DGCL: An efficient density and grid based clustering algorithm for large spatial database

Abstract

Spatial clustering, which groups similar objects based on their distance, connectivity, or their relative density in space, is an important component of spatial data mining. Clustering large data sets has always been a serious challenge for clustering algorithms, because huge data set makes the clustering process extremely costly. In this paper, we propose DGCL, an enhanced Density-Grid based Clustering algorithm for Large spatial database. The characteristics of dense area can be enhanced by considering the affection of the surrounding area. Dense areas are analytically identified as clusters by removing sparse area or outliers with the help of a density threshold. Synthetic datasets are used for testing and the result shows the superiority of our approach. © Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg 2006.