Package org.apache.lucene.index

Class PointValues

java.lang.Object
org.apache.lucene.index.PointValues
Direct Known Subclasses:
BKDReader, ExitableDirectoryReader.ExitablePointValues, MemoryIndex.MemoryIndexReader.MemoryIndexPointValues, MutablePointValues, SimpleTextBKDReader, SortingCodecReader.SortingPointValues
public abstract class PointValues extends Object
Access to indexed numeric values.

Points represent numeric values and are indexed differently than ordinary text. Instead of an inverted index, points are indexed with datastructures such as KD-trees. These structures are optimized for operations such as range, distance, nearest-neighbor, and point-in-polygon queries.

Basic Point Types

Basic point types in Java and Lucene
Java typeLucene class
intIntPoint
longLongPoint
floatFloatPoint
doubleDoublePoint
byte[]BinaryPoint
BigIntegerBigIntegerPoint*
InetAddressInetAddressPoint*
* in the lucene-sandbox jar

Basic Lucene point types behave like their java peers: for example IntPoint represents a signed 32-bit Integer, supporting values ranging from Integer.MIN_VALUE to Integer.MAX_VALUE, ordered consistent with Integer.compareTo(Integer). In addition to indexing support, point classes also contain static methods (such as IntPoint.newRangeQuery(String, int, int)) for creating common queries. For example: 

   // add year 1970 to document
   document.add(new IntPoint("year", 1970));
   // index document
   writer.addDocument(document);
   ...
   // issue range query of 1960-1980
   Query query = IntPoint.newRangeQuery("year", 1960, 1980);
   TopDocs docs = searcher.search(query, ...);

Geospatial Point Types

Although basic point types such as DoublePoint support points in multi-dimensional space too, Lucene has specialized classes for location data. These classes are optimized for location data: they are more space-efficient and support special operations such as distance and polygon queries. There are currently two implementations:
  1. LatLonPoint: indexes (latitude,longitude) as (x,y) in two-dimensional space.
  2. Geo3DPoint* in lucene-spatial3d: indexes (latitude,longitude) as (x,y,z) in three-dimensional space.
* does not support altitude, 3D here means "uses three dimensions under-the-hood"

Advanced usage

Custom structures can be created on top of single- or multi- dimensional basic types, on top of BinaryPoint for more flexibility, or via custom Field subclasses.