METHOD AND SYSTEM FOR COLLECTING USER UPDATE REQUESTS REGARDING GEOGRAPHIC DATA TO SUPPORT AUTOMATED ANALYSIS, PROCESSING AND GEOGRAPHIC DATA UPDATES

• US 20080208889A1
• Filed: 10/29/2007
• Published: 08/28/2008
• Est. Priority Date: 06/30/2006
• Status: Abandoned Application

• Current Assignee: Tele Atlas North America (TomTom NV)
• Original Assignee: Tele Atlas North America (TomTom NV)
• Inventors: Brown, Tyler Charles, Winberry, Mark S., Parker-Laflamme, Jennifer, Brown, Roger W., Gross, Christopher
• Application Number:
  US11/927,544
• Publication Number:
  US 20080208889A1
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 707/102
• CPC Class Codes: G01C 21/3856 Data obtained from user input
• CPC Class Codes: G01C 21/3859 Differential updating map data
• CPC Class Codes: G01C 21/387 Organisation of map data, e.g. version management or database structures
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 16/29 Geographical information databases

Abstract

A system and method provide functionality for collecting user update reports of geographic inconsistencies between geographic data and the real world to enable automated processing of updates to the geographic data. A user'"'"'s input is collected and describes an anomaly, which is a geographic inconsistency between geographic data and the real world. The user'"'"'s input is stored as language neutral structured data that enables automated processing of updates to the geographic data. Automatic processes that process the structured data include an email agent, an incident agent, a geographic augmentation agent, a case generation agent, a clustering agent, an automatic validation agent, and a monitoring service. Automatic and manual processes combined together handle processing of anomalies, as well as other related processing, and ultimately handle processing of updates to the geographic data to resolve the anomalies reported by the users.

Claims

1-15. -15. (canceled)

16. A method of reporting inconsistencies between geographic data and the real world in order to enable automated processing of updates to the geographic data, the method comprising:

using an interface to identify a location of an anomaly, wherein the anomaly comprises a geographic inconsistency between the geographic data and the real world; and

using an interface to select an anomaly type from a finite set of anomaly types to describe the anomaly at the location.

17. A method of reporting inconsistencies between geographic data and the real world in order to enable automated processing of updates to the geographic data, the method comprising:

entering input identifying the location of an anomaly, wherein the anomaly comprises a geographic inconsistency between the geographic data and the real world; and

using language-neutral structured data to describe the anomaly that enables automated processing of updates to the geographic data.