A spatial database is a general-purpose

database In computing, a database is an organized collection of data stored and accessed electronically. Small databases can be stored on a file system, while large databases are hosted on computer clusters or cloud storage. The design of databases sp ...

(usually a

relational database A relational database is a (most commonly digital) database based on the relational model of data, as proposed by E. F. Codd in 1970. A system used to maintain relational databases is a relational database management system (RDBMS). Many relatio ...

) that has been enhanced to include

spatial data Geographic data and information is defined in the ISO/TC 211 series of standards as data and information having an implicit or explicit association with a location relative to Earth (a geographic location or geographic position). It is also call ...

that represents objects defined in a

geometric space Geometry (; ) is, with arithmetic, one of the oldest branches of mathematics. It is concerned with properties of space such as the distance, shape, size, and relative position of figures. A mathematician who works in the field of geometry is ca ...

, along with tools for querying and analyzing such data. Most spatial databases allow the representation of simple geometric objects such as points,

lines Line most often refers to: * Line (geometry), object with zero thickness and curvature that stretches to infinity * Telephone line, a single-user circuit on a telephone communication system Line, lines, The Line, or LINE may also refer to: Arts ...

and

polygon In geometry, a polygon () is a plane figure that is described by a finite number of straight line segments connected to form a closed ''polygonal chain'' (or ''polygonal circuit''). The bounded plane region, the bounding circuit, or the two toge ...

s. Some spatial databases handle more complex structures such as 3D objects, topological coverages, linear networks, and

triangulated irregular network In computer graphics, a triangulated irregular network (TIN) is a representation of a continuous surface consisting entirely of triangular facets (a triangle mesh), used mainly as Discrete Global Grid in primary elevation modeling. The vertic ...

s (TINs). While typical databases have developed to manage various numeric and character types of data, such databases require additional functionality to process spatial data types efficiently, and developers have often added ''geometry'' or ''feature'' data types. The

Open Geospatial Consortium The Open Geospatial Consortium (OGC), an international voluntary consensus standards organization for geospatial content and location-based services, sensor web and Internet of Things, GIS data processing and data sharing. It originated in 1994 ...

(OGC) developed the

Simple Features Simple Features (officially Simple Feature Access) is a set of standards that specify a common storage and access model of geographic feature made of mostly two-dimensional geometries (point, line, polygon, multi-point, multi-line, etc.) used by g ...

specification (first released in 1997) and sets standards for adding spatial functionality to database systems. The '' SQL/MM Spatial'' ISO/IEC standard is a part the SQL/MM multimedia standard and extends the Simple Features standard with data types that support circular interpolations.

Geodatabase

A geodatabase (also geographical database and geospatial database) is a

geographic data Geographic data and information is defined in the ISO/TC 211 series of standards as data and information having an implicit or explicit association with a location relative to Earth (a geographic location or geographic position). It is also call ...

, such as

countries A country is a distinct part of the world, such as a state (polity), state, nation, or other polity, political entity. It may be a sovereign state or make up one part of a larger state. For example, the country of Japan is an independent, so ...

administrative divisions Administrative division, administrative unit,Article 3(1). country subdivision, administrative region, subnational entity, constituent state, as well as many similar terms, are generic names for geographical areas into which a particular, ind ...

cities A city is a human settlement of notable size.Goodall, B. (1987) ''The Penguin Dictionary of Human Geography''. London: Penguin.Kuper, A. and Kuper, J., eds (1996) ''The Social Science Encyclopedia''. 2nd edition. London: Routledge. It can be def ...

, and related information. Such databases can be useful for websites that wish to identify the locations of their visitors for customization purposes.

Characteristics

Database systems use indexes to quickly look up values; however, this way of indexing data is not optimal for spatial queries. Instead, spatial databases use a spatial index to speed up database operations. In addition to typical SQL queries such as SELECT statements, spatial databases can perform a wide variety of spatial operations. The following operations and many more are specified by the

standard: *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. Examples include "do two polygons overlap" or 'is there a residence located within a mile of the area we are planning to build the landfill?' (see

DE-9IM The Dimensionally Extended 9-Intersection Model (DE-9IM) is a topological model and a standard used to describe the spatial relations of two regions (two geometries in two-dimensions, R2), in geometry, point-set topology, geospatial topology, ...

) *Geometry Constructors: Creates new geometries, usually by specifying the vertices (points or nodes) which define the shape. *Observer Functions: Queries which return specific information about a feature such as the location of the center of a circle. Some databases support only simplified or modified sets of these operations, especially in cases of

NoSQL A NoSQL (originally referring to "non- SQL" or "non-relational") database provides a mechanism for storage and retrieval of data that is modeled in means other than the tabular relations used in relational databases. Such databases have existed ...

systems like

MongoDB MongoDB is a source-available cross-platform document-oriented database program. Classified as a NoSQL database program, MongoDB uses JSON-like documents with optional schemas. MongoDB is developed by MongoDB Inc. and licensed under the Serve ...

and

CouchDB Apache CouchDB is an open-source document-oriented NoSQL database, implemented in Erlang. CouchDB uses multiple formats and protocols to store, transfer, and process its data. It uses JSON to store data, JavaScript as its query language using M ...

Spatial index

Spatial indices are used by spatial databases (databases which store information related to objects in space) to optimize spatial queries. Conventional index types do not efficiently handle spatial queries such as how far two points differ, or whether points fall within a spatial area of interest. Common spatial index methods include: *

Binary space partitioning In computer science, binary space partitioning (BSP) is a method for space partitioning which recursively subdivides a Euclidean space into two convex sets by using hyperplanes as partitions. This process of subdividing gives rise to a represent ...

(BSP-Tree): Subdividing space by hyperplanes. *

Bounding volume hierarchy A bounding volume hierarchy (BVH) is a tree structure on a set of geometric objects. All geometric objects, that form the leaf nodes of the tree, are wrapped in bounding volumes. These nodes are then grouped as small sets and enclosed within la ...

(BVH) *

Geohash Geohash is a public domain geocode system invented in 2008 by Gustavo NiemeyerEvidences at the Wayback Machine: labix.org in 2008, the G. Niemeyer's blog announcing Geohash *an article about Geohash witnessing and citing G. Niemeyer works, before ...

Grid (spatial index) In the context of a spatial index, a grid or mesh 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. A ...

HHCode {{refimprove, date=October 2018 A Helical Hyperspatial Code, also known as an HHCode, is a data storage format for very large spatio-temporal datasets. The development of HHCode can be traced to efforts by scientists working for the Canadian Hydr ...

Hilbert R-tree Hilbert R-tree, an R-tree variant, is an index for multidimensional objects such as lines, regions, 3-D objects, or high-dimensional feature-based parametric objects. It can be thought of as an extension to B+-tree for multidimensional objects. Th ...

kd-tree In computer science, a ''k''-d tree (short for ''k-dimensional tree'') is a space-partitioning data structure for organizing points in a ''k''-dimensional space. ''k''-d trees are a useful data structure for several applications, such as search ...

* m-tree – an m-tree index can be used for the efficient resolution of similarity queries on complex objects as compared using an arbitrary metric. *

Octree An octree is a tree data structure in which each internal node has exactly eight children. Octrees are most often used to partition a three-dimensional space by recursively subdividing it into eight octants. Octrees are the three-dimensional ana ...

PH-tree The PH-tree is a tree data structure used for spatial indexing of multi-dimensional data (keys) such as geographical coordinates, points, feature vectors, rectangles or bounding boxes. The PH-tree is space partitioning index with a structur ...

Quadtree A quadtree is a tree data structure in which each internal node has exactly four children. Quadtrees are the two-dimensional analog of octrees and are most often used to partition a two-dimensional space by recursively subdividing it into four q ...

R-tree R-trees are tree data structures used for spatial access methods, i.e., for indexing multi-dimensional information such as geographical coordinates, rectangles or polygons. The R-tree was proposed by Antonin Guttman in 1984 and has found sign ...

: Typically the preferred method for indexing spatial data. Objects (shapes, lines and points) are grouped using the

minimum bounding rectangle In computational geometry, the minimum bounding rectangle (MBR), also known as bounding box (BBOX) or envelope, is an expression of the maximum extents of a two-dimensional object (e.g. point, line, polygon) or set of objects within its coordin ...

(MBR). Objects are added to an MBR within the index that will lead to the smallest increase in its size. *

R+ tree R-trees are tree data structures used for spatial access methods, i.e., for indexing multi-dimensional information such as geographical coordinates, rectangles or polygons. The R-tree was proposed by Antonin Guttman in 1984 and has found sig ...

* R* tree *

UB-tree 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 (information only in the leaves) with records stored according to Z-order Z-orde ...

X-tree In computer science tree data structures, an X-tree (for ''eXtended node tree'') is an index tree structure based on the R-tree used for storing data in many dimensions. It appeared in 1996, and differs from R-trees (1984), R+-trees (1987) an ...

Z-order (curve) In mathematical analysis and computer science, functions which are Z-order, Lebesgue curve, Morton space-filling curve, Morton order or Morton code map multidimensional data to one dimension while preserving locality of the data points. It i ...

Spatial query

A spatial query is a special type of

database query In computing, a database is an organized collection of Data (computing), data stored and accessed electronically. Small databases can be stored on a file system, while large databases are hosted on computer clusters or cloud storage. The Databas ...

supported by spatial databases, including geodatabases. The queries differ from non-spatial 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. The function names for queries differ across geodatabases. The following list contains commonly used functions built into

PostGIS PostGIS ( ) is an open source software program that adds support for geographic objects to the PostgreSQL object-relational database. PostGIS follows the Simple Features for SQL specification from the Open Geospatial Consortium (OGC). Technicall ...

, a free geodatabase which is a PostgreSQL extension (the term 'geometry' refers to a point, line, box or other two or three dimensional shape): Function prototype: ''functionName (parameter(s)) : return type '' *Distance(geometry, geometry) : number *Equals(geometry, geometry) : boolean *Disjoint(geometry, geometry) : boolean *Intersects(geometry, geometry) : boolean *Touches(geometry, geometry) : boolean *Crosses(geometry, geometry) : boolean *Overlaps(geometry, geometry) : boolean *Contains(geometry, geometry) : boolean *Length(geometry) : number *Area(geometry) : number *

Centroid In mathematics and physics, the centroid, also known as geometric center or center of figure, of a plane figure or solid figure is the arithmetic mean position of all the points in the surface of the figure. The same definition extends to any ob ...

(geometry) : geometry

Spatial database management systems

List

* AllegroGraph – a

graph database A graph database (GDB) is a database that uses graph structures for semantic queries with nodes, edges, and properties to represent and store data. A key concept of the system is the ''graph'' (or ''edge'' or ''relationship''). The graph relat ...

which provides a mechanism for efficient storage and retrieval of two-dimensional geospatial coordinates for

Resource Description Framework The Resource Description Framework (RDF) is a World Wide Web Consortium (W3C) standard originally designed as a data model for metadata. It has come to be used as a general method for description and exchange of graph data. RDF provides a variety of ...

data. It includes an extension syntax for

SPARQL SPARQL (pronounced "sparkle" , a recursive acronym for SPARQL Protocol and RDF Query Language) is an RDF query language—that is, a semantic query language for databases—able to retrieve and manipulate data stored in Resource Description F ...

queries. *

ArangoDB ArangoDB is a free and open-source native graph database system developed by ArangoDB Inc. ArangoDB is a multi-model database system since it supports three data models (graphs, JSON documents, key/value) with one database core and a unified q ...

- a multi-model database which provides geoindexing capability. *

Apache Drill Apache Drill is an open-source software framework that supports data-intensive distributed applications for interactive analysis of large-scale datasets. Built chiefly by contributions from developers from MapR, Drill is inspired by Google's D ...

- A MPP SQL query engine for querying large datasets. Drill supports spatial data types and functions similar to PostgreSQL. *

Caliper A caliper (British spelling also calliper, or in plurale tantum sense a pair of calipers) is a device used to measure the dimensions of an object. Many types of calipers permit reading out a measurement on a ruled scale, a dial, or a digital dis ...

extends the

Raima Raima is a multinational technology company headquartered in Seattle, USA. The company was founded in 1982. Raima develops, sells and supports in-memory and disk-based Relational Database Management Systems that can either be embedded within the a ...

Data Manager with spatial datatypes, functions, and utilities. *

a document-based database system that can be spatially enabled by a plugin called Geocouch *

Elasticsearch Elasticsearch is a search engine based on the Lucene library. It provides a distributed, multitenant-capable full-text search engine with an HTTP web interface and schema-free JSON documents. Elasticsearch is developed in Java and is dual-l ...

is a document-based database system that supports two types of geo data: geo_point fields which support lat/lon pairs, and geo_shape fields, which support points, lines, circles, polygons, multi-polygons, etc. *

GeoMesa GeoMesa is an open-source, distributed, spatio-temporal index built on top of Bigtable-style databases using an implementation of the Geohash algorithm. Description Written in Scala, GeoMesa is capable of ingesting, indexing, and querying bill ...

is a cloud-based spatio-temporal database built on top of

Apache Accumulo Apache Accumulo is a highly scalable sorted, distributed key-value store based on Google's Bigtable. It is a system built on top of Apache Hadoop, Apache ZooKeeper, and Apache Thrift. Written in Java, Accumulo has cell-level access labels and ...

and

Apache Hadoop Apache Hadoop () is a collection of open-source software utilities that facilitates using a network of many computers to solve problems involving massive amounts of data and computation. It provides a software framework for distributed storage ...

(also supports

Apache HBase HBase is an open-source non-relational distributed database modeled after Google's Bigtable and written in Java. It is developed as part of Apache Software Foundation's Apache Hadoop project and runs on top of HDFS (Hadoop Distributed File Syst ...

Google Google LLC () is an American multinational technology company focusing on search engine technology, online advertising, cloud computing, computer software, quantum computing, e-commerce, artificial intelligence, and consumer electronics. ...

Bigtable Bigtable is a fully managed wide-column and key-value NoSQL database service for large analytical and operational workloads as part of the Google Cloud portfolio. History Bigtable development began in 2004.. It is now used by a number of Googl ...

Apache Cassandra Cassandra is a free and open-source, distributed, wide-column store, NoSQL database management system designed to handle large amounts of data across many commodity servers, providing high availability with no single point of failure. Cassandr ...

, and

Apache Kafka Apache Kafka is a distributed event store and stream-processing platform. It is an open-source system developed by the Apache Software Foundation written in Java and Scala. The project aims to provide a unified, high-throughput, low-latency plat ...

). GeoMesa supports full OGC

and a GeoServer plugin. * H2 supports geometry types and spatial indices as of version 1.3.173 (2013-07-28). An extension called H2GIS available on Maven Central gives full OGC

support. * Any edition of

IBM Db2 Db2 is a family of data management products, including database servers, developed by IBM. It initially supported the relational model, but was extended to support object–relational features and non-relational structures like JSON a ...

can be spatially-enabled to implement the OpenGIS spatial functionality with SQL spatial types and functions. *

IBM Informix IBM Informix is a product family within IBM's Information Management division that is centered on several relational database management system (RDBMS) offerings. The Informix products were originally developed by Informix Corporation, whose I ...

Geodetic and Spatial datablade extensions auto-install on use and expand Informix's datatypes to include multiple standard coordinate systems and support for RTree indexes. Geodetic and Spatial data can also be incorporated with Informix's Timeseries data support for tracking objects in motion over time. * Linter SQL Server supports spatial types and spatial functions according to the OpenGIS specifications. *

Microsoft SQL Server Microsoft SQL Server is a relational database management system developed by Microsoft. As a database server, it is a software product with the primary function of storing and retrieving data as requested by other software applications—which ma ...

has support for spatial types since version 2008 * MonetDB/GIS extension for

MonetDB MonetDB is an open-source column-oriented relational database management system (RDBMS) originally developed at the Centrum Wiskunde & Informatica (CWI) in the Netherlands. It is designed to provide high performance on complex queries against lar ...

adds OGS Simple Features to the relational column-store database. *

MySQL MySQL () is an open-source relational database management system (RDBMS). Its name is a combination of "My", the name of co-founder Michael Widenius's daughter My, and "SQL", the acronym for Structured Query Language. A relational database o ...

DBMS implements the datatype ''geometry'', plus some spatial functions implemented according to the OpenGIS specifications. However, in MySQL version 5.5 and earlier, functions that test spatial relationships are limited to working with minimum bounding rectangles rather than the actual geometries. MySQL versions earlier than 5.0.16 only supported spatial data in MyISAM tables. As of MySQL 5.0.16, InnoDB, NDB, BDB, and ARCHIVE also support spatial features. *

Neo4j Neo4j is a graph database management system developed by Neo4j, Inc. Described by its developers as an ACID-compliant transactional database with native graph storage and processing, Neo4j is available in a non-open-source "community edition" ...

– a

that can build 1D and 2D indexes as

B-tree In computer science, a B-tree is a self-balancing tree data structure that maintains sorted data and allows searches, sequential access, insertions, and deletions in logarithmic time. The B-tree generalizes the binary search tree, allowing for n ...

and

Hilbert curve The Hilbert curve (also known as the Hilbert space-filling curve) is a continuous fractal space-filling curve first described by the German mathematician David Hilbert in 1891, as a variant of the space-filling Peano curves discovered by Giuseppe ...

directly in the

graph Graph may refer to: Mathematics *Graph (discrete mathematics), a structure made of vertices and edges **Graph theory, the study of such graphs and their properties *Graph (topology), a topological space resembling a graph in the sense of discre ...

* OpenLink Virtuoso has supported SQL/MM since version 6.01.3126, with significant enhancements including

GeoSPARQL GeoSPARQL is a standard for representation and querying of geospatial linked data for the Semantic Web from the Open Geospatial Consortium (OGC). The definition of a small ontology based on well-understood OGC standards is intended to provide a st ...

in Open Source Edition 7.2.6, and in Enterprise Edition 8.2.0 *

Oracle Spatial Oracle Spatial and Graph, formerly Oracle Spatial, is a free option component of the Oracle Database. The spatial features in Oracle Spatial and Graph aid users in managing geographic and location-data in a native type within an Oracle database, po ...

PostgreSQL PostgreSQL (, ), also known as Postgres, is a free and open-source relational database management system (RDBMS) emphasizing extensibility and SQL compliance. It was originally named POSTGRES, referring to its origins as a successor to the In ...

DBMS (database management system) uses the extension

to implement OGC-compliant spatial functionality, including standardized datatype ''geometry'' and corresponding functions. *

Redis Redis (; Remote Dictionary Server) is an in-memory data structure store, used as a distributed, in-memory key–value database, cache and message broker, with optional durability. Redis supports different kinds of abstract data structures, su ...

with the Geo API. * RethinkDB supports geospatial indexes in 2D. *

SAP HANA SAP HANA (HochleistungsANalyseAnwendung or High-performance ANalytic Application) is an in-memory, column-oriented, relational database management system developed and marketed by SAP SE. Its primary function as the software running a databas ...

supports geospatial with SPS08. *

Smallworld Smallworld is the brand name of a portfolio of GIS software provided by GE Digital, a division of General Electric. The software was originally created by the Smallworld company founded in Cambridge, England, in 1989 by Dick Newell and others. S ...

VMDS VMDS abbreviates the relational database technology called Version Managed Data Store provided by GE Energy as part of its Smallworld technology platform and was designed from the outset to store and analyse the highly complex spatial and topologi ...

, the native GE

GIS database * Spatial Query Server from

Boeing The Boeing Company () is an American multinational corporation that designs, manufactures, and sells airplanes, rotorcraft, rockets, satellites, telecommunications equipment, and missiles worldwide. The company also provides leasing and product ...

spatially enables Sybase ASE. *

SpatiaLite SpatiaLite is a spatial extension to SQLite, providing vector geodatabase functionality. It is similar to PostGIS, Oracle Spatial, and SQL Server with spatial extensions, although SQLite/SpatiaLite aren't based on client-server architecture: they ...

extends

Sqlite SQLite (, ) is a database engine written in the C programming language. It is not a standalone app; rather, it is a library that software developers embed in their apps. As such, it belongs to the family of embedded databases. It is the most ...

with spatial datatypes, functions, and utilities. *

Tarantool Tarantool is an in-memory computing platform with a flexible data schema, best used for creating high-performance applications. Two main parts of it are an in-memory database and a Lua application server. Tarantool maintains data in memory and ...

supports geospatial queries with RTREE index. *

Teradata Geospatial Teradata Corporation is an American software company that provides cloud database and analytics-related software, products, and services. The company was formed in 1979 in Brentwood, California, as a collaboration between researchers at Caltech ...

includes 2D spatial functionality (OGC-compliant) in its data warehouse system. * Vertica Place, the geo-spatial extension for HP Vertica, adds OGC-compliant spatial features to the relational column-store database.

Table of free systems especially for spatial data processing

References

External links

An introduction to PostgreSQL PostGIS
SOA
A Trigger Based Security Alarming Scheme for Moving Objects on Road Networks
Sajimon Abraham, P. Sojan Lal, Published by Springer Berlin / Heidelberg-2008.

ArcGIS Resource Center description of a geodatabase {{Authority control Geometric algorithms