from a Table as Well-Known Text (WKT)
GEOMETRY and GEOGRAPHY data is stored in Vertica tables as LONG VARBINARY, which isn't human readable. You can use ST_AsText to return the spatial data as Well-Known Text (WKT).
To return spatial data as WKT:
=> SELECT id, ST_AsText(geom) AS WKT FROM spatial_data; id | WKT ----+---------------------------------- 1 | POINT (2 3) 2 | LINESTRING (-1 2, 1 5) 3 | POLYGON ((-1 2, 0 3, 1 2, -1 2)) (3 rows)