Is there any bast-practice involving the use of Geography or Geometry data types? I've just started using Geospatial data with MS Sql Server 2008, intuitively with Geography data types.
I can only see Geometry data types in NH.Spatial, and on any other tutorial about GIS and LBS.
What are the problems and benefits of using Geometry data to store geospatial content? The simple use of a specific SRID (I guess that would be 4326) does the job?
thanks in advance.
The discussion about best-practices regarding Geometry vs. Geography data types is beyond the scope of this comment. But what it explains the preference of Geometry in NH.Spatial is basically OGC compliance. In this respect, Geography is very limited (check out links below) and supporting it would break many test cases aiming to standardize access among spatial databases. That said, I'm open to suggestions on how to support Geography in NH.Spatial in a better way.
I notice that conspicuously absent from the list of supported spatial dialects is Oracle Spatial, perhaps the grand-daddy of all spatially-enabled DB platforms. Is there any intention/effort underway to develop a dialect that would support ORA in addition to the present MS and OSS spatial targets?
We are an avid user of NHibernate at my organization and also do significant GIS work, but most if not all of our spatial backend infrastructure for our projects tends to be ORA rather than the present listed DB targets.
Thanks for any info you can provide (and yes, I know that if there isn't an effort underway, you'd be glad to accept a patch <g>).