Spatial Search - Apache Solr Reference Guide - Apache Software Foundation

Spatial Search - Apache Solr Reference Guide - Apache Software Foundation

Solr supports location data for use in spatial/geospatial searches. Using spatial search, you can:

• Index points or other shapes
• Filter search results by a bounding box or circle or by other shapes
• Sort or boost scoring by distance between points, or relative area between rectangles
• Generate a 2D grid of facet count numbers for heatmap generation or point-plotting.

There are three main field types available for spatial search:

• LatLonType and its non-geodetic twin PointType
• SpatialRecursivePrefixTreeFieldType (RPT for short), including RptWithGeometrySpatialField, a derivative
• BBoxField

RPT offers more features than LatLonType and fast filter performance, although LatLonType is more appropriate when efficient distance sorting/boosting is desired. They can both be used simultaneously for what each does best – LatLonType for sorting/boosting, RPT for filtering.  If you need to index shapes other than points (e.g. a circle or polygon) then use RPT.

BBoxField is for indexing bounding boxes, querying by a box, specifying a search predicate (Intersects,Within,Contains,Disjoint,Equals), and a relevancy sort/boost like overlapRatio or simply the area.

Some details that are not in this guide can be found at http://wiki.apache.org/solr/SpatialSearch.  

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