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AskSQLTeam
Ask SQLTeam Question
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 Posted - 2001-06-13 : 21:58:55
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cartographer writes "Hopefully this isn't too long winded or confusing. I think this is ultimately a database design question, and is perhaps related to the question:
Is SQL Server Spatially Enabled?
background:
A GIS is a Geographic Information System. We use SQL server for data warehousing (vs. transactional) functions for natural resource data including datasets such as water quality, habitat assessment, etc. This information is essentially stored as a number of relational tables. Multiple users generate and enter this data, and then access this data from various clients including www, statistical applications, ms office applications, ESRI ArcView, and AutoCAD Map. All of these applications are capable of linking to back-end tabular data and executing queries like
"select something from a table where some condition of the tabular data is met."
This all works fine, and map enabled clients that have cross referenced their spatial datasets with tabular keys (e.g. this arcview point object corresponds to this tabular sampling station id), can execute a 2-step query that includes a spatial component. For example, the first step (as executed by the mapping/gis program) is something like:
"select all stations within a 1 mile radius of this point" or "select all stations in the overlaping region of these 3 polygons".
This works fine but has to be executed by the GIS program.
The second step as executed by SQL is:
"for that subset of stations (the result set from the mapping application), select all station samples that meet some tabular value condition".
question:
I have heard that because Oracle is object oriented, it can be "spatially enabled" so that supposedly, the 2 step query mentioned above can be executed as 1 query against the backend database.
I haven't found much info from oracle on this, but one search result is here
If its true, is it possible to do the same with SQL server?
In other words, can SQL server process spatial queries? Granted, in order to do so, you'd need to be able to store the spatial components in SQL (propeties of points, lines, polygons, and grids).
ESRI offers a spatial database engine (SDE) which shims itself between the front end and the RDBMS and is described here
I presume that such a product exists because most RDBMS cant process spatial queries, and it'd be a waste of time to develop a new solution to do so.
Any thoughts? TIA." |
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SQL Server as a GIS backend?