Microsoft Technology Licensing, LLC

Markus Jansen

Matthew Cheung

Jeffrey Darren Couckuyt

The automatic generation of multiple sets of directions for navigating geographically to a specific destination without specification of an origin. Based on the destination, candidate roads or other transportation conduits are selected for analysis. Candidate meta-departure points are analyzed and selected along the roads based on distribution about the destination, cardinal directions relative to the destination, road metadata, distance to the destination, driving time, and other factors. The number of departure points generated to represent routes to the destination from the several logical cardinal directions is minimized. The generated departure points also represent routes that a majority of people would likely take to the destination. Additionally, the generated departure points originate from places that users are likely to be familiar with and can get to without additional guidance. The final instruction sets for navigating to the destination are presented along with a map that identified the departure points.

Multiple directions to a destination without providing a specific origin

Described is a technology by which a more optimal map view with respect to route information is returned in response to an online mapping request. A start or end location is positioned away from the map center as appropriate to show as much route information as possible within the map view, given view size and zoom constraints. In one example, various-sized bounding boxes that contain the start or end location and one or more routes may be evaluated to determine a largest bounding box that meets the mapping size constraint; the center of that bounding box is the center of the map view. In one alternative, map views at various zoom levels may be scored against one another to determine which map view contains the most important route information, such as the most maneuver points and/or landmarks within each map view; the map view with the best score is returned.

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Sammamish, WA, United States of America

Markus Jansen