Database Reference
In-Depth Information
Spatial indexing
Spatial indexes work like attribute indexes, except they use square grids instead of records.
Without a spatial index, retrieving restaurants in a given area takes more effort. This is be-
cause the geodatabase has to scan all the features to find out the ones that are in the given
parameter. This is illustrated in the following figure. The square is the area we want to find
all restaurants. Note how the scanning starts from left to right until a match is found; this
takes a long time. The result will be features 22, 14, 16, 18, 17, and 15, as shown in the fol-
lowing figure:
