Reactive Data Structures for Geographic Information Systems

Following an introduction to geographic information systems (GIS), this study provides an overview of known spatial access methods, presenting several new structures. The geographic relational extension and the object-oriented (OO) approach, two advanced GIS architectures, are then described.

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Following a general introduction to geographic information systems (GIS), this study gives an overview of known spatial access methods and presents several new structures: multi-object BSP-tree, KD2B-tree, Sphere-tree, BLG-tree, Reactive BSP-tree, and Reactive-tree. The Reactive BSP-tree and Reactive-tree are geometric structures which take multiple levels of detail into account. They are reactive data structures which form the basis of a seamless, scaleless geographic database. In Part 2, the geographic relational extension and the object-oriented (OO) approach, two advanced GIS architecture types, are described. Actual implementations are presented as well as theoretical discussion of the systems. GEO++ is based on the open research DBMS and realizes the geographic relational extension. In the OO programming language, PROCOL, persistent objects are introduced in order to combine the powerful OO modelling with the database functionality required for GISs.