Efficient Hierarchical Spatial Indexing for Managing Remote Sensing Data Streams Using the PL-2000 Map-Sheet System
Efficient spatial indexing is critical for processing large-scale remote sensing datasets (e.g., LiDAR point clouds, orthophotos, hyperspectral imagery). We present a bidirectional, hierarchical index based on the Polish PL-2000 coordinate reference system for (1) direct computation of a map-sheet identifier from metric coordinates (forward encoder) and (2) reconstruction of the sheet extent from the identifier alone (inverse decoder). By replacing geometric point-in-polygon tests with closed-form arithmetic, the method achieves constant-time assignment O(1), eliminates boundary-geometry loading, and enables multi-scale aggregation via simple code truncation. Unlike global spatial indices (e.g., H3, S2), a CRS-native, aligned with cartographic map sheets in PL-2000 implementation, removes reprojection overhead and preserves the legal sheet semantics, enabling the direct use of deterministic O(1) numeric keys for remote-sensing data and Polish archives. We detail the algorithms, formalize their complexity and boundary rules across all PL-2000 zones, and analyze memory trade-offs, including a compact 26-bit packing of numeric keys for nationwide single-table indexing. We also discuss integration patterns with the OGC Tile Matrix Set (TMS), ETL pipelines, and GeoAI workflows, showing how bidirectional indexing accelerates ingest, training and inference, and national-scale visualization. Although demonstrated for PL-2000, the approach is transferable to other national coordinate reference systems, illustrating how statutory map-sheet identification schemes can be transformed into high-performance indices for modern remote sensing and AI data pipelines.
Authors
- Marta Róg (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0001-6126-7524)
- Mariusz Zygmunt (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0003-0056-5215)
Institutions
- University of Agriculture in Krakow (PL)
- AGH University of Krakow (PL)
Publication Details
- Journal
- Applied Sciences
- Published
- 2025-12-08
- DOI
- https://doi.org/10.3390/app152412915
- Primary Topic
- Data Management and Algorithms
- Type
- article
- Field-Weighted Citation Impact
- 0.00