[OSM-dev] Quad- and R-Trees

[jh]

Dominik Spies schrieb:
> 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.

Yes, but I don't think that this should pose practical problems.
This site and the related Books might be helpful: 
http://donar.umiacs.umd.edu/quadtree/