Grid (spatial index)

In the context of a spatial index, a grid (a.k.a. "mesh", also "global grid" if it covers the entire surface of the globe) is a regular tessellation of a manifold or 2-D surface that divides it into a series of contiguous cells, which can then be assigned unique identifiers and used for spatial indexing purposes. A wide variety of such grids have been proposed or are currently in use, including grids based on "square" or "rectangular" cells, triangular grids or meshes, hexagonal grids and grids based on diamond-shaped cells.