Method for indicating the geographic location of a user

Abstract

The invention relates to a method for indicating the geographic location of a user. The technical result consists in simplifying the process of providing mapping information. The proposed computer-implemented method for indicating the geographical location of a user includes: identifying in text content an address expression beginning with at least one special character; generating a georeference on the basis of the identified address expression; highlighting the identified address expression during display of the text content; and launching a means for displaying mapping information in accordance with the georeference when the highlighted identified address expression is tapped. With the aid of a mapping information display means in a user computing device, the method further includes: obtaining the address expression in accordance with the georeference; transmitting the address expression to a geocoding means; obtaining from the geocoding means geographical latitude and longitude coordinates corresponding to the address expression; and displaying in accordance with the obtained coordinates a geographic location on a map.

Description

[0001] METHOD OF INDICATING GEOGRAPHICAL LOCATION TO THE USER

[0002] AREA OF TECHNOLOGY

[0003] The present technical solution relates to the field of interaction between a user and applications for displaying text content and displaying cartographic information, in particular to a method for indicating a geographic location to a user.

[0004] LEVEL OF TECHNOLOGY

[0005] The development and widespread implementation of information technologies provides users with a variety of opportunities to find the required location in various mapping services. Typically, the user enters the desired address in the search bar and in response, the mapping service displays on the map an object corresponding to the entered address. In this context, a mapping tool is understood to mean either an installed mapping application (navigation application, map application, for example, Yandex maps, 2GIS, Google maps, etc.), or a service located on a server that accepts search address requests and returns mapping data with the designated desired object for display in the browser via a data transmission network.

[0006] In addition, a modern user is confronted daily with a large volume of text information in electronic form, be it electronic text documents, various information articles on web pages, as well as everyday communication with friends, colleagues, relatives in so-called instant messengers (SMS, Telegram, WhatsApp, Viber), via email and social networks (also referred to as text messaging applications).

[0007] When a geographic address is present in the text, the user needs to find and highlight the address in the text, copy it, open the corresponding mapping application and paste the address into the search bar in order to find the location corresponding to this address. All these actions lead to a significant waste of time and bring inconvenience to the user. The prior art includes information source WO 2018 / 071127, published on 19.04.2018, which discloses a method and system for interaction between an aggregator application for searching for restaurants or hotels and a mapping application. The user in the first application selects the hotel or restaurant of interest from the list of available ones, clicks on the address specified for the hotel or restaurant and goes to the mapping application, which builds a route to the selected hotel or restaurant or displays their location on the map.The interaction between applications is carried out via the Application Programming Interface (API). The address in the aggregator application, which corresponds to a hotel or restaurant, is presented as a dedicated location parameter, which in this ready-made form is transmitted via the API to the mapping application.

[0008] The disadvantage of the mentioned known solution is the processing of the geographic address as a pre-set parameter of the location of the sought object, which is present in the list of specified objects in the aggregator application for searching for restaurants or hotels.

[0009] The proposed solution differs from the solution known from the prior art in that it includes recognition of a geographic address designated by one or more special characters in a text with arbitrary content, the formation of a geo-link and calling an application for displaying cartographic information by clicking on the geo-link.

[0010] ESSENCE OF THE INVENTION

[0011] The technical task that the claimed technical solution is aimed at solving is the automation of displaying a location on a map in a user computing device that corresponds to an address in text content of an arbitrary format, designated by one or more special characters.

[0012] The technical result achieved by solving the above technical problem is the simplification of the process of providing cartographic information by reducing the number of actions performed by the user to find the desired location in cartographic services.

[0013] The stated result is achieved by means of a developed mechanism, according to which a geographic address designated by one or more special symbols is recognized in a text with arbitrary content, a geo-link is formed for the recognized geographic address and an application for displaying cartographic information is called by clicking on the geo-link.

[0014] According to one embodiment of the invention, a computer-implemented method for indicating a geographic location to a user is proposed. According to the proposed method, by means of software for displaying text content in a user computing device, the following is performed: recognizing an address expression in the text content, which begins with at least one special character; forming a geo-link based on the recognized address expression; highlighting the recognized address expression when displaying the text content; and, when the highlighted recognized address expression is clicked, launching a means for displaying cartographic information via the geo-link.Additionally, according to the proposed method, using the means for displaying cartographic information in the user computing device, the following is performed: receiving an address expression via a georeference; transmitting the address expression to the geocoding means; receiving from the geocoding means the geographic coordinates of latitude and longitude corresponding to the address expression; and displaying the geographic location on the map based on the received coordinates.

[0015] In a particular embodiment of the proposed method, the software for displaying text content is a text editor, and the text content is located in a text file.

[0016] In a particular embodiment of the proposed method, the software for displaying text content is a web page browser, and the text content is located on a web page.

[0017] In a particular embodiment of the proposed method, the software for displaying text content is software for exchanging text messages, and the text content is in a text message in correspondence.

[0018] In a particular embodiment of the proposed method, a special symbol, when used in the singular, belongs to a set that includes the following symbols: / , >, <, ?, !, §, |, &; wherein each of two or more consecutive special symbols belongs to a set that includes the following symbols: / , >, ?, !, \, |, etc.

[0019] In a particular embodiment of the proposed method, the address expression includes at least a part of the postal address, sufficient for geocoding means for determining geographic coordinates, and ends with at least one special character.

[0020] In a particular embodiment of the proposed method, the address expression includes a set of two or more words immediately following a special symbol and separated by a separating symbol without spaces, wherein the separating symbol belongs to a set that includes the following symbols: “.”, “,”, “;”.

[0021] In a particular embodiment of the proposed method, the number of special characters is equal to the number of words in the address expression.

[0022] In a particular embodiment of the proposed method, the geo-link contains an address expression and a command to launch the tool for displaying cartographic information.

[0023] In a particular embodiment of the proposed method, the means for displaying cartographic information is one of the following: navigation software, cartographic software, or a new tab in a browser.

[0024] In a particular embodiment of the proposed method, the geocoding tool is located on a geocoding server or in a cartographic information display tool.

[0025] In a particular embodiment of the proposed method, displaying a geographic location on a map includes downloading cartographic information from a cartographic server or using cartographic information previously downloaded from a cartographic server.

[0026] DESCRIPTION OF THE IMPLEMENTATION OF THE INVENTION

[0027] In the following detailed description of the embodiment of the invention, numerous implementation details are set forth in order to provide a clear understanding of the present invention. However, it will be apparent to one skilled in the art how the present invention may be used with or without these implementation details. In other instances, well-known methods, procedures, and components have not been described in detail in order not to unnecessarily obscure the features of the present invention.

[0028] In addition, it will be clear from the above description that the invention is not limited to the embodiment shown. Numerous possible modifications, changes, variations and substitutions, preserving the essence and form of the present invention, will be obvious to those skilled in the art.

[0029] The proposed computer-implemented method for indicating a geographic location to a user is implemented either on the user's computing device, or on the user's computing device and a server that interact with each other via a data transmission network.

[0030] A user computing device is any known electronic computing device, including a user electronic device, a mobile phone, a tablet computer, a portable computer, a desktop computer, etc., designed with the ability to execute user applications, as well as communicate via a data transmission network with a server.

[0031] An application in the context of the present invention is software executed on a user computing device. The software is a set of instructions that are stored in the memory of the computing device and executed by the processor of the computing device. The results of the software operation are displayed to the user via a graphical interface on a display device contained in the user computing device. The graphical interface is a means of interaction with the user. The application can be implemented based on a microservice architecture, in which microservices are software modules that perform one or more related functions and interact with each other, as well as with other external applications and / or software, via an Application Programming Interface (API).

[0032] The application may be a text content display application, for example, a text editor configured to accept user input, display it in text form and save it as a text file, a web page browser configured to download web pages from a web server and display their text content to the user, or a text messaging application configured to accept user input, display it in text form and send it as a text message in correspondence via a data transmission network to another text messaging application. A text messaging application includes instant messengers (SMS, Telegram, WhatsApp, Viber, etc.), an email application and a social networking application (Vkontakte, Odnoklassniki, Moi Mir, etc.).

[0033] In addition, the application may be a means of displaying cartographic information, including a navigation application for constructing and displaying a route, a cartographic application designed with the ability to accept an address expression input from the user and display on the map a location corresponding to the address in the address expression, or a browser tab in which, after accessing the cartographic server, the location corresponding to the entered address in the address expression is also displayed. When the text content display application is a web browser, the means of displaying cartographic information may be a new browser tab or a new browser window.

[0034] The server in the context of the present invention is an electronic computing device for processing and storing data, on which software is installed and operates and which is designed with the ability to exchange data with other electronic computing devices via a data transmission network. The server software may include a geocoding tool (geocoder).

[0035] The geocoding tool is designed to obtain a geographic address from an address expression and return the geographic coordinates of latitude and longitude of the location corresponding to the obtained address. The geocoding tool operates according to well-known methods (for example, as is known from the article "Forward and reverse geocoding - testing popular solutions" htDs: / / habr.com / ru / articles / 505500 / ). The address expression may contain a geographic address in the form of a generally accepted postal address, including one or more of a postal code, country name, city, street, house number, building, name of a landmark or a specific building.In such a case, it may be sufficient for the geocoding tool to obtain a portion of the full postal address to return the latitude and longitude geographic coordinates of the location corresponding to the address (for example, the address may exclude the postal code, country, or contain part of a compound street name - "Sakharov" instead of "Akademika Sakharov"). Additionally, the address expression may contain a geographic address in encoded form according to a geocoding system such as "What3words", according to which the Earth's surface is divided into squares with a side of 3 meters and each square is encoded using three words. The words included in the encoding are arbitrary, however, this is not a limitation with respect to the present invention.

[0036] The geographic address may be encoded as a sequence of two to five words, which may be pre-selected either randomly, where each 3-meter square is assigned a unique set of code words that have no associative connection with each other or with any part of the postal address (e.g., "wander. splash. artist. nut"), or semi-randomly, where one or more words in the unique set of code words assigned to each 3-meter square are associatively linked either to the postal address or to the name of a landmark or a specific building (e.g., such one or more words may be the name of a country, city, street, house number, building, name of a landmark or a specific building - "moscow. shchukino. puck.book"), and in a completely associative manner, when all the words in the unique set of code words assigned to each square with a side of 3 meters are associatively linked either to a postal address or to the name of a landmark or a specific building (for example, "russia. moscow. troparevo. leninsky"). In addition, according to the present invention, the surface of the Earth can be divided into squares with a side of more than 3 meters or less than 3 meters. Also, the division can be polygons of different shapes, for example, according to the administrative division of the territory of the Earth. The server containing the geocoding tool is called the geocoding server. The geocoding tool can be implemented as a microservice and be part of the tool for displaying cartographic information in the user's computing device. In addition, the server can store cartographic information in the form of geographic maps, and then it is a cartographic server.The map server may include a geocoding means. The map information display means downloads map information from the map server and displays it to the user. The map information after downloading may be stored in the user computing device and displayed to the user in the absence of a connection to the data transmission network.

[0037] When the text content display application is a text editor or a text messaging application, it is configured to receive user text input. According to the present invention, when entering an address expression, the user can use special characters to explicitly designate the entered address expression in the text content. The special characters that designate the address expression in the text content include those characters that are used to the least extent in texts as punctuation characters or semantic elements of the text content.According to the present invention, special symbols can be used in the singular and then they belong to a set that includes the following symbols: / , >, <, ?, !, §, |, &, and can also form a combination of two or more consecutive identical symbols belonging to a set that includes the following symbols: / , >, ?, !, \, | and g (for example, / / , »>, ????, !!!!!, \\\\, |||, gg, etc.). The authors of the present invention have determined that the optimal maximum number of consecutive identical special symbols is 5 pieces. The special symbols are adjacent to the address expression, i.e. there are no separating symbols or spaces between them.When the user enters an address expression with a geographic address in the form of a generally accepted postal address containing one or more of a postal code, country name, city, street, house number, block, name of a landmark or a specific building, the address expression begins and ends with one or more special characters (e.g., / 123182, Russian Federation, Moscow, Aviatsionnaya St. 63 / , dddMoscow, Aviatsionnaya bZddd, etc.). When the user enters an address expression with an address in encoded form, the address expression begins with one or more special characters (e.g., §броить.всплеск.артист, ddMoscow. щукино.ушка, etc.). Additionally, the number of special characters may correspond to the number of words in the address expression.In addition, the code words that form the set of code words in the address expression follow each other without spaces and are separated by one of the separator characters from the set of separator characters, which includes the following characters: “.”, “,”, “;”.

[0038] The user can familiarize himself with specific variants of special characters, their possible combinations, as well as address expression formats supported by the text content display application, in the help section of the text content display application. Also, according to the present invention, the text content display application provides for informing the user about the possibilities of entering an address expression using special characters through pop-up hint windows. Pop-up hint windows are standard, generally accepted and used solutions (Interactive User Guide), which are tools for teaching the user new functional capabilities of the application, software or software. The functioning of pop-up hint windows is implemented using publicly available libraries: https: / / react- ioyride.com / , https: / / qithub.com / elrumordelaluz / reactour / tree / v1, https: / / qithub.com / shipshapecode / react-shepherd, https: / / introis.com / и https: / / qithub.com / alfrdmalr / walktour.

[0039] An application for displaying text content in a user computing device is configured to process text content and recognize an address expression in it. Recognizing an address expression in text content includes finding one or more special characters that begin the address expression. When the address expression contains a geographic address in the form of a common postal address, the recognition additionally includes finding one or more special characters that end the address expression in the text content. When the address expression contains a geographic address in coded form, the recognition includes finding the last code word in a set of code words that form the address expression. The last code word in the set of code words is such a code word that is followed by no separating character (for example, in the address expression §броить.вспске).artist (the last code word is the word "artist").

[0040] The application for displaying text content in the user computing device is configured to generate a geo-link based on the recognized address expression by adding to the address expression a method for calling a means for displaying cartographic information provided via an API by a means for displaying cartographic information selected by default in the user computing device. The calling method contains a command for launching the means for displaying cartographic information. Thus, the geo-link contains the address expression and a command for launching the means for displaying cartographic information. However, in the text content, the generated geo-link is displayed to the user as an address expression highlighted relative to the remaining text. The highlighting may be at least one of underlining, changing the font color, italicizing, bolding, changing the font size and / or changing the font.

[0041] A geo-reference is a mechanism for calling a mapping information display tool and transmitting or receiving an address expression to it, which is activated when a user presses or clicks on a selected address expression in the text content. The called mapping information display tool receives the address expression via a geo-reference and transmits it to a geo-encoding tool. The geo-encoding tool returns the geographic coordinates of the latitude and longitude of the location corresponding to the received address back to the mapping information display tool to display the geographic location on the map to the user. When the geo-encoding tool is implemented in the mapping information display tool, then receiving the address expression and returning the geographic coordinates of the latitude and longitude of the location is carried out within the user computing device without using a data transmission network.When the geocoding means is implemented on the geocoding server, obtaining the address expression and returning the geographic coordinates of the latitude and longitude of the location is carried out between the user computing device and the geocoding server by using a data transmission network.

[0042] Thus, according to the present invention, the means for displaying cartographic information is designed with the ability to be launched by pressing or clicking by the user on a geo-link in the text content, to receive an address expression via the geo-link, to send the address expression to the geo-coding means to receive geographic coordinates of latitude and longitude corresponding to the address expression, and to display a geographic location on a map based on the received geographic coordinates, thereby eliminating the need for the user to independently select the address in the text, copy it, open the corresponding cartographic application and paste the address into the search bar, and simplifying the process of providing cartographic information.

[0043] A computing device that provides data processing necessary for implementing the claimed solution generally contains components such as: one or more processors, at least one memory, a data storage means, input / output interfaces, an input means, and network interaction means.

[0044] When executing machine-readable commands contained in the RAM, the processor of the device is configured to perform the basic computing operations necessary for the functioning of the device or the functionality of one or more of its components.

[0045] Memory is usually implemented as RAM, where the necessary program logic is loaded, providing the required functionality. When implementing the proposed solution, the memory volume required to implement the proposed solution is allocated.

[0046] The data storage medium can be implemented as HDD, SSD disks, RAID array, network storage, flash memory, etc. The medium allows for long-term storage of various types of information, such as the above-mentioned files with user data sets, databases containing records of time intervals measured for each user, user identifiers, etc. The interfaces are standard means for connecting and operating peripheral and other devices, such as USB, RS232, RJ45, COM, HDMI, PS / 2, Lightning, etc.

[0047] The choice of interfaces depends on the specific design of the device, which can be a personal computer, mainframe, server cluster, thin client, smartphone, laptop, etc.

[0048] A keyboard may be used as a means of data input in any embodiment of the system implementing the described method. The keyboard hardware may be any known one: it may be either a built-in keyboard used on a laptop or netbook, or a separate device connected to a desktop computer, server or other computer device. The connection may be either wired, in which the keyboard connecting cable is connected to a PS / 2 or USB port located on the desktop computer system unit, or wireless, in which the keyboard exchanges data via a wireless communication channel, for example, a radio channel, with a base station, which, in turn, is directly connected to the system unit, for example, to one of the USB ports.In addition to the keyboard, the following may also be used as input means: joystick, display (touch display), projector, touchpad, mouse, trackball, light pen, speakers, microphone, etc.

[0049] Network interaction means are selected from a device that provides network reception and transmission of data, for example, an Ethernet card, WLAN / Wi-Fi module, Bluetooth module, BLE module, NFC module, IrDa, RFID module, GSM modem, etc. The means ensure the organization of data exchange via a wired or wireless data transmission channel, for example, WAN, PAN, LAN, Intranet, Internet, WLAN, WMAN or GSM.

[0050] The components of the device are connected via a common data transmission bus.

[0051] In these application materials, a preferred disclosure of the implementation of the claimed technical solution was presented, which should not be used as limiting other, particular embodiments of its implementation that do not go beyond the scope of the requested scope of legal protection and are obvious to specialists in the relevant field of technology.

Claims

CLAUSE OF INVENTION 1. A computer-implemented method for indicating a geographic location to a user, comprising the steps of: - by means of software for displaying text content on a user computing device -- recognize in the text content an address expression that begins with at least one special character; -- form a geo-link based on the recognized address expression; -- highlight the recognized address expression when displaying text content; - when you click on the selected recognized address expression, a tool for displaying cartographic information is launched via the geo-link; - using a means of displaying cartographic information in a user computing device -- receive an address expression via a geo-link; -- pass the address expression to the geocoding tool; -- receive from the geocoding tool the geographic coordinates of latitude and longitude corresponding to the address expression; - based on the received coordinates, the geographic location is displayed on the map.

2. The method according to claim 1, wherein the software for displaying text content is a text editor, and the text content is in a text file.

3. The method according to claim 1, wherein the software for displaying text content is a web page browser, and the text content is located on a web page.

4. The method according to claim 1, wherein the software for displaying text content is software for exchanging text messages, and the text content is in a text message in the correspondence.

5. The method according to claim 1, wherein the special symbol, when used in the singular, belongs to a set that includes the following symbols: / , >, <, ?, !, §, |, &; wherein each of two or more consecutive special symbols belongs to a set that includes the following symbols: / , >, ?, !, \, |, д.

6. The method according to claim 1 or 5, wherein the address expression includes at least a portion of the postal address, sufficient for the geo-coding means to determine the geographic coordinates, and ends with at least one special character.

7. The method according to claim 1 or 5, wherein the address expression includes a set of two or more words immediately following at least one special symbol and separated from each other by a separator symbol without spaces, wherein the separator symbol belongs to a set that includes the following symbols: “.”, “,”, “;”.

8. The method according to claim 7, wherein the number of special characters is equal to the number of words in the address expression.

9. The method according to claim 1, wherein the geo-reference contains an address expression and a command for launching a means for displaying cartographic information.

10. The method according to claim 1, wherein the means for displaying cartographic information is one of navigation software, cartographic software, or a new tab in a browser.

11. The method according to claim 1, wherein the geocoding means is located on a geocoding server or in a means for displaying cartographic information.

12. The method according to claim 1, wherein at the stage of displaying the geographic location on the map, cartographic information is downloaded from the cartographic server or cartographic information previously downloaded from the cartographic server is used.