HOW TO

Report which geometries are interior, exterior, and boundary relations

Last Published: April 25, 2020

Summary

Instructions provided describe how to obtain the spatial relation between two objects using SQL in Oracle and st_geometry attributes. The output from the query reports the total number of objects that are interior, boundary, and exterior between two shapes being compared.

Procedure

The example below demonstrates the SQL syntax for returning the relation between two geometry attributes. The SQL statement returns the spatial relationship between all the point_events geometries for which their envelopes intersect the polygon from the polygon_events table, whose event_name equals STORM 129.

  1. The query provides an example of how to understand the number of point_events that are interior to the input polygon or point_events located on the polygon's boundary or exterior to the polygon. The relation between the geometries can be obtained by using the sde.st_relate operator and specifying the various masks: 'T********' as interior, '********T' as exterior, and '****T****' as boundary.

    Code:
    SQL> SELECT COUNT(*) cnt, relation
    2 FROM (SELECT CASE WHEN sde.st_relate(a.shape, b.shape, 'T********') = 1 THEN 'Interior'
    3 WHEN sde.st_relate(a.shape, b.shape, '********T') = 1 THEN 'Exterior'
    4 WHEN sde.st_relate(a.shape, b.shape, '****T****') = 1 THEN 'Boundary'
    5 ELSE 'Unknown'
    6 END "RELATION"
    7 FROM point_events a, poly_events b
    8 WHERE b.event_name = 'STORM 129'
    9 AND sde.st_envintersects(a.shape, b.shape) = 1)
    10 GROUP BY relation
    11 ORDER BY cnt;

    CNT RELATION
    ---------- --------
    144 Exterior
    137 Interior
    2 Boundary

    Because the relational operator st_envintersects leverages the spatial index from the point_events table, the result set only contains the point_events geometries of which their envelopes intersect the input polygon_events polygon's envelope.
  2. To compare the spatial relationship of all point_events, not just the geometries for which their envelope intersects the input polygon_events polygon's envelope, one can either drop the point_events spatial index or use Oracle's optimizer hint NO_INDEX in the SQL statement to not leverage the point_events spatial index. If the spatial index is not used as the access path, then every point_events geometry are compared with the input polygon_events polygon.

    Code:
    SQL> SELECT COUNT(*) cnt, relation
    2 FROM (SELECT /*+ NO_INDEX(a point_events_shape_idx) */ CASE WHEN sde.st_relate(a.shape, b.shape, 'T********') = 1 THEN 'Interior'
    3 WHEN sde.st_relate(a.shape, b.shape, '********T') = 1 THEN 'Exterior'
    4 WHEN sde.st_relate(a.shape, b.shape, '****T****') = 1 THEN 'Boundary'
    5 ELSE 'Unknown'
    6 END "RELATION"
    7 FROM point_events a, poly_events b
    8 WHERE b.event_name = 'STORM 129'
    9 AND sde.st_envintersects(a.shape, b.shape) = 1)
    10 GROUP BY relation
    11 ORDER BY cnt;

    CNT RELATION
    ---------- --------
    5692 Exterior
    137 Interior
    2 Boundary


    Note:
    Because the point_events spatial index is not the access path, all point_event geometries are compared, and the number of geometries that are exterior to the input polygon increases (the number of interior and boundary point_events will be the same).

Article ID:000010364

Software:
  • Legacy Products

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