Geography Reference
In-Depth Information
certainly no more complex than the work that needs to be performed when installing
Postgres/PostGIS, MySQL, or SQL Server. However, unless you need spatial capabilities
that are universally mobile, SQLite and SpatiaLite are probably not worth the effort.
The SQLite website is
sqlite.org
.
Its .NET interface is available at
The SpatiaLite website can be found at
www.gaia-gis.it/gaia-sins/index.html
.
Oracle Spatial
Unless you're a multimillion dollar enterprise, it's very unlikely you are going to have access
to Oracle Spatial. Oracle Spatial is to the commercial world what Postgres is to the open
source world.
It's big, it's hungry, it costs an arm and a leg to license, and the learning curve is probably
steeper than climbing Mount Everest.
Many government agencies in the U.K. use it for their mapping and planning work, and
larger companies such as oil and gas giants deploy multibillion-dollar infrastructures based
around it to support their survey work. If you're in a position where you are using this, then
you most likely won't be talking to the system directly; you'll already have software set up for
you that manages everything the database can do. Systems built around Oracle are
generally designed specifically by Oracle's consultants for a specific purpose, and have an
entire toolkit built around them at the same time. Most of the software I mention in this topic
does not—to the best of my knowledge—have the ability to connect to Oracle Spatial; or if it
does, the setup and operation of doing so is tremendously complex.
The official Oracle Spatial website can be found at
What about the rest?
There are many more database packages available out there. Some support GIS out of the
box, and some don't. Some of them need third-party add-ons or involve a complicated setup.
The reason for leaving others out is because there is simply not enough room in this topic. If
you decide to explore additional databases, you may want to check out the following:
MongoDB at
www.mongodb.org
SpaceBase at
paralleluniverse.co
CouchDB at
couchdb.apache.org
CartoDB at
cartodb.com
SpaceBase in particular looks like it could be a lot of fun. Its primary goal is to track and
store online MMO-based game characters and assets in a near real-time 3-D world for
multiplayer games.
