A multidimensional index structure for fuzzy spatial databases

The current index structures are not appropriate for representing and efficiently accessing fuzzy data, especially for fuzzy spatial data existing in many complex applications such as Geographic Information Systems (GISs), Multimedia Database Systems, Decision Support Systems, etc. For the effectiveness of fuzzy databases non-fuzzy and fuzzy data should be indexed together. Therefore, a multidimensional access structure should be used for efficiently accessing fuzzy databases. In this study we introduce a multidimensional access structure, namely Spatial Multi Level Grid File (called SpaMLGF in this paper) as an indexing technique for efficiently retrieving both crisp and fuzzy spatial data from fuzzy databases. In addition to the design of the access structure, we focus on the issue of partitioning, representation and organization of spatial data at physical database level. We also discuss how this fuzzy spatial indexing technique can be utilized for complex and spatial data in a database application, e.g., geographic information systems (GIS).