Building on the basics

As you've learned, the basic building blocks of a geodatabase are feature classes, feature datasets, and nonspatial tables. Using these, you can build more complex objects in your geodatabase. You can create associations among geodatabase components based on spatial relationships (topology) or attributes (relationship classes). If you want to model the flow of resources, such as water or electricity, you can build a geometric network. Additionally, you can manage raster data using a geodatabase.

In this topic, you will be introduced to these more advanced features of the geodatabase.

Objects and the geodatabase

As you work with a geodatabase and read the documentation for it, you'll encounter terms like "object" and "object class." If you're familiar with object-oriented programming, you'll know what these terms mean. If you're not, a little explanation is in order.

An object can be a house, a lake, a customer, or a maintenance record. In the geodatabase, an object is stored as a row in a table (called an object class). An object has a set of attributes. Attributes describe an object, and could be its name, a measure, or an identifier to another object. Objects can also have behavior. For example, an object can participate in a relationship or be constrained by limits on attribute values.

Object classes that store geometry are called feature classes. Object classes that store relationships are called relationship classes.

In addition to feature classes, feature datasets, and tables, a geodatabase can contain topology objects, geometric networks, and relationship classes. Raster data is stored outside the personal geodatabase.