# \*Reducing\* geoshape tree\_levels doubles query time (1.7) **URL:** \ **Category:** Elasticsearch\ **Created:** [January 26, 2016, 11:08pm UTC](https://discuss.elastic.co/t/reducing-geoshape-tree-levels-doubles-query-time-1-7/40175 "2016-01-26T23:08:55Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 5\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![Richard\_Baker](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/a87d85/32.png) [@Richard\_Baker](https://discuss.elastic.co/u/Richard_Baker)\ **Post date:** [January 26, 2016, 11:08pm UTC](https://discuss.elastic.co/t/reducing-geoshape-tree-levels-doubles-query-time-1-7/40175/1 "2016-01-26T23:08:55Z")
Hi There, This is a first post, so please bear with me! I'm running a 3 replica cluster with client node on ES 1.7 on 8 core/60Gb machines. I have an index containing various analysed fields and a nested geoshape. The stored geoshapes are generally "circles" of up to 400000 metres (~250 miles) radius. Previously the index was mapped with the default geoshape precision/tree\_levels setting (50 metres) which I believe equates to a tree\_levels value of 12. The index contains nearly 4 million documents (roughly 48 million due to nesting) and memory usage was around 30Gb. Performance was good, average query between 100 - 200ms, but I was looking to reduce the memory usage. I reindexed the data into another index with the mapping geoshape precision value of 500m (equating to tree\_levels 7). The data is identical, but query times are now double at 400 - 900 ms. Memory usage of this index has halved however! I would have thought a lower tree\_levels value would have improved query times as there are fewer geohash terms in the prefix tree. The "performance considerations" section in the documentation cautions the use of high tree\_levels values, however i'm seeing quite a degradation in query performance with lower values. I can't find any similar issues by searching. Any experience or wisdom would be greatly appreciated. Thanks in advance. ---
**Author:** ![nknize](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/edb3f5/32.png) [@nknize](https://discuss.elastic.co/u/nknize)\ **Post date:** [January 27, 2016, 3:10pm UTC](https://discuss.elastic.co/t/reducing-geoshape-tree-levels-doubles-query-time-1-7/40175/2 "2016-01-27T15:10:49Z")
Hi @Richard_Baker Can you post the geo\_shape mapping and an example query that's causing the issue? ---
**Author:** ![Richard\_Baker](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/a87d85/32.png) [@Richard\_Baker](https://discuss.elastic.co/u/Richard_Baker)\ **Post date:** [January 27, 2016, 7:54pm UTC](https://discuss.elastic.co/t/reducing-geoshape-tree-levels-doubles-query-time-1-7/40175/3 "2016-01-27T19:54:12Z")
Thanks @nknzine Here's the mapping: [https://gist.github.com/rjbaker/7752003e7d4990618dd2#file-users-1-2-json-L67-L68](https://gist.github.com/rjbaker/7752003e7d4990618dd2#file-users-1-2-json-L67-L68) An example query looks like this: [https://gist.github.com/rjbaker/9a9666d17ac9a55ac5b7](https://gist.github.com/rjbaker/9a9666d17ac9a55ac5b7) This has been running in production quite happily and with acceptable performance for quite some time using the default geoshape precision. I was attempting to reduce memory usage by reducing the precision setting/tree\_levels. This has worked but this query is now unacceptably slow. Data was reindexed on the same cluster. Many thanks. ---
**Author:** ![Richard\_Baker](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/a87d85/32.png) [@Richard\_Baker](https://discuss.elastic.co/u/Richard_Baker)\ **Post date:** [January 29, 2016, 11:47am UTC](https://discuss.elastic.co/t/reducing-geoshape-tree-levels-doubles-query-time-1-7/40175/4 "2016-01-29T11:47:13Z")
Further to this, I have increased `tree_levels` to 10. This has increased memory usage by ~6GB but improved query speed considerably. Everything I have read seems to imply that a lower tree levels value will improve query speed and reduce memory usage, at the expense of geospatial search accuracy. However, in practice I have found the opposite. ---
**Author:** ![system](https://us1.discourse-cdn.com/elastic/original/3X/1/a/1ac57faf039f6b580b3f104ef42a2a89e41014de.png) [@system](https://discuss.elastic.co/u/system)\ **Post date:** [July 5, 2017, 11:20pm UTC](https://discuss.elastic.co/t/reducing-geoshape-tree-levels-doubles-query-time-1-7/40175/5 "2017-07-05T23:20:23Z")