SaIL: a library for efficient application integration of spatial indices

Abstract

Many scientific applications deal with spatial, spatiotemporal and other multidimensional indexing structures, typically managing millions of objects with arbitrary and complex features. Choosing the appropriate method to index such data becomes rather difficult. Having an index library that can combine different indices under the same programming interface is thus very valuable. In this paper we present SalL (SpAtial Index Library), a robust and extensible library that enables simple integration of spatial index structures in existing applications. We mainly focus on design issues and elaborate on techniques for making the framework generic enough, so that it can support user defined data types, customizable spatial queries, and a broad range of spatial (and spatiotemporal) index structures. The library is publicly available and has already been successfully utilized for research and commercial applications.