Patent ID: 7882102

Claim:
A computer-implemented method for accessing information from a geographic database, said method comprising: receiving a search request, said search request identifying search criteria including an initial point; identifying, using said initial point, a neighborhood of cells from a grid of cells associated with a geographic database; searching said geographic database one cell at a time from said neighborhood to retrieve a number of points of interest (POIs) from a plurality of POIs identified in said geographic database, each POI retrieved having a corresponding location determined to be in a cell of said neighborhood, wherein searching said geographic database one cell at a time is performed until a predetermined number of POIs are retrieved or until all cells in said neighborhood have been searched to retrieve a number of POIs of said plurality, wherein after all cells of said neighborhood have been searched, said neighborhood is referred to as a previous neighborhood; identifying a new neighborhood of cells from the grid of cells, the new neighborhood of cells comprising cells other than the cells in said previous neighborhood; and searching said geographic database one cell at a time from said new neighborhood to retrieve a number of POIs of said plurality, each POI retrieved having a corresponding location determined to be in a cell of said new neighborhood; wherein said new neighborhood of cells corresponds a new geographic area, the new geographic area defined using said initial point and a distance from said initial point, the distance being larger than a distance used to define a geographic area corresponding to said previously-searched neighborhood of cells.