Spatial Operations for Azure Maps are now generally available
Published date: 07 June, 2019
Azure Maps Spatial Operations will take location information and analyse it on the fly to help inform our customers of ongoing events happening in time and space, enabling near real-time analysis and predictive modelling of events. Spatial Operations includes the following services:
Geofencing. A geofence is an “invisible fence” around a particular area. These “fences” exist in coordinates in the shape of customisable polygons and can be associated with temporal constraints so that fences are only evaluated when relevant. Furthermore, you can store a geofence in Azure Maps Data Service. With Azure Event Grid integration, you can create notifications whenever the position of an object changes with respect to a geofence – including entry, exit or changing proximity to a geofence.
Buffer. Build an area around points, lines and polygons based on a given distance. Define the area in proximity of powerlines that should be kept clear from vegetation or create route buffers in fleet management for managing route deviations.
Closest point. Returns the closest points between a base point and a given collection of points. It can be used to quickly identify the closest stores, charging stations, or in mobility scenarios, it could be used to identify the closest devices.
Great circle distance. Returns the great circle or shortest distance between two points on the surface of a sphere. In the context of drone delivery services, this API can be used to calculate the distance between an origin and destination as the crow flies, taking into account the curvature of the earth so that an accurate time estimate for the delivery can be taken into account to optimise operations.
Point in polygon. Returns a Boolean indicating whether the location is inside a given set of Polygon and MultiPolygon geometries. For example, the point in polygon API can be used to determine whether a home for sale is in a customer’s preferred area.