Mapping infrastructure layout between non-corresponding datasets

• US 9,928,620 B2
• Filed: 02/23/2013
• Issued: 03/27/2018
• Est. Priority Date: 10/08/2012
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: International Business Machines Corporation
• Original Assignee: International Business Machines Corporation
• Inventors: Murphy, Liam J., Nesbitt, Pamela A., O'Sullivan, Shane
• Primary Examiner(s): Channavajjala, Srirama
• Application Number:
  US13/775,186
• Publication Number:
  US 20140101180A1
• Time in Patent Office: 1,858 Days
• Field of Search: 707602, 707609, 707736, 707743, 707749, 707758, 707776, 707763, 707919-921, 709203, 709206, 709215-220, 701117-118, 701 70, 701 1, 701465-468
• CPC Class Codes: G01C 21/26 specially adapted for navigation in a road network
• CPC Class Codes: G01C 21/30 Map- or contour-matching
• CPC Class Codes: G01C 21/34 Route searching; Route guidance
• CPC Class Codes: G01C 21/3492 employing speed data or traffic data, e.g. real-time or historical traffic control systems for road vehicles involving transmission of navigation instructions to the vehicle G08G1/0968
• CPC Class Codes: G01C 21/3694 Output thereof on a road map
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 16/10 File systems; File servers
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 16/258 Data format conversion from or to a database
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 16/26 Visual data mining; Browsing structured data
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 16/29 Geographical information databases
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 16/34 Browsing; Visualisation therefor
• CPC Class Codes: G06T 11/001 Texturing; Colouring; Generation of texture or colour inpainting G06T5/77
• CPC Class Codes: G06T 11/203 Drawing of straight lines or curves
• CPC Class Codes: G06T 11/206 Drawing of charts or graphs
• CPC Class Codes: G06T 2207/30184 Infrastructure
• CPC Class Codes: G06T 2207/30236 Traffic on road, railway or crossing
• CPC Class Codes: G08G 1/096833 where different aspects are considered when computing the route
• CPC Class Codes: G08G 1/123 indicating the position of vehicles, e.g. scheduled vehicles; Managing passenger vehicles circulating according to a fixed timetable, e.g. buses, trains, tramstransmission of navigation instructions to vehicles G08G1/0968
• CPC Class Codes: H04H 20/55 for traffic information

Abstract

A method for mapping infrastructure layout between non-corresponding datasets including accessing from a memory a set of long links with points that trace the curvature of a set of linestrings, accessing from the memory a set of short links that are short enough for analytical purposes wherein each short link represents a straight line, and from the set of long links and the set of short links, using a processor to create a set of hybrid links for storage in the memory, each hybrid link corresponding to one short link for analytic purposes, a plurality of the hybrid links including at least one of the points for tracing the curvature of the set of linestrings.

Claims

1. A method of mapping infrastructure layout between non-corresponding traffic datasets by combining roadway long links with roadway short links to generate roadway hybrid links for tracing and analytic purposes comprising:

accessing from a memory a set of long links, from a long link dataset of roadways, with segments that trace a shape of a first set of geospatial linestrings of roadways from the long link dataset of roadways, each long link having a set of segments, each segment having two points with geospatial coordinates;

accessing from the memory a set of short links, from a short link dataset of roadways, that are short enough for traffic analytical purposes wherein each short link has two endpoints with geospatial coordinates that represent a straight line, the short links tracing a second set of geospatial linestrings of the roadways from the short link dataset of roadways, wherein the first set of geospatial linestrings of roadways from the long link dataset of roadways and the second set of geospatial linestrings of roadways from the short link dataset of roadways are from non-corresponding datasets of roadways;

comparing a geospatial location of the endpoints of each short link to a geospatial location of the segment points of at least one long link to determine for each short link which long link segment points are located geospatially closest to the short link endpoints for inclusion in a corresponding one of a set of roadway hybrid links in a hybrid link dataset of roadways corresponding to the short link dataset of roadways;

using a processor to create the set of roadway hybrid links from the set of long links and the set of short links for storage in the memory, each hybrid link having two endpoints generated from the endpoints of one corresponding short link for traffic analytic purposes, a plurality of the hybrid links including hybrid link midpoints generated from the compared and determined geospatially closest long link segment point to each short link endpoint and any long link segment points connecting the determined geospatially closest long link segment points for tracing the shape of the first set of geospatial linestrings of the roadways;

receiving traffic information for an endpoint of a first short link of the set of short links;

utilizing the processor to update an endpoint of a first hybrid link of the set of hybrid links corresponding with the first short link with the traffic information provided for updating the first short link; and

providing the traffic information of the updated endpoint of the first hybrid link for display to a user with hybrid link midpoints for displayed tracing of the roadways for the user;

wherein a first mapping service uses the set of long links to map the first set of geospatial linestrings of the roadways and a second mapping service uses the set of short links to map the second set of geospatial linestrings of the roadways, so that linestrings from the first and second mapping services can be related by the hybrid links based on geospatial coordinates of the linestrings.

2. The method of claim 1 further comprising normalizing the long link points geospatial coordinates with the short links endpoint geospatial coordinates prior to creating the hybrid links.

3. The method of claim 1 wherein the geospatial coordinates of the endpoints of each short link are compared to the geospatial coordinates of the segment points of at least one long link to determine which segment points are included between the endpoints of the corresponding hybrid link.

4. The method of claim 3 further comprising determining whether the segment points located geospatially closest to the short link endpoints are within a minimum distance from the short link endpoints;

and upon a negative determination identifying the short link endpoints for manual processing.

5. The method of claim 1 wherein traffic information provided for updating a plurality of short links is utilized by the processor to update a plurality of corresponding hybrid links.

6. The method of claim 5 wherein analysis is performed by the processing unit on a plurality of the short links to generate traffic information results and wherein the traffic information results are utilized by the processor to update a plurality of corresponding of hybrid links.

7. The method of claim 5 wherein analysis is performed by the processor directly on the set of hybrid links including the displayed first hybrid link to predict traffic flow including traffic speed and volume.

8. The method of claim 5 wherein traffic information provided to update the plurality of short links is utilized to update the plurality of corresponding hybrid links without updating the plurality of short links.

9. The method of claim 5 wherein analysis is performed by the processing unit on a plurality of the hybrid links to generate traffic information results.

10. The method of claim 1 wherein the short links and the long links are normalized for creating the hybrid links.

11. The method of claim 1 wherein the set of hybrid links are created based a distance between geospatial coordinates of long link segment points and short link endpoints, each hybrid link having endpoints of the corresponding short link endpoints and points of the corresponding long link segment points to trace the shape of the first set of geospatial linestrings.

12. A method of geospatially combining, for visual representation, line segments for tracing roads with line segments for representing traffic characteristics comprising:

representing a piece of a road as a first series of ordered line segments connected in an end-to-end fashion, with;

(i) the line segments of the first series of line segments having a series of midpoints so that a visual representation of the connected line segments, when rendered at a scale of a map suitable for display on a display device, traces a curvature of the piece of the road, and (ii) endpoints of the first series of connected line segments defining a first series of ordered points;

representing the piece of the road as a second series of ordered line segments connected in an end-to-end fashion, with;

(i) the line segments of the second series of line segments short enough for traffic analytical purposes so that each segment will be relatively uniform, within the length of the segment, with respect to its traffic characteristics, (ii) the lengths of the second series of line segments are longer than the lengths of the first series of line segments, and (iii) endpoints of the second series of connected line segments defining a second series of ordered points, wherein the first series of ordered points and the second series of ordered points are non-corresponding datasets representing the road;

for each given pair of two consecutive points of the second series of points, determining a corresponding plurality of in-between points from the first series of points, with each point of the plurality of in-between points having a latitude and a longitude that is in between respective latitudes and longitudes of the given pair of two consecutive points from the second series of points;

for each given line segment of the second series of line segments, determining a first traffic characteristic value corresponding to the given line segment and a portion of the piece of the road which the given line segment represents; and

presenting a visual representation of the piece of the road including;

(i) a visual representation of a shape of the piece of the road based on the first series of line segments, and (ii) for each given portion of the piece of the road corresponding to a given line segment of the second series of line segments, mapping a visual representation of the first traffic characteristic values for the give portion of the piece of the road to the visual representation of the shape of the piece of road using the plurality of in-between points of the first series of points corresponding to the pair of endpoints defined by the given line segment of the second series of line segments;

wherein a first mapping service uses the set of long links to map the first set of geospatial linestrings of the roadways and a second mapping service uses the set of short links to map the second set of geospatial linestrings of the roadways, so that linestrings from the first and second mapping services can be related by the hybrid links based on geospatial coordinates of the linestrings.

13. The method of claim 12 wherein for each given portion of the piece of the road corresponding to a given line segment of the second series of line segments, the mapping of a visual representation of the first traffic characteristic values is performed by coloring respective portions the visual representation of the road shape represented by respective pluralities of in-between points of the first series of points in a manner that is mapped to the first traffic characteristic values respectively corresponding to the pairs of endpoints of the second series of line segments respectively corresponding to the pluralities of in-between points of the first series of points.

14. The computer program product of claim 12 wherein for each given portion of the piece of the road corresponding to a given line segment of the second series of line segments, the mapping of a visual representation of the first traffic characteristic values is performed by coloring respective portions the visual representation of the road shape represented by respective pluralities of in-between points of the first series of points in a manner that is mapped to the first traffic characteristic values respectively corresponding to the pairs of endpoints of the second series of line segments respectively corresponding to the pluralities of in-between points of the first series of points.