Methods and systems for encoding geographic coordinates and features in a portable document format file

• US 20050034062A1
• Filed: 06/18/2004
• Published: 02/10/2005
• Est. Priority Date: 06/18/2003
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Terrago Technologies Incorporated (In-Q-Tel)
• Original Assignee: Terrago Technologies Incorporated (In-Q-Tel)
• Inventors: Demmy, George G., Bufkin, Michael P., Stewart, D. Alan
• Granted Patent: US 7,562,289 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 715/230
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 40/169 Annotation, e.g. comment data or footnotes

Abstract

The invention is methods and systems for encoding geographic coordinates and features in a portable document format file. Various embodiments of the invention permit encoding of a geographic relationship between the coordinate system of a digital source map, and the rendering of that map to a portable document format (PDF) document as well as the information required to transform between the source map coordinate system and the PDF coordinate system. This encoding can be performed by determining the coordinates of the points of a polygon of selected source map data to be rendered to PDF in both PDF coordinates and source coordinates, and by determining a transformation matrix to convert the coordinates from one system to the other, including information regarding the geometric projection of the source coordinate system. Having encoded this data, it can be possible to obtain any location within the rendered PDF file in coordinates of the source coordinate system.

Claims

1. A method for encoding geographic information from a digital source map to an electronic graphics file, and associating non-graphic information from the digital source map with a geographic position in the electronic graphics file, comprising:

receiving geographic information associated with a digital source map;

scaling the geographic information to render corresponding geographic information in an associated electronic graphics file;

generating an annotation associated with non-graphic information; and

storing the annotation in the electronic graphics file, wherein the annotation is associated with a geographic position in the electronic graphics file.

2. The method of claim 1, further comprising:

receiving a selection of the annotation, and displaying the non-graphic information associated with the geographic position.

3. The method of claim 1, wherein receiving geographic information associated with a digital source map comprises receiving a user selection of source map data from a digital source map.

4. The method of claim 3, wherein the geographic information comprises at least one of the following:

a longitude, a latitude, an elevation, a terrain feature, a set of geographic coordinates, a geographic feature, a road, a body of water, a mountain, a place, a land mass, and geographic information.

5. The method of claim 1, wherein the digital source map comprises at least one of the following:

a digital map, a CAD drawing, a GIS landbase, a raster-based image, a database, a data storage device, a memory, and a digital map stored in a data storage device.

6. The method of claim 1, wherein scaling the geographic information to render corresponding geographic information in an associated electronic graphics file comprises:

determining projection and datum information associated with the digital source map;

determining a size associated with the geographic information;

rendering the geographic information to a format associated with the electronic graphics file;

determining a size associated with the rendered geographic information in the electronic graphics file; and

determining an angle between the geographic information and the rendered geographic information in the electronic graphics file;

determining a ratio between the size of the geographic information and the size of the rendered geographic information in the electronic graphics file; and

based in part on at least the projection and datum information, angle, and ratio, determining corresponding coordinates in the format associated with the electronic graphics file for a portion of the coordinates associated with the geographic information.

7. The method of claim 1, wherein the corresponding geographic information in the electronic graphics file is geo-registered.

8. The method of claim 1, wherein the electronic graphics file comprises at least one of the following:

an Adobe Acrobat®

portable document file, a portable document format file, a design web format (DWF) file, a tagged image file format (TIF) file, a scalable vector graphics (SVG) file, a Bentley Digital InterPlot (DPR) file, and a hypertext markup language (HTML) file, and an extensible markup language (XML) file.

9. The method of claim 1, wherein the electronic graphics file comprises at least one of the following:

a file format viewable by a viewer, a file format viewable by a file reader application program, and a file format viewable by an application program adapted to display graphics files.

10. The method of claim 1, wherein generating an annotation associated with non-graphic information from the digital source map comprises:

encoding non-graphic information associated with the geographical information into the electronic graphics file.

11. The method of claim 1, wherein the annotation comprises at least one of the following:

a hyperlink to a database in communication with a network, textual information associated with a geographical feature in the digital source map, textual information associated with an object in the digital source map.

12. The method of claim 1, wherein the non-graphic information comprises at least one of the following:

information from the digital source map, and information from a database.

13. A method for viewing encoded geographic information within an electronic graphics file, comprising:

(a) receiving an electronic graphics file with geographic information, the electronic graphics file, comprising;

(1) scaled geographic information from a digital source map, wherein the scaled geographic information is geo-registered;

(2) an annotation associated with the geographic information, the annotation providing access to non-graphic information stored in an associated database; and

(b) accessing the electronic graphics file with an application program adapted to display the electronic graphics file, comprising;

(1) selecting the annotation, wherein non-graphic information is displayed adjacent to the geographic information when the electronic graphics file is displayed.

14. The method of claim 13, wherein receiving an electronic graphics file with geographic information comprises receiving a user selection of source map data from a digital source map.

15. A computer-readable medium comprising computer code for encoding geographic information of a digital source map to an electronic graphics file, and computer code for associating geographic information in the electronic graphics file with non-graphic information in a database, comprising:

computer code adapted to;

scale geographic information in a digital source map for rendering corresponding geographic information in an electronic graphics file;

generate an annotation for the geographic information in the electronic graphics file; and

when the annotation is selected, access a database with non-graphic information associated with geographic information of the digital source map.

16. The computer-readable medium of claim 15, wherein the geographic information in a digital source map comprises a user selection of source map data from a digital source map.

17. The computer-readable medium of claim 16, wherein the geographic information comprises at least one of the following:

a longitude, a latitude, an elevation, a terrain feature, a set of geographic coordinates, a geographic feature, a road, a body of water, a mountain, a place, a land mass, and geographic information.

18. The computer-readable medium of claim 15, wherein the digital source map comprises at least one of the following:

a digital map, a CAD drawing, a GIS landbase, a raster-based image, a database, a data storage device, a memory, and a digital map stored in a data storage device.

19. The computer-readable medium of claim 15, wherein computer code to scale geographic information in a digital source map for rendering corresponding geographic information in an electronic graphics file comprises:

computer code for determining projection and datum information associated with the digital source map;

computer code for determining a size associated with the geographic information;

computer code for rendering the geographic information to a format associated with the electronic graphics file;

computer code for determining a size associated with the rendered geographic information in the electronic graphics file;

computer code for determining an angle between the geographic information and the rendered geographic information in the electronic graphics file;

computer code for determining a ratio between the size of the geographic information and the size of the rendered geographic information in the electronic graphics file; and

based in part on at least the projection and datum information, angle, and ratio, computer code for determining corresponding coordinates in the format associated with the electronic graphics file for a portion of the coordinates associated with the geographic information.

20. The computer-readable medium of claim 19, wherein the corresponding geographic information in the electronic graphics file is geo-registered.

21. The computer-readable medium of claim 15, wherein the electronic graphics file comprises at least one of the following:

an Adobe Acrobat®

portable document file, a portable document format file, a design web format (DWF) file, a tagged image file format (TIF) file, a scalable vector graphics (SVG) file, a Bentley Digital InterPlot (DPR) file, and a hypertext markup language (HTML) file, and an extensible markup language (XML) file.

22. The computer-readable medium of claim 15, wherein the electronic graphics file comprises at least one of the following:

a file format viewable by a viewer, a file format viewable by a file reader application program, and a file format viewable by an application program adapted to display graphics files.

23. The computer-readable medium of claim 15, wherein to generate an annotation for the geographic information in the electronic graphics file comprises:

encoding non-graphic information associated with the geographical information into the electronic graphics file.

24. The computer-readable medium of claim 15, wherein the annotation comprises at least one of the following:

a hyperlink to a database in communication with a network, textual information associated with a geographical feature in the digital source map, textual information associated with an object in the digital source map, non-graphic information associated with a geographical feature in the digital source map, and non-graphic information associated with an object in the digital source map.