[LUCENE-7942] For Geo3d paths, aggregating distance values using "+" is not adequate for squared distances

• Type: Bug
• Status: Closed
• Priority: Major
• Resolution: Fixed
• Fix Version/s: 6.7, 7.1, 8.0
• Component/s: modules/spatial3d
• Lucene Fields: New
• Assignee: Karl Wright
• Reporter: Karl Wright
• Created: 28/Aug/17 04:57
• Updated: 28/Aug/22 15:18
• Resolved: 28/Aug/17 05:56

Description

The GeoStandardPath object aggregates distances segment by segment using simple addition. For some kinds of Distance computations, though, addition is not an adequate way to do this. The xxxSquaredDistance computations, for example, do not produce true squared distances but rather a distance metric that is a combination of both squared and linear.

I propose adding support in Distance for aggregation, which would allow distance calculators to compute an accurate distance (at some computational cost) instead.