Vectorizing geometries with linestrings

This section shows you how to take any linestring or polygon geometry object and decompose it even further than ST_ExplodeGeometry; not just the extraction of individual elements and subelements, but right down to individual vectors. A vector is a directed two vertex linestring.

(X1,Y2) ---> (X2,Y2)
E.g. SDO_GEOMETRY(2002,NULL,NULL,
                  SDO_ELEM_INFO_ARRAY(1,2,1),
                  SDO_ORDINATE_ARRAY (1,1,2,1))

The only level lower than this is the individual vertex level!

Vectorization of an SDO_GEOMETRY object requires access to all the vertices of that object. The SDO_UTIL.GetVertices function can be used to return the vertices of an SDO_GEOMETRY object in a form that is easy and natural to work with. This function returns the MDSYS.VERTEX_SET_TYPE collection object, which is defined on the MDSYS.VERTEX_TYPE object:

Create Or Replace Type vertex_set_type As Table Of mdsys.vertex_type;

The MDSYS.VERTEX_TYPE object is defined (11gR1 and...