Customer Reviews

Pro Oracle Spatial

5 star:		(6)
4 star:		(0)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

Pro Oracle Spatial is a well written introduction to Oracle's spatial database extensions. Using this mechanism you can attach geometry data to your records and then search them using geometric patterns. Think of Yahoo maps as a good example of this. in fact, the case study portion of the book is a mapping website that you can search and overlay points of interest on. In addition the book demonstrates, to some degree, finding the best route between two spatial points.

It's a thick book on a thick topic, hard-backed, and well illustrated. The style is as walkthrough. Going through each section of the SDO extensions and showing how they are used in context. It's not a good reference work.

I had a very bad accident back over the Christmas (2004)/New Year (2005) period and while confined to bed, a copy of "Pro Oracle Spatial" arrived in the mail.

Loving a good book, I quickly scanned the Table of Contents (nice to see it has a good Index as well!) and decided this was worth a read.

Well, it is no novel, so it took me a few months to digest; but digest it I did. No "heart burn" here: rather more it "lit the inner fires" of one of my passions: database-based spatial!

I started out in computing nearly 20 years ago on mainframe databases migrating to GIS within 5 years as it was a more interesting field of computing than business computing (and it allowed me to combine my computing science qualifications with my geomatics degree). However, the thing I missed the most was the solidity of the science underlying databases which allowed for logical separation of application from internal implementation: the GIS world was fixated on physical data formats (1960s computing). It took many years before the work of people like Michael Stonebraker and the science and math underlying Abstract Data Types (ADTs) finally hit the work of relational database management (RDBMS) to give us ORDBMS.

And the rest, as they say, is history.

Oracle Spatial has come a long way since the days of Multi-Dimension. The hard working team of dedicated developers up there in New Hampshire have built a rock solid piece of technology and deserve recognitition for it. Books like this go a long way to giving them that recognition and widen the audience for database-based spatial to a group of people who will appreciate what they have done because it is "familiar territory" and mainstream.

As a GIS professional and long standing database expert, I found this book covered much familiar territory, but even I found it gave a fresh perspective on what can be the tedious read of online documentation (no offence to the Oracle documentation team intended). In other words: I learned a few things I didn't know!

The more familar base concepts that are covered in the book are clear and lucid and a great adjunct to the manuals. The will make it easy for non-spatially literate people to "get up to speed".

I particularly liked the Case Studies as it is always enlightening to see how others made the rubber hit the ground.

The Common Mistakes and Errors chapter (14) had me nodding in ascent. I was "tickled pink" to discover that the original Multi-Dimension roots of Oracle Spatial are still there in the HHENCODE function described in "Reorganize the Table Data to Minimise I/O". My only regret was that I have wasted time implementing a version of the PEANO space curve (linear_key) in Java and PL/SQL and deployed it into 8.1.7.4 when I hadn't needed to do it all along! The discovery of the HHENCODE function (page 582) came at a time I was dusting off the old Peano code for the organisation of some Lidar data for my current employer. Thanks Oracle Spatial team for leaving the function in the product even at 10g!

I found the MapViewer and Network Analysis chapters clear and accessible and I particularly liked the Appendix on "Additional Spatial Analysis Functions" as this was an "eye opener" that confirmed for me that the Oracle team really do understand the uses for spatial data. Again, I could see immediate application at my workplace.

If you are their target audience ie [... application developers who are familar with Oracle technolgies and want to enhance their applications with spatial information ... but ... do not know much about spatial data] ("Who Should Read This Book?", page xxx) then this book is for you. If you are from a more traditional GIS background (and want to know what all the fuss is about) then you should get a copy of this book because the sort of technology that is described within it is part of the future of the geospatial data management and processing. For more seasoned Oracle and GIS veterans: even you will find something in it that is worth the price.

Order one today.

Simon Greener
GIS Manager, Oracle Spatial enthusiast
Allens Rivulet, Tasmania, Australia.
Longitude: 147.2048
Latitude: -43.0141

Excellent book. I have been using Oracle Spatial for years but found various useful insights in this book. It is well laid out, accessible and covers pretty much all the bases. Good examples and case studies. Tackles the thorny issues around spatial indexing as well as I have seen.

Why can't Oracle do documentation like this ?!

Only drawback is that I found some errors in the discussion of transportable tablespaces WRT Spatial data.

Lack of discounts aside, the book is a tremendous value. It's well-written, indexed, and edited and a pleasure to read. It's been great fun for me to work through the examples. I only have 2 significant complaints: (1) there were far too few diagrams (i.e., maps), particularly in chapter 7 where they would have helped greatly and (2) there should have been more discussion about mapping basics including map projections since this is a subject about which most DBA's and developers have little knowledge and an area where mistakes in storing, manipulating, and displaying geographic data are often made. I know there are cartography books dedicated to this sort of thing, but I suspect many Oracle users would not even know enough to bother with them.
I would recommend the book, Mapping Hacks published by O'Reilly as a nicely complementary addition to your library.
In short a fantastic book well worth the price.

No. This is not a screed for planetary exploration! The space here refers to geographic space. The book differs from most database texts, where typically the data might refer to products or customers, each with many attributes. In our case, the data has a natural geographic distribution or interpretation. Hence the many diagrams which are maps.

The subject of geographic databases is huge. With many topological or geometric nuances based on how to define regions on a map. The book talks about important commercial applications, like geocoding, where we map from a street address [say] to geographic coordinates, or vice versa. This is the gist of Geographic Information Systems [GIS]. Indeed, the entire book can be considered as a manual about applying Oracle to GIS.

There is a nice chapter on the Oracle MapViewer. Showing how it can easily draw maps of your data. Vital, for it lets your brain visually analyse the data. Our visual pattern recognition is still vastly superior than machine matching, and MapViewer lets you bring that wetwear apparatus to bear on your problems.

The only drawback about this book is that it ends too soon.

For RIGHT now, this is the definitive guide to Oracle Spatial. There is another book coming out soon (also by Apress) for Oracle 11g. I bought this book as a beginner. It presents the concepts and provides detail very well. Being an Oracle DBA I find that this book is more oriented towards Developers. Nevertheless, I found this book a great starting point and feel that it brought me to the point of being able to understand Oracle Spatial to a point where I can hold an intelligent conversation. The use of example in every chapter brings theory to reality in a tangible manner. I look forward to purchasing Pro Oracle Spatial for Oracle Database 11g (Pro) when released.

First off this book seems to be excellent for the topic at hand. However I am giving it 1 star since the publisher has put a restriction on it that it can only sell for the full book price. Retailers are not allowed to sell this book for less than the publisher price of $69.99

How do I know this? I tried to purchase it in a Barnes and Noble and was told that the Publisher has put a restriction on retailers for this title.

Therefore buying it at Amazon, Barnes and Noble, Bookpool or anywhere else will not get you a discount.

Instead it will have to be read in a Barnes and Noble store over coffee.

Simply because of the publisher not allowing the price to flex I am giving this book a rating of 1 star.

Publishers please pay attention and remove this restriction.