Research Article. A query oriented implementation of a topologic data structure for 3-dimensional vector maps

Abstract

The conceptual Formal Data Structure of Molenaar (1990, 1992) for describing 3-dimensional (3-D) representations of terrain was implemented in a relational database model. It is shown how complex topologic relations among spatial objects can be analysed through standard SQL operations. Topics like consistency rules and updating operations will not be handled, they should be dealt with separately.

The emphasis is here on topologic queries, so that no attention will be paid to a thematic structure. The geometric data set has been structured so that information on topology, shape and size, and position can be retrieved. A demonstration of the implementation of the 3-D formal data structure (FDS) is given by querying a test database.