Yesterday’s blog post about Azure SQL Database V12 mentioned that one of the features I was particularly interested in seeing/testing were the spatial features. Interestingly,
Someone asked, on Twitter, if it were possible to get a set of spatial data that included cities, counties (administrative regions) and countries in database
Since I find myself "in a spatial mood", I thought I'd write one more today. About importing data from shapefiles. According to Wikipedia "The Esri
This post is an example of the "bring your own problem" approach in the classroom, inspired by upcoming SQLskills Immersion Events in August. See previous
A short while ago, I wrote a blog entry about SQL Server 2012 features that are currently available in SQL Azure. In that post, I
Since SQL Server Denali adds support for index compression of spatial indexes, using the same options as data and index compression in SQL Server 2008 and
Saw a request on the SQL Server spatial forum this morning for routines that would decompose a geography type to a set of Lat/Longs. A
I've been trying this out every day or so since I'd heard about the update (originally named the July 2011 Service Release), but I'd forgotten
In looking at the what's new for SQL Azure (May 2011) page, I came across the following: "Upcoming Increased Precision of Spatial Types: For the
I'd been fretting over the lack of a true visualizer for the new circularstring and compoundcurve spatial types in SQL Server Denali. I'd installed SSMS
One of the interesting spatial features in SQL Server Denali is the inclusion of spatial aggregates, namely CollectionAggregate, ConvexHullAggregate, EnvelopeAggregate, and UnionAggregate. Here's an example
The nearest neighbor query is one of the most common queries against spatial data. How many people haven't gone to a mapping app, typed in
Now about that "other" feature that could be called fullglobe in Denali that I mentioned. I don't know which feature will retain the moniker or
Once upon a time, I wrote a blog entry about CircularString, CompoundCurve, and CurvePolygon (the new geometric types supported in Denali). And mentioned that they
So what's the area of the earth? Well…depends on who's measurement you want to use. There an interesting SQL Server Denali spatial feature known as
I've been trying out the new Denali "AUTO_GRID" spatial index (that is …USING GEOGRAPHY_AUTO_GRID or GEOMETRY_AUTO_GRID in the CREATE SPATIAL INDEX DDL) on some of
Safe Software, the premier spatial data transformation and loading vendor for SQL Server, has long been known for it flagship FME Desktop and FME Server
OK, last one for the evening, its getting late in Berlin. And BTW, we might have some Denali goodness here at TechEd. Search for "futures",
SQL Server Denali CTP1 was released today. I don’t want to be the fiftieth person to post the link to the download; reference Ed's blog
I did a few demos in the spatial visualization talk at SQLConnections using the AdventureWorks 2008 data. The Person.Address table is all geocoded and so
Michael J Swart posted a SQL query on his blog that produced a rendition of Botticelli’s Birth of Venus, in the spatial results tab of
Everyone is still recovering from the November conference weeks (reminds me of sweeps week on TV). As a "SQL guy" the conferences in the last
My latest MSDN magazine column on Visualizing Spatial Data is out in the Novemeber issue. It covers three ways to visualize SQL Server 2008 spatial
There are two slightly different ways of representing non-existing spatial data, the "empty geometry" concept and database NULL. You can read about the subtle differences
When I downloaded SQL Server 2008 R2 CTP2 last week, I went right by (for now) the cool Gemini features and even Multi Server Management
Today I posted the code to a projcect I've been working on, a library that creates KML documents from SQL Server 2008 geography instances or
Last week, Microsoft released the MapPoint 2009 Add-In for SQL Server 2008 Spatial. You can get it here. This add in allows you to add layers
During a talk about spatial indexes and performance last week, I was surprised by a question about using ANSI-92 JOIN – ON syntax in spatial
Last week I attended my first-ever ESRI conference in San Diego. Although the "star of the show" was version 9.3.1 and the upcoming version 9.4
Just got a mail message from an old friend who asked why I'd dropped out of sight in the past month of so. I've been
About a month ago, I received a copy of "Beginning Spatial with SQL Server 2008" by Alastair Aitchison. I've become acquainted with Alastair through his
My interview with the folks at RunAs Radio is out. I'm discussing one of my favorite topics, spatial data and spatial in SQL Server 2008,
I've answered quite a few questions lately about how to make sure that your spatial index is being used. Use of a spatial index with
On experimenting with the CTP of SQL Server 2008 SP1, I found that there were some changes made to the costing algorithm, vis-a-vis spatial indexes.
I've become a columnist for MSDN magazine and my first column is available in the online edition, Feb 2009 issue today. I'm doing a column
When SQL Server's spatial data types were introduced, people asked "Why does every standard method begin with ST" (e.g. STIsEmpty). SQL Server docs always cite
Yesterday a friend asked me if it was better to always use a value of GEOMETRYCOLLECTION EMPTY as an alternative to making a geometry/geography column nullable. OGC
I've devoted the last few blog entries to describing what's in that spatial index analysis proc output and how to use it and interpret the
A little more about the query sample that gets fed into the spatial index procs. Query sample is a singleton geometry or geography. It's not
Last post discussed the filters. The procs report some raw numbers and some derived numbers. Here's a cheat sheet, although the info is all in
The spatial index diagnostic procs' most enlightening pieces of information have to do with the filter counts and efficiencies reported at the end of the
I've been looking at the spatial index stored procedures (sp_help_spatial_geography_index_xml and friends) a little harder recently, in an attempt to help answer two questions. 1.
I remember hearing during the SQL Server 2008 beta that there would be diagnostic stored procedures that would produce information about spatial indexes and help
After reading Isaac's recent blog posting about spatial queries and index hinting, I thought I might add some information based on a query I was working
Folks have always had trouble with the fact that ring orientation is required with spatial instances if you're using SQL Server 2008's geography data type, but not
This entry is a continuation of the previous posting on how to use SQL Server 2008 spatial data and Virtual Earth. This entry discusses your
Last week at the SQL Server 2008 Jumpstart I showed an example of using SQL Server 2008 spatial data types with Virtual Earth. I showed
I'll have to admit it, when I first saw that SQL Server 2008 was adding spatial data support, I thought of it as a niche.
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