Problem with Location Recognition radius parameter

Aleksandar Cvetkovic 0 Microsoft Employee

Radius parameter in Bing Maps API does not work for me. Whichever value I set it seems that only the default value of 0.25km is being used as a maximum radius.

I tried passing the parameter value in a dict, as part of the URL, with keywords: radius, distance, r. Changed the order of parameters, added and removed parameters, tried different distance units but nothing seems to work.

1 answer

rbrundritt 18,686 Reputation points Microsoft Employee

2024-08-05T14:43:31.77+00:00
I just tested it, and it worked fine. Note that this service can return a max of 20 results (default is 10), so not every result within 2KM will be returned. Here is the URL I tested with:

https://dev.virtualearth.net/REST/v1/locationrecog/47.699528,-122.119397?radius=2&key=MyBingMapsKey

Also note that the Bing Maps platform is being retired. The announcement says to consider moving to Azure Maps. Azure Maps does have a lot of Search services that can find points of interests. Here are some resources:

https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/azure/azure-maps/how-to-use-best-practices-for-search

https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/rest/api/maps/search/get-search-fuzzy?view=rest-maps-1.0&tabs=HTTP

https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/rest/api/maps/search/get-search-nearby?view=rest-maps-1.0&tabs=HTTP

https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/rest/api/maps/search/get-search-poi?view=rest-maps-1.0&tabs=HTTP
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Aleksandar Cvetkovic 0 Reputation points Microsoft Employee

2024-08-05T15:38:43.5466667+00:00

Can you test these two latlongs for me?
The coordinates of Lake Success are 41.210894364516555, -73.16533680648888, first latlong is 0.24 kms away from it and service correctly finds it. The second latlong is 0.26 kms away from it and the service does not find it even when radius is set to 2kms.

lat, long = 41.21192750918305, -73.16339 lat, long = 41.21192750918305, -73.163239

rbrundritt 18,686 Reputation points Microsoft Employee

2024-08-05T22:51:15.19+00:00

Just tried that and I'm able to get up to 20 business results when I add &top=20 to the request. Without it I get 10 results, which is the default limit. Lake Success (natural body of water) is not in these results. When I try searching for Lake Success on Bing.com within Bridgeport, CT, it finds Lake Success business park which is right around 2km from the center of that lake: https://www.bing.com/maps?toWww=1&redig=5623617E3D0F4D43B46B5199DC822E2D&cp=41.203029%7E-73.172843&lvl=19.5 This likely explains what you are seeing. Smaller bodies of water typically aren't in the searchable data of Bing Maps.

Aleksandar Cvetkovic 0 Reputation points Microsoft Employee

2024-08-05T23:04:36.6233333+00:00

Can you try with includeEntityTypes=naturalPOI? Does setting that flag make it so up to 20 naturalPOI entities get returned? In this setting I get one result for first latlong (Lake Success) and no results for second latlong.

rbrundritt 18,686 Reputation points Microsoft Employee

2024-08-06T15:48:56.26+00:00

Ok, I see what you are saying now. That said, Bing Maps is retiring and these types of bugs are unlikely to be fixed or investigated. Additionally, small lakes like these are generally not well supported by large map platforms. I tried a bunch of others services and struggled to get the result you were looking for.

When you want to find small natural details like this, Open Street Maps (OSM) is likely the best resource. If you don't need to make a ton of requests, OverPassTurbo is an easy way to query OSM data. You can find documentation on how to use the Overpass API here: https://wiki.openstreetmap.org/wiki/Overpass_API

Here is an full web example that queries OSM data from Overpass:

<!DOCTYPE html> <html> <head> <meta charset="utf-8" /> <title></title>  <script src="https://tyrasd.github.io/osmtogeojson/osmtogeojson.js"></script> <style> html, body { height: 100%; overflow: hidden; } #output { width: calc(100% - 20px); height: calc(100% - 80px); margin: 10px; } </style> </head> <body> Get data from OSM: <input type="button" value="As original geometries" onclick="buttonClicked(false)" /> <input type="button" value="As center points" onclick="buttonClicked(true)" /> <textarea id="output"></textarea> <script> var overpassServer = "https://overpass-api.de/api/interpreter"; // var overpassServer = "https://overpass.kumi.systems/api/interpreter"; // var overpassServer = "https://overpass.openstreetmap.fr/api/interpreter"; // var overpassServer = "https://overpass.openstreetmap.ru/cgi/interpreter"; var filter = '"natural"="water"'; var radius = 2000; //Radius in meters. var centerLat = 41.21192750918305; var centerLon = -73.16339; function buttonClicked(returnAsCenterPoint) { var locationQuery = `around:${radius},${centerLat},${centerLon}`; getOsmData(filter, locationQuery, returnAsCenterPoint, function (data) { document.getElementById('output').value = JSON.stringify(data, null, 2); }); } function getOsmData(filter, locationQuery, returnAsCenterPoint, callback) { var outputType = returnAsCenterPoint ? 'center' : 'geom'; fetch(overpassServer, { method: 'POST', mode: 'cors', cache: 'no-cache', headers: { 'Content-Type': 'application/x-www-form-urlencoded;charset=UTF-8' }, body: 'data=' + cleanQuery(` [out:json][timeout:180]; ( node[${filter}](${locationQuery}); way[${filter}](${locationQuery}); relation[${filter}](${locationQuery}); ); out ${outputType};`) }).then(x => x.json()).then(osm_data => { var data = osmtogeojson(osm_data); callback(data); }, e => { console.log({ error: 'Unable to retrieve data from overpass.' }); }); } function cleanQuery(query) { //Remove comments /* */ and // query = query.replace(/\/\*[\s\S]*?\*\/|([^\\:]|^)\/\/.*$/gm, ''); //Remove new lines characters and surrounding whitespace. query = query.replace(/[\s\t]*\n[\s\t]*/gi, ''); //Encode the query. return encodeURIComponent(query); } </script> </body> </html>

The Overpass API is very powerful and can do way more advanced search and filtering of details that you won't be able to find in most map platforms.

Some of the Overpass servers have limits: https://wiki.openstreetmap.org/wiki/Overpass_API#Public_Overpass_API_instances If you need to do a ton of requests regularly that go beyond these limits, you would then likely need to look into hosting a copy of the OSM data (you can limit it to an area and only the data types you want). You could even self-host the overpass API:https://wiki.openstreetmap.org/wiki/Overpass_API/Installation This might sound like a lot of work, but if you are going beyond these generous limits, then your app is likely getting some significant traffic and you would likely want the added stability benefit of self-hosting. In the long run the cost of doing this would be significantly less than using any commercial map platform.
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