SpatiaLite

SpatiaLite

Developer(s)	Alessandro Furieri
Initial release	March 21, 2008 (2008-03-21)
Stable release	4.2.0 / July 25, 2014 (2014-07-25)
Operating system	GNU/Linux, MS-Windows, Mac OS X, POSIX compliant systems
Type	Geographic information system
License	MPL GPL LGPL tri-license
Website	http://www.gaia-gis.it/spatialite

SpatiaLite is a spatial extension to SQLite, providing vector geodatabase functionality. It is similar to PostGIS, Oracle Spatial, and SQL Server with spatial extensions, although SQLite/SpatiaLite aren't based on client-server architecture: they adopt a simpler personal architecture. i.e. the whole SQL engine is directly embedded within the application itself: a complete database simply is an ordinary file which can be freely copied (or even deleted) and transferred from one computer/OS to a different one without any special precaution.

SpatiaLite extends SQLite's existing spatial support to cover the OGC's SFS specification.^[1] It isn't necessary to use SpatiaLite to manage spatial data in SQLite, which has its own implementation of R-tree indexes and geometry types, but in order to do advanced spatial queries and support multiple map projections, SpatiaLite is needed. SpatiaLite is provided natively for Linux and Windows as a software library as well several utilities that incorporate the SpatiaLite library. These utilities include command line tools that extend SQLite's own with spatial macros, a graphical GUI for manipulating Spatialite databases and their data, and a simple desktop GIS tool for browsing data.

Being a single binary file, SpatiaLite is also being used as a GIS vector format to exchange geospatial data.

Software that supports SpatiaLite

• Desktop:
  • ESRI ArcGIS since version 10.2 as "Database Connection".^[2]
  • QGIS supports SpatiaLite native since version 1.1^[3]
  • AutocadMap 2013
  • Global Mapper ^[4]
  • OpenJUMP offers a Plug-In.
  • FME (also available as server)
  • TileMill renderer (uses Mapnik) reads SpatiaLite as data source.^[5]
  • Spatial Manager Desktop,^[6] Spatial Manager for AutoCAD,^[7] Spatial Manager for BricsCAD ^[8]
• (Web)Server:
  • GeoServer via SpatiaLite extension.^[9]
  • GeoDjango via the GeoDjango module.^[10]
  • Web2py (web framework) native ^[11]
  • FeatureServer, a WFS server.^[12]
• Tools and libraries:
  • OGR Simple Feature Library reads and writes SpatiaLite since version 1.7^[13]
  • GeoTools supports SpatiaLite using JDBC module.^[14]
  • Mapnik, a renderer.
  • pyspatialite, a Python library.^[15]
  • OSGeo Live DVD includes spatialite along with a short tutorial.^[16]
• Web Apps:
  • GeoConverter - Free online data converter which reads and writes several GIS vector file formats (based on OGR), including SpatiaLite.^[17]

Standards

SpatiaLite supports several open standards from the OGC and has been listed as a reference implementation for the proposed GeoPackage standard.^[18]

External links

• www.gaia-gis.it/spatialite/
• www.gaia-gis.it/spatialite-2.4.0-4/spatialite-cookbook/
• www.gaia-gis.it/gaia-sins/
• www.gaia-gis.it/gaia-sins/spatialite-sql-4.0.0.html

References