INFORMATION-ASSOCIATED JOIN INDEXES FOR SPATIAL RANGE SEARCH

Spatial join indices are join indices constructed for spatial objects. Similar to join indices in relational database systems, spatial join indices improve efficiency of spatial join operations. In this paper, a spatial-information-associated join indexing mechanism is developed to speed up spatial queries, especially, spatial range queries. Three distance-associated join index structures: basic, ring-structured and hierarchical, are developed and studied. Such join indexing structures can be further extended to include orientation information for flexib le applications, which leads to zone-structured and other spatial-info rmation-associated join indices. Our performance study and analysis sh ow that spatial-information-associated join indices substantially impr ove the performance of spatial queries and that different structures a re best suited for different applications.