March 2008 Entries
In the previous parts of this series (Part 1, Part 2), I introduced the Geometry and Geography data types, the various subclasses (Point, LineString, Polygon, etc), and demonstrated a little bit of the Well-Known Text (WKT) syntax. These two posts were primarily informational in nature, and didn't touch SQL Server at all. Let's change that!
Instantiating the UDT
The Geometry and Geography data types are implemented as User Defined Types (UDT) written in .NET. They are automatically installed with the server, and are available for use by any SQL Server 2008 database. For this post, I will use the Geometry type to...
In the first part of this series, I provided a somewhat verbose description of the two different types of Spatial data supported by SQL Server 2008: Geometry (flat Earth model) and Geography (ellipsoidal model). Now, let's dive in a bit deeper, and take a look at some of the specifics.
Standards
From their website, the Open Geospatial Consortium, Inc. (OGC) is described as "a non-profit, international, voluntary consensus standards organization that is leading the development of standards for geospatial and location based services." Unlike me, these folks are the real experts in the field who understand both the problems and the solutions...
Around the 1995 timeframe, two very different systems opened my eyes to the power of geospatial data, particularly how it can be used to enable an analyst to make better business decisions. At the time, I was working in IT at the hub sorting facility for an overnight freight company that specialized in heavyweight cargo. This company not only had a fleet of aircraft flying freight around the country, but also operated a large fleet of trucks (both linehaul and LTL).
Shortly after leaving that company, I was tasked with working on an e-commerce system that had some unique sales territory...
I was originally scheduled to present tomorrow (along with Greg Huber) at the Findlay Area .NET User Group. However, due to a cascading series of events, Greg and I will not be speaking in Findlay tomorrow.
Instead, Dustin Campbell will be giving his fantastic Functional C# talk to the folks in his hometown. This presentation was originally scheduled for February, but bad weather on that date forced its cancellation.
I'm very happy that Dustin was able to jump in and offer to do his presentation on such short notice. Since there was no NWNUG meeting this month, perhaps a few of our...
Beyond Relational
The introduction of SQLCLR in SQL Server 2005 allowed for very rich User Defined Types to be utilized. This meant that a developer could create a single object that contained multiple data points (properties) and could also perform calculations internally (methods), yet store that instance in a single field of a single row in a database table. Suddenly, any type of data could be stored and queried in the database, instead of just strings and numbers.
Fast forward to the present time, as Microsoft is celebrating the launch of SQL Server 2008 (notice that in the brilliance that is known...
This past Friday, I ended my 20+ year dependency on wearing glasses to see. And while there's a lot of healing that remains as I write this, my vision is already better than with my old glasses.
Find a Facility and Get Evaluated
I started my adventure by selecting a LASIK center near me. I was not necessarily interested in the lowest cost provider, but since I was using my Flexible Spending Account to pay for the procedure, I had a hard limit as to what I could afford. The doctor that owns this particular business is from the Cleveland area, and...