[Mapserver-users] Fastest Data Format

[Daniel Morissette]

> Shannon Scott wrote:
> 
> Does anyone know which data format performs the best?  For Rendering?
> For Queries?
> I am really wondering about shapefiles versus postgreSQL and
> PostGIS... but I also am curious how SDE with Oracle, and Oracle
> Spatial rate against the others.
> 

It really depends on your data and what your application does with it.

The short answer is that if your data is static then shapefiles properly
organized with tile indexes and .qix (shptree) indexes are the fastest
way to render maps in MapServer, even for multi-gigabyte datasets.

About spatial queries, you should get equivalent performance from either
shapefiles (tiled, indexed) or from a spatial database such as PostGIS
assuming the spatial indexes are properly built.

Finally, if you plan on doing dynamic updates to your data or advanced
attribute queries then shapefiles are out of the question and you should
really consider using a spatially-enabled RDBMS such as PostGIS, Oracle
Spatial or SDE.

Daniel
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 Daniel Morissette               morissette at dmsolutions.ca
 DM Solutions Group              http://www.dmsolutions.ca/
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