Techniques for displaying and caching tiled map data on constrained-resource services
First Claim
1. A method for providing a tile-based map on a mobile device that is communicatively coupled to a tile-based mapping system, the method comprising:
- determining which map tiles of the tile-based mapping system are required to draw a requested map;
in response to a required map tile being stored in a heap cache of the mobile device, drawing that map tile for display on the mobile device;
in response to a required map tile being stored in a flash cache of the mobile device, loading that map tile into the heap cache; and
in response to a required map tile not being stored in the flash cache or the heap cache, queuing the tile for download from a remote tile server of the tile-based mapping system.
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Accused Products
Abstract
Techniques are disclosed that enable users to access and use digital mapping systems with constrained-resource services and/or mobile devices (e.g., cell phones and PDAs). In particular, latency of a mapping application on high-latency and low-throughput networks is minimized. One embodiment utilizes volatile and non-volatile storage of the mobile device to cache pre-computed map images (e.g., map tiles). An asynchronous cache can be used to prevent delays caused by potentially slow non-volatile storage. Meta-data about each map image and usage patterns can be stored and used by the cache to optimize hit rates.
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Citations
26 Claims
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1. A method for providing a tile-based map on a mobile device that is communicatively coupled to a tile-based mapping system, the method comprising:
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determining which map tiles of the tile-based mapping system are required to draw a requested map; in response to a required map tile being stored in a heap cache of the mobile device, drawing that map tile for display on the mobile device; in response to a required map tile being stored in a flash cache of the mobile device, loading that map tile into the heap cache; and in response to a required map tile not being stored in the flash cache or the heap cache, queuing the tile for download from a remote tile server of the tile-based mapping system. - View Dependent Claims (2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16, 17)
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18. A method for providing a tile-based map on a mobile device including at least one of a cell phone and a personal digital assistant, that is communicatively coupled to a tile-based mapping system, the method comprising:
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determining which map tiles of the tile-based mapping system are required to draw a requested map, each map tile having a size of about 64 pixels per side; in response to a required map tile being stored in a heap cache of the mobile device, drawing that map tile for display on the mobile device; in response to a required map tile being stored in a flash cache of the mobile device, loading that map tile into the heap cache and then drawing the map tile for display on the mobile device; and in response to a required map tile not being stored in the flash cache or the heap cache, at least one of queuing the tile for download from a remote tile server of the tile-based mapping system, generating a placeholder tile image for tile queue for download, and drawing the map tile for display on the mobile device after it is downloaded. - View Dependent Claims (19, 20)
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21. A method for providing a tile-based map on a mobile device that is communicatively coupled to a tile-based mapping system, the method comprising:
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determining which map tiles of the tile-based mapping system are required to draw a requested map, each map tile having a size that reduces required data bytes per screen as compared to other map tile sizes; in response to a required map tile being stored in a volatile cache of the mobile device, drawing that map tile for display on the mobile device; in response to a required map tile being stored in a non-volatile cache of the mobile device, loading that map tile into the volatile cache; and in response to a required map tile not being stored in the mobile device, requesting the tile for download from the tile-based mapping system. - View Dependent Claims (22, 23, 24, 25, 26)
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Specification