

Ask HN: What are your favourite geospatial algorithms? - ghotli

I'm developing with a metric ton of polygon data. As with anything in our field I've been tasked with making our products faster / more scalable.<p>I don't want to reinvent the wheel and I want to see what algorithms are out there for my perusal. I'd prefer original published papers if you've got links like that.
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ghotli
Here's a good one I read the other day.

Optimal Partitioning for Efficient I/O in Spatial Databases

"It is desirable to design partitioning techniques that minimize the I/O time
incurred during query execution in spatial databases. In this paper, we
explore optimal partitioning techniques for spatial data for different types
of queries, and develop multi-disk allocation techniques that maximize the
degree of I/O parallelism obtained during the retrieval. We show that
hexagonal partitioning has optimal I/O cost for circular queries compared to
all possible non-overlapping partitioning techniques that use convex regions.
For rectangular queries, we show that although for the special case when
queries are rectilinear, rectangular grid partitioning gives superior
performance, hexagonal partitioning has overall better I/O cost for a general
class of range queries. We then discuss parallel storage and retrieval
techniques for hexagonal partitioning using current techniques for rectangular
grid partitioning."

[http://citeseerx.ist.psu.edu/viewdoc/summary?doi=10.1.1.16.8...](http://citeseerx.ist.psu.edu/viewdoc/summary?doi=10.1.1.16.8088)

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oomkiller
If you are new to GIS, PostGIS would probably be a good implementation to
review.

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mattew
What are you currently using for storing/accessing your spatial data?

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ghotli
Depends on the purpose. Our GIS department uses PostGIS for one off analysis.
Our interactive mapping engine uses Shapefiles with quadtree indexes.

