23Jun 2009 by Grant Fritchey No Comments

Learning Spatial Data in SQL Server 2008

PASS, Spatial Data
PASS just published a new Top 10 list of mine over at the their web site. This one is the Top 10 Articles on the web if you're trying to learn about spatial data. I'm not trying to say that I know what I'm doing with spatial data. I'm still feeling my way forward. These articles have proved to be the most useful in the learning I've done so far. I wanted to publish a little more information than we put into our Top 10 lists over at PASS. Having the list is good, but I thought it needed a bit of commentary to be complete. All these articles are good and all the web sites hosting the articles have good stuff on them. A few of the web sites stand out. Paul Randal's…
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28May 2009 by Grant Fritchey 3 Comments

Spatial Index & Performance & Brain Pain

Spatial Data, T-SQL
In my previous post, Spatial Data Hurts My Brain, I showed how a query used the spatial index, but hurt performance. Several people jumped in to try to help out. Thanks to Bob Beauchamin, Isaac Kunin, Gail Shaw, and Valerie Yakich (via Twitter). I've definately learned a bit more than I knew previously about spatial data and spatial indexes. I've posted about it before, but it bears repeating, if you're just starting out, I can't recommend Alistair Aitchison's book, Beginning Spatial with SQL Server 2008, enough. Here's where I'm at. I think I was confusing/confused/confounded/something about what to expect from a spatial index. I'm going to present two queries and two indexes and try to explain why each works well, or not together, mainly as a means for enabling my…
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30Mar 2009 by Grant Fritchey 4 Comments

Reading to Learn

Spatial Data
I just finished chapter 1 of Alastair Aitchison'snew book on SQL Server spatial data, "Beginning Spatial with SQL Server 2008." If this is the beginners book... oh boy. The advanced book must be insane. Seriously though, Mr. Aitchison seems to have written a fantastic book. I'm going to tear through it as fast as I can because I've got two projects that are looking to start using spatial data and quite frankly, I'm a bit lost. There's a great discussiongoing on over at SSC as to the worth of technical books for DBA's. It's based on this editorialby Tony Davis. I'm surprised by the number of people who say they don't use books. It seems that a lot more people use blogs and articles and discussion groups to learn. Maybe…
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