Multiple views of a geographic area on a mobile device

• US 9,164,655 B2
• Filed: 09/15/2012
• Issued: 10/20/2015
• Est. Priority Date: 11/07/2005
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Google LLC (Alphabet Inc.)
• Original Assignee: Google Inc. (Alphabet Inc.)
• Inventors: Bliss, Adam, Crady, Mark, Chu, Michael, Jenson, Scott, Mavinkurve, Sanjay, Sacks, Joshua J., Morrison, Jerry
• Primary Examiner(s): Nguyen, Loan T
• Application Number:
  US13/620,749
• Publication Number:
  US 20130095893A1
• Time in Patent Office: 1,130 Days
• US Class Current: 1/1
• CPC Class Codes: G01C 21/367 Details, e.g. road map scale, orientation, zooming, illumination, level of detail, scrolling of road map or positioning of current position marker
• CPC Class Codes: G01C 21/3676 Overview of the route on the road map
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 16/29 Geographical information databases
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 16/951 Indexing; Web crawling techniques
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 16/9535 Search customisation based on user profiles and personalisation
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 16/9537 Spatial or temporal dependent retrieval, e.g. spatiotemporal queries
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 16/9538 Presentation of query results
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 16/954 Navigation, e.g. using categorised browsing
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 3/048 Interaction techniques based on graphical user interfaces [GUI]
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 3/04817 using icons graphical or visual programming using iconic symbols G06F8/34
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 3/0482 Interaction with lists of selectable items, e.g. menus
• CPC Class Codes: G09B 29/106 using electronic means
• CPC Class Codes: H04M 1/0206 Portable telephones comprising a plurality of mechanically joined movable body parts, e.g. hinged housings
• CPC Class Codes: H04M 1/724 User interfaces specially adapted for cordless or mobile telephones
• CPC Class Codes: H04M 1/72457 according to geographic location

Abstract

A computer-implemented method is disclosed that includes receiving on a mobile device a search query associated with a geographic location, providing one or more search results in response to the search query, the search results each being associated with a geographic location, and presenting on a graphical display of the computing device icons corresponding to each search result and also corresponding to a key on the computing device.

Claims

1. A computer-implemented method, comprising:

receiving, by a computing system, a search query that was entered by user input at a computing device;

identifying, by the computing system, a plurality of search results that are responsive to the search query and that identify a plurality of businesses and a plurality of geographical locations of the plurality of businesses;

determining, by the computing system and in response to having received the search query, a particular zoom level at which the computing device should present an image of a map, from among a collection of different zoom levels at which the computing device is able to present respective images of the map, wherein determining the particular zoom level includes;

(i) determining that the particular zoom level, from among the collection of different zoom levels, results in an overlay of graphical indications of a predetermined number of multiple search results, from among the plurality of search results, while preventing a display of graphical indications of more than the predetermined number of multiple search results, even though additional search results from the plurality of search results were also identified as being responsive to the search query, and

(ii) determining that the particular zoom level is one zoom level, from among the collection of different zoom levels, that is zoomed in as much as possible on the image of the map so that all of the graphical indications of the predetermined number of multiple search results are presented as overlaying the image of the map at the particular zoom level;

sending, by the computing system, information so as to cause the image of the map at the particular zoom level to be provided for presentation by the computing device; and

sending, by the computing system and for receipt by the computing device, information so as to cause the computing device to overlay the image of the map at the particular zoom level with the graphical indications of the multiple search results, positioned on the image of the map at locations of multiple businesses of the plurality of businesses.

2. The computer-implemented method of claim 1, wherein the image of the map at the particular zoom level comprises a plurality of image tiles for the map at the particular zoom level.

3. The computer-implemented method of claim 2, further comprising:

selecting, by the computing system, the plurality of image tiles for the map at the particular zoom level from a database that identifies image tiles for each of the different zoom levels of the map; and

providing, by the computing system and for receipt by the computing device, the plurality of image tiles.

4. The computer-implemented method of claim 1, wherein the computing system determines the zoom level in distinction to the zoom level being preset by the computing device.

5. The computer-implemented method of claim 1, further comprising parsing, by the computing system, the received search query in order to determine that the search query includes a zip code;

and

wherein the computing system is configured to determine the particular zoom level by setting the particular zoom level so that the image of the map at the particular zoom level matches the zip code in order to display an entire area of the zip code.

6. The computer-implemented method of claim 1, wherein the computing device is configured to receive user input that causes the presentation of the image of the map at the particular zoom level to zoom out from the particular zoom level to another zoom level from among the collection of different zoom levels in order to present a larger geographical area than when the map was presented at the particular zoom level.

7. The computer-implemented method of claim 1, wherein the predetermined number of the multiple search results is nine search results or ten search results.

8. A non-transitory computer-readable storage device including instructions that, when executed by a programmable processor, cause performance of operations that comprise:

receiving, by a computing system, a search query that was entered by user input at a computing device;

identifying, by the computing system, a plurality of search results that are responsive to the search query and that identify a plurality of businesses and a plurality of geographical locations of the plurality of businesses;

determining, by the computing system and in response to having received the search query, a particular zoom level at which the computing device should present an image of a map, from among a collection of different zoom levels at which the computing device is able to present respective images of the map, wherein determining the particular zoom level includes;

(i) determining that the particular zoom level, from among the collection of different zoom levels, results in an overlay of graphical indications of a predetermined number of multiple search results, from among the plurality of search results, while preventing a display of graphical indications of more than the predetermined number of multiple search results, even though additional search results from the plurality of search results were also identified as being responsive to the search query, and

(ii) determining that the particular zoom level is one zoom level, from among the collection of different zoom levels, that is zoomed in as much as possible on the image of the map so that all of the graphical indications of the predetermined number of multiple search results are presented as overlaying the image of the map at the particular zoom level;

sending, by the computing system, information so as to cause the image of the map at the particular zoom level to be provided for presentation by the computing device; and

sending, by the computing system and for receipt by the computing device, information so as to cause the computing device to overlay the image of the map at the particular zoom level with the graphical indications of the multiple search results, positioned on the image of the map at locations of multiple businesses of the plurality of businesses.

9. The computer-readable storage device of claim 8, wherein the image of the map at the particular zoom level comprises a plurality of image tiles for the map at the particular zoom level.

10. The computer-readable storage device of claim 9, wherein the operations further comprise:

selecting, by the computing system, the plurality of image tiles for the map at the particular zoom level from a database that identifies image tiles for each of the different zoom levels of the map; and

providing, by the computing system and for receipt by the computing device, the plurality of image tiles.

11. The computer-readable storage device of claim 8, wherein the computing system determines the zoom level in distinction to the zoom level being preset by the computing device.

12. The computer-readable storage device of claim 8, wherein the operations further comprise parsing, by the computing system, the received search query in order to determine that the search query includes a zip code;

and

wherein the computing system is configured to determine the particular zoom level by setting the particular zoom level so that the image of the map at the particular zoom level matches the zip code in order to display an entire area of the zip code.

13. The computer-readable storage device of claim 8, wherein the computing device is configured to receive user input that causes the presentation of the image of the map at the particular zoom level to zoom out from the particular zoom level to another zoom level from among the collection of different zoom levels in order to present a larger geographical area than when the map was presented at the particular zoom level.

14. The computer-readable storage device of claim 8, wherein the predetermined number of the multiple search results is nine search results or ten search results.