[OSM-dev] Quad- and R-Trees

[Dominik Spies]

Hi,

this is not an OSM-only question, but it is related to OSM and I don't
now where to look for people with same experience in this topic.
So I hope you can provide some help.
Quadtrees and R-Trees are used for indexing spatial data. I read -
without an explanation - that quadtree have disadvantages with
indexing geospatial data, because of different densities of data
(rural and urban areas).
I could not find any helpfull information regarding this. Is this
correct? If yes why? The only reason I can imagine ist that the
quadtree will be very unbalanced.

Regards,

Dominik