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TRK_LCSS takes two track columns, a numeric search distance, and a numeric duration value and returns a double column. The output represents the size of the longest common subsequence between the two tracks.

Tracks are linestrings that represent the change in an entity's location over time. Each vertex in the linestring has a timestamp (stored as the M-value) and the vertices are ordered sequentially.

For more information on using tracks in GeoAnalytics Engine, see the core concept topic on tracks.

TRK_LCSS considers the order of the track observations. A pair of track observations between the two tracks will be included in the common subsequence if these two observations are within the search distance and duration thresholds.

There are two types of LCSS, spatiotemporal (ST-LCSS) and spatial only (S-LCSS). ST-LCSS considers both search distance and duration filter criteria while S-LCSS considers distance filter criteria only.

The ST_CreateDistance and ST_CreateDuration functions can be used to define the search distance and search duration parameters. You can also define them with a tuple containing a number and a unit string (e.g., (10, "kilometers") or (5, "minutes")).

TRK_LCSS
Two tracks (orange and blue). If a pair of track observation meets the criteria (red circle), it will be considered part of the common subsequence. In this example, the longest common subsequence will consist of 5 pairs: (2,2), (3,3), (4,4), (7,6), (8,7). The TRK_LCSS result will be 5​.

TRK_LCSS does not take z-values into account. If the input tracks have z-values, they will be ignored in the LCSS calculation.

If the input tracks both have a spatial reference defined but do not have the same spatial reference, the second track will be transformed to the spatial reference of the first track. If only one of the tracks has a spatial reference defined, both tracks are assumed to have that spatial reference.

If the tracks have a projected spatial reference or have no spatial reference set, planar distance calculations will be used. Otherwise, geodesic distance calculations will be used. For more information see Coordinate systems and transformations.

This function can be used to measure the similarity between two tracks. For more details, go to the core topic for similarity measures.

FunctionSyntax
Pythonlcss(track1, track2, search_distance, search_duration=None)
SQLTRK_LCSS(track1, track2, search_distance, search_duration)
Scalalcss(track1, track2, searchDistance, searchDuration)

For more details, go to the GeoAnalytics Engine API reference for lcss.

Examples

PythonPythonSQLScala
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from geoanalytics.tracks import functions as TRK
from geoanalytics.sql import functions as ST

data = [
    ("LINESTRING M (10 10 1715194800, 10 35 1715198400, 10 65 1715202000, 10 85 1715208000)", "LINESTRING M (10 11 1715195400, 10 36 1715199600, 10 66 1715203800, 10 86 1715210400)"),
    ("LINESTRING M (-117.27 34.05 1715198400, -117.22 33.91 1715202000, -116.96 33.64 1715208000)", "LINESTRING M (-116.89 33.96 1715199600, -116.71 34.01 1715203800, -116.66 34.08 1715210400)")
]

df = spark.createDataFrame(data, ["line1_wkt", "line2_wkt"]) \
          .withColumn("track1", ST.line_from_text("line1_wkt", 4326)) \
          .withColumn("track2", ST.line_from_text("line2_wkt", 4326))

df.select(TRK.lcss('track1', 'track2', ST.create_distance(70, 'miles'), ST.create_duration(5, 'hours')).alias('lcss')).show()
Result
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+----+
|lcss|
+----+
| 4.0|
| 3.0|
+----+

Version table

ReleaseNotes

1.4.0

Python and SQL functions introduced

1.5.0

Scala function introduced

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