A spatial database is a database that is optimized to store and query data related to objects in space, including points, lines and polygons. While typical databases can understand various numeric and character types of data, additional functionality needs to be added for databases to process spatial data types.... s (databases which store information related to objects in space) to optimize spatial queries
Spatial query
A spatial query is a special type of database query supported by geodatabases. The queries differ from SQL queries in several important ways. Two of the most important are that they allow for the use of geometry data types such as points, lines and polygons and that these queries consider the spatial relationship between these geometries.... . Indexes used by non-spatial databases cannot effectively handle features such as how far two points differ and whether points fall within a spatial area of interest. Common spatial index methods include:
A spatial database is a database that is optimized to store and query data related to objects in space, including points, lines and polygons. While typical databases can understand various numeric and character types of data, additional functionality needs to be added for databases to process spatial data types.... s (databases which store information related to objects in space) to optimize spatial queries
Spatial query
A spatial query is a special type of database query supported by geodatabases. The queries differ from SQL queries in several important ways. Two of the most important are that they allow for the use of geometry data types such as points, lines and polygons and that these queries consider the spatial relationship between these geometries.... . Indexes used by non-spatial databases cannot effectively handle features such as how far two points differ and whether points fall within a spatial area of interest. Common spatial index methods include:
In the context of a spatial index, a grid is a regular tessellation of a manifold or 2-D surface that divides it into a series of contiguous cells, which can then be assigned unique identifiers and used for spatial indexing purposes....
Z-order, or Morton-order, first proposed in 1966 by G. M. Morton, is a space-filling curve which is often used in computer science: Due to its good locality-preserving behaviour it is used in data structures for mapping multidimensional data to one dimension....
A quadtree is a tree data structure in which each internal node has up to four children. Quadtrees are most often used to partition a two dimensional space by recursively subdividing it into four quadrants or regions....
An octree is a tree data structure in which each internal node has up to eight children. Octrees are most often used to partition a three dimensional space by recursively subdividing it into eight octants....
The UB-tree as proposed by Rudolf Bayer and Volker Markl is a balanced tree for storing and efficiently retrieving multidimensional data. It is basically a B+ tree with records stored according to Z-order , also called Morton order....
R-trees are tree data structures that are similar to B-trees, but are used for spatial indexs i.e., for indexing multi-dimensional information; for example, the coordinates of geographical data.... : Typically the preferred method for indexing spatial data. Objects (shapes, lines and points) are grouped using the minimum bounding rectangle
Minimum bounding rectangle
The minimum bounding rectangle , also known as bounding box or envelope, is an expression of the maximum extents of a 2-dimensional object within its 2-D coordinate system, in other words min, max, min, max.... (MBR). Objects are added to an MBR within the index that will lead to the smallest increase in its size.
In computer science, a kd-tree is a space partitioning data structure for organizing Point s in a k-dimensional Euclidean space. kd-trees are a useful data structure for several applications, such as searches involving a multidimensional search key ....