What Role should the OpenGIS Simple Features for SQL Specification Play?
It is very important to note that the OpenGIS Simple Features for SQL specification does not dictate how geometry should be stored in the database. The Well-known Binary representation adequately represents simple points, lines and polygons but does not cater for other information such as linear measures or mathematical curves, Annotations, Topology Definition etc. As far as the specification is concerned, the requirement is that a SQL query can return the geometry in WKB or WKT format, regardless of what other data might be stored with the geometry. In order to support the more advanced capabilities of GIS software, the stored geometry must contain greater intelligence than WKB can provide. Therefore OpenGIS Simple Features for SQL specification is inadequate for writing spatial data to the database. In practice, the specification lays a foundation for common read-only access via SQL to DBMS spatial data and it is in this role that OpenGIS Simple Features for SQL is most useful. OpenG
