Lucene spatial search with sitecore 8.2

Question

I have a template with latitude and longitude field. I want to able to use lucene to search for records within given radius. I haven't found any code sample that works with sitecore 8.2. I've been told to use solr which is more feature rich but solr seems to complex for my needs as I'm not dealing with huge records.

Can someone guide me on how I can go about creating my own custom contentsearch library?

Thanks.

Answer 1

You may have a look at the module LUCENE SPATIAL SEARCH SUPPORT on the Sitecore Marketplace. There is a link to the github repo which should give you an example of how that was done for Sitecore 7; hopefully not much has changed.

The creator built a library referencing these Lucene libraries:

• Lucene.Net.Contrib.Spatial.dll
• Lucene.Net.dll
• Spatial4n.Core.dll

Then built an API on top with the appropriate ContentSearch configuration files. Perhaps not too straight forward but can be done.

As an aside, the Sitecore Experience Accelerator (SXA) comes with this feature built in for Lucene using a similar approach.

Answer 2

I haven't used the module in 8.2, but in 8.1 I had to change LuceneSearchWithSpatialContext.cs and remove the following constructor

protected LuceneSearchWithSpatialContext(ILuceneProviderIndex index,  CreateSearcherOption options = CreateSearcherOption.Writeable, SearchSecurityOptions securityOptions = SearchSecurityOptions.EnableSecurityCheck) :base(index,options,securityOptions)
{
    Assert.ArgumentNotNull(index, "index");
    this.index = index;
    this.settings = this.index.Locator.GetInstance<IContentSearchConfigurationSettings>();
}

Update the Sitecore.ContentSearch.Spatial.config:

<configuration xmlns:patch="http://www.sitecore.net/xmlconfig/">
  <sitecore>
    <contentSearchSpatial>
      <IncludeTemplates>
        <!-- * Include your location template details, like template id, latitude field name and longitude field name
             * You can include multiple templates 
        -->
        <!--<Template id="{TEMPLATE ID}" LatitudeField="[Latitude Field Name]" LongitudeField="[Longitude Field Name]"></Template>-->
      </IncludeTemplates>
    </contentSearchSpatial>
    <contentSearch>
      <indexConfigurations>
        <spatialLuceneIndexConfiguration ref="contentSearch/indexConfigurations/defaultLuceneIndexConfiguration"  type="Sitecore.ContentSearch.LuceneProvider.LuceneIndexConfiguration, Sitecore.ContentSearch.LuceneProvider">
          <documentBuilderType>Sitecore.ContentSearch.Spatial.Indexing.LuceneSpatialDocumentBuilder, Sitecore.ContentSearch.Spatial</documentBuilderType>
        </spatialLuceneIndexConfiguration>
      </indexConfigurations>
    </contentSearch>
  </sitecore>
</configuration>

Your index should use the following configuration:

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8" ?>
<configuration xmlns:patch="http://www.sitecore.net/xmlconfig/">
  <sitecore>
    <contentSearch>
      <configuration type="Sitecore.ContentSearch.ContentSearchConfiguration, Sitecore.ContentSearch">
        <indexes hint="list:AddIndex">
          <index id="index_id" type="Sitecore.ContentSearch.Spatial.Provider.Lucene.LuceneIndexWithSpatial, Sitecore.ContentSearch.Spatial">
            ...
          </index>
        </indexes>
      </configuration>
    </contentSearch>
  </sitecore>
</configuration>