Spatial Database Management

The GIS Concept

Part 1

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 Entity
Bangor
– Penobscot County,
Maine, United
States
– Centroid -
44.801N , -6778W
– Area 34.4 square
miles
– Elevation – 158 feet
– Population 31,473

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 Physical Database Structure
The physical design of the database specifies
the physical configuration of the database on
the storage media.
– This includes detailed specification of data
elements, data types, indexing options and other
parameters residing in the DBMS data dictionary.
– It is the detailed design of a system that includes
modules & the database's hardware & software
specifications of the system.
[Link]

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 Logical Database Structure
•  Several logical data structures are used to
express the relationships between
individual data elements or records in a
database.
• Common logical data structures are
hierarchical, network, and relational, with
relational being predominant.

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 Conceptual Structure
• The conceptual structure is often
represented as a schema.
• A schema describes the database
structure in a shorthand notation.
• One example is the entity-relationship
(ER) diagram.

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Entity Relationship Diagram
Rectangles represent entity sets.
ENTITY Diamonds represent relationship
sets.
Lines link attributes to entity sets and
entity sets to relationship sets.
RELATIONSHIP Ellipses represent attributes

Double ellipses represent

multivalued attributes.
Dashed ellipses denote derived
ATTRIBUTE attributes.
Underline indicates primary key
attributes.
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 Entity Relationship Diagram
Name Address Name
ID Phone Number Credits

Student Enrolls In Courses

Major GPA Time Instructor

Advisor Credits Room

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 Entity Relationship Model
• The result is a diagram of all of the entities, their
attributes, and the relationships between entities
– Each entity becomes a table.
• Student table
• Course table
– Each relationship (usually) becomes a table.
• Enrolls, which allows you to join information from both tables.

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 Types of Relationships between
Entities
• 1:1 – one faculty member is assigned to one
office.
• 1:M (M:1) – one faculty member teaches
many courses.
• M:N – many students take many courses.
• All of these relationships can exist between
attribute tables.

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Table Join

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 Table Joins
• Table joins depend on the data not the
attribute name.
• There are many different types of table
joins.
• Tables can be joined regardless of the
relationship EXCEPT:
– When joining to the feature attribute table in a
GIS, the relationship must be 1:1 or M:1
– Other relationships must use the relate.

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 One-to-One Join
Employee-id Job Employee-id name
1 Digislave 1 Tom
2 Useless Supervisor 2 John

Join Employee-id to Employee-id

After join

Employee-id Job Name

1 Digislave Tom

2 Useless Supervisor John

A join does not permanently alter the table structure

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 Many-to-One Join
Polygon Id Symbol Symbol Description
1 Qa Qa Quaternary Alluvium
2 Qa Qe Quaternary Eolian
3 Pa Pa Permian Abo
4 Qe

After Join on Symbol

Polygon ID Symbol Description

1 Qa Quaternary Alluvium

2 Qa Quaternary Alluvium

3 Pa Permian Abo

4 Qe Quaternary Eolian
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 Relate in a GIS

[Link]
relate_table1.gif

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Fundamental Building Blocks
Tables comprise the fundamental building blocks of any
database. 

The table above contains the employee information for an organization --

characteristics like name, date of birth and title. 

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 Database Queries
• Queries may be made of one table or
several tables at the same time.
• In many systems querying is facilitated by
icons, or menus, or queries by example
(QBE – a graphical query language ).

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 Structured Query Language
(SQL)
• DDL – Data Definition Language; used to
create and manage the database.
• DDM – Data Manipulation Language; used
to query the database.

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 SQL
• SQL: widely used non-procedural language
– E.g. find the name of the customer with customer-id 192-83-
7465
select [Link]-name
from customer
where [Link]-id = ‘192-83-
7465’
• Application programs generally access databases
through one of
– Language extensions to allow embedded SQL
– Application program interface (e.g. ODBC/JDBC) which
allow SQL queries to be sent to a database

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Attribute Queries

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Lecture 8 20
Lecture 8 21
The ArcGIS Attribute Query
Interface
State’s Table is Open

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23
Table is Open

Options
Related tables
Select by attributes
Switch selection
Clear selection
Zoom to selected
Delete Selected

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No Table is Open

Selection-
>Select by
Attributes from
the Menu Bar

Lecture 8 25
 A Spatial Query in SQL

SELECT [Link], [Link]

FROM city, county
WHERE [Link]=‘Penobscot’ AND
[Link] INSIDE [Link]
[Link]>30000;

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Spatial Selection

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 Spatial Data
• Spatial data has a structure that does not
necessarily fit with tabular structure.
• To construct a spatial object requires
several table joins.
• Spatial indexing is very different from the
type of indexing used in a relational
database.

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 Spatial Types – OGC Simple Features

Spatial Reference System Composed

Geometry
Type
Relationship

Point Curve Surface GeometryCollection

LineString Polygon MultiSurface MultiCurve MultiPoint

Line LinearRing
MultiPolygon MultiLineString

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 Standard GIS Data Model

Linked
spatial
and
attribute
(tabular)
data.

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 File-based Data Models
Geographic coordinates and attributes
are stored in separate but linked files
Arc
Info
• Coverages • Shapefiles
– Developed for – Developed for
workstation Arc/Info ArcView ~ 1993
~ 1980
– Simpler structure in
– Complex structure,
proprietary format public domain
– Attributes in Info – Attributes in dBase
tables (.dbf) tables
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 Storing Data

Coverages Shapefiles

Maine
Maine

Counties
[Link]
[Link]
[Link]
MCD
[Link]
MCDshx
[Link]
Info

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 Coverages and Shapefiles
– Coverages are stored partially in their own folder and
partially in the common INFO folder.
– Shapefiles are stored in three to five files (with
extensions .shp, .shx, .dbf, .sbx and .sbn).
– Coverages store common boundaries between
polygons only once, to avoid redundancy.
– Shapefiles store all the geometry of each polygon
regardless of redundancy.
– Coverage features are single lines or single polygons.
– Shapefiles allow features to have multiple,
disconnected, intersecting and overlapping components.

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 Geodatabase Model
• Stores geographic coordinates as one attribute
(shape) in a relational database table
• Uses MS Access for “Personal Geodatabase”
(single user)
• Uses a file system for a “File Geodatabse”
(FGDB).
• Uses Oracle, Sybase, Ingress or other commercial
relational databases for “Enterprise
Geodatabases” (many simultaneous users)

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• There are some differences in queries between
shapefiles and geodatabases
– "STATE_NAME" LIKE 'Miss%' * in a geodatabase
– "OWNER_NAME" LIKE '_atherine smith' ?

– UPPER("LAST_NAME") = 'JONES'
– UCASE ("LAST_NAME") = 'JONES' geodatabase

– "POP2000" IS NULL
– "POP2000" IS NOT NULL

– "HOUSEHOLDS" > "MALES" * ("POP90_SQMI" + "AREA")

Lecture 8 35
 The ArcGIS Geodatabase
Key Personal
ArcSDE File Geodatabase
Characteristics Geodatabase

Number of Users Multiuser Single user & small Single userS

workgroups
Storage Format Oracle Each dataset is a Microsoft Access
Microsoft SQL separate file File
Server
IBM DB2
IBM Informix
Versioning Supported Not supported Not supported
Support
Database Full DBMS File system Windows file
Administration functions management system
Tools management

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Elements of a Geodatabase
Geometric Network

Feature Dataset

Relationship Class

Feature Class

Annotation Class

Object Class
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 Elements of a Geodatabase

• Objects , Object Classes

• Features , Feature Classes
• Feature Datasets
• Validation Rules, Domains
• Relationships , Relationship Classes
• Spatial References
• Geometric Networks

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 Objects and Object Classes

• An object is an instance of an object class

• All objects in an object class have the same
properties and behavior
• An object can be related to other objects via
relationships

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 Object view Relational view

Attribute C olum n, F ield

O bjec t R ow

O bjec t class T able

F eature R ow w ith geom etry colum n

Feature class T able w ith geom etry colum n

R elationship R ow w ith tw o foreign keys

R elationship class T able w ith tw o foreign key colum ns

N etw ork T ables linking elem ents to features

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 Features
• Spatial object
• Location
• Attribute of type Geometry
• Spatial relationships
• Instance of a feature class

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 Feature Classes

• Same type of geometry

• Same type of spatial reference system
• Store spatial objects (features)

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 Feature Datasets
• Container
• Same spatial reference
• Analogous to a coverage

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