[mapserver-users] Which is fastest? finding nearest point, or polygon?

[Trond Michelsen]

Hi.

I have a pointlayer with about 10000 points (will probably become
25000 later), and I want to find the nearest point when I click in the
map.

To solve this, I've loaded the layer into qgis, and using the mmqgis
plugin, I created a voronoi diagram layer. I'm now serving this layer
with mapserver, and a click on the map will trigger a GetFeatureInfo
request from this layer, which returns the metadata from the
corresponding point.

Everything works fine, but I get this nagging feeling that I've
overcomplicated things, so I'm wondering:

1. Can mapserver find the nearest point directly? If so, how do I set
   it up?  
2. Is this faster than finding the polygon the click is inside?

-- 
Trond Michelsen