Temporal, Spatial and Multimedia

Databases

Database System Concepts, 6th Ed.

©Silberschatz, Korth and Sudarshan
See www.db-book.com for conditions on re-use
 Chapter 25: Advanced Data Types and New
Applications

 Temporal Data
 Spatial and Geographic Databases
 Multimedia Databases
 Mobility and Personal Databases

Database System Concepts - 6th Edition 25.2 ©Silberschatz, Korth and Sudarshan
 Time In Databases
 While most databases tend to model reality at a point in time
(at the “current” time), temporal databases model the states
of the real world across time.
 Facts in temporal relations have associated times when they
are valid, which can be represented as a union of intervals.
 The valid time for a fact is the set of time intervals during
which the fact is true in the real world.
 The transaction time for a fact is the time interval during
which the fact is current within the database system. Closed
at lower end and ,a be open at other end.. Like current salary
 In a temporal relation, each tuple has an associated time
when it is true; the time may be either valid time or
transaction time.
 A bi-temporal relation stores both valid and transaction time
 .Ex: Insurance systems, Vaccination details,

Database System Concepts - 6th Edition 25.3 ©Silberschatz, Korth and Sudarshan
 Time In Databases (Cont.)
 Example of a temporal relation:

 Temporal query languages have been proposed to

simplify modeling of time as well as time related
queries.

Database System Concepts - 6th Edition 25.4 ©Silberschatz, Korth and Sudarshan
 Temporal Query Languages
 Predicates precedes, overlaps, and contains on time
intervals.
 Intersect can be applied on two intervals, to give a single
(possibly empty) interval; the union of two intervals may
or may not be a single interval.
 A snapshot of a temporal relation at time t consists of the
tuples that are valid at time t, with the time-interval
attributes projected out.
 Temporal selection: involves time attributes
 Temporal projection: the tuples in the projection inherit
their time-intervals from the tuples in the original relation.
 Temporal join: the time-interval of a tuple in the result is
the intersection of the time-intervals of the tuples from
which it is derived. It intersection is empty, tuple is
discarded from join.

Database System Concepts - 6th Edition 25.5 ©Silberschatz, Korth and Sudarshan
Database System Concepts - 6th Edition 25.6 ©Silberschatz, Korth and Sudarshan
 Temporal Query Languages (Cont.)
 Functional dependencies must be used with care:
adding a time field may invalidate functional
dependency 
 A temporal functional dependency x  Y holds on a
relation schema R if, for all legal instances r of R, all
snapshots of r satisfy the functional dependency X Y.
 SQL:1999 Part 7 (SQL/Temporal) is a proposed extension
to SQL:1999 to improve support of temporal data.

Database System Concepts - 6th Edition 25.7 ©Silberschatz, Korth and Sudarshan
Spatial and Geographic
Databases

Database System Concepts, 6th Ed.

©Silberschatz, Korth and Sudarshan
See www.db-book.com for conditions on re-use
 Spatial and Geographic Databases
 Spatial databases store information related to spatial
locations, and support efficient storage, indexing and
querying of spatial data.
 Special purpose index structures are important for
accessing spatial data, and for processing spatial join
queries.
 Computer Aided Design (CAD) databases store design
information about how objects are constructed E.g.:
designs of buildings, aircraft, layouts of integrated-circuits
 Geographic databases store geographic information (e.g.,
maps): often called geographic information systems or
GIS.

Database System Concepts - 6th Edition 25.9 ©Silberschatz, Korth and Sudarshan
 Represented of Geometric Information
 Various geometric constructs can be represented in a database
in a normalized fashion.
 Represent a line segment by the coordinates of its endpoints.
 Approximate a curve by partitioning it into a sequence of
segments
 Create a list of vertices in order, or
 Represent each segment as a separate tuple that also
carries with it the identifier of the curve (2D features such
as roads).
 Closed polygons
 List of vertices in order, starting vertex is the same as the
ending vertex, or
 Represent boundary edges as separate tuples, with each
containing identifier of the polygon, or
 Use triangulation — divide polygon into triangles
 Note the polygon identifier with each of its triangles.

Database System Concepts - 6th Edition 25.10 ©Silberschatz, Korth and Sudarshan
 Representation of Geometric
Constructs

Database System Concepts - 6th Edition 25.11 ©Silberschatz, Korth and Sudarshan
 Representation of Geometric Information
(Cont.)

 Representation of points and line segment in 3-D similar to

2-D, except that points have an extra z component
 Represent arbitrary polyhedra by dividing them into
tetrahedrons, like triangulating polygons.
 Alternative: List their faces, each of which is a polygon,
along with an indication of which side of the face is inside
the polyhedron.

Database System Concepts - 6th Edition 25.12 ©Silberschatz, Korth and Sudarshan
 Design Databases
 Represent design components as objects (generally
geometric objects); the connections between the
objects indicate how the design is structured.
 Simple two-dimensional objects: points, lines,
triangles, rectangles, polygons.
 Complex two-dimensional objects: formed from simple
objects via union, intersection, and difference
operations.
 Complex three-dimensional objects: formed from
simpler objects such as spheres, cylinders, and
cuboids, by union, intersection, and difference
operations.
 Wireframe models represent three-dimensional
surfaces as a set of simpler objects.

Database System Concepts - 6th Edition 25.13 ©Silberschatz, Korth and Sudarshan
 Representation of Geometric
Constructs

 Design databases also store non-spatial information about

objects (e.g., construction material, color, etc.)
 Spatial integrity constraints are important.
 E.g., pipes should not intersect, wires should not be too
close to each other, etc.

Database System Concepts - 6th Edition 25.14 ©Silberschatz, Korth and Sudarshan
 Geographic Data

 Raster data consist of bit maps or pixel maps, in two

or more dimensions.
 Example 2-D raster image: satellite image of cloud
cover, where each pixel stores the cloud visibility
in a particular area.
 Additional dimensions might include the
temperature at different altitudes at different
regions, or measurements taken at different points
in time.
 Design databases generally do not store raster data.

Database System Concepts - 6th Edition 25.15 ©Silberschatz, Korth and Sudarshan
 Geographic Data (Cont.)
 Vector data are constructed from basic geometric
objects: points, line segments, triangles, and other
polygons in two dimensions, and cylinders, spheres,
cuboids, and other polyhedrons in three dimensions.
 Vector format often used to represent map data.
 Roads can be considered as two-dimensional and
represented by lines and curves.
 Some features, such as rivers, may be represented
either as complex curves or as complex polygons,
depending on whether their width is relevant.
 Features such as regions and lakes can be depicted
as polygons.

Database System Concepts - 6th Edition 25.16 ©Silberschatz, Korth and Sudarshan
 Applications of Geographic Data
 Examples of geographic data
 map data for vehicle navigation
 distribution network information for power,
telephones, water supply, and sewage
 Vehicle navigation systems store information about
roads and services for the use of drivers:
 Spatial data: e.g., road/restaurant/gas-station
coordinates
 Non-spatial data: e.g., one-way streets, speed limits,
traffic congestion
 Global Positioning System (GPS) unit - utilizes
information broadcast from GPS satellites to find the
current location of user with an accuracy of tens of
meters.
 increasingly used in vehicle navigation systems as
well as utility maintenance applications.

Database System Concepts - 6th Edition 25.17 ©Silberschatz, Korth and Sudarshan
 Spatial Queries
 Nearness queries request objects that lie near a
specified location.
 Nearest neighbor queries, given a point or an object,
find the nearest object that satisfies given conditions.
 Region queries deal with spatial regions. e.g., ask for
objects that lie partially or fully inside a specified
region.
 Queries that compute intersections or unions of
regions.
 Spatial join of two spatial relations with the location
playing the role of join attribute.

Database System Concepts - 6th Edition 25.18 ©Silberschatz, Korth and Sudarshan
 Spatial Queries (Cont.)
 Spatial data is typically queried using a graphical
query language; results are also displayed in a
graphical manner.
 Graphical interface constitutes the front-end
 Extensions of SQL with abstract data types, such as
lines, polygons and bit maps, have been proposed to
interface with back-end.
 allows relational databases to store and retrieve
spatial information
 Queries can use spatial conditions (e.g., contains
or overlaps).
 queries can mix spatial and nonspatial conditions

Database System Concepts - 6th Edition 25.19 ©Silberschatz, Korth and Sudarshan
 Indexing of Spatial Data

 k-d tree - early structure used for indexing in multiple

dimensions.
 Quad trees
 R Trees

Database System Concepts - 6th Edition 25.20 ©Silberschatz, Korth and Sudarshan
Multimedia Databases

Database System Concepts, 6th Ed.

©Silberschatz, Korth and Sudarshan
See www.db-book.com for conditions on re-use
 Multimedia Databases

 To provide such database functions as indexing and

consistency, it is desirable to store multimedia data in
a database
 rather than storing them outside the database, in a
file system
 The database must handle large object representation.
 Similarity-based retrieval must be provided by special
index structures.
 Must provide guaranteed steady retrieval rates for
continuous-media data.

Database System Concepts - 6th Edition 25.22 ©Silberschatz, Korth and Sudarshan
 Multimedia Data Formats
 Store and transmit multimedia data in compressed form
 JPEG and GIF the most widely used formats for
image data.
 MPEG standard for video data use commonalties
among a sequence of frames to achieve a greater
degree of compression.
 MPEG-1 quality comparable to VHS video tape.
 stores a minute of 30-frame-per-second video and
audio in approximately 12.5 MB
 MPEG-2 designed for digital broadcast systems and
digital video disks; negligible loss of video quality.
 Compresses 1 minute of audio-video to
approximately 17 MB.
 Several alternatives of audio encoding
 MPEG-1 Layer 3 (MP3), RealAudio, WindowsMedia
format, etc.

Database System Concepts - 6th Edition 25.23 ©Silberschatz, Korth and Sudarshan
 Continuous-Media Data
 Most important types are video and audio data.
 Characterized by high data volumes and real-time
information-delivery requirements.
 Data must be delivered sufficiently fast that there are
no gaps in the audio or video.
 Data must be delivered at a rate that does not cause
overflow of system buffers.
 Synchronization among distinct data streams must be
maintained
 Video of a person speaking must show lips moving
synchronously with the audio

Database System Concepts - 6th Edition 25.24 ©Silberschatz, Korth and Sudarshan
 Video Servers
 Video-on-demand systems deliver video from central
video servers, across a network, to terminals
 Must guarantee end-to-end delivery rates
 Current video-on-demand servers are based on file
systems; existing database systems do not meet real-
time response requirements.
 Multimedia data are stored on several disks (RAID
configuration), or on tertiary storage for less frequently
accessed data.
 Head-end terminals - used to view multimedia data
 PCs or TVs attached to a small, inexpensive computer
called a set-top box.

Database System Concepts - 6th Edition 25.25 ©Silberschatz, Korth and Sudarshan
 Similarity-Based Retrieval
Examples of similarity based retrieval
 Pictorial data: Two pictures or images that are slightly
different as represented in the database may be
considered the same by a user.
 E.g., identify similar designs for registering a new
trademark.
 Audio data: Speech-based user interfaces allow the user
to give a command or identify a data item by speaking.
 E.g., test user input against stored commands.
 Handwritten data: Identify a handwritten data item or
command stored in the database

Database System Concepts - 6th Edition 25.26 ©Silberschatz, Korth and Sudarshan