Norbert Kern wrote:
> 
> What is a spatial data structure?

A tree stucture like an octree/quadtree or BSP tree that makes it very 
efficient to access an element at a certain location.

Note in your case (and esp. for implementation in SDL) it might be the 
best approach to use a regular grid to store your locations in (or 
alternatively using spatial hashing if a grid would be too large).  This 
technique is widely used in molecular dynamics simulation.  What would 
be necessary for this to work is a limited density or the plants.  If a 
large number of plants can occur very close to each other that would be 
quite difficult to handle in SDL with a grid.

The idea is that with a grid cell size >= the maximum 'influence 
distance' of the plants only plants in neighboring grid cells can 
influence each other.  With a limited plant density that would only take 
constant time.

Christoph

-- 
POV-Ray tutorials, include files, Landscape of the week:
http://www.imagico.de/ (Last updated 01 Jun. 2006)
MegaPOV with mechanics simulation: http://megapov.inetart.net/

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