{{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 Hydrographic Service
''Retired Canadian Hydrographic Service logo or crest''
The Canadian Hydrographic Service (CHS) is part of the federal department of Fisheries and Oceans Canada and is Canada's authoritative hydrographic office. The CHS represents Canada in t ...
's Atlantic regional offices at the
Bedford Institute of Oceanography
The Bedford Institute of Oceanography (BIO) is a major Government of Canada ocean research facility located in Dartmouth, Nova Scotia. BIO is the largest ocean research station in Canada. Established in 1962 as Canada's first, and currently la ...
Nova Scotia
Nova Scotia ( ; ; ) is one of the thirteen provinces and territories of Canada. It is one of the three Maritime provinces and one of the four Atlantic provinces. Nova Scotia is Latin for "New Scotland".
Most of the population are native Eng ...
. CHS was facing a problem with storing very large spatial datasets acquired during
hydrographic survey
Hydrographic survey is the science of measurement and description of features which affect maritime navigation, marine construction, dredging, offshore oil exploration/offshore oil drilling and related activities. Strong emphasis is placed ...
s (thus having a temporal element) and was seeking a method to store the datasets in 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 ...
structure.
CHS scientists reportedly conceptualized a spatio-temporal indexing system during a hydrographic survey onboard CCGS ''Hudson'' on
Georges Bank
Georges Bank (formerly known as St. Georges Bank) is a large elevated area of the sea floor between Cape Cod, Massachusetts (United States), and Cape Sable Island, Nova Scotia (Canada). It separates the Gulf of Maine from the Atlantic Ocean.
Th ...
during the summer of 1989. The indexing system involved an adaptation of a
Riemann
Georg Friedrich Bernhard Riemann (; 17 September 1826 – 20 July 1866) was a German mathematician who made contributions to analysis, number theory, and differential geometry. In the field of real analysis, he is mostly known for the first rig ...
ian
hypercube
In geometry, a hypercube is an ''n''-dimensional analogue of a square () and a cube (). It is a closed, compact, convex figure whose 1- skeleton consists of groups of opposite parallel line segments aligned in each of the space's dimensions, ...
data structure, invoking a helical spiral through 3-dimensional space, which allowed for n-size of features.
The actual implementation of the proposed indexing system was termed a helical hyperspatial code and it was first used by modifying an installation of the
Oracle database
Oracle Database (commonly referred to as Oracle DBMS, Oracle Autonomous Database, or simply as Oracle) is a multi-model database management system produced and marketed by Oracle Corporation.
It is a database commonly used for running online t ...
version 4. The HHCode indexing system permitted a highly efficient compression of not only spatial data but other data types as well, while improving search and retrieval times. The HHCode comprises a form of space filling curve and the concept was published by the CHS scientists in the ''
International Hydrographic Review
The International Hydrographic Organization (IHO) is an intergovernmental organisation representing hydrography. , the IHO comprised 98 Member States.
A principal aim of the IHO is to ensure that the world's seas, oceans and navigable waters a ...
''.
Oracle Corporation
Oracle Corporation is an American multinational computer technology corporation headquartered in Austin, Texas. In 2020, Oracle was the third-largest software company in the world by revenue and market capitalization. The company sells da ...
subsequently learned of the innovation which led to an agreement with the Government of Canada which saw the CHS scientists working with a team of Oracle programmers at an office in
Hull, Quebec
Hull is the central business district and oldest neighbourhood of the city of Gatineau, Quebec, Canada. It is located on the west bank of the Gatineau River and the north shore of the Ottawa River, directly opposite Ottawa. As part of the Canadia ...
during the early 1990s to redevelop the Oracle database
kernel
Kernel may refer to:
Computing
* Kernel (operating system), the central component of most operating systems
* Kernel (image processing), a matrix used for image convolution
* Compute kernel, in GPGPU programming
* Kernel method, in machine learnin ...
. The resulting software was the Oracle database version 7, with the Spatial Data Option (SDO). Subsequent development of the SDO has resulted in the
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 ...
extension to current Oracle databases.
With the HHCode being an open-source data format, several spatial data and software companies have adopted it in various products targeted at very large corporate data users, namely Helical Systems Inc. and CubeWerx.