Oracle Spatial Database with Mapviewer and Map Builder for Designing Spatial Application of Patiala

Abstract

There is a need to manage geometric, geographic or spatial data related to space in various fields. In case of traditional databases it was not possible to store, analyze, visualize and integrate spatial data in business and government applications. GIS systems store spatial and non-spatial data separately. This split data model has several drawbacks, as it is difficult to maintain data integrity between spatial data and attribute data, programmers also have to deal with two data streams one file based and one database based. Oracle spatial provides a completely open and standards-based architecture for the management of spatial data within a database management system. Oracle Spatial is an integrated set of functions and procedures for handling spatial data stored in an Oracle database. Spatial data can be processed, retrieved and related to all the other data stored in the database using the Oracle Spatial. The things become clearer when they are presented in maps. The MapViewer is a server-side component that constructs maps by reading appropriate database views and tables. MapViewer provides web application developers a versatile means to integrate and visualize spatial data with maps. The MapViewer is supported by the Oracle Map Builder tool which is used to create and manage the Map Viewer mapping metadata which includes styles, themes and base maps. Besides handling the metadata, the tool provides interfaces to preview the metadata and display the original spatial information from the spatial tables without creating Map Viewer metadata. The condition of spatial application development is not much satisfactory in India. Most of the application development works are still approaching the traditional framework of application development and avoiding the powerful features of spatial technologies. In this thesis work, a spatial application for Patiala city has been designed and developed. This application shows the map of Patiala city and is featured with various map options like navigation panel and distance tools etc. Our developed system has the provision to view the nearby hospitals, banks and colleges to Thapar University and some important locations of Patiala city. It has also a feature to find the distance between the two locations in the map.