Spatial analysis on SQL Geography and Geometry data

Spatial analysis is a spatial data analysis technique based on the location and the shape of the geographical object. In this paper, we introduce two spatial data types provided by SQL Server 2008 which refers to Geometry and Geography. As with Shapefile data structure supported by ESRI, Geometry and Geography are object oriented data structures which make it more easily to store semantic information and spatial relationship. In this paper, the spatial analytic characteristics of Geometry and Geography are discussed based on the Geometry data structure with its supported algorithms for spatial analysis and reasoning. An example of finding interested objects within a defined distance to a city road is discussed. At last, some future research in the area of semantics-enabled analysis of geographic information in terms of ontology combining with spatial database engine of Microsoft SQL Server are bring forward.