ES2230989B1 - "SYSTEM AND METHOD TO PROVIDE DENOMINATIONS OF GEOGRAPHICAL AREAS". - Google Patents

Abstract

System and method to provide geographical area designations. A system and method is proposed to assign denominations to geographical areas identified by their coordinates, integrated in systems destined to the provision of geographic location services referred to a given territory. Such assignment is carried out using a database stored in a computer-readable medium corresponding to a geographic information system constructed from a plurality of meshes that imaginary cover the territory in question by means of tiles of the same shape and different size in each mesh, uniquely identified by the coordinates of its centroid. The system and method of the present invention is of special application in mobile telephony to assign one or more denominations to the area where a mobile telephone is located.

Description

System and method to provide denominations of geographical areas.

Field of the Invention

The present invention relates to a system and method to provide denominations to geographical areas identified by their coordinates of particular utility for the mobile telephony

Background of the invention

At present they are well known diverse geographical location means with different levels of precision. An example of high precision systems can be cited to GPS systems and as an example of less accurate systems to mobile phone networks that identify the position of mobile phones connected to them from the signals provided by the various stations within whose radius of Action is located the mobile phone in question.

Various systems that can provide the user of a mobile phone or the driver of a vehicle equipped with a GPS system different types of services geographic information Thus, for example, the user of a telephone mobile can receive a map of the area where it is located and the Vehicle driver receive suggestions for choosing a route determined from your position. That kind of services logically use complex information systems geographical

The applicant does not know however any system or method to provide denominations to zones geographical identified by their coordinates as those that are object of the present invention.

Summary of the invention

The first object of the invention is a system of geographic information implemented in a stored database on a computer readable media.

That system is built from a plurality of meshes that imaginary cover the territory in question through tiles of the same shape and different size in each mesh, that is, following a fractal model.

Each of these tiles must be able to identify uniquely by the coordinates of its centroid. Distance between two adjacent centroids, or mesh passage, is a parameter which also characterizes each mesh.

Each of these tiles is assigned one or several denominations, depending on the application to which the system, using automated procedures from geo-referenced information available, or through any procedure that is convenient.

For its part, the record associated with each tile it contains, together with fields containing those denominations, the coordinates of its centroid and the mesh pitch, fields with the Tile denominations of meshes of a larger scale than They cover. Thus, the registration of the database for a tile given, contains denominations on it corresponding to different scales.

For the purposes of the present invention, you must it is understood that a tile of a given mesh covers a tile of a smaller scale mesh when the surface of the second is contained in the first one totally or partially in a degree that allows to attribute the name of the tile of the larger scale mesh to smaller scale.

The second object of the invention is a system to assign denominations to geographical areas identified by its coordinates, integrated into a system intended to provide of geographic location services, which is formed by following elements:

- An interface to receive requests from assignment of denominations to a geographical area identified by A set of coordinates.

- A database stored in a medium readable by computer corresponding to an information system geographical with the characteristics mentioned above.

- Programming means to identify the best tile of the plurality of information system meshes geographic content in the aforementioned database to assign to the geographical area in question the denominations contained in the registration of said tile.

- An interface to respond to requests from assignment of denominations to a geographical area with a message that includes one or more of the denominations contained in the registration of the tile assigned to said geographical area.

The third object of the invention is a procedure to assign denominations to geographical areas identified by their executable coordinates on a server computer integrated in a service delivery system telematics of geographical location in a given territory in real time that, having access to a database corresponding to a geographic information system with the features mentioned above, includes the following Steps:

- Receipt of a request for assignment of denominations to a geographical area identified by a set of coordinates.

- Calculation of the surface of the mentioned area geographical

- Selection of mesh or meshes appropriate for identify tiles that overlap with the geographical area in question.

- Identification of the overlapping tiles with the geographical area in question, in the meshes selected in the previous step and selection of the most appropriate of them to assign its name to the geographical area in question.

- Recovery of denominations associated with the tile selected in the previous step.

- Preparation of a message in a format preset from the names retrieved in the last step

Other features and advantages of this invention will follow from the detailed description that follows from an illustrative, and in no sense limiting, embodiment of the same in relation to the accompanying drawings.

Description of the figures

Figures 1a and 1b illustrate two meshes of a Geographic information system according to the invention.

Fig. 2 illustrates the content of two records of the database in which an information system is stored geographical according to the invention.

Fig. 3 illustrates the use of meshes of the geographic information system to assign denominations to a specific geographical area according to the invention.

Fig. 4 schematically shows the method according to the invention to assign denominations to a determined geographical area.

Detailed description of the invention

The system and method to provide designations of geographical areas according to the invention use the geographic information system that we describe.

The geographic information system is formed by a series of meshes that cover a certain territory using tiles of the same shape and different size in each mesh. In Figure 1 shows a mesh M1 formed by a plurality of tiles T1, T1 ', T1' 'of hexagonal shape and in Figure 1b a M4 mesh formed by a plurality of tiles T4, T4 ', T4' 'of hexagonal shape as in the M1 mesh but of different size.

T1, T1 'and T1' 'tiles of the M1 mesh remain uniquely identified by their centroids 1, 1 ', 1' '. Similarly, the M4 mesh tiles are identified by its centroids 4, 4 'and 4' '. As can be seen in Figures 1a and 1b, said centroids can be considered as the vertices of a  Imaginary triangular mesh.

The distance between adjacent centroids in each mesh, which we will call the mesh step, is keeps constant throughout the extension. In Figures 1a and 1b it can be seen that the M1 mesh has a P1 mesh pitch and the M4 mesh one step P4 mesh.

Any type of mesh that meets these conditions, as would happen, for example, with tiles with tiles square, falls within the scope of the present invention.

Each of the tiling tiles is assigns a name that, for many applications of the system, it is taken from a hierarchy of spatial entities superficial.

Thus, for example, in an information system geographic applicable to a specific location service in the territory of Spain could be used 400 m step meshes., 800 m., 1,600 m., 3,200 m., 6,400 m., 12,800 m., 25,600 m., With denominations corresponding to the following structure hierarchical, which would be applicable in part of the territory.

         \ newpage
      

Mesh step Content semantic 400 m In urban environment, crossing of the two roads more important In the area. 800 m Name of neighborhood 1,600 m. In urban environment, name of the district. In environment rural, core of population. 3,200 m. Municipality 8,400 m. Main road in the area 12,800m Province 25,600 m. Autonomous community

         \ vskip1.000000 \ baselineskip
      

As can be seen, in the previous case it is based on a 400 m step mesh. and the steps of each mesh are double from the previous step. This structure is considered very adequate. for geographic information systems according to the invention.

Additionally, they can be assigned to the tiles other denominations such as:

- Place names that conveniently identify certain places like, for example, Bahía de Rosas or Mont Blanc.

- The denominations corresponding to zones relative to some consideration of the desired territory use in specific applications and that can coat the territory as Diocese or not as Natural Parks or Zones  of entertainment.

In short, a tile can be associated a denomination that corresponds to its position within a default spatial hierarchical structure and denominations additional that may be of interest.

This geographic information system is implemented as a structured data set stored in a computer readable support.

For each tile a record consisting of several fields that we will describe next in reference to the Figure 2

The record corresponding to a T1 tile of the larger mesh contains a field with the X, Y coordinates of the centroid of the tile, a field with the passage of mesh P1, a field D1 with the designation associated with the T1 tile within the framework of a predefined spatial hierarchical structure and fields with others denominations associated with the tile DF1 and DJ1.

The record corresponding to a T4 tile of the Smaller mesh contains a field with the X, Y coordinates of the centroid of the tile, a field with the P4 mesh pitch, a field D4 with the designation associated with the T4 tile within the framework of a predefined spatial hierarchical structure, fields D3, D2 and D1 corresponding to the tiles of the higher scale meshes that they cover the T4 tile in said hierarchical structure and fields with other names associated with the DF4 and DJ4 tile.

In meshes as shown in the figures 1a and 1b the centroids of the meshes of different steps do not necessarily coincide for what, for a given tile of one of the meshes, there may not be a tile in the upper mesh that covers it completely or, partially doing so, to a degree enough to give it its name. For example, for a tile relative to a municipal term of a province determined located in a bordering area with two other provinces it may happen that in the upper mesh there are three tiles that the they cover whose denominations correspond to the three provinces mentioned without it being possible to determine with certainty which of they must be assigned to the tile of the smaller scale mesh. By therefore, it must be understood that a tile of one mesh covers another tiling of a lower scale mesh when fully or exceeding a predetermined limit if it does so partially.

These records are stored under a system of database management using as index fields the field with the passage of the mesh to which the tile belongs and the field of centroid coordinates of each tile. For this purpose the centroid coordinates are rounded to the unit defined by the smallest mesh step of the set used in each application. For example, if a location system with a precision less than one meter, the coordinates of each centroid are round to the unit of meters with a unique criterion.

Loading database values of a geographic information system according to the invention for a certain application can be done using various procedures

First, procedures can be applied automated, for, using georeferenced information available in the market allocate in at least some of the meshes, tile designations corresponding to well-defined administrative names. In any case, the centroid coordinates are automatically generated from of an origin coordinate.

You can assign values from areas where place the points of the mesh, the areas being regions, provinces, municipal terms or any other natural division or administrative

Other possibilities may be, for example, incorporate points of interest or crossings of major streets importance or length in each tile, as an element to name of an area.

In any case, assigned by one or the other procedure the designations to the tiles of the different meshes of a geographic information system, the burden of fields corresponding to the larger-scale mesh tiles, is that is, fields D3, D2 and D1 of tile T4 in Figure 2 are you can perform using an automated procedure similar to which we will describe later to assign the TZ tile to the zone Z.

The number of meshes used and the step of each one of them in a given geographic information system It depends on the services you must provide. In general they will be used several meshes because in most location services geographical it is considered convenient to use several denominations to correctly identify a certain area geographical Since the minimum mesh pitch has virtually no No limitation, we can consider that the system of geographical information object of this invention responds to a "fractal model".

Now, there may be services that require a geographic information system with only one mesh.

It should be noted that the denomination fields of the tile records must not necessarily have information. For example, in a geographic information system for the entire Spanish territory where a mesh is contemplated appropriate to identify street crossings in urban environments, the tiles of that mesh will not have information in environments rural.

In turn, the designations of the tiles of larger-scale meshes that cover a given may not have information when there is none that reaches a degree of preset coating.

We now describe the system and method to provide geographic location services according to the invention, using the geographic information system that We come to describe.

In general terms, it is a system that allows you to provide a quick and concise answer for services of geographic location. For example, in a service referred to mobile phone location is about handling requests location of a mobile phone determined by messages as "It is located in the Plaza de España area, in Zaragoza "or," It is located in the Illescas area, Toledo".

Following that example, and referring to the Figure 3, it is therefore that once the request is received referring to a mobile phone, located in the geographical area Z through the telephone operators' own means mobile, respond to it with a text generated from the denominations contained in the register corresponding to the TZ tile coinciding with said zone Z. Among those denominations they are so much the one of the own tessera, that would be Square of Spain or Illescas Zone in the aforementioned examples and that of the tile of the upper mesh that covers it, that is Zaragoza or Toledo in these examples.

The system consists of the following elements:

First, an interface to receive requests for assigning denominations to polygonal zones in those that are identified to the zone Z in question by means of coordinates of its vertices.

Second, an information system Geographically structured conveniently for service required in the manner described above.

Third, programming means for assign to the zone Z denominations contained in the register of that tile that covers it in at least one degree preset

Fourth, an interface to respond to the request mentioned with a text with the denominations assigned to Z zone in the preset format for service in question.

We describe below the procedure for Assign denominations to the Z zone in reference to Figure 4.

In step 10 the coordinates of the vertices of zone Z.

In step 12 the surface S of the zone Z.

In step 14 the mesh or meshes are selected appropriate geographic information system 20 to identify the tile that covers the zone Z. For this purpose, it is chosen the mesh or meshes in which the surface of each tile is between Ksup x S and Kinf x S being Ksup and Kinf default parameters. If there were none they are taken in Consider all the meshes.

In step 16 they are calculated, for the meshes selected in the previous step, the centroid points whose tile overlaps with zone Z and the degree of overlap of each tile with zone Z. Based on that information the tile is decided or, in If appropriate, appropriate tiles. Usually criteria are used Bayesian and fuzzy logic for this decision.

Once the tile or tiles are identified appropriate the names are recovered in step 18 contained in the corresponding record of the database of geographic information 20. An example of that information is the next:

<? xml version = "1.0" encoding = "ISO-8859-1"?>

- <GPPM_IT version = "3.5" id = "300c8a05-f4102553f2-0" status = "0">

- <CELL level = "400">

- <FIELD x = "4352344" y = "356567" />

<FIELD name = "crossover"> CL DE ATOCHA / CL OF LOPE DE VEGA </FIELD>

<FIELD name = "neighborhood"> CORTES </FIELD>

<FIELD name = "complem" />

<FIELD name = "code" />

<FIELD name = "categ"> O </FIELD>

<FIELD name = "nucleo"> MADRID </FIELD>

<FIELD name = "munici"> MADRID </FIELD>

<FIELD name = "provin"> MADRID </FIELD>

<FIELD name = "community"> MADRID </FIELD>

</CELL>

</GPPM_IT>

With this information you can build the name required by the service in question in a format default such as a text message, a vocal message or any other that is appropriate.

The main advantage of the system and method of present invention is its ability to provide denominations of geographical areas identified by their coordinates in times Very short response.

In this sense, it can be compared with a system conventional that uses a number N of geographical points randomly distributed. In this case, the search time of a point is proportional to N x log (N), where N is the number of points stored in the geographic system. In the case of present invention, the search is algorithmic and produces the indexes (coordinates and mesh pitch) of each tile whose Information you want to get. Under these conditions, the time of search is proportional to N.

Consider for example the case of Spain, with an area of about 500,000 km2. With a 400 m step mesh, it is that is, of a unit area of the order of 0.16 km2, 3,125,000 tiles are required to cover the territory. In these conditions a search by the conventional system is of the order of 6 times slower, since the log (N) is of the order of 6 units.

As we have already suggested, the system and method of the The present invention can be used to assign denominations to the location of a mobile phone at a given time. The Current means of the GSM network can provide Z zones of location of mobile phones that although not very precise are useful to provide assignment services of denominations to these areas for both the user of the Mobile phone as for other users. Take into account the respect that such denominations can be both denominations proper of zone Z as denominations of services or of special features present in it. In this kind of applications, end-user service would typically be provided via SMS messages or voice messages containing the corresponding denominations.

The present invention is not limited to described embodiments but to any other within of the scope defined by the following claims.

Claims (11)

1. A computer-readable support integrated in a computer system for the provision of geographic location services containing data fields referred to a given territory characterized in that said data fields are applied to a plurality of meshes (M1, M4) that they cover said territory by means of tiles (T1, T1 ', T1''; T4, T4', T4 '') of the same shape and different size in each mesh; because said data fields are organized by means of records referring to each of said tiles (T1, T1 ', T1''; T4, T4', T4 '') that contain at least one field with the geographic coordinates of its centroid (1, 1 ', 1''; 4, 4', 4 ''), a field with an identifying parameter of the mesh to which it belongs, a field with a designation associated with the tile and a plurality of fields with denominations associated to the tiles of the larger meshes that cover it in one degree; and because these records are organized using as index fields the field with the centroid coordinates (X, Y) and the field with the mesh identification parameter. 2. A computer-readable support integrated in a computer system for the provision of geographic location services according to claim 1, characterized in that said tiles are hexagonal in shape and because the identifying parameter of each mesh is the distance between two adjacent centroids. 3. A computer-readable support integrated in a computer system for the provision of geographic location services according to claim 2, characterized in that a plurality of meshes are used in which, from smaller to larger, the distance between two adjacent centroids in a given mesh it is twice that in the previous mesh. 4. A service integrated in a computer system for the provision of geographic location services in a given territory characterized in that it comprises an interface for receiving requests for assigning denominations to a geographical area (Z) identified by a set of coordinates; a computer-readable support that has data stored in a structured way a plurality of meshes (M1, M4) that cover said territory by tiles (T1, T1 ', T1''; T4, T4', T4 '') in the same way and different size in each mesh, which are organized by means of records referring to each of these tiles that contain at least one field with the geographic coordinates of its centroid, a field with an identifying parameter of the mesh to which it belongs, a field with a denomination associated with the tile and a plurality of fields with the denominations associated with the tiles of the meshes of greater size that cover it, using the first two fields mentioned as index fields; programming means for identifying the best tile (TZ) of said plurality of meshes (M1, M4) to assign to the said geographical area (Z) the denominations contained in the register of said tile; and an interface to respond to requests for assigning denominations to a geographical area (Z) with a message that includes one or more of the denominations contained in the tessel register (TZ) assigned to said geographical area (Z). 5. A server integrated in a computer system for the provision of geographic location services in a given territory according to claim 4, characterized in that the geographical area (Z) to which the designation requests refer to is the location zone of a mobile phone operated by mobile phone operators. 6. A server integrated in a computer system for the provision of geographic location services in a given territory according to claim 5 characterized in that the response message to requests for assigning denominations to a geographical area (Z) is an SMS message . 7. A server integrated in a computer system for the provision of geographic location services in a given territory according to claim 5 characterized in that the response message to the requests for assigning denominations to a geographical area (Z) is a message of voice. 8. A procedure for assigning denominations to geographical areas identified by their coordinates that it executes on a computer server and that is used for the real-time provision of telematic services of geographical location in a given territory, characterized in that it comprises the following steps: a) Receipt of a request for assignment of denominations to a geographical area (Z) identified by a coordinate set; b) Calculation of the surface (S) of the aforementioned geographical area (Z); c) Access to a computer readable media that it has structured data of a plurality of meshes (M1, M4) that cover said territory by means of tiles (T1, T1 ', T1' '; T4, T4 ', T4' ') of the same shape and different size in each mesh, which are organized by records referring to each one of these tiles containing at least one field with the geographic coordinates of its centroid, a field with a parameter identifying the mesh to which it belongs, a field with a denomination associated with the tile and a plurality of fields with the denominations associated with the tiles of the major meshes size that cover it, using the first two fields mentioned as index fields, to carry out the following Steps:

c1)

Select the mesh or meshes whose tiles have a surface between Ksup x S and Kinf x S being Ksup and Kinf default values or, there being none, all meshes;

c2)

Identify the tile or tiles, within the meshes selected in the previous step, which overlap with zone Z and select the most appropriate of them to assign its name to zone Z;

c3)

Retrieve associated names to the tile selected in the previous step.

d) Preparation of a message in a format preset from the names retrieved in the last step. 9. A method for assigning denominations to geographical areas identified by their coordinates, according to claim 8, characterized in that the geographical area (Z) to which the requests for assigning denominations refer is the location area of a mobile telephone handled by the mobile phone operators 10. A method for assigning denominations to geographical areas identified by their coordinates, according to claim 9, characterized in that the response message to requests for assigning denominations to a geographical area (Z) is an SMS message. 11. A method for assigning denominations to geographical areas identified by their coordinates, according to claim 9, characterized in that the response message to requests for assigning denominations to a geographical area (Z) is a voice message.