Operations on bounding boxes

Once a table contains enough rows so that the R-tree index has split into more than one level, the support and strategy functions use a combination of bounding boxes and data objects in their internal calculations when a new row is inserted in the table. The functions generate a new bounding box for the affected pages based on existing key information already stored in the R-tree index and the data object itself, and they calculate where the new key should be placed in the R-tree index. The affected pages are the leaf page on which the new key is stored and the parent pages whose bounding boxes need to be enlarged.

If the query optimizer decides to use an R-tree index in a search, the R-tree index begins its search at the root, and searches the tree as described in Search with an R-tree index. Because searches of R-tree indexes involve both the bounding boxes and data objects, the support and strategy functions in this case also use both the bounding boxes and data objects in their internal calculations.