Discovering functional groups

A method of determining functional groups of an area, comprising:

• segmenting, by one or more processors, a map of the area into sections;
• for each section:
• determining, by the one or more processors, mobility patterns of users leaving from and arriving at the section,
• determining, by the one or more processors, a number of points of interest (POIs) in each of a plurality of point of interest (POI) categories that are located in the section to obtain a POI feature vector for the section, and
• inferring, by the one or more processors, a distribution of functions for the section based at least in part on the mobility patterns and the POI feature vector;
• clustering, by the one or more processors, the sections into a set of functional groups based at least in part on a similarity between the distribution of functions for each section;
• estimating, by the one or more processors, a functionality intensity for each of the functional groups based at least in part on the mobility patterns of each section;
• and
• annotating each of the functional groups based at least in part on the POI feature vectors, the mobility patterns and the functionality intensity associated with each of the functional groups.

A computer readable medium storing computer-executable instructions that, when executed, cause one or more processors to perform acts comprising:

• segmenting a map of an area into sections;
• inferring, for each section, a distribution of functions according to a topic model framework which uses mobility patterns of users leaving from and arriving at the section and points of interest (POIs) in the section;
• clustering the sections based at least in part on a similarity of the distribution of functions between each of the sections to obtain functional groups;
• estimating a functionality intensity for each of the functional groups;
• and
• annotating each of the functional groups on a visual representation of the area.