Method and system for multi-dimensional and geographic search

• US 8,510,310 B2
• Filed: 12/21/2009
• Issued: 08/13/2013
• Est. Priority Date: 12/23/2008
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Zhijing George Mou
• Original Assignee: Zhijing George Mou
• Inventors: Mou, Zhijing George
• Primary Examiner(s): Uddin, Mohammed R
• Application Number:
  US12/643,757
• Publication Number:
  US 20100174721A1
• Time in Patent Office: 1,331 Days
• Field of Search: 707/743, 707/724, 707/741, 707/999.003
• US Class Current: 707/741
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 16/2448 for particular applications; for extensibility, e.g. user defined types
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 16/29 Geographical information databases

Abstract

One embodiment of the present invention is directed to a multi-dimensional and geographic-search system that includes a search-region-receiving component that receives coordinates that define a region to be searched, an indexing component that generates an index for each of the received coordinates, a recursive-decomposition component that decomposes the region into sub-regions based on the indices generated by the indexing component, and a search component that selects points of interest from a points-of-interest database by comparing indices computed for the sub-regions to indices computed and stored in the database for each point of interest. Additional embodiments are directed to carrying out efficient, index-based searching for various additional types index-characterized entities.

Claims

1. A multi-dimensional and geographic-search system comprising:

a search-region-receiving component that receives a number i of sets of coordinates that define a region to be searched, the number i greater than 1 and each of the i sets of coordinates including d coordinates associated with a multidimensional space, each of the d coordinates represented by an ordered sequence of n bits;

an indexing component that generates, by a bit-permutation mapping, i integer indexes that include an integer index for each of the i sets of the received coordinates, the bit-permutation mapping grouping, for each of the n bits used to represent each of the d coordinates of a set of coordinates, the bits of the d coordinates at each bit position within the ordered-bit-sequence representations of the d coordinates together into a subsequence of bits within an ordered sequence of subsequences of bits that together compose the integer index;

a recursive-decomposition component that decomposes the region into sub-regions based on the integer indices generated by the indexing component; and

a search component that selects points of interest from a points-of-interest database by comparing integer indices computed for the regular sub-regions to indices computed and stored in the database for each point of interest.

2. The multi-dimensional and geographic-search system of claim 1 wherein the search-region-receiving component receives real-valued longitudinal and latitudinal coordinates for two points that define a geographical region.

3. The multi-dimensional and geographic-search system of claim 2 wherein the real-valued longitudinal and latitudinal coordinates for two points that define a geographical region are coordinates for two, diagonally opposed corners of a rectangular region.

4. The multi-dimensional and geographic-search system of claim 1 wherein the search-region-receiving component receives real-valued coordinates for two points that define a volume in a space of three or more dimensions.

5. The multi-dimensional and geographic-search system of claim 1 wherein the recursive-decomposition component decomposes the region into regular sub-regions based on the integer indices generated by the indexing component by:

when a termination condition is not satisfied,

decomposing the region according to a pattern computed for the region to generate two or more lower-level regular sub-regions; and

recursively decomposing the two or more regular sub-regions.

6. The multi-dimensional and geographic-search system of claim 5 wherein a region or regular sub-region is decomposed into lower-level regular sub-regions by:

computing a pattern for the region or regular sub-region;

using the computed pattern to select a decomposition method; and

applying the selected decomposition method to the region or regular sub-region.

7. The multi-dimensional and geographic-search system of claim 6 wherein a decomposition method, when applied to a region or regular sub-region:

identifies corner points for two or more regular sub-regions of the region or regular sub-region; and

computes one-dimensional integer indices, based on the identified corner points, for the two or more regular sub-regions of the region or regular sub-region.

8. The multi-dimensional and geographic-search system of claim 7 wherein the decomposition method decomposes a region or regular sub-region in such a way that the precisions of the regular sub-regions produced by the decomposition method are maximized.

9. A mapping system comprising:

a tile-specifying component that receives a number i of sets of coordinates that define region, the number i greater than 1 and each of the i sets of coordinates including d coordinates associated with a multidimensional space, each of the d coordinates represented by an ordered sequence of n bits;

an indexing component that generates, by a bit-permutation mapping, i integer indexes that include an integer index for each i sets of the coordinate that defines the region, the bit-permutation mapping grouping, for each of the n bits used to represent each of the d coordinates of a set of coordinates, the bits of the d coordinates at each bit position within the ordered-bit-sequence representations of the d coordinates together into a subsequence of bits within an ordered sequence of subsequences of bits that together compose the integer index;

a recursive-decomposition component that decomposes the region into regular sub-regions based on the integer indices generated by the indexing component; and

a tile-retrieving component that retrieves tiles corresponding to the regular sub-regions computed by the recursive-decomposition component.

10. The mapping system of claim 9 wherein the tile-specifying component receives real-valued longitudinal and latitudinal coordinates for two points that define the region.

11. The mapping system of claim 10 wherein the real-valued longitudinal and latitudinal coordinates for two points that define the region are coordinates for two, diagonally opposed corners of a rectangular region.

12. The mapping system of claim 9 wherein the recursive-decomposition component decomposes the region into regular sub-regions based on the integer indices generated by the indexing component by:

when a termination condition is not satisfied,

decomposing the region according to a pattern computed for the region to generate two or more lower-level regular sub-regions; and

recursively decomposing the two or more regular sub-regions.

13. The mapping system of claim 12 wherein a region or regular sub-region is decomposed into lower-level regular sub-regions by:

computing a pattern for the region or regular sub-region;

using the computed pattern to select a decomposition method; and

applying the selected decomposition method to the region or regular sub-region.

14. The mapping system of claim 13 wherein a decomposition method, when applied to a region or regular sub-region:

identifies corner points for two or more regular sub-regions of the region or regular sub-region; and

computes one-dimensional integer indices, based on the identified corner points, for the two or more regular sub-regions of the region or regular sub-region.

15. The mapping system of claim 14 wherein the decomposition method decomposes a region or regular sub-region in a such a way that the precisions of the regular sub-regions produced by the decomposition method are maximized.