Analytics for the Internet of Things (IoT)

The bounding box

An important concept in vector-based analysis is the bounding box. This plays into many aspects of geospatial processing, including spatial indexing. A box shape is computationally much easier to search and manipulate than an irregular LineString or Polygon. Putting things into a box first and then fine tuning specific to its shape later is a common pattern for efficient searching.

A bounding box is simply the smallest rectangle that will contain the vector object in question. This is often called a Minimum Bounding Rectangle (MBR) and is the basis for many geospatial search algorithms. The following image shows an MBR for a collection of polygons:

Minimum bounding rectangle for a set of polygons. Source: Wikipedia commons ...