Manifold Spatial DBMS Facilities

Before beginning this topic please read the Spatial DBMS topic for an introduction to spatial DBMS usage with Manifold.

This topic is an overview of spatial DBMS storage using Manifold capabilities to confer upon almost any DBMS the ability to work as a spatial DBMS even if the DBMS vendor has not provided a native geometry type or other built-in spatial infrastructure. Although such capability could very well use generic, non-Manifold, open standards for geometry types such as OGC WKB, in this documentation it is referred to as Manifold spatial DBMS usage, to indicate it is a capability conferred by Manifold as opposed to being a built-in spatial DBMS capability as is the case with native spatial DBMS facilities in packages such as Oracle Spatial.

Requirements

The following are required for Manifold spatial DBMS usage:

· A DBMS that can support binary data types, such as MySQL, Informix, SQL Server 2005, DB2 (not requiring IBM's Spatial Extender), Oracle (used as a regular DBMS exclusive of the built-in spatial features) or PostgreSQL (without spatial extensions).

· Although it is not required when using SQL Server 2005, it is strongly recommended that the Manifold Spatial Extender for SQL Server be installed on SQL Server machines for improved performance. The Manifold spatial extender is a free download.

· Manifold Enterprise Edition or higher edition is required to upload drawings into a DBMS and to confer spatial DBMS capability to that DBMS by creation of a spatial index and supporting facilities. Once such a drawing has been uploaded into the DBMS any Manifold edition can utilize that spatial data set with full spatial DBMS capabilities, including Area of Interest (AOI) windowing.

· Manifold Database Administrator Edition is required to use Administrator Console features such as providing friendly names for components stored in the DBMS. Once such features have been configured using Administrator Console, any Manifold edition can utilize them when connecting to that DBMS.

A Manifold spatial DBMS can store drawings, images and surfaces (which are stored as images).

Examples

The following examples use Microsoft SQL Server Express 2005 as a default example of a DBMS. The examples assume the DBMS has been installed using defaults as set forth in the SQL Server Express Edition topic, that the Manifold spatial extender has been installed on the server machine and that a data source has been created in the Data Source dialog to connect to that SQL Server Express database as set forth in the Data Source dialog topic.

Example: Storing a Drawing in Manifold Spatial DBMS

Example: Storing an Image in Manifold Spatial DBMS

Example: Storing a Surface in Manifold Spatial DBMS