[geos-devel] Benchmark between various geometry libraries

[Martin Davis]

I'm not sure that anything "went wrong" with the tests.  The results may 
be due to fundamental design differences between GGL and GEOS.  These 
include:

- GEOS uses a less efficient memory handling strategy, primarily due to 
the goal of tracking JTS closely (and also due to the substantial 
brainpower required to grok C++ template programming)
- GEOS focuses heavily on providing robustness and ability to handle a 
wide variety of real-world geometry correctly.  This requires using some 
algorithms and extra checking which have an impact on performance

The robustness question I think is a key one.  In order for a library to 
be viable in an uncontrolled production setting such as PostGIS, it 
needs to be highly robust.  I think this needs to be considered of equal 
importance to performance for these kinds of uses.

Maxime van Noppen wrote:
> Hi list,
>
> A geometry library is currently being reviewed by the Boost project (GGL
> - Generic Geometry Library)[1] and they did some benchmarks available here:
>
> http://trac.osgeo.org/ggl/wiki/IntersectionMore
> http://trac.osgeo.org/ggl/wiki/IntersectionStarComb
>
> Depending on the situations geos performs well or quite bad.
>
> It could be interesting to investigate what went wrong with those tests.
>
>
> [1] http://lists.boost.org/boost-users/2009/11/53451.php
>
>   

-- 
Martin Davis
Senior Technical Architect
Refractions Research, Inc.
(250) 383-3022