Effective graph clustering for path queries in digital map databases

Abstract

In this paper, we present an experimental evaluation of graph clustering strategies in terms of their effectiveness in optimizing I/O for path query processing in digital map databases. Clustering optimization is attractive because it does not incurs any run-time cost, and is complimentary to many of the existing techniques in path query optimization. We first propose a novel graph clustering technique, called Spatial Partition Clustering (SPC), that creates balanced partitions of links based on the spatial proximity of their origin nodes. We then select three alternative clustering techniques from the literature, namely two-way partitioning, approximately topological clustering, and random clustering, to compare their performance in path query processing with SPC. Experimental evahration indicates