Legacy Geospatial Data Technologies

Abstract

dard for encoding geospatial data. These have been used by the query languages GeoSPARQL, stSPARQL, and GeoSPARQL+ that we will present in Chapter 7. We also present popular geospatial data formats in which geospatial data have histor­ ically been made available (shapefiles, GeoTIFF files, and NetCDF files). Finally, we discuss the functionality offered by two kinds of very successful geospatial technologies that came before the technologies presented in this book: geospa­ tial relational DBMS and GIS systems. One can see the technologies presented in this book as an alternative to these legacy technologies or as technologies that can coexist with them. Both of these approaches are explored in later chapters. Like Chapter 2, this chapter is also a background chapter that can be skipped by readers that are familiar with the material presented. Legacy Geospatial Data Technologies