An entity (data element) in space with a varying position in the course of time. At any specific time instance, a moving object is characterized by its position, its direction of movement, and its speed of movement.
Published in Chapter:
Spatial Network Databases
Michael Vassilakopoulos (University of Central Greece, Greece)
Copyright: © 2009
|Pages: 9
DOI: 10.4018/978-1-60566-242-8.ch034
Abstract
A Spatial Database is a database that offers spatial data types, a query language with spatial predicates, spatial indexing techniques, and efficient processing of spatial queries. All these fields have attracted the focus of researchers over the past 25 years. The main reason for studying spatial databases has been applications that emerged during this period, such as Geographical Information Systems, Computer-Aided Design, Very Large Scale Integration design, Multimedia Information Systems, and so forth. In parallel, the field of temporal databases, databases that deal with the management of timevarying data, attracted the research community since numerous database applications (i.e., Banking, Personnel Management, Transportation Scheduling) involve the notion of time.