java - Using another index structure in Apache Lucene -

i use lucene write own search engine. because use spatial information, try index structures more suitable spatial data. far know there no alternative structure available in lucene itself, lgte (lucene extension geo-temporal date) seems not let access other structures. did not see other structures or have implement them?

the direct , simple answer title of question, "can use index structure" can't -- @ least can't if have different api lucene's. in nutshell, fundamentally sorted mapping of bytes docids + optionally postings (position offsets document plus optionally "payloads" (arbitrary bytes posting).

that said, suppose implement so-called lucene codec (new in lucene 4.x) has own extended api , search against field assumes specific codec. codecs envisioned have different implementations of lucene's apis (e.g. balancing what's in memory vs on-disk, when cleverly compress/encode vs directly represent data) not introduce different api well. suppose could.

the context beyond title of question want spatial/temporal because, appears me don't believe lucene's index sufficiently suitable. disagree. there have been great strides in lucene spatial , has more go still. example many non-relational databases let index point data lucene spatial can handle spatial4j shape (a dependency) , jts (another dependency), that's typical shapes people want. , there scalable recursive algorithms matching indexed shapes via intersects, within, contains, , disjoint predicates. expect big performance enhancements end of summer or end of year @ latest. may find recent post responded on solr-user list interesting: http://lucene.472066.n3.nabble.com/multi-dimensional-spatial-search-tt4062515.html#a4062646 instead propose me improve parts of lucene spatial need whatever system building. perhaps fits bill.