This book surveys various techniques, such as spatial data models, algorithms, and indexing methods, developed to address specific features of spatial data are not sufficiently handled by mainstream DBMS technology. This book also reviews commercial solutions to geographic data handling: ArcInfo, ArcView, and Smallworld GISS, and two extensions to the relational model, PostgreSQL and Oracle Spatial. * Checking the power of various query languages and approaches for query processing. * Describes the use of computational geometry in spatial GISS, provide the necessary background and in-depth look at key algorithm. * Covers spatial access methods, including tree-R and the structure of space-some driven, and filled with dozens of illustrations to help.