KR100631033B1 - Local information providing system trough network and method thereof - Google Patents

Abstract

A system and a method for offering local information through the network are provided to quickly/efficiently generate and offer local information based on a measured user location by reducing time needed for calculating a distance between the user location and a search target. A map database stores map information including many shops. A shop database stores shop information classified into each category. A location measurer(10) measures the user location. An information extractor(20) sets the first section for generating the local information in a map based on the measured user location, selects the second section in the map, and classifies the shops corresponding to the second section into the first and second basic information by using inclusion relation between the first and second section. An information generator(30) calculates the distance of each shop included in the second basic information from the user location, sets the third basic information by extracting the shops included in the preset distance, and generates the local information comprising the shops corresponding to the first and third basic information.

Description

Local information providing system through network and method thereof

1 is a structural diagram of a system for providing regional information through a network according to an exemplary embodiment of the present invention.

FIG. 2 is a structural diagram of the database server shown in FIG. 1.

FIG. 3 is a structural diagram of the information processing server shown in FIG. 1.

4 is a flowchart illustrating a method for providing region information through a network according to an embodiment of the present invention.

5 is a flowchart illustrating a process of generating basic information for providing local information according to an exemplary embodiment of the present invention.

The present invention relates to a system and method for providing local information, and more particularly, to a system and method for providing local information to a user through a network.

The remarkable development of wireless communication today has rapidly promoted the popularization of wireless terminals, transforming our lives so that most ordinary people always carry wireless terminals such as mobile phones and PDAs. Accordingly, various technologies have been developed to easily provide predetermined information to a wireless terminal of a user who is moving.

In particular, in recent years, there is a service providing information in consideration of the user's mobility, this service generally measures the location of the wireless terminal and based on the measured location, predetermined information, for example, stores, theaters, etc. Along with text information, map information is provided.

Related technologies for providing local information to a conventional wireless terminal is a "location-based information providing service system and a method of operating the system" described in Korean Patent Application Publication No. 2002-47808. This technology checks the location of a customer when a request is made to provide information about a store by a specific category where a customer provides a specific service, and then, based on the identified customer's location, the technology requested by the customer within a predetermined range of locations where the customer is located. Disclosed is a method of acquiring and providing information on stores of a classification.

Another technique is the "regional information providing service system and operating method for providing the service" described in Korean Patent Application Publication No. 2002-44404. This technology provides local information to terminals located within a region, in particular providing the local information only if the owner of the terminal is a local resident in the region.

There is also a "Personalized Information System and Method for Specific Areas" described in Korean Patent Application Publication No. 2005-3978. This technology secures MIN information of a mobile communication terminal entering a specific area, and then transmits the information and MIN information to be provided in the corresponding area to the SMS server, and transmits the information to be provided in the corresponding area to the corresponding mobile communication terminal. By doing so, a method for providing differentiated information to a mobile communication subscriber located in a specific area is disclosed.

Such prior arts generally provide search terminals (specific targets requested by a user, etc.) within a predetermined range based on measured user location, based on map information including data for a plurality of regions, and provide them to the terminal.

However, the prior art only describes obtaining information about a request made by a user within a predetermined range based on the measured user's location, and specifically among a myriad of data included in the range while processing based on a certain range. It does not disclose how to extract the desired data.

In particular, there are countless search targets in the map information, and since it takes time to find and process all of these targets, there is a problem in that it is impossible to provide fast local information to the user. In addition, processing operations of the device for searching and processing countless data on the map information become complicated.

Therefore, the technical problem to be achieved by the present invention is to solve the problems of the prior art, when providing the area information through a wired network as well as a wireless network, the area information based on the measured user location more quickly and efficiently To create and provide.

In particular, the technical problem to be achieved by the present invention is to reduce the time required to calculate the distance between the user's location and the search target for generating the local information, to quickly generate and provide the local information.

In accordance with an aspect of the present invention, there is provided a method for providing region information through a network, using a map database in which map information including a plurality of stores is stored, using a map database to store a region information through a network. In the method for providing local information of a system providing a, a) When the user terminal is connected through the network, the system measuring the user location; b) setting, by the system, a first zone as a reference for generating area information on the map based on the measured user location, and selecting at least one second zone on the map; c) the system comparing the inclusion relationship of the first and second zones and accordingly classifying stores corresponding to the second zone as first and second basic information; d) calculating, by the system, a distance from the user location for each of the stores corresponding to the second basic information; e) extracting and setting the stores of which the calculated distance is included in a set distance as third basic information; And f) generating area information including store related information corresponding to the first and third basic information and providing the location information to the user terminal.

According to another aspect of the present invention, there is provided a system for providing region information through a network, the system comprising: a map database in which map information including a plurality of stores is stored; A store database in which information about a store, wherein the information includes at least one of administrative area information of a store and coordinate values on a map of the store; A location measuring unit measuring a user location connected through the network; Setting a first zone for generating area information on the map, selecting at least one or more second zones on the map, and then providing a second zone provided from the store database according to the inclusion relationship of the first and second zones. An information extraction unit for classifying corresponding stores into first and second basic information; After calculating the distance from the user location with respect to the stores included in the second basic information, and extracting the stores whose calculated distance is included in the set distance to set as the third basic information, the first and third An information generation unit generating local information consisting of stores corresponding to basic information; And an information provider for providing the generated area information to the user terminal.

DETAILED DESCRIPTION Hereinafter, exemplary embodiments of the present invention will be described in detail with reference to the accompanying drawings. As those skilled in the art would realize, the described embodiments may be modified in various different ways, all without departing from the spirit or scope of the present invention.

1 illustrates a connection relationship between a local information providing system (hereinafter, referred to as a “local information providing system” for convenience of description) through a network according to an embodiment of the present invention.

As shown in FIG. 1, the regional information providing system 100 according to an exemplary embodiment of the present invention includes a plurality of user terminals 301, 302,... Collectively referred to as "300" for convenience of description.

In addition, the regional information providing system 100 according to an exemplary embodiment of the present invention may be connected to a plurality of APs installed in a predetermined region or may be a global positioning system for measuring a location of the user terminal 300. ) Can be connected to the server.

The user terminal 300 is a communication device that can be connected to the local information providing system 100 through the network 200. For example, various types of communication devices such as a PDA, a mobile phone, a notebook computer, and a PC may be used. The user terminal 300 is connected to the information providing system 100 through an AP through a mobile communication system provided and operated by a general mobile communication company, or through various types of wired / wireless communication access services. The information providing system 100 can be connected. Therefore, the user can access the local information providing system 100 through the terminal 300 anytime and anywhere.

The regional information providing system 100 according to an embodiment of the present invention connected to the user terminal 300 includes an information processing server 110 for generating regional information based on a location of a user, and the generated regional information. Information providing server 120, and a database server 130 to provide a).

2 is a structural diagram of a database server 130 according to an embodiment of the present invention.

As shown in FIG. 2, the database server 130 includes a map database 131 storing map information for providing local information, and a store database 132 storing information on various stores for each predetermined region. Include. In addition to this, a user database 133 for managing a user whose information is registered in the system, and an information management unit for performing management including updating of map and store information or user information stored in the databases 131 to 133 ( 134) may be further included.

The map database 131 stores map information for generating local information as described above. For example, a map is stored for each predetermined administrative area, and objects located on each map have predetermined coordinate values. have.

Store database 132 stores store related information for each administrative area. In an embodiment of the present invention, a store includes all of the objects that can be displayed on a map, including supplies that provide certain goods (where the goods include not only tangible goods but also intangible goods such as services). Include. These stores are classified and stored by industry. For example, information such as a store, administrative area information of a corresponding store, coordinate values on a map of the store, a description related to a store, and the like may be stored for each industry type.

The user database 133 stores information about users registered in the local information providing system 100 according to an exemplary embodiment of the present invention. For example, a password, a user terminal number, an address, and propensity information such as gender, age, occupation, hobby, etc., which may know the user's disposition, may be stored in correspondence with the identification number assigned to the user.

Meanwhile, the information processing server 110 generates local information based on the information stored in the database server 130 having such a structure. 3 is a detailed structural diagram of an information processing server 110 according to an embodiment of the present invention.

As shown in FIG. 3, the information processing server 110 according to an exemplary embodiment of the present invention includes a position measuring unit 110, an information extracting unit 20, and an information generating unit 30.

The position measuring unit 110 measures a user position. The terminal location may be used as the user location, or a predetermined location designated by the user may be used as the user location. Here, a variety of methods may be used as a method for measuring the terminal location. For example, when the user terminal 300 is a terminal equipped with a global positioning system (GPS) function, the user terminal 300 may be connected to a GPS server (not shown). It requests the location information while providing the identification number of the terminal, and measures the position of the connected user terminal based on the location information provided accordingly. Alternatively, by using administrative location information from an IP address assigned to a terminal 300 connected through a dedicated line, a carrier, or a separate ISP service provider, the user can obtain administrative location information that can be known from the IP address of the terminal 300. Can be used as location information. Alternatively, when the user accesses the system 100 and selects a specific region, the selected region may be used as the user location, or a user address registered in the user database of the system may be used as the user location.

Alternatively, the position of the terminal is measured based on the position of the AP (not shown) which mediated the connection of the terminal 300. To this end, the location measuring unit 10 includes a database in which location information about each AP is stored or receives location information about the corresponding AP from a separate system for managing the AP, thereby connecting to the terminal 300. Measure your location and use it as your location.

As such, all methods that can be used to measure user location in the art can be used for user location measurement according to an embodiment of the present invention.

The information extracting unit 20 extracts basic information for generating local information to be provided to the user based on the measured user location. That is, based on the information stored in the map and store database 131, 132, information corresponding to the request of the user is extracted from a plurality of information included in the setting range based on the location of the user.

To this end, the information extracting unit 20, as shown in Figure 2, the zone determination module 21, the first and second zones for determining the first zone and at least one or more second zones according to the user's location And a store extraction module 22 for generating basic information for providing local information by extracting stores satisfying a condition requested by the user. In detail, the store extraction module 22 determines a relationship between the first zone and the second zone, and when the second zone is included in the first zone, the store extraction module 22 satisfies a condition requested by the user among the stores included in the second zone. Stores are extracted as first basic information. When only a part of the second zone is included in the first zone, stores that satisfy the condition requested by the user among the stores included in the second zone are extracted as the second basic information. In an embodiment of the present invention, an administrative zone is used as a unit of the second zone, and in particular, for accuracy of position determination, the zone is the most among a plurality of units (province, city, district, town, etc.) constituting the administrative zone. The basic unit (for example, copper) was used. However, the second zone according to the embodiment of the present invention is not limited to that described above.

Meanwhile, the information generator 30 calculates distances for each of the stores extracted by the information extractor, and generates final regional information to be provided to the user based on the distances. In particular, the information generating unit 30 according to an embodiment of the present invention does not perform distance calculation on the extracted first basic information in order to provide accurate information to the user while reducing processing time for generating local information. Distance calculation is performed only for the second basic information. Then, only the stores satisfying the predetermined distance are extracted from the second basic information, and regional information is generated based on the extracted stores and the stores corresponding to the first basic information.

To this end, the information generating unit 30 is a distance calculation module 31 for performing a distance calculation for the stores included in the second basic information of the information extracted by the information extraction unit 20, based on the calculated distance 2 is a distance discrimination module 32 which extracts only stores that satisfy a predetermined condition among the stores of the basic information as the third basic information, and generates local information to be provided to the user based on the first basic information and the third basic information. An information generating module 33.

Meanwhile, the information providing server 120 provides the user terminal 300 with local information generated by the information processing server 110. In an embodiment of the present invention, local information is processed and provided in a message form. The message is a message processed in the form of a Short Message Service (SMS) or a Long Message Service (LMS), an Enhanced Message (EMS), or a Multimedia Message (MMS), or a call for access to a predetermined swap page of the system. The message may be processed in various forms such as a call back URL or a call back number for a call connection with the system. Herein, the local information message will be described as an example of being processed and transmitted in the form of SMS.

In the regional information providing system according to an exemplary embodiment of the present invention including such components, the servers 110 to 130 are classified in terms of their functions, and various modifications are possible. For example, although one database server 130 is described as including all the databases 131 to 133, each database may be implemented in a separate form, or implemented in a form that is included in other servers as needed. May be And the database is not limited to being classified as described above.

In addition, the components of the servers 110 to 130 may be selectively included as necessary, and each of the components may be implemented as an independent server to process corresponding functions.

Next, the operation of the local information providing system according to an exemplary embodiment of the present invention will be described based on such a structure.

Hereinafter, when a user accesses a regional information providing system according to an embodiment of the present invention through a wireless network using a wireless terminal, the regional information is provided based on the measured user location as an example. Here, the terminal location is used as the user location, but is not limited thereto.

4 illustrates a method for providing region information according to an embodiment of the present invention.

The user may access the local information providing system 100 through the terminal 300 while moving in a predetermined region. For example, in order to access the local information providing system 100 through the terminal 300, the wireless access program is driven or the connection of the system 100 is selected or the system 100 is connected while the program is driven. When an operation such as inputting a predetermined address is performed, a signal from the terminal 300 is transmitted to the system 100 according to an embodiment of the present invention through an AP of a corresponding region constituting the wireless network 200. The session between the 100 and the terminal 300 is connected.

As described above, in a state where a session is established and communication between the system 100 and the terminal 300 is possible, the user may additionally request information about a store of a specific business type from the local information while requesting local information. That is, the business type of the store to be provided with the local information request can be selected (S100).

When the information processing server 110 of the system 100 transmits a signal for requesting local information from the terminal 300, the location measuring unit 10 first measures a location of a user connected to the system 100. Here, the position of the terminal 300 is measured as the user position (S110). As described above, various methods may be used for the terminal location measurement, which will be easily described by those skilled in the art.

Next, generate local information based on the measured location. In particular, in order to shorten the processing time required to generate local information included in the setting range based on the measured position, an operation for determining whether the setting range is satisfied is not performed for a store that satisfies a predetermined condition. Instead, the operation is performed only for stores that do not satisfy the condition, and the stores included in the set range are extracted to generate basic information for generating local information (S120).

5 illustrates a process of generating basic information for generating regional information according to an embodiment of the present invention in more detail.

When the terminal position is measured, the zone determination module 21 of the information extractor 20 sets a first zone based on the terminal position, and sets a predetermined condition from a predetermined map of the map database 131 based on the first zone. Determine at least one or more second zones that satisfy. Specifically, the zone determination module 21 selects a map (eg, a map of a predetermined administrative area city (Seoul city, etc.) including the terminal location) including the terminal location measured on the map database 131, On the selected map, a circle having a radius set based on the location of the terminal is formed to set a region included in the circle as the first zone (S121). Although the first zone is implemented in the form of a circle centering on the terminal location, the present invention is not limited thereto and may be implemented in various forms centering on the terminal location. Alternatively, one administrative area unit (eg, town, district, etc.) including the terminal location may be the first zone. Thereafter, the layer corresponding to the first zone is activated on the map database 131 (S122).

Next, the layer corresponding to the unit of the second zone in the map is activated (S123). For example, when the unit of the second zone is the most basic unit of the administrative zone unit, each layer corresponding to the administrative zone "east" is activated. As the layer corresponding to "dong" is activated, the coppers on the map are each treated as a polygon, and these polygons are used as second zones to compare with the first zone. In this case, in order to prevent unnecessary second zones from being used, polygons having characteristics connected to the first zone may be used as the second zone. For example, if the first zone belongs to a predetermined administrative zone, “Dobong-gu”, polygons corresponding to the coppers belonging to “Dobong-gu” and / or the dongs of other spheres adjacent to “Dobong-gu” are extracted and used as the second zone.

The first zone is then compared with the second zone, and the second zone, which is completely included in the first zone or partially included in the first zone, is extracted from the plurality of second zones, resulting in a final second zone for store extraction. Used as (S124).

On the other hand, the second zones, which are not partly included in the first one of the second zones, are regarded and ignored as information that is not helpful to the user because the location from the terminal is too far away. However, if necessary, the following processing for generating area information may be performed for these areas.

Once the first and second zones for store extraction are determined as described above, the store extraction module 22 extracts certain stores according to the inclusion relationship with the first and second zones. Specifically, the store extraction module 22 determines the relationship between the first zone and the second zone (S125), and if the second zone is included in the first zone, the condition requested by the user among the stores included in the second zone is determined. Stores satisfying the above are extracted as first basic information (S126). When only a part of the second zone is included in the first zone, stores that satisfy the condition requested by the user among the stores included in the second zone are extracted as the second basic information (S127). The first and second basic information including the extracted stores are transmitted to the information generator 30.

When the first and second basic information for generating area information are extracted as described above, as shown in FIG. 4, the distance calculating module 31 of the information generating unit 30 performs second basic information among the extracted information. Only the stores included in the distance calculation is performed (S130). That is, the distance calculation is not performed for the stores of the second zone included in the first zone formed based on the location of the user terminal, but only a part of the stores of the second zone included in the first zone are calculated. Perform.

In order to calculate the distance, the distance calculation module 31 checks the first coordinate value corresponding to the position of the terminal on the selected map and the second coordinate value of the store corresponding to the second basic information determined from the store database 132. Then, the distance between the terminal location and the store is calculated based on the first and second coordinate values. This distance calculation is made for all stores selected as the second basic information, respectively.

When the distances for all the stores included in the second basic information are calculated according to the distance calculation process, the distance determination module 32 compares the calculated distance and the set distance, respectively, and sets them from the terminal position among the stores of the second basic information. Only stores included in the distance are selected and extracted as the third basic information (S140).

As described above, stores satisfying a predetermined condition based on the terminal location are used as basic information for generating region information without a separate distance calculation process, and distances are calculated and compared only with stores that do not satisfy the above conditions. By performing the screening operation and using it as basic information, it is possible to reduce the time required to extract basic information for generating local information and to simplify the processing process.

Next, the final information generation module 33 is based on the first basic information consisting of the stores of the second zone included in all the first zone, and the third basic information consisting of stores selected according to the above distance calculation and comparison process. In operation S150, local information to be provided to the user is generated. Therefore, the local information may include information about stores corresponding to the first and third basic information (for example, a business name, a location, a phone number, a brief description, and the like). In this case, stores corresponding to the third basic information for which the distance is calculated may be arranged in order of stores located close to the terminal location according to the calculated distance, as necessary. In addition, according to a user's disposition determined from the user database 133, only predetermined stores of the local information may be extracted to provide target information.

The area information generated as described above is transferred to the information providing server 120, and the information providing server 120 transmits the area information to the user terminal 300 through the wireless network (S160). In this case, the area information may be processed and transmitted in a message form. In particular, in order to provide more detailed information to the user, a message including the region information may be transmitted in the form of a message including a callback URL for accessing a predetermined swap page, in which case the terminal 300 receives the message. When the user selects and connects to a callback URL, the information providing server 120 provides a swap page for providing detailed information (eg, a map or a map, etc.) of the area information provided to the terminal 300. Therefore, the user may conveniently receive more detailed information on the local information provided by the simple callback operation (S170).

In the above embodiment, the local information is provided regardless of whether or not the user is registered in the local information providing system 100. However, the system 100 described above only to the user whose information is registered. As noted, local information may be provided. In this case, the information processing server may further perform the step of authenticating the user, and then perform the steps as described above only for the authenticated user to provide local information.

On the other hand, even when the user terminal is connected to the local information providing system through a wired network, as in the above-described embodiment, the first zone and the at least one or more second zones are measured and set based on the measured position; Information can be generated and provided according to the relationship of. In particular, in this case, the location set by the user by accessing the local information providing system (for example, the location set directly on the map provided by the user) may be set as the user location, and also based on the location set by the user. The arbitrary zone set by operating a mouse or the like may be the first zone.

Although specific embodiments of the present invention have been described so far, various modifications are possible without departing from the scope of the present invention. For example, the above-described local information providing method may be implemented in the form of a program stored in a computer-readable recording medium. The recording medium may include any kind of recording device that stores data that can be read by a computer. For example, a CD-ROM, a magnetic tape, a floppy disk, and the like may be used. Included is implemented in the form of).

Therefore, the scope of the present invention should not be limited to the described embodiments, but should be defined not only by the scope of the following claims, but also by the equivalents of the claims.

As described above, according to the present invention, the user can conveniently receive predetermined local information based on the current location regardless of time and place.

In particular, according to the present invention, when providing local information through a network, it is possible to generate and provide local information based on the measured user's location more quickly and efficiently. Therefore, it is possible to reduce the time required to generate local information, to simplify the processing process, and to easily build a local information system.

Claims (9)

In a method of providing local information of a system for providing local information to a user terminal connected through a network using a map database in which map information including a plurality of stores is stored, a) when the user terminal accesses through the network, the system measuring a user location; b) setting, by the system, a first zone as a reference for generating area information on the map based on the measured user location, and selecting at least one second zone on the map; c) the system comparing the inclusion relationship of the first and second zones and accordingly classifying stores corresponding to the second zone as first and second basic information; d) calculating, by the system, a distance from the user location for each of the stores corresponding to the second basic information; e) extracting and setting the stores of which the calculated distance is included in a set distance as third basic information; And f) generating local information consisting of store-related information corresponding to the first and third basic information and providing the same to the user terminal; Local information providing method comprising a. The method of claim 1 Step c) Classifying stores corresponding to the second zone as first basic information when all of the second zone is included in the first zone; And Classifying stores corresponding to the second zone as second basic information when only a part of the second zone is included in the first zone; Local information providing method comprising a. The method according to claim 1 or 2 The step c) is to activate the layer corresponding to the unit of the second zone on the map to form a plurality of polygons consisting of the unit, and selecting the formed polygon as a second zone method. The method according to claim 1 or 2 The first zone is formed in the form of a circle having a set radius around the terminal location, the second zone is provided in the area of administrative area. The method according to claim 1 or 2 Stores included in the first to third basic information is a local information providing method consisting of stores corresponding to the type of business requested from the user terminal. The method according to claim 1 or 2 And the user location is the location of the terminal. A computer-readable recording medium having recorded thereon a program for executing the method according to claim 1. In a system for providing local information to a user terminal through a network, A map database in which map information including a plurality of stores is stored; A store database in which information about a store, wherein the information includes at least one of administrative area information of a store and coordinate values on a map of the store; A location measuring unit measuring a user location connected through the network; Set a first zone for generating area information on the map based on the measured position, select at least one or more second zones on the map, and then store the database according to an inclusion relationship between the first and second zones. An information extraction unit for classifying stores corresponding to the second zone provided from the first and second basic information; After calculating the distance from the user location with respect to the stores included in the second basic information, and extracting the stores whose calculated distance is included in the set distance to set as the third basic information, the first and third An information generation unit generating local information consisting of stores corresponding to basic information; And Information providing unit for providing the generated area information to the user terminal Local information providing system comprising a. The method of claim 8 The information extracting unit classifies stores corresponding to the second zone as first basic information when all of the second zones are included in the first zone, and classifies stores corresponding to the second zone as second basic information. Local information provision system.

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