How Does a Geospatial Index Work? [Closed]

Marcus Vance
Marcus Vance
• • 1 min read

I'm Wondering How a Geospatial Index, Such as the One Used by Mongodb, Works. Can Anyone Explain What Data Structure/Algorithm Is Used Internally? What Time...

How Does a Geospatial Index Work? [Closed]

I'm wondering how a geospatial index, such as the one used by MongoDB, works. Can anyone explain what data structure/algorithm is used internally? What time complexity does a search run in?

Links to resources would be great too.

6

Depending on the data type and usage pattern, either an R-Tree or variant (R*, R+) or a quadtree or perhaps even a kd-tree.

0

According to this other SO question:

The current implementation encodes geographic hash codes atop standard MongoDB B-trees. Results of $near queries are exact. One limitation with this encoding, while fast, is that prefix lookups don't give exact results, especially around bit flip areas. MongoDB solves this by doing a grid-neighbor search after the initial prefix scan to pick up any straggler points. This generally ensures that performance remains very high while providing correct results.

Marcus Vance

Marcus Vance

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Marcus Vance is a cybersecurity auditor and technology writer dedicated to educating the public about online safety, data privacy regulations, enterprise security, and emerging cyber threats.

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