Map Tile Popularity Heatmap Overlay
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Solution Overview
Problem
Existing online map systems face challenges in efficiently processing and analyzing vast amounts of usage data to determine the popularity of geographic areas, requiring extensive processing power and time, which hinders the improvement of map usability.
Innovation Solution
The system processes usage data by dividing maps into portions, scoring them based on popularity, and displaying these scores as a heatmap overlay, allowing for efficient storage and retrieval of data associated with map tiles, enabling users to visualize popular areas effectively.
Engineering Contradictions & Design Principles
Engineering Contradiction Analysis
1Ease of manufacture
If map usage data is processed to determine popularity of geographic areas, then map usability improvement is enabled, but processing power and time requirements become excessive
Solution Approach 1:
The patent divides the map into discrete map portions (tiles) and processes usage data at the tile level rather than analyzing all usage data globally. This segmentation allows the system to process only relevant portions of the map that users actually view, dramatically reducing the computational power needed while still enabling comprehensive map usability improvements across all regions.
Solution Approach 2:
The system pre-processes and stores usage data for map tiles in advance, creating a cached structure of popularity scores for different geographic areas. This preliminary action allows the system to have usage analysis results ready before they are needed for map improvements, eliminating the need for intensive real-time processing while maintaining the ability to identify popular areas and make usability enhancements.
2Measurement precision
If extensive usage data is analyzed to determine geographic area popularity, then accurate popularity determination is achieved, but processing time becomes excessive
Solution Approach 1:
By segmenting the map into tiles and processing usage data at the tile level, the system achieves accurate popularity determination for each geographic area independently. This segmentation allows parallel processing of multiple tiles and reduces the time required to analyze comprehensive usage data while maintaining precision in popularity measurements for each region.
Solution Approach 2:
The system performs preliminary processing of usage data to pre-calculate and store popularity scores for map tiles. This advance preparation ensures that accurate popularity determinations are already available when needed, eliminating time delays associated with real-time analysis while maintaining measurement precision for identifying popular geographic areas.
3Loss of information
If map portions are stored with associated scores for all map tiles, then complete usage information is preserved, but storage requirements increase
Solution Approach 1:
The patent applies local quality by storing usage score data selectively for each map tile based on its specific usage characteristics. Rather than uniformly storing data for all tiles regardless of need, the system maintains score information for tiles that require popularity analysis while optimizing storage by not redundantly storing identical data across overlapping tiles, thus preserving necessary usage information while controlling storage requirements.
Solution Approach 2:
The system merges usage score data across overlapping map tiles by aggregating scores for the same geographic areas. This combining approach eliminates redundant storage of duplicate usage information for overlapping regions while maintaining complete usage information for popularity determination, reducing overall storage requirements without losing analytical completeness.
Data Source
AI summary
A system and method determines analyzes usage of an online mapping system by users, determines popularity of geographic regions and stores the processed data which is optionally in a visual data layer over the map.