JP4618544B2 - Navigation device and storage medium - Google Patents

Description

  The present invention relates to a navigation device and a storage medium having a function of searching for a facility name by a character string.

  As a method of narrowing down the search target when searching for a point to be set as a destination from stored point data in a navigation device that performs a route search by setting a destination and performing guidance along the searched route, a character string A 50-sound search for searching for a facility name, a genre search for searching by genre of a facility, a telephone number search, an address search, a postal code search, and the like are known. The most used of these is the 50-sound search.

  In the 50-sound search, as shown in FIG. 6, a character string representing the name of the facility is entered one by one from the 50 sounds of the hiragana displayed on the search screen, and the entered character string and the stored facility name The data is compared and searched for a match, and the search is performed with the character string at each stage until all the characters of the facility name are input. In the example shown in the figure, it is shown that there are 3744 target facilities when “Yamaumi” is entered.

  As shown in FIG. 7, the facility name data used for the 50-sound search is all for each facility name such as “Yamaumi” for restaurants, “Yamaumi” for supermarkets, and “YAMAUMI” for cosmetics stores. It consists of the hiragana reading “Yamaumi”. Therefore, as shown in FIG. 6, when searching for “Yamaumi” in the supermarket, enter “Yamaumi” in Hiragana, but “Yamaumi” in restaurants and “YAMAUMI” in cosmetic stores etc. Since all the facilities "" are searched, there are 3744 target facilities, and the hit rate of the facility to be searched is very low.

  Therefore, as shown in FIG. 8, it is necessary to display the search result by “Yamaumi” once and then narrow down by area or genre. In the example shown in the figure, it is shown that the target facilities are narrowed down to 336 with the area as the whole area of Aichi Prefecture and the genre as all genres.

In addition, a navigation device having a 50-sound search function has been proposed in which search data is hierarchized, and the hierarchical upper names are displayed to make it easier to identify the results and improve usability. (Patent Document 1).
JP 2002-310712 A

  The conventional 50-sound search has a very low hit rate, and it is a fact that almost all of the character strings of facility names are input or the search results are displayed once and then refined by other conditions. The same is true for the method proposed in Patent Document 1 and the like in that the rate is low.

The present invention is intended to solve the above-described problems, and an object thereof is to improve the hit rate in facility name search.
Therefore, the navigation device of the present invention includes a character input unit for inputting characters, a character type selection unit for selecting the type of characters input by the character input unit, an information storage unit for storing facility names, and the character A facility search unit that searches for a facility name corresponding to the character string input by the input unit, and each facility name stored in the information storage unit includes a hiragana reading of the facility name and a character type of the facility name When the character type is not selected by the character type selection unit, the facility search means searches for all hiragana of the facility name corresponding to the input character string, and the character type When the character type is selected by the selection means, the facility name corresponding to the input character string is selected from the facility name corresponding to the selected character type. And characterized in that the search.
In the present invention, a character input unit for inputting characters, a character type selection unit for selecting a type of characters input by the character input unit, a hiragana for reading facility names, and a character type for facility names are added. A storage medium storing a program readable by a navigation device, comprising: an information storage means for storing a facility name; and a facility search means for searching for a facility name corresponding to the character string input by the character input means. If the character type is not selected by the character type selection means, the step of searching for hiragana of all the facility names corresponding to the inputted character string, the character type is selected by the character type selection means If there is a facility name corresponding to the selected character type, the facility name corresponding to the input character string is searched. And characterized by storing a program for executing the processing by-up the navigation device.

  According to the present invention, it is possible to search by a character string input with a character type as close as possible to the feature of the facility name, so that it is possible to improve the hit rate in the facility name search.

Hereinafter, embodiments will be described.
FIG. 1 is a diagram illustrating an example of a navigation device according to the present embodiment. Input device 1 for inputting information related to route guidance such as a departure point and destination, current position detection device 2 for detecting information related to the current position of the host vehicle, map data, navigation data necessary for route search, route guidance Necessary display / voice guidance data, information storage device 3 in which a program (application and / or OS) for performing guidance such as map display, route search, voice guidance, etc. is recorded, and map as navigator processing means Display processing, route search processing, display / voice guidance processing necessary for route guidance, and central processing unit 4 for controlling the entire system, information relating to vehicle travel, such as road information and traffic information, Information transmission / reception device 5 that detects information related to the current position of the vehicle and transmits / receives information related to the current position, and route guidance And a display and a speaker other output device 6 for outputting that information.

  The input device 1 according to the present embodiment includes a character input device, and can select and input different character types such as katakana input, kanji input, romaji input, and numeric input in addition to hiragana input. Correspondingly, in addition to the facility name data for each character type and the facility name with the conventional hiragana reading, the information storage device 3 adds readings of different character types such as katakana, kanji, romaji, and number reading. Stored facility name database is stored. The central processing unit 4 also includes a character type selection unit 7 that selects a character type when inputting a character string of a facility name, and a character that converts a character string input in a predetermined character type into a character string of another character type. There is a facility search means 9 for searching for a facility name by a character string input by the character type selected by the type conversion means 8 and the character type selection means 7 or by a character string by the character type converted by the character type conversion means 8. is doing.

Next, an example of facility name data used for facility name search will be described.
FIG. 2 shows an example of a facility name database for each character type.
As shown in the figure, create facility name data for each character type such as hiragana, katakana (full-width and half-width), alphabet (full-width and half-width), and add hiragana readings to each facility name in common. . Although not shown in the figure, a kanji database is provided, conversion software is built-in, hiragana input is performed, and conversion is made so that retrieval by kanji can be performed. Such a database enables a search for each character type.

FIG. 3 shows an example in which identification data representing a character type is added to the current facility name database.
As shown in FIG. 7, the current facility name database is formed by adding hiragana readings to each facility name. Here, identification data such as codes (circles in the figure) indicating the character type used in the actual name is added to each facility name, and character types such as hiragana, katakana, English letters, numbers, and kanji are added. Thus, it is possible to search by a character string for each character type.

  By adding the data for each character type as shown in FIG. 2 and the character type identification data as shown in FIG. 3, the facility name can be searched for each character type. In particular, a character type other than hiragana is selected and searched. This means that the name has its own characteristics, so it can be expected to improve the hit rate reliably. 2 and 3, since hiragana is common to all data, search is performed by hiragana unless otherwise specified. When hiragana is specified by providing a means for specifying the character type, the hiragana database is searched. Configure as follows.

FIG. 4 is a diagram showing an example of inputting characters after selecting a character type on the facility name search screen.
In this example, a selection key is provided at the bottom of the facility name search screen as an example of character type selection means such as hiragana, katakana, alphabetic characters, and numeric symbols. The selection key includes a touch switch, a remote operation button, and the like, and a character type to be input can be selected by the key operation. 4A shows an example in which katakana is selected as the character type, FIG. 5B shows hiragana as the character type, FIG. 4C shows an alphabetic character as the character type, and FIG. 4D shows a numerical symbol selected as the character type. Is shown. Thus, by selecting a character type after searching for a facility name and performing character input, it is possible to search with a character type close to the feature of the name, so that the hit rate can be expected to be improved. In this example, the kanji selection key is not provided, but as shown in FIG. 4B, the hiragana input is selected and input, and the conversion key is operated to search the kanji database.

FIG. 5 is a diagram showing an example of searching by converting the character type.
In the example shown in FIG. 4, it is necessary to input the character type after first selecting “Kana input”, for example. For example, it is possible to view the search result by “Kana input” and convert it to “Hiragana”. Because you cannot, you have to input hiragana again. Therefore, in this example, the search result by a certain character type is seen, and the search result is converted to another character type so that the search can be performed.

  In the illustrated example, conversion keys (touch switch, remote operation button, etc.) such as kana, kana, numbers, alphabet, kanji are provided as character type conversion means at the top of the search screen. FIG. 5A shows that the number of target facilities is 154 in a state where “Yamaumi” is input in katakana. Fig. 5 (b) shows 336 target facilities on the search screen using the character string "Yamaumi" that has been converted from "Yamaumi", and Fig. 5 (c) shows the characters "YAMAUMI" that is an alphabet conversion of "Yamaumi". The search screen by column indicates that there are three target facilities. FIG. 5D shows a case where “Yamaumi” is to be converted into a number, and a display “No corresponding facility” is displayed. In the case of number conversion, for example, it is possible to store the correspondence between characters and numbers such that characters such as “1” and “1” correspond to “1” and perform conversion based on this. . FIG. 5E is a search screen using a character string of “Sankai” obtained by converting “Yamaumi” into Kanji, and Sankai and Sanumi are searched.

  In this way, a character string once entered can be searched by converting it to another character type using a conversion key, so that it is possible to search by a character type close to the characteristics of the name, and the hit rate can be expected to be improved reliably. In addition, since the character string once input does not need to be input again, it can be converted into another character type, so that the usability can be improved.

  According to the present invention, it is possible to improve the hit rate in the facility name search, and the industrial utility value is extremely large.

It is a figure which shows the example of the navigation apparatus which concerns on this embodiment. It is a figure which shows the example of the facility name database for every character classification. It is a figure which shows the example which added the identification data showing a character classification to the facility name database. It is a figure which shows the example which inputs a character after selecting a character classification. It is a figure which shows the example which converts and searches a character classification. It is a figure explaining the conventional 50 sound search screen. It is a figure explaining the conventional facility name data used for a 50 sound search. It is a figure explaining the conventional refinement search.

Explanation of symbols

DESCRIPTION OF SYMBOLS 1 ... Input device, 2 ... Current position detection device, 3 ... Information storage device, 4 ... Central processing unit, 5 ... Information transmission / reception device, 6 ... Output device, 7 ... Character type selection means, 8 ... Character type conversion means, 9 ... Destination search means.

Claims (4)

A character input means for inputting characters;
Character type selection means for selecting the type of character input by the character input means ;
Information storage means for storing facility names;
Facility search means for searching for a facility name corresponding to the character string input by the character input means ,
Each facility name stored in the information storage means is added with a hiragana reading of the facility name and a character type of the facility name,
The facility search means, if it is not already selected character type by the character type selection means searches the hiragana all the facility name corresponding to the character string the input, the character type by the character type selection means A navigation apparatus, wherein if selected, the facility name corresponding to the inputted character string is searched from the facility name corresponding to the selected character type . Character type conversion means for converting the character type of the character string input by the character input means to another character type,
The navigation apparatus according to claim 1 , wherein the facility search means searches for the facility name corresponding to the inputted character string from the facility name corresponding to the character type converted by the character type conversion means. . Storing a character input means for inputting characters, a character type selection means for selecting a type of a character to be input by the character input means, a facility name of a character type of hiragana and facility name readings facility names is added and information storage means for, in a storage medium in which the navigation device has stored readable program and a facility search means for searching a facility name corresponding to the character string input by the character input means,
Searching for hiragana of all the facility names corresponding to the inputted character string when no character type is selected by the character type selection means;
When the character type is selected by the character type selection means , the navigation device executes the process of searching for the facility name corresponding to the input character string from the facility name corresponding to the selected character type A storage medium that stores a program to be executed. The navigation device comprises character type conversion means for converting the character type of the character string input by the character input means to another character type;
Furthermore, the program which stored the program which makes a navigation apparatus perform the process by the step which searches the said facility name corresponding to the said input character string from the facility name applicable to the character classification converted by the said character classification conversion means was memorize | stored. The storage medium described.

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