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You are in Geoinformatics - Creative Commons :: Spatial Databases: A soft Introduction

Spatial Databases: A soft Introduction

Lecturer: Malumbo Chaka Chipofya

Course Description

Learning Objectives

The main learning objectives of this course are

  1. to gain a general understanding of what Spatial Databases and Database Management Systems are and what they do
  2. to learn some applications where Spatial Databases they are used
  3. to learn to use them
  4. explore a few contemporary database models

Main Topics and Tentative Schedule

  1. Prelude: Data and problem solving in science and applications
    1. A small gallery of geospatial applications to be used throughout the course
      1. Land use change modelling and detection (place holder - will depend on data: what happened/is happening/will happen? how it happened/is happening/will happen?)
      2. Logistics and Transportation (place holder - will depend on data: specify the problem, determine the network, optimize the delivery cost)
      3. Social and business analysis: demographics (place holder - will depend on data: where is happening? as in where's whatsapp trending? next?)
    2. Spatial Data Models: Field/Object vs. Raster/Vector dichotomy - different problems different representations.
    3. An overview of Spatial Analysis methods and the required input data models and formats
    4. Database models for GIS: A historical overview

(1 Session: 23.10.14)

  1. The Relational Database Model
    1. Recap and Overview of Database Systems
    2. Relations, Tuples, Attributes, Keys and References (Relationships), and Relation Schemas
    3. Relational Database Design
      1. Functional Dependencies and Normalization (1st Normal Form plus a note about other normal forms - up to BCNF if time allows)
      2. Problem analysis and data modelling
      3. Database schema design: E-R Model

(1 Session 3.a-b.: 30.10.14; 1 Session 3.c.i-ii.: 06.11.14)

  1. Interacting with Relational Databases
    1. Relational Query Language: Structured Query Language
    2. Spatial Extensions of Relational Databases: Example - Postgresql and Postgis
    3. Designing SQL queries - simple queries, query nesting, query chaining
    4. Database access from applications (just a mention with examples)
      1. connecting to a DBMS from a GIS
      2. connecting to a DBMS using scripting/programming languages - Java, Python

(2 Sessions: 13.11.14, 20.11.14,)

  1. Spatial Relational Database Systems:
    1. Spatial data storage formats (WKB, WKT)
    2. OGC Simple Features Standard
    3. Spatial queries
      1. simple postgis queries
      2. complex queries
      3. built-in functions
      4. extensions - pgrouting

(1 Session 5.a-c.: 27.11.14; 2 Sessions 5.d. : 4.12.14, 11.12.14)

  1. Applications: Terraview and Terralib: Prof. Dr. Gilberto Camara

(2 Sessions: 18.12.14, 8.01.15)

  1. A sample of Nosql Databases
    1. Array databases: brief introduction and example application (SciDB)
    2. Document databases: brief introduction and example application (search locations of events: MongoDB)
    3. Graph databases: brief introduction and example application (routing - compare with pgrouting or qualitative storage and query - directly store qcn and fetch subnetwork given in the query: Neo4J)

(3 Sessions: 15.01.15, 22.01.15, 29.01.15)

8. Conclusion: Summary of all lectures given and tips for future directions for research and further use cases. (1 Session: 5.02.15)

Literature

spatial-dbs.1414999686.txt.gz · Last modified: 2014/11/03 05:28 by malumbo