Identifying geo-located objects

• US 8,938,464 B2
• Filed: 04/25/2007
• Issued: 01/20/2015
• Est. Priority Date: 04/25/2006
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Google LLC (Alphabet Inc.)
• Original Assignee: Google Inc. (Alphabet Inc.)
• Inventors: Bailly, Francois, Rohlf, John, McClendon, Brian A.
• Primary Examiner(s): Hoang, Son T
• Application Number:
  US11/740,221
• Publication Number:
  US 20070282792A1
• Time in Patent Office: 2,827 Days
• Field of Search: 707/758, 707/802
• US Class Current: 707/758
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 16/29 Geographical information databases
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 16/9537 Spatial or temporal dependent retrieval, e.g. spatiotemporal queries

Abstract

A method of providing geo-coded information to a user of a graphical computing device is disclosed. The method includes receiving information identifying a view to be displayed on the graphical computing device, querying a geo-coded database containing information associated with publicly supplied models located in a geography, for one or more models located in the view, and transmitting information identifying the one or more models located in the view.

Claims

1. A method of providing geo-coded information to a user of a graphical computing device, comprising:

receiving and storing, at a geo-coded database, information associated with a plurality of geo-coded three-dimensional models, the information being supplied by the public users;

receiving, at a server system that includes a programmable system, information identifying a view of a geographic location to be displayed on the graphical computing device;

querying, by the server system, the geo-coded database containing the information associated with the publicly supplied geo-coded three-dimensional models to identify two or more geo-coded three-dimensional models in the plurality of geo-coded three-dimensional models, wherein the two or more geo-coded three-dimensional models represent different modeled representations of a physical architectural structure that is present or has been present at the geographic location and were submitted by one or more of the public users;

ranking, by the server system, the two or more three-dimensional models based at least in part on respective popularities of the two or more publicly supplied geo-coded three-dimensional models with the public users; and

transmitting, by the server system, data for generating on the graphical computing device a view of one of the ranked two or more geo-coded three-dimensional models that was selected by the user of the graphical computing device, superimposed on the view of the geographic location using corresponding geo-coded information stored with the model selected by the user, in preference to displaying other versions of representations of the physical architectural structure.

2. The method of claim 1, wherein the information identifying the view of the geographic location is bounding box coordinates.

3. The method of claim 1, wherein the information identifying the two or more geo-coded three-dimensional models located in the view of the geographic location is transmitted as an Extensible Mark-Up Language document.

4. The method of claim 1, wherein the information identifying the two or more geo-coded three-dimensional models located in the view of the geographic location includes a placemarks that identify storage locations of the two or more geo-coded three-dimensional models and links directed to the two or more geo-coded three-dimensional models, wherein selection of one of the links causes one of the two or more geo-coded three-dimensional models to be downloaded to the graphical computing device.

5. The method of claim 4, wherein the information identifying the two or more geo-coded three-dimensional models located in the view of the geographic location further includes a link to a preview image of a first of the two or more geo-coded three-dimensional models.

6. The method of claim 1, further comprising:

identifying, by a geography server system, a three-dimensional model of geography located in the view of the geographic location; and

transmitting the three-dimensional model of the geography from the geography server system that is separate from the server system that transmits the information identifying the two or more geo-coded three-dimensional models located in the view of the geographic location.

7. The method of claim 1, further comprising associating, by the server system, advertisements with the two or more geo-coded three-dimensional models for display along with the two or more geo-coded three-dimensional models.

8. The method of claim 1, wherein ranking the two or more geo-coded three-dimensional models comprises ranking the two or more geo-coded three-dimensional models based at least in part on a level of trust of a first public user and a level of trust of a second public user who have submitted the two or more geo-coded three-dimensional models to the geo-coded database.

9. The method of claim 1, wherein the respective popularities each represents a number of downloads of the two or more geo-coded three-dimensional models by the public users.

10. A method of providing geo-coded information to a user of a graphical computing device, the method comprising:

receiving, from a user, a selection of a geographical location at a graphical computing device;

transmitting, from the graphical computing device, information identifying the selected geographical location to a server system storing information associated with geographical areas and a plurality of geo-coded three-dimensional models submitted by public users;

receiving, at the graphical computing device from the server system, a first response including information characterizing an area of geography associated with the selected geographical location;

receiving, at the graphical computing device from the server system, a second response including

information associated with two or more geo-coded three-dimensional models in a plurality of three-dimensional models that are geo-coded to the selected geographical location, the two or more geo-coded three-dimensional models representing different modeled representations of a single physical architectural structure that is present or has been present at the selected geographic location and being submitted by one or more members of the public users, and

a ranking of the two or more three-dimensional models, the ranking at least partially embodying respective popularities of the two or more three-dimensional models with the public users; and

displaying a view of one of the two or more geo-coded three-dimensional models that was selected by the user of the graphical computing device, superimposed on the view of the geographic location using corresponding geo-coded information stored with the model selected by the user, in preference to displaying other versions of representations of the architectural structure.

11. The method of claim 10, further comprising:

displaying respective two or more images of the two or more three-dimensional models; and

displaying a selected one of the two or more three-dimensional models in response to a selection of one of the respective two or more images.

12. The method of claim 10, wherein the selected geographical location represents a portion of a whole earth representation.

13. The method of claim 10, wherein the server system includes an interface to receive public submissions of the plurality of geo-coded three-dimensional models and make the submitted geo-coded three-dimensional models publicly available.

14. The method of claim 10, further comprising receiving a search request and displaying images of two or more geo-coded three-dimensional models associated with the server system in response to the search request.

15. The method of claim 14, further comprising receiving a selection of one of the displayed images and displaying a geo-coded three-dimensional model associated with the selected image on the graphical computing device in response to the image selection.

16. A computer-implemented system for providing geo-coded information to a requesting user of a graphical computing device, the system comprising:

a server system comprising a programmable system including at least one programmable processor storing visual information characterizing geography of geographical areas, the geography server system programmed to;

serve the visual information in response to requests received from a client graphical computing device associated with the requesting user, and

store information associated with two or more geo-coded three-dimensional models in a plurality of geo-coded three-dimensional models for display with the visual information, wherein

the two or more geo-coded three-dimensional models represent different modeled representations of a single physical architectural structure that is present or has been present at a geographic location and each is submitted by one or more public users, and

serve the information associated with the two or more geo-coded three-dimensional models in response to the requests received from the client, the information associated with the plurality of geo-coded three-dimensional models including popularity information characterizing respective popularity of each of the plurality of geo-coded three-dimensional models with the one or more public users;

a correlation structure stored at a data storage system and associating the geographical areas with the plurality of geo-coded three-dimensional models, the correlation structure configured to receive submissions from the one or more public users submitting the geo-coded three-dimensional models to the system; and

the client graphical computing device configured to;

request and receive, from the server system, the visual information characterizing the geography of geographical areas;

request and receive, from the server system, information associated with two or more geo-coded three-dimensional models in the plurality of geo-coded three-dimensional models, the received information including a popularity ranking of the two or more geo-coded three-dimensional models in the plurality of geo-coded three-dimensional models; and

render a view of one of the two or more geo-coded three-dimensional models that was selected by the requesting user of the client graphical computing device, superimposed on a view of a particular geographic location using corresponding geo-coded information stored with the model selected by the requesting user, in preference to displaying other versions of representations of the physical architectural structure.

17. The system of claim 16, further comprising a publicly accessible model submission interface configured to receive the plurality of geo-coded three-dimensional models submitted by a plurality of public users and to make the plurality of geo-coded three-dimensional models available for display to the plurality of public users.

18. The system of claim 17, wherein the model submission interface is configured to receive modifications to the plurality of geo-coded three-dimensional models and to associate unmodified geo-coded three-dimensional models with corresponding modified geo-coded three-dimensional models.

19. The system of claim 16, wherein the correlation structure comprises a database table.

20. The system of claim 16, wherein the correlation structure associates a first geographical area with a collection of different versions of representations of a first geo-coded three-dimensional model, the different versions of the representations having been provided to the server system for storage by different users.

21. The system of claim 16, wherein the information associated with the geo-coded three-dimensional models further comprises levels of trust of the one or more public users who have identified the three-dimensional models to the model server.

22. The system of claim 16, wherein the respective popularities each represents a number of downloads of each of the geo-coded three-dimensional models by the public users.

23. A server system for providing geo-coded information to a user of a graphical computing device, the system comprising:

one or more programmable systems each including at least one programmable processor, the server system comprising;

one or more interfaces configured to receive, over a network, requests from users of graphical computing devices, the requests including location information;

a geography database storing geographic information;

a mapping module programmed to determine, in response to the location information received in the requests, information in the geography database needed by the requesting users;

an object database storing a plurality of geo-coded three-dimensional models, submitted by public users, wherein two or more geo-coded three-dimensional models in the plurality of geo-coded three dimensional models represents different modeled representations of a single physical architectural structure that is present or has been present at a geographic location and being submitted by one or more of the public users, the object database including;

a first geo-coded three-dimensional model that is a first version of a first physical architectural structure and geo-coded to a first particular geographic area,

a first flag indicating a first user who altered another geo-coded three-dimensional model to create the first geo-coded three-dimensional model,

a first count of accesses to the first geo-coded three-dimensional model by the public users,

a second geo-coded three-dimensional model that is a second version of the first physical architectural structure and geo-coded to the first particular geographic area,

a second flag indicating a second user who altered the first geo-coded three-dimensional model to create the second geo-coded three-dimensional model, and

a second count of accesses to the second geo-coded three-dimensional model by the public users; and

an object selection engine programmed to query the object database to identify one of the two or more geo-coded three-dimensional models in the plurality of geo-coded three-dimensional models to be displayed on graphical computing devices of the requesting users in response to the location information received in the requests, wherein the object selection engine is programmed to

identify both the first geo-coded three-dimensional model and the second geo-coded three-dimensional model and

rank both the first geo-coded three-dimensional model and the second geocoded three-dimensional model based on the first and second counts in response to the location information received in the requests being associated with the first particular geographic area and the identified one of the two or more geo coded three-dimensional models to be displayed is in preference to other versions of representations of the physical architectural structure.

24. The server system of claim 23, wherein the geo-coded three-dimensional models in the object database and the geographic information in the geography database are both stored in the same grammar and file format.

25. The server system of claim 23, wherein the plurality of geo-coded three-dimensional models in the object database and the geographic information in the geography database are both stored in a same Extensible Markup Language document.

26. The server system of claim 23, wherein the first geo-coded three-dimensional model is a root massing model.

27. The server system of claim 23, wherein:

the object database further comprises

a first characterization of a level of trust of the first user, and

a second characterization of a level of trust of the second user; and

the object selection engine is programmed rank both the first geo-coded three-dimensional model and the second geo-coded three-dimensional model based on the first and second characterizations of the levels of trust.