SQL 2008 Spatial Data - Geography and Geometry Data Types

SQL 2008 has brought us many great new features: integration with LINQ, the Entity Framework and Entity Data Model, the much needed DateTime2, but my top favourite is the spatial data support with the arrival of the Geography and Geometry data types.

Spatial information can bring a whole new dimension to an applications and how we think about that location data.  Up until now dealing with true spatial data has been something only for the GIS (Geography Information System) specialists, but now its sitting there ready for all of us to use.  The big bonus with the SQL 2008 spatial data types is the fact that they utilise the ability of the SQL engine to handle .NET CLR datatypes.  This means that the SQL spatial data types can not only be used in T-SQL queries, but they also neatly fit directly into our .NET code!

In this post I'm going to look at using the spatial data types in these two different scenarios and compare how they fight it out in terms of performance.  The OGC (Open Geospatial Consortium) define a number of standard meothds for working with spatial information, and thankfully, it looks like MS have actually stuck to implementing these as they are (although it hasn't stopped them adding in a few 'bonus methods'....)  The OGC methods can be found here and the additional methods are here.  A complete overview of the OGC standards is at the open geospatial site.

More to follow...