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Spatial Database

Spatial databases are designed to store and manage spatial data, supporting various operations such as spatial queries, geometric manipulation, and spatial analysis. They utilize spatial indexing techniques for efficient data retrieval and can handle large volumes of spatial information, making them essential for applications like GIS and location-based services. The need for spatial databases arises from the limitations of traditional databases in processing spatial queries, which require specialized handling of multi-dimensional coordinate data.

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4 views

Spatial Database

Spatial databases are designed to store and manage spatial data, supporting various operations such as spatial queries, geometric manipulation, and spatial analysis. They utilize spatial indexing techniques for efficient data retrieval and can handle large volumes of spatial information, making them essential for applications like GIS and location-based services. The need for spatial databases arises from the limitations of traditional databases in processing spatial queries, which require specialized handling of multi-dimensional coordinate data.

Uploaded by

Bmt King
Copyright
© © All Rights Reserved
We take content rights seriously. If you suspect this is your content, claim it here.
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Download as PDF, TXT or read online on Scribd
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Spatial Database

Spatial databases are specialized databases designed to store and manage spatial
data, which includes geographic or geometric information associated with objects
in space. These databases are commonly used in GIS (Geographic Information
Systems), location-based services, and various applications involving spatial
analysis.
Characteristics of Spatial Database:
• Spatial Data Types: Support for storing and processing spatial data types
such as points, lines, polygons, and multi-dimensional geometries.
• Spatial Indexing: Utilization of spatial indexing techniques to efficiently
retrieve and query spatial data based on their spatial relationships.
• Geometric Operations: Capabilities for performing geometric operations
such as intersection, union, buffering, and distance calculations on spatial
objects.
• Coordinate Systems: Support for different coordinate systems and
projections to represent spatial data accurately on the Earth's surface.
• Integration with GIS: Integration with GIS software and tools to enable
seamless analysis, visualization, and manipulation of spatial data.
• Scalability: Scalability to handle large volumes of spatial data and support
for distributed computing environments.
There are Several Types of Operations like
• Spatial Query Operations: Querying spatial data based on spatial
relationships (e.g., "find all points within a specified distance of a
given point").
• Geometric Manipulation: Manipulating geometric shapes and
objects (e.g., buffering, intersection, union).
• Spatial Analysis: Performing spatial analysis tasks such as overlay
analysis, proximity analysis, and spatial clustering.
• Topology Operations: Analyzing and manipulating the topological
relationships between spatial objects (e.g., connectivity, containment).
• Network Analysis: Analyzing spatial networks, such as road
networks, for routing, shortest path calculation, and network
optimization.

Need for Spatial Database


Consider a query that lists the name of the top ten customers with the maximum
amount of purchase. This can be very efficiently answered by a DBMS even if
the database has to scan through a very large customer database. On the other
hand, a relatively simple query like " list the name of the customers that reside
within 5 kilometres of the shop" will confuse the database. To process this query,
the database will have to transform the shop address and the customer's address
into a suitable reference system, possibly latitude and longitude, in which
distances can be computed and compared. Then the database will have to scan
through the entire customer list, compute the distance between the shop and the
customer's residence and if the distance is less than 5 kilometres then save the
name of the customer. It will not be able to use an index to narrow down the
search because traditional indices are incapable of ordering multidimensional
coordinate data. A simple query can thus send a DBMS into a hopeless tailspin.
Therefore we need a database tailored for handling spatial data and spatial
queries.
Operations of Spatial Database
Spatial databases, in addition to standard SQL queries such as SELECT
statements, can perform a wide range of spatial operations.
The Open Geospatial Consortium standard specifies the following operations,
among many others:
• Spatial Measurements: Computes line length, polygon area, the
distance between geometries, etc.
• Spatial Functions: Modify existing features to create new ones, for
example, by providing a buffer around them, intersecting features, etc.
• Spatial Predicates: Allows true/false queries about spatial
relationships between geometries.
• Geometry Constructors: Creates new geometries, usually by
specifying the vertices (points or nodes) which define the shape.
• Observer Functions: Queries that return specific information about a
feature, such as the location of the centre of a circle.
Spatial Data Types
Spatial data comes in a variety of shapes and sizes. Most databases support points,
lines, and polygons, but some support a much broader range of spatial data types.
Some databases adhere to the Open Geospatial Consortium's standards.
Spatial Index
A spatial index is a type of extended index that indexes a spatial column. A spatial
column is a table column that contains spatial data such as geometry or
geography.
Spatial indices are used to optimise spatial queries by spatial databases (databases
that store information about objects in space). Traditional index types do not
handle spatial queries efficiently, such as how far two points differ or whether
points fall within a spatial area of interest.
Some popular spatial index methods are:
• Binary space partitioning (BSP-Tree)
• Boundary volume hierarchy
• Grid
• HHCode
• Octree
• PH-tree
• Quadtree
• Geohash
• R+ tree
Spatial Queries
A spatial query is a type of database query that is supported by spatial databases,
including geodatabases.
The spatial queries are mainly of three types:
• Nearness queries
• This type of query is used to find when something is to be found near
some geographic location.
• Region queries
• It deals with spatial regions. It is used to query objects within some
geographical boundary.
• Union/Intersection
• This type of query is used to fetch the intersection and union of
regions.

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