Patent · US Expired

Automatic chain-based conflation of digital maps

US5546107A · kind A · utility

96Cited by
2References
40Claims
0Family size

Assignee

Inventors

Key dates

Filing dateApr 5, 1994
Grant dateAug 13, 1996
Priority date
Expiry dateApr 5, 2014

Classification

  • Technology area (CPC G)Physics
  • CPC primaryG09B29/106
  • WIPO fieldMeasurement
  • WIPO sectorInstruments

Abstract

The method of the present invention which employs conflation is based on pairing chains of arcs in order to determine the matching intersections between them. The chains are formed a priori in each map by using both attributes and geometric properties of the arcs. The intersections of chains are treated as relations, stored in a simple external custom relational database. The matching procedure is a set of the standard operations on RDBMS, as well as the sieving out of all possible ambiguous identifications. As a result, both maps become partitioned by the chains into much smaller pairwise matched areas called wards. The positional and semantic information from the matched chains is mapped onto the merged map. The mapping is performed by a general nonlinear transformation function. The transformation is then extended to the mapping of the unmatched content of wards onto the ultimate map. Any combination of geometry and attribute can be selected from either of a pair of matched wards for inclusion in the merged ward.

Source: USPTO / EPO open patent data. Objective bibliographic and citation counts.