地图提供商(如谷歌或Yahoo!地图)指示方向?

I mean, they probably have real-world data in some form, certainly including distances but also perhaps things like driving speeds, presence of sidewalks, train schedules, etc. But suppose the data were in a simpler format, say a very large directed graph with edge weights reflecting distances. I want to be able to quickly compute directions from one arbitrary point to another. Sometimes these points will be close together (within one city) while sometimes they will be far apart (cross-country).

Graph algorithms like Dijkstra's algorithm will not work because the graph is enormous. Luckily, heuristic algorithms like A* will probably work. However, our data is very structured, and perhaps some kind of tiered approach might work? (For example, store precomputed directions between certain "key" points far apart, as well as some local directions. Then directions for two far-away points will involve local directions to a key points, global directions to another key point, and then local directions again.)

实践中实际使用的算法是什么?

PS:这个问题的动机是发现在线地图方向的怪癖。与三角形不等式相反，有时谷歌Maps认为X-Z比使用中间点(如X-Y-Z)花费的时间更长，距离更远。但也许他们的行走方向也会优化另一个参数?

pp。这是对三角不等式的另一个违反，这表明(对我来说)他们使用了某种分层方法:X-Z vs X-Y-Z。前者似乎使用了著名的塞瓦斯托波尔大道(Boulevard de Sebastopol)，尽管它有点偏僻。

编辑:这两个例子似乎都不起作用了，但在最初的帖子发布时都起作用了。