generic attributes datatype about 3dcitydb HOT 1 CLOSED

Thanks for your question. It's good that we - developers and users - keep thinking about how we could improve the datamodel of the 3DCityDB :)

In this case I wonder if there is any real benefit in changing it? Besides, I think the objectclass table isn't really the right place to register feature properties. It's only meant for feature types. If we add a lookup table for properties or maybe only for generic attributes we need to adjust the Importer/Exporter tool and the SQL setup scripts. In the 3DCityDB we also allow for storing generic attributes with datatypes that are not supported in the standard (geomval, blobval). This would require a special treatment as well (would we store them in the lookup table or not?) etc. You see, quite some effort for gaining what exactly?

Another aspect is also stability of the schema. The tables havn't really changed in the last 10 years. Sometimes I have argued with other contributers that it is about time to change some parts of the schema, but most often I had to admit that stability is a stronger argument - for users and also companys who rely on this project.

from 3dcitydb.