SQL Server 2008+ : Best method for detecting if two polygons overlap?

Question

We have an application that has a database full of polygons (currently stored as points) that a .net app pulls out and checks if they overlap.

I occurred to me that it would be much nicer to convert these point arrays to polygon / polyline objects within the database and use sql to get a bool of weather they overlap or not.

I have seen different methods suggested to do this but non of the examples given were quite in-line with my needs.

I would be very happy to receive input from those kind enough to offer their experience.

Additional:

In response to questions: It is indeed 2D. and yes any crossover of the two is considered true. The polygons have n points and can be concave. The polygons will be saved as 1 per row (after data conversion task) as polygons (ie the polygon type .. it might be called something else spatial / geom my memory is not on my side right now)

Answer 1

You can use .STIntersection with .STAsText() to test for overlapping polygons. (I really hate the terminology Microsoft has used (or whoever set the standard terms). "Touching," in my mind, should be a test for whether or not two geometry/geography shapes overlap at all, not just share a border.)

Anyway....

If @RadiusGeom is a geometry representing a radius from a point, the following will return a list of any two polygons where an intersection (a geometry that represents the area where two geometries overlap) is not empty.

SELECT CT.ID AS CTID, CT.[Geom] AS CensusTractGeom
FROM CensusTracts CT
WHERE CT.[Geom].STIntersection(@RadiusGeom).STAsText() <> 'GEOMETRYCOLLECTION EMPTY'

If your geometry field is spatially indexed, this runs pretty quickly. I ran this on 66,000 US CT records in about 3 seconds. There may be a better way, but since no one else had an answer, this was my attempt at an answer for you. Hope it helps!

Answer 2

Calculate and store the bounding rectangle of each polygon in a set of new fields within the row which is associated with that polygon. (I assume you have one; if not, create one.) When your dotnet app has a polygon and is looking for overlapping polygons, it can fetch from the database only those polygons whose bounding rectangles overlap, using a relatively simple SQL SELECT statement. Those polygons should be relatively few, so this will be efficient. Then, your dotnet app can perform the finer polygon overlap calculations in order to determine which ones of those really overlap.

Answer 3

Okay, I got another idea, so I am posting it as a different answer. I think my previous answer with the bounding polygons probably has some merit on its own, even if it was to reduce the number of polygons fetched from the database by a small percentage, but this one is probably better.

MSSQL supports integration with the CLR since version 2005. This means that you can define your own data type in an assembly, register the assembly with MSSQL, and from that moment on MSSQL will be accepting your user-defined data type as a valid type for a column, and it will be invoking your assembly to perform operations with your user-defined data type.

An example article for this technique on the CodeProject: Creating User-Defined Data Types in SQL Server 2005

I have never used this mechanism, so I do not know details about it, but I presume that you should be able to either define a new operation on your data type, or perhaps overload some existing operation like "less-than", so that you can check if one polygon intersects another. This is likely to speed things up a lot.