Slashgeo

All Points Blog links to an CRN article about Microsoft SQL Server plans in an interview with VP Flessner. From the article: ""You will see an investment in spatial indexing, geometry libraries. I want to do a good job supporting ESRI and other geo-spatial guys and make a good library available so if you can't afford those packages do good spatial analysis with out them," Flessner said. [...] When will that happen? The next four to six years, although he'd like to get more done "sooner rather than later.""

The OSGeo-Discuss mailing list links to a short survey of geospatial databases such as MySQL, Oracle, IBM DB2 UDB and PostGIS. From the accompanying article: "For example, subjects like ‘spatial indexing’, ‘optimising approaches’, ‘spatial joining algorithms’ and ‘topology management’ may relate to very sophisticated approaches not easily condensed and described in a survey matrix box. In my first Product Survey on RDBMS in 2002 I observed that spatial-data management was traditionally supported within GIS environments. Integration with other datasets has to be organised within such environments with the aid of complementary architectures. As more and more support for spatial-data management becomes available in RDBMS, direct integration with other datasets may be organised in an increasingly flexible way. This allows for fast data access, easy product development, avoidance of duplication of spatial data etc." See numerous related articles below.

I'm mostly done catching up older stories from Planet Geospatial, here's the ones from Directions Mag which may interests you. Important to notice: I added most DM articles directly to Slashgeo's stories when the subject was recently discussed, such as Leica's TITAN, MS SQL Server, FME's Curvefitter, etc. The other articles: one on the status of MapInfo, one on energy exploration (oil and gas) and GIS, a product review of DeLorme XMap 5.0 GIS Enterprise, a short one on short range communications for vehicules and finally, a product overview of LizardTech Express Server 6.

Using pyramids for raster geodata can radically improve load speed. All Points Blog offers several informative comments on raster data pyramids. From comments: "Databases are not inherently more efficient than files, particularly when the files in question, images, have a great deal of internal structure. You don't need a spatial index to do random access of small chunks of large images, the "square grid" nature of the image itself provides a built-in indexing mechanism. [...] You must choose between the options carefully : pre-calculating avoids completely to set up a application on your server, since you just have to distribute resulting files. This has a huge impact on server deployment costs, maintenance and hardware requirements. The downside is that generating the whole pyramid is a big process and let you to manipulate an horrible amount of files." See also related stories.

Christian Spanring offers news on improved MySQL GIS functions. From the blog: "According to the GIS Functions wiki entry following MySQL GIS functions have been added to the MySQL 5.1.23 beta GIS release: BUFFER, DIFFERENCE, DISTANCE, INTERSECTION, SYM_DIFFERENCE, UNION. I haven’t had the chance to test it yet, but I remember being very excited when I first read about the MySQL spatial extension a couple of years ago, followed by disappointment because of the MBR limits. Finally I decided to go with PostgreSQL/PostGIS back then. " See previous stories below, including a survey of geospatial features of Oracle, MySQL and PostGIS.

The Lin.ear th.inking blog is enthusiastic about the book "Foundations of Multidimensional and Metric Data Structures" by Hanan Samet on spatial indexing: "He's published a series of highly useful books on spatial indexing methods, which are certainly the most comprehensive and detailed in this field. [...] It could also be called Everything you wanted to know about Spatial Indexes (but were afraid to code). Recommended reading for spatial geeks, especially if you're looking for some reading to tide you over during your next year off."

The PostGIS/Refractions web site announces: "The 1.3.2 release of PostGIS is now available". This release includes bug fixes and some minor feature enhancements, such as improvements in the TIGER geocoder, fix for better OS/X support, fix to WKB parser to do simple validity checks, etc.