[postgis-users] Path finding

[Luis Mota]

Hi everyone.

I have to deal with a path finding problem.  The underlying data is 
stored in postgis. It is a collection of LineStrings.

Since I have a AI backgound, I based the search on a classic A* search 
algorithm, that is able to find the optimal path (even if this is not 
vital to me). I programmed the algoritjm in Java and I access the DB 
each time I have to know the lines that start at a given point.

This process is computationally very demanding... Because of this, the 
algorithm takes a very long time to find any kind of path.

I think that the problem is that I am permanently querying the DB 
through JDBC.... This must take a lot of time, I suppose.

Now I've been thinking that the best way to do this would be to make a 
search algorithm directly in the DB. This way, the only thing I would 
have to return through odbc would be the final answer and not thousands 
of LineStrings.

Before moving forward to this, I would like to know if someone has any 
experience/thoughts/hints about this. Maybe someone has already 
implemented such a function...

Anyway, I'd like to know if you think that this is possible at all, or 
what would be the easier way to tackle this problem...

Bye for now, Luís Mota