The RasDaMan approach to multidimensional database management
Peter Baumann, Paula Furtado, Roland Ritsch, Norbert Widmann · 1997
Multidimensional discrete data (MDD), i.e., arrays of arbitrary size, dimension, and base type, are receiving growing attention among the database community. MDD occur in a variety of application fields, e.g., technical/scientific areas such as medical imaging, geographic information systems, climate research, scientific simulations, and businessoriented applications like OLAP and data mining. In all these application fields the data managed can be modeled as MDD. RasDaMan (Raster Data Management in Databases) is a basic research project sponsored by the European Community where industrial and research partners collaborate to develop comprehensive MDD database technology. In the approach adopted, the logical and physical levels are strictly separated. A data definition language for multidimensional arrays together with a declarative, optimizable query language allow for powerful associative retrieval. A streamlined storage manager for huge arrays enables fast, efficient access to MD...