Navigable topological maps

A method of providing location-based information comprising:

• providing a map-to-scale database which may be used to generate a map-to-scale depiction of a geographic region and a plurality of physical features therein with geographic accuracy and scaling, and may be further used to calculate routes and generate route guidance between two or more locations within the geographic region, the map-to-scale database further including location-related information, the location-related information being associated with a first set of locations within the geographic region, the location-related information comprising data related to the plurality of physical features located at or near each location of the first set of locations, the location-related information further comprising depicted location-related information that would be depicted within the map-to-scale depiction and non-depicted location-related information that would not be depicted within the map-to-scale depiction, wherein the non-depicted location related information comprises information which may be used calculate a route between locations of the first set of locations and provide route guidance there between;
• providing a topological map not derived from the provided map-to-scale database, the topological map depicting a second set of locations, a subset of which are also included in the first set of locations for which the map-to-scale database includes location-related information associated therewith;
• receiving into a computing device a query for the location-related information from the map-to-scale database for a particular link having locations within the subset of the second set of locations depicted by the topological map;
• determining, based on the locations of the particular link specified by the received query, the locations in the first set of locations corresponding thereto;
• accessing, by the computing device, the location-related information in the provided map-to-scale database associated with the determined location, the accessed location-related information including both depicted and non-depicted location-related information, and calculating a route between the locations of the particular link based thereon;
• and
• displaying, by the computing device, the calculated route with respect to the particular link of the received query in the provided topological map.

A non-transitory computer readable medium having data stored thereon, the data comprising:

• map-to-scale data, stored in a database, which may be used to generate a map-to-scale depiction of a geographic region and a plurality of physical features therein with geographic accuracy and scaling, and may be further used to calculate routes and generate route guidance between two or more locations within the geographic region, the map-to-scale data further including location-related information, the location-related information being associated with a first set of locations within the geographic region, the location-related information comprising data related to the plurality of physical features located at or near each location of the first set of locations, the location-related information further comprising depicted location-related information that would be depicted within the map-to-scale depiction and non-depicted location-related information that would not be depicted within the map-to-scale depiction, wherein the non-depicted location related information comprises information which may be used calculate a route between locations of the first set of locations and provide route guidance there between;
• topological data representing a topological map not derived from the map-to-scale data, the topological map depicting a second set of locations, a subset of which are also included in the first set of locations for which the map-to-scale data includes location-related information associated therewith;
• and
• association data representative of the subset of the second set of locations depicted by the topological map wherein for a selected origin location and destination location of the subset of the second set of locations depicted by the topological map, both depicted and non-depicted location-related information from the map-to-scale data for the location in the first set of locations corresponding to the selected location is determined based on the association data and used to calculate a route between the origin and destination locations for display in the topological map with respect to the selected location.