GeohashTile: Vector Geographic Data Display Method Based on Geohash

• Main Authors: Chang Zhou, Huimei Lu, Yong Xiang, Jingbang Wu, Feng Wang
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Published: MDPI AG 2020-06-01
• Series: ISPRS International Journal of Geo-Information
• Subjects: GIS; Geohash; vector tile; Leaflet
• Online Access: https://www.mdpi.com/2220-9964/9/7/418

In the development of geographic information-based applications for mobile devices, achieving better access speed and visual effects is the main research aim. In this paper, we propose a new geographic data display method based on Geohash, namely GeohashTile, to improve the performance of traditional geographic data display methods in data indexing, data compression, and the projection of different granularities. First, we use the Geohash encoding system to represent coordinates, as well as to partition and index large-scale geographic data. The data compression and tile encoding is accomplished by Geohash. Second, to realize a direct conversion between Geohash and screen-pixel coordinates, we adopt the relative position projection method. Finally, we improve the calculation and rendering efficiency by using the intermediate result caching method. To evaluate the GeohashTile method, we have implemented the client and the server of the GeohashTile system, which is also evaluated in a real-world environment. The results show that Geohash encoding can accurately represent latitude and longitude coordinates in vector maps, while the GeohashTile framework has obvious advantages when requesting data volume and average load time compared to the state-of-the-art GeoTile system.