7.17.1. Geolocation search

Groonga supports geolocation search. It uses index for search. It means that you can search by geolocation fast like fulltext search.

7.17.1.1. Supported features

Groonga supports only point as data type. Line, surface and so on aren’t supported yet. Here is a feature list:

1. Groonga can store a point to a column.

2. Groonga can search records that have a point in the specified rectangle.

3. Groonga can search records that have a point in the specified circle.

4. Groonga can calculate distance between two points.

5. Groonga can sort records by distance from the specified point in ascending order.

Here are use cases for Groonga’s geolocation search:

• You list McDonald’s around a station.

• You list KFC around the current location sort by distance from the current location in ascending order with distance.

Here are not use cases:

• You search McDonald’s in a city. (Groonga doesn’t support geolocation search by a shape except a rectangle and a circle.)

• You store a region instead of a point as a lake record. (A column can’t has geolocation data except a point.)

The following figures show about Groonga’s geolocation search features.

Here is a figure that only has records. A black point describes a record. The following figures shows how records are treated.

Coming soon…