Uses for c-squares

Why c-squares? To date, the ability to do simple spatial queries of documents or indexed objects of any sort has relied on either using a controlled list of geographic search words which are applied consistently to the objects in question (such as country or region names, names of oceans and seas, etc.), or using some type of numeric units such as latitude and longitude. The latter is typically either one set of values (for a point), or some type of range (e.g. maximum and minimum values of both latitude and longitude, or sometimes a centre point plus a radius), to give a bounding box or a circle which forms an approximation of the spatial extent of the data, and which can then be searched using numeric functions. True "polygon" boundaries of dataset footprints can also be expressed in simple notation (e.g. by giving lat/long coordinates of a series of points which are then connected together by straight lines to produce the boundary shape), however to search these requires complex spatial queries which are typically only the province of dedicated GIS (Geographic Information System) software.

C-squares has been developed in order to have a simple, text-based method to represent either points, or more complex shapes on the earth's surface ("spatial objects") which is easy to index and easy to query (for example, to answer a question "which of these objects occur within my area of interest") without requiring any more sophisticated software than something which supports standard text queries, e.g. a "find" function in a word processor, text-based database, or internet search engine, but which offers considerably more functionality than either the "location keyword" or "bounding box" methods of spatial data indexing.

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