Device and method for controlling electronic map

• US 9,728,167 B2
• Filed: 09/23/2014
• Issued: 08/08/2017
• Est. Priority Date: 12/30/2013
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Beijing Qihu Technology Co. Ltd. (360 Security Technology, Inc.)
• Original Assignee: Beijing Qihu Technology Co. Ltd. (360 Security Technology, Inc.)
• Inventors: Yang, Xinming
• Primary Examiner(s): Hoang, Phi
• Application Number:
  US15/108,969
• Publication Number:
  US 20160329031A1
• Time in Patent Office: 1,050 Days
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 16/29 Geographical information databases
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 16/51 Indexing; Data structures therefor; Storage structures
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 2203/04804 Transparency, e.g. transparent or translucent windows
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 2203/04806 Zoom, i.e. interaction techniques or interactors for controlling the zooming operation
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 3/0485 Scrolling or panning
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 3/14 Digital output to display device ; Cooperation and interconnection of the display device with other functional units
• CPC Class Codes: G09G 2340/045 Zooming at least part of an image, i.e. enlarging it or shrinking it
• CPC Class Codes: G09G 2360/121 using a cache memory
• CPC Class Codes: G09G 2360/122 Tiling
• CPC Class Codes: G09G 2370/022 Centralised management of display operation, e.g. in a server instead of locally
• CPC Class Codes: G09G 5/373 for modifying the size of the graphic pattern
• CPC Class Codes: G09G 5/38 with means for controlling the display position

Abstract

The present invention discloses a device and method for controlling zooming-in of an electronic map, a device and method for controlling zooming-out of an electronic map, a device and method for controlling panning of an electronic map, a device and method for computing tiles within a visual region of an electronic map, and a device and method for processing an electronic map tile request queue, wherein the method for controlling zooming-in of an electronic map comprises: determining a target display level to be reached via zooming in when receiving an instruction of zooming in the map, and searching out a plurality of target tiles that need to be displayed in the target display level; selecting a pre-loaded display level based on a relationship between a current display level and the target display level, and searching out pre-loaded tiles corresponding to the target tiles in the pre-loaded display level; acquiring the pre-loaded tiles and the target tiles according to an order of priority, loading and displaying the pre-loaded tiles by zooming in according to a level difference between the pre-loaded display level and the target display level; and after acquiring the target tiles, loading and displaying the target tiles so as to replace the zoomed-in pre-loaded tiles at corresponding positions.

Claims

1. A method for controlling zooming-in of an electronic map, the method comprising:

determining a target display level to be reached via zooming in when receiving an instruction of zooming in a map, and searching out a plurality of target tiles that need to be displayed in the target display level;

selecting a pre-loaded display level based on a relationship between a current display level and the target display level, and searching out pre-loaded tiles corresponding to the target tiles in the pre-loaded display level;

acquiring the pre-loaded tiles and the target tiles according to an order of priority, loading and displaying the pre-loaded tiles by zooming in according to a level difference between the pre-loaded display level and the target display level; and

after acquiring the target tiles, loading and displaying the target tiles so as to replace the zoomed-in pre-loaded tiles at corresponding positions;

wherein the searching out a plurality of target tiles that need to be displayed in the target display level comprises;

according to geographical position coordinates of a zoomed-in central point of a visual region of the map and the target display level of the map, obtaining pixel coordinates of the zoomed-in central point by converting;

obtaining a pixel size of a single target tile that needs to be displayed based on the target display level of the map;

obtaining pixel coordinates of two opposite apexes of the visual region of the map according to a pixel size of the visual region of the map and the pixel coordinates of the zoomed-in central point; and

obtaining the target tiles within the visual region according to the pixel coordinates of two opposite apexes of the visual region of the map and the pixel size of the single target tile that needs to be displayed.

2. The method according to claim 1, wherein,

the pre-loaded display level is higher than the target display level;

a map scope represented by the pre-loaded tiles covers a map scope represented by a plurality of target tiles, and a geographical area corresponding to respective pre-loaded tiles is n times of a geographical area corresponding to respective target tiles, n=4^k, k is a natural number and indicating a level difference between the pre-loaded display level and the target display level.

3. The method according to claim 1, wherein the loading and displaying the pre-loaded tiles by zooming in according to a level difference between the pre-loaded display level and the target display level comprises:

displaying a transverse width and a longitudinal height of respective pre-loaded tiles by zooming in m times, wherein m=2^k, k is a natural number, indicating a level difference between the pre-loaded display level and the target display level.

4. The method according to claim 1, wherein the method further comprises:

setting a local cache;

saving displayed tiles in the local cache.

5. The method according to claim 4, wherein the method further comprises:

when saving the displayed tiles in the local cache, if capacity of the local cache is not enough, removing the least recently used tiles from the local cache.

6. The method according to claim 5, wherein the acquiring the pre-loaded tiles and the target tiles according to an order of priority comprises:

judging whether the pre-loaded tiles and the target tiles are in the local cache;

if yes, reading the pre-loaded tiles and the target tiles from the local cache;

if not, downloading the pre-loaded tiles and the target tiles from a server.

7. The method according to claim 6, wherein the downloading the pre-loaded tiles and the target tiles from a server specifically comprises:

adding requests for downloading the pre-loaded tiles from the server in a tile request queue according to an ascending order of the distances from the pre-loaded tiles to a zooming focal center of a map, and

adding the requests for downloading the target tiles from the server in the tile request queue according to an ascending order of the distances from the target tiles to the zooming focal center of a map.

8. The method according to claim 1, wherein the loading and displaying the target tiles to replace the zoomed-in pre-loaded tiles at corresponding positions specifically comprises:

increasing transparency of the zoomed-in pre-loaded tiles while loading the target tiles;

when loading the target tiles is completed, removing the zoomed-in pre-loaded tiles and displaying the target tiles.

9. A method for controlling zooming-out of an electronic map, the method comprising:

determining a target display level to be reached via zooming out when receiving an instruction of zooming out a map, and searching out a plurality of target tiles that need to be displayed in the target display level, wherein the target display level is higher than a current display level;

loading and displaying currently displayed tiles by zooming out according to a level difference between the current display level and the target display level;

selecting a pre-loaded display level and searching out pre-loaded tiles that need to be loaded at an edge region in the pre-loaded display level;

acquiring the pre-loaded tiles and the target tiles in an order of priority, loading and displaying the pre-loaded tiles by zooming in according to a level difference between the pre-loaded display level and the target display level; and

after acquiring the target tiles, loading and displaying the target tiles so as to replace the zoomed-out currently displayed tiles and the zoomed-in pre-loaded tiles at corresponding positions;

wherein, the searching out a plurality of target tiles that need to be displayed in a target display level comprises;

according to geographical position coordinates of a zoomed-out central point of a visual region of the map and the target display level of the map, obtaining pixel coordinates of the zoomed-out central point by converting;

obtaining a pixel size of a single target tile that needs to be displayed based on the target display level of the map;

obtaining pixel coordinates of two opposite apexes of the visual region of the map according to the pixel size of the visual region of the map and the pixel coordinate of the zoomed-out central point; and

obtaining the target tiles within the visual region according to the pixel coordinates of two opposite apexes of the visual region of the map and the pixel size of the single target tile that needs to be displayed.

10. The method according to claim 9, wherein,

the pre-loaded display level is higher than the target display level;

a map scope represented by the pre-loaded tiles covers a map scope represented by a plurality of target tiles besides a map scope represented by the currently displayed tiles;

and a geographical area corresponding to respective pre-loaded tiles is n times of a geographical area corresponding to respective target tiles, n=4^k, k is a natural number, indicating a level difference between the pre-loaded display level and the target display level.

11. The method according to claim 9, wherein, the loading and displaying the currently displayed tiles by zooming out according to a level difference between the current display level and the target display level comprises:

displaying a transverse width and a longitudinal height of respective currently displayed tile by zooming out to 1/p, wherein p=2^q, q is a natural number, indicating a level difference between the target display level and the current display level;

the loading and displaying pre-loaded tiles by zooming in according to a level difference between the pre-loaded display level and the target display level, comprising;

displaying a transverse width and a longitudinal height of respective pre-loaded tiles by zooming in m times, wherein m=2^k, k is a natural number, indicating a level difference between the pre-loaded display level and the target display level.

12. The method according to claim 9, wherein the method further comprises:

setting a local cache;

saving displayed tiles in the local cache.

13. The method according to claim 12, wherein the method further comprises:

when saving the displayed tiles in the local cache, if capacity of the local cache is not enough, removing the least recently used tiles from the local cache.

14. The method according to claim 12, wherein the acquiring the pre-loaded tiles and the target tiles according to an order of priority comprises:

judging whether the pre-loaded tiles and the target tiles are in the local cache;

if yes, reading the pre-loaded tiles and the target tiles from the local cache;

if not, downloading the pre-loaded tiles and the target tiles from a server.

15. The method according to claim 9, wherein the loading and displaying the target tiles so as to replace the zoomed-out currently displayed tiles and the zoomed-in pre-loaded tiles at corresponding positions specifically comprises:

increasing transparency of zoomed-out currently displayed tiles and zoomed-in pre-loaded tiles while loading the target tiles;

when loading the target tiles is completed, removing the zoomed-out currently displayed tiles and zoomed-in pre-loaded tiles and displaying the target tiles.

16. An apparatus for controlling zooming-in of an electronic map, comprising:

at least a processor; and

at least a memory communicatively coupled to the at least a processor, the at least a memory bearing processor-executable instructions that upon execution by the at least a processor cause the apparatus to perform at least the following operations;

determining a target display level to be reached via zooming in when receiving an instruction of zooming in a map, and searching out a plurality of target tiles that need to be displayed in the target display level;

selecting a pre-loaded display level based on a relationship between a current display level and the target display level, and searching out pre-loaded tiles corresponding to the target tiles in the pre-loaded display level;

acquiring the pre-loaded tiles and the target tiles according to an order of priority, loading and displaying the pre-loaded tiles by zooming in according to a level difference between the pre-loaded display level and the target display level; and

after acquiring the target tiles, loading and displaying the target tiles so as to replace the zoomed-in pre-loaded tiles at corresponding positions;

wherein the searching out a plurality of target tiles that need to be displayed in the target display level comprises;

according to geographical position coordinates of a zoomed-in central point of a visual region of the map and the target display level of the map, obtaining pixel coordinates of the zoomed-in central point by converting;

obtaining a pixel size of a single target tile that needs to be displayed based on the target display level of the map;

obtaining pixel coordinates of two opposite apexes of the visual region of the map according to a pixel size of the visual region of the map and the pixel coordinates of the zoomed-in central point; and

obtaining the target tiles within the visual region according to the pixel coordinates of two opposite apexes of the visual region of the map and the pixel size of the single target tile that needs to be displayed.

17. The device according to claim 16, wherein, the pre-loaded display level is higher than the target display level;

a map scope represented by the pre-loaded tiles covers a map scope represented by a plurality of target tiles, and a geographical area corresponding to respective pre-loaded tiles is n times of a geographical area corresponding to respective target tiles, n=4^k, k is a natural number and indicating a level difference between the pre-loaded display level and the target display level.

18. The device according to claim 16, wherein the loading and displaying the pre-loaded tiles by zooming in according to a level difference between the pre-loaded display level and the target display level comprises:

displaying a transverse width and a longitudinal height of respective pre-loaded tiles by zooming in m times, wherein m=2^k, k is a natural number, indicating a level difference between the pre-loaded display level and the target display level.