Re: Map Viewer support for relational model of Spatial

Alex Voitik wrote:

> Hi,
> does anyone know if Map Viewer supports Oracle Spatial data stored in
> relational model?
> If there is no native support, what are the efficient ways to convert
> relational data to object-relational "on the fly" ?
>
> I'm using Spatial 8.1.7, MapViewer 9.0.4

No, MapViewer does not have native support for the relational form of SPatial. (The future versions of the database for you, such as Oracle9i, to which which you should be thinking of upgrading, do not have such support either.)

Oracle Spatial in the Object Relational form is considerably more efficient, has considerably reduced admin (such as self-maintaining indexes), allows the database to be referenced as a column in the same table as other related attributes, and supports 'solutions in SQL' as well as the traditional 'extract and solve elsewhere'.

With such advantages, curiosity compells me to ask: Any reason you con not convert your environment from the Relational form?

If your data is moderately static, you can use the built-in conversion functions on a scheduled basis and store the info in O-R columns in your base attribute tables.

Performance for on-the-fly conversion will not be happy making. But, if you insist, the "Oracle9i: Spatial" course demonstrates how to create function-based spatial indexes against non-spatial tables and use those spatially. Any smart developer should be able to extend that concept as you ask, as long as you are happy with the lack of performance. (I would not be!)

/Hans Received on Sun May 23 2004 - 15:26:22 CEST