Faculty of Applied Engineering and

Urban Planning

Civil Engineering Department

Geographic Information Systems

Vector and Raster

Data Models
Lecture 3
Week 4
1st Semester 2012/2013
 Spatial Data Models

Raster
exhaustive regular or irregular partitioning of space
associated with the field view
location-based

Vector
points, lines, polygons
associated with the object view
object-based
Spatial Data Models
 Spaghetti Vector Data Model
Each point, line, or polygon is stored as a record in a
file that consists of that entity’s ID and a list of
coordinates that define geometry.

For Points:
ID Coordinates
1 3,4
2 2 5,5

1
 Spaghetti Vector Data Model
Each point, line, or polygon is stored as a record in a
file that consists of that entity’s ID and a list of
coordinates that define geometry.

For Lines:
ID Coordinates
1 (0,1), (3,4), (5,6)
2 (3,1), (5,2), (4,3)

2
 Spaghetti Vector Data Model
Each point, line, or polygon is stored as a record in a
file that consists of that entity’s ID and a list of
coordinates that define geometry.

For Polygons:
ID Coordinates
1 (2,4), (4,3), (3,6) , (2,4),
2 (3,1), (5,2), (4,3), (3,2), (3,1)

2
 Spaghetti Vector Data Model

Advantages
simple
efficient for display and plotting

Disadvantages
inefficient for most types of spatial analysis
 Vector Topologic Data Model

Composed of points, lines, and polygons

Node: a point at the intersection of three or more

lines

In addition to coordinate locations, the topologic

relationships among geometric features are explicitly
recorded
 Vector Topologic Data Model

Arc Coordinate Data

A Arc StartXY IntermediateXY EndXY
n1
B a2 a1 a1 4,5 (4,8), (8,8), (8,1), (4,1) 4,3
a3
C a4 a2 4,5 (6,7), (6,3) 4,3
n2 a3 4,5 (1,3) 4,3
a4 4,3 4,5

Arc Topology Node Topology Polygon

Topology
Arc Start End Left Right Node Arcs
ID Arcs
a1 n1 n2 A n1 a4, a2, a1, a3
A a1, a2
a2 n1 n2 A B n2 a2, a4, a3, a1
B a2, a4
a3 n1 n2 C
C a3, a4
a4 n2 n1 C B
 Vector Topologic Data Model

Planar Enforcement:

No two individual features can overlap.

There are no ‘holes’ or ‘íslands’ that are not

themselves features.

Every feature is represented as a record in the

attribute table.
Vector Topologic vs. Spaghetti

Spaghetti: can encode as

2 or 3 polygons (and have 2
or 3 records in the attribute
table)
Topologic: must be
encoded as 3 polygons
(and have 3 records in the
attribute table)
 Triangulated Irregular Network (TIN)
(TIN) is a digital data structure used in a
geographic information system (GIS) for
the representation of a surface. A TIN is
a vector-based representation of the
physical land surface or sea bottom,
made up of irregularly distributed nodes
and lines with three-dimensional
coordinates (x, y, and z) that are
arranged in a network of
nonoverlapping triangles.
 Triangulated
Irregular Network
(TIN)
Hybrid vs. Integrated Approaches

Hybrid Approach: stores spatial data and attribute

data in different data models (typically relational data
model for attribute data and proprietary data
structure for spatial data).

Integrated Approach: stores spatial and attribute

data using the same data model (typically using the
relational data model in a single RDBMS).
 ESRI Shapefile
Designed by ESRI for ArcView

Implementation of the spaghetti vector model

An individual layer stores a single type of geometry (i.e.

point, line, polygon)

No topology (but it can be calculated on the fly...)

Draws relatively fast

‘Open’ file format

 ESRI Shapefile

Three primary files in a shapefile: .shp, .shx, and .dbf

All files must share the same prefix for one shapefile,
e.g. road.shp, road.shx, and road.dbf

.shp : stores the feature geometry (binary)

.shx : index for .shp file
.dbf : attribute data stored in dBASE format
ESRI Shapefile
 ESRI Coverage
Designed by ESRI for ArcInfo

Implementation of the vector topologic data model

‘Closed’ file format

Each coverage is a directory, with numerous files that

store feature geometry, projection, registration, etc.

Attribute data is stored in a separate INFO directory,

which stores all attribute data for all coverages in its
parent directory.
 ESRI Geodatabase
Designed by ESRI for ArcGIS

Integrated approach implementing spaghetti vector data

model in a relational DBMS (for vector)

RDBMS is powered by Microsoft Jet (Access) or other

DBMS

Topology is generated on the fly

Supports versioning, multi-user edits, client-server

architecture, other mainstream database functionality