10 Extending Spatial Indexing Capabilities

This chapter shows how to create and use spatial indexes on objects other than a geometry column. In other chapters, the focus is on indexing and querying spatial data that is stored in a single column of type SDO_GEOMETRY.

This chapter shows how to:

• Embed an SDO_GEOMETRY object in a user-defined object type, and index the geometry attribute of that type

• Create and use a function-based index where the function returns an SDO_GEOMETRY object

The techniques in this chapter are intended for experienced and knowledgeable application developers. You should be familiar with the Spatial concepts and techniques described in other chapters. You should also be familiar with, or able to learn about, relevant Oracle database features, such as user-defined data types and function-based indexing.

• SDO_GEOMETRY Objects in User-Defined Type Definitions
  The SDO_GEOMETRY type can be embedded in a user-defined data type definition.
• SDO_GEOMETRY Objects in Function-Based Indexes
  A function-based spatial index facilitates queries that use location information (of type SDO_GEOMETRY) returned by a function or expression. In this case, the spatial index is created based on the precomputed values returned by the function or expression.