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bigcouch_spatial

bigcouch_spatial is a spatial extension for bigcouch from Cloudant based on geocouch.

Requirements:

For now you can't add easily custom handlers to chttpd the HTTP layer of bigcouch so you need to use a patched version. You can either patch chttpd using the patch 0001-add-support-for-bigcouch_spatial.patch in contrib and edit bigcouch/rebar.config to point to your own chttpd or just use upondata.

Usage

(Note: all exampels are done on top of the cluster, 5984 is the port where connections are load balanced between nodes)

Create a database:

curl -X PUT http://127.0.0.1:5984/places

Add a Design Document with a spatial function:

curl -X PUT -d '{"spatial":{"points":"function(doc) {\n    if (doc.loc) {\n        emit({\n            type: \"Point\",\n            coordinates: [doc.loc[0], doc.loc[1]]\n        }, [doc._id, doc.loc]);\n    }};"}}' http://127.0.0.1:5984/places/_design/main

Put some data into it:

curl -X PUT -d '{"loc": [-122.270833, 37.804444]}' http://127.0.0.1:5984/places/oakland
curl -X PUT -d '{"loc": [10.898333, 48.371667]}' http://127.0.0.1:5984/places/augsburg

Make a bounding box request:

curl -X GET 'http://localhost:5984/places/_design/main/_spatial/points?bbox=0,0,180,90'

It should return:

{"update_seq":3,"rows":[
{"id":"augsburg","bbox":[10.898333,48.371667,10.898333,48.371667],"value":["augsburg",[10.898333,48.371667]]}
]}

The Design Document Function

function(doc) { if (doc.loc) { emit({ type: "Point", coordinates: [doc.loc[0], doc.loc[1]] }, [doc._id, doc.loc]); }};"

It uses the emit() from normal views. The key is a GeoJSON geometry, the value is any arbitrary JSON. All geometry types (even GemetryCollections) are supported.

If the GeoJSON geometry contains a bbox property it will be used instead of calculating it from the geometry (even if it's wrong, i.e. is not the actual bounding box).

Bounding box search and the date line

A common problem when performing bounding box searches is the date line/poles. As the bounding box follows the GeoJSON specification, where the first two numbers are the lower left coordinate, the last two numbers the upper right coordinate, it is easy to map it over the date line/poles. The lower coordinate would have a higher value than the upper one. Such a bounding box has a seems invalid at first glance, but isn't. For example a bounding box like 110,-60,-30,15 would include Australia and South America, but not Africa.

bigcouch_spatial operates on a plane and doesn't perform spherical calculations. Therefore the bounds of the plane needs to be set explicitly with the plane_bounds parameter. If bounding boxes are flipped, a search across those bounds will be performed automatically. Give it a try (with the same Design Document as above). Insert some Documents:

curl -X PUT -d '{"loc": [17.15, -22.566667]}' http://127.0.0.1:5984/places/namibia
curl -X PUT -d '{"loc": [135, -25]}' http://127.0.0.1:5984/places/australia
curl -X PUT -d '{"loc": [-52.95, -10.65]}' http://127.0.0.1:5984/places/brasilia

And request only Australia and Brasilia:

curl -X GET 'http://localhost:5984/places/_design/main/_spatial/points?bbox=110,-60,-30,15&plane_bounds=-180,-90,180,90'

The result is as expected:

{"update_seq":6,"rows":[
{"id":"australia","bbox":[135,-25,135,-25],"value":["australia",[135,-25]]},
{"id":"brasilia","bbox":[-52.95,-10.65,-52.95,-10.65],"value":["brasilia",[-52.95,-10.65]]}
]}

The bounding with the same numbers, but different order (-30,-60,110,15) would only return Namibia:

curl -X GET 'http://localhost:5984/places/_design/main/_spatial/points?bbox=-30,-60,110,15&plane_bounds=-180,-90,180,90'

{"update_seq":6,"rows":[
{"id":"namibia","bbox":[17.15,-22.566667,17.15,-22.566667],"value":["namibia",[17.15,-22.566667]]}
]}

List function support

bigcouch_spatial supports List functions just as CouchDB does for Views. This way you can output any arbitrary format, e.g. GeoRSS.

As an example we output the points as WKT. Add a new Design Document with an additional List function (the rest is the same as above). Make sure you use the right _rev:

curl -X PUT -d '{"_rev": "1-121efc747b00743b8c7621ffccf1ac40", "lists": {"wkt": "function(head, req) {\n    var row;\n    while (row = getRow()) {\n        send(\"POINT(\" + row.value[1].join(\" \") + \")\\n\");\n    }\n};"}, "spatial":{"points":"function(doc) {\n    if (doc.loc) {\n        emit({\n            type: \"Point\",\n            coordinates: [doc.loc[0], doc.loc[1]]\n        }, [doc._id, doc.loc]);\n    }};"}}' http://127.0.0.1:5984/places/_design/main

Now you can request this List function as you would do for CouchDB, though with a different Design handler (_spatial/_list instead of _list ):

curl -X GET 'http://localhost:5984/places/_design/main/_spatial_list/wkt/points?bbox=-180,-90,180,90'

The result is:

POINT(-122.270833 37.804444)
POINT(10.898333 48.371667)
POINT(17.15 -22.566667)
POINT(135 -25)
POINT(-52.95 -10.65)

Other supported query arguments

stale

stale=ok is supported. The spatial index won't be rebuilt even if new Documents were added. It works for normal spatial queries as well as for the spatial List functions.

count

count is a boolean. count=true will only return the number of geometries the query will return, not the geometry themselves.

curl -X GET 'http://localhost:5984/places/_design/main/_spatial/points?bbox=0,0,180,90?count=true'

{"count":1}

include_docs

include_docs is a boolean. include_docs=true means that just like in lists the doc will be added.

limit

To limit the number of rows returned.

Compaction, cleanup and info

NOT SUPPORTED in version 0.1

The API of bigcouch_spatial's spatial indexes is similar to the one for the Views. Compaction of spatial indexes is per Design Document, thus:

curl -X POST 'http://localhost:5984/places/_design/main/_spatial/_compact' -H 'Content-Type: application/json'

To cleanup spatial indexes that are no longer in use (this is per database):

curl -X POST 'http://localhost:5984/places/_spatial_cleanup' -H 'Content-Type: application/json'

To get information about the spatial indexes of a certain Design Document use the the _info handler:

curl -X GET 'http://localhost:5984/places/_design/main/_spatial/_info'