How can I extend this SQL query to find the k nearest neighbors?

Question

I have a database full of two-dimensional data - points on a map. Each record has a field of the geometry type. What I need to be able to do is pass a point to a stored procedur

Answer 1

What happens if you remove TOP (1) WITH TIES from the inner query, and set the outer query to return the top k rows?

I'd also be interested to know whether this amendment helps at all. It ought to be more efficient than using TOP:

DECLARE @start FLOAT = 1000
        ,@k INT = 20
        ,@p FLOAT = 2;

WITH NearestPoints AS
(
     SELECT *
            ,T.g.STDistance(@x) AS dist
            ,ROW_NUMBER() OVER (ORDER BY T.g.STDistance(@x)) AS rn
     FROM Numbers 
     JOIN T WITH(INDEX(spatial_index)) 
     ON   T.g.STDistance(@x) <  @start*POWER(@p,Numbers.n)
     AND (Numbers.n - 1 = 0 
          OR T.g.STDistance(@x) >= @start*POWER(@p,Numbers.n - 1)
         )
)
SELECT * 
FROM NearestPoints
WHERE rn <= @k;

NB - untested - I don't have access to SQL 2008 here.