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Spatial indexes, and RTrees specifically, are at the core of geospatial software. But ever wondered how an RTree is actually implemented? In this post we’ll dive into the implementation of Flatbush, an elegant, blazing-fast, memory-efficient RTree. kylebarron.dev/literate-fla...

8/1/25, 3:43 pm16 reposts36 likes

Brendan C Ward

@astutespruce.bsky.social

9 Jan 2025

Great writeup, thank you for sharing! I have indeed been wondering how RTree is implemented in Flatbush; while excellent, I found it a little cryptic and this helped make it more accessible.

Oliver Wipfli

@oliverwipfli.ch

8 Jan 2025

We have a small reading group and for the next session we plan to read about efficient spatial queries using trees. Do you think the following paper is a good introduction to this topic or would you recommend some other paper? www.cs.odu.edu/~mln/ltrs-pd...

I think it's a good overview. This is another paper of "overlap-minimizing top-down" insertion, which is what the Rust rstar crate uses for bulk insertion docs.rs/rstar/latest... ceur-ws.org/Vol-74/files...

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