Spatial Information Management Software

A spatial database is a database that is optimized for storing and querying data that represents objects defined in a geometric space. Most spatial databases allow the representation of simple geometric objects such as points, lines and polygons. Some spatial databases handle more complex structures such as 3D objects, topological coverages, linear networks, and 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 (OGC) developed the Simple Features 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.

A geodatabase (also geographical database and geospatial database) is a database of geographic data, such as countries, administrative divisions, cities, and related information. Such databases can be useful for websites that wish to identify the locations of their visitors for customization purposes.

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 Open Geospatial Consortium 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?'
• 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 systems like MongoDB and CouchDB.