[OSM-talk] OSM maps on Garmin GPS

[Schuyler Erle]

* On 21-Nov-2006 at  5:32AM PST, raphael Jacquot said:
> > 
> > You make it sound like magic.  What is the essential algorithm or 
> > data structure in PostGIS that causes this speed-up?  Could the 
> > same speed be achived with the GIS extensions to MySQL?  Could it 
> > be achieved by changing the old OSM tile generation code on top of 
> > 
> simple...
> the r-tree based GIST index on bounding boxes that's applied on the 
> geometry column :D

MySQL 5.0 claims to support R-tree based spatial indexing:

  http://dev.mysql.com/doc/refman/5.0/en/optimizing-spatial-analysis.html

Haven't used it, so can't say how efficient it is. I've been in
favor of backing OSM with a proper spatial database from day one, so I
would strongly support this kind of move, whether it stays on MySQL or
moves to PostgreSQL. I will point out, however, that at the moment
PostGIS is *much* more mature and more widely used than MySQL Spatial.
That's not a reason not to use the latter, of course, merely a
consideration.

SDE