Spatiotemporal database


A spatiotemporal database is a database that manages both space and time information. Common examples include:
Spatiotemporal databases are an extension of spatial databases and temporal databases. A spatiotemporal database embodies spatial, temporal, and spatiotemporal database concepts, and captures spatial and temporal aspects of data and deals with:
Although there exist numerous relational databases with spatial extensions, spatiotemporal databases are not based on the relational model for practical reasons, chiefly among them that the data is multi-dimensional, capturing complex structures and behaviours.
As of 2008, there are no RDBMS products with spatiotemporal extensions. There are some products such as the open-source TerraLib which use a middleware approach storing their data in a relational database. Unlike in the pure spatial domain, there are however no official or de facto standards for spatio-temporal data models and their querying. In general, the theory of this area is also less well-developed. Another approach is the constraint database system such as MLPQ.
GeoMesa is an open-source distributed spatiotemporal index built on top of Bigtable-style databases using an implementation of the Z-order_curve to create a multi-dimensional index combining space and time.

Organizations