Microsoft® SQL Server 2012 Unleashed

Spatial Data Enhancements

SQL Server 2012 adds four new spatial type classes: FULLGLOBE, CIRCULARSTRING, COMPOUNDCURVE, and CURVEPOLYGON. SQL Server 2012 also includes features and enhancements that improve performance for spatial data and operations, including new spatial indexes, a spatial index hint, compression, improved index build time, and a new query plan for spatial queries. In addition, SQL Server 2012 provides further performance enhancements at the spatial library level for Distance() and ShortestLineTo() methods along with performance improvements at the SQL level for methods which are based on them, including STDistance() and ShortestLineTo().

For more information on the enhancements to spatial data and working with spatial data ...