JP2000040086A - Facility information retrieval display device - Google Patents

Abstract

PROBLEM TO BE SOLVED: To allow a user to acquire appropriate information by performing database retrieval and list processing by such a manner that a user oneself inputs a use target and a target area. SOLUTION: The selected state of an item inputted by an inputting means 1000 is received by means of a procedure that receives a user input. Next, a target coding procedure systematically encodes a user's target in every hierarchy. Encoded information is given to an operating means 3000. The encoded information is embedded into an SQL sentence and a database 4000 is retrieved. Retrieved facility information is given to an information comparing means 5000. Retrieved facility information records are rearranged in order of the smallness of a target area and a relative distance. The rearranged facility information is given to an outputting means 7000. The outputting means sequentially outputs results obtained by such a manner that a display, a printer, etc., weights the retrieved facility information with geographical information and shows them in a list in accordance with a weighting order.

Description

DETAILED DESCRIPTION OF THE INVENTION

[0001]

BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION 1. Field of the Invention The present invention relates to a facility information searching and displaying apparatus for collecting, processing and displaying information related to services and information created based on a map.

[0002]

2. Description of the Related Art A typical example of a system for displaying geographic information and facility information created based on a map is a car navigation system. However, the purpose of the car navigation system is to display the geographic information of the current location or the designated area and to display the route information to the destination facility, and no consideration is given to searching for a facility that satisfies a certain purpose. Japanese Unexamined Patent Publication No. Hei 9-120486 discloses a technique for collecting and processing facility information for satisfying a certain purpose. However, the present invention merely discloses displaying vacant facility information at the current time. Displaying information for planned facility use is not disclosed.

[0003]

In the prior art represented by the car navigation system described above, the facility information is displayed as a part of the map information. It is necessary for the user to specify an area, and to search for facilities that meet the purpose from various information displayed there.

[0004] It is an object of the present invention to retrieve facility information that can grasp the geographical information of the facility information and the relative distance from the target area by displaying facilities near the target area among the facilities satisfying the purpose inputted by the user. Display device.

Further, the above-mentioned prior art does not consider the convenience in a case where the current location is always set as a target area and a use method for searching for a nearby target facility is taken into consideration. There was a problem that had to be entered every time.

Another object of the present invention is to provide a facility information search and display device which eliminates the complexity of searching a database and processing a list by using means (such as GPS) capable of grasping the current location of a user at any time. It is in.

Further, the above prior art does not consider the case where there are a plurality of target facilities, such as a restaurant and a movie theater, and the user himself / herself examines the results of multiple database searches and list processing. There was a problem that had to be done.

Another object of the present invention is to weight and display facilities that satisfy the conditions when a user inputs a plurality of purposes.

[0009] Further, the above-mentioned prior art does not consider information that the user has not intentionally searched for.
There was a problem that information related to the area could not be provided.

Another object of the present invention is to provide information associated with a region without intentional search by considering user's purpose of use and geographical information.

[0011]

The present invention employs the following means in order to solve the above-mentioned problems.

That is, the present invention provides an input means for inputting a purpose of use and a target area of a user, a means for grasping a user's current location at any time, an analyzing means for analyzing a user's input, facility information, A database for storing services, a database operating unit for operating the database to obtain facility information, a comparing unit for weighting information provided by the database operation by a relative distance, and storing map information. Storage means for outputting the information provided, and output means for outputting the provided information.

[0013]

Embodiments of the present invention will be described below with reference to the drawings.

Here, the input means for inputting the purpose of use and the target area of the user is, for example, a terminal device provided with a keyboard, a display and a mouse. It is preferable to set a plurality of input item candidates in advance and allow the user to select one from the viewpoint of improving the input efficiency of the user. In addition, it is preferable to be able to set or change the number of displayed items or the range in order to increase the user's search efficiency. Further, by using a touch panel or the like, input efficiency and installation performance can be improved.

This embodiment will be described with reference to FIGS. A terminal device (1000) having a display and a mouse was provided as input means for the user's purpose and target area. The display has a purpose input button (1100), a region input button (1200), a search start button (1300) for starting a search, and a mouse pointer (1400) for selection. Mouse pointer (140
When the target input button (1100) is clicked in step (0), a target input candidate hierarchy menu (1110) is displayed.

The item displayed on the hierarchical menu (1110) can be selected as it is. If the selected item has a lower hierarchy, the lower hierarchy menu (111)
1) can be displayed, and a selection can be made therefrom. When displaying a menu, you can use the margins of the display or overlap it with other menus, so there is no limit to the number of layers and items in the menu, and set the menu according to the input items Good.

The area input button (1200) is similar to the purpose input button (1100) in the area hierarchy menu (121).
0) is set, and can be selected from a municipal menu, a transportation mode menu, or the like. In addition, an area can be designated by displaying map information on a screen and clicking an arbitrary point. After setting the purpose and area, the user clicks a search start button (1300) to start searching for information.

The user's input is passed to the analyzing means (2000). As the analysis means (2000), for example, information input in a fixed form is encoded into a search item. Further, a natural language processing function for extracting a search item from a freely input context may be provided. In the present embodiment, since the input items of the user are set in advance, the processing means can be enhanced by coding the input items of the user in the analysis means (2000).

FIG. 3 shows a flowchart. First, a selection state of an item input by the input means (1000) is received by a procedure (2100) for receiving a user input.
Next, the purpose of the user is systematically coded for each layer by the purpose coding procedure (2200). For example,
If the second item “sightseeing” in the top-level hierarchical menu is selected, the code is 2xxx, and if the fourth item “hot spring” in the second hierarchical menu is selected, the code is × 4xx. In other words, the purpose selected in sightseeing → hot spring becomes a code of 2400. By coding systematically, it becomes possible to perform a fuzzy search based on a large classification or a middle classification.

Further, if a bit operation is used as a coding procedure, many items can be coded with a small number of bits. Next, in this embodiment, since the area information is managed as latitude and longitude information, a procedure (2300) for examining an area input item is used to check which hierarchical menu is selected, and an area coding procedure (2400) is used. Encode information into latitude and longitude information. In the area coding procedure (2400), as shown in FIG. 4, a corresponding area name is searched from a latitude / longitude information table (2410 for a prefectural menu, 2420 for a main road menu, etc.) corresponding to each hierarchical menu. The latitude / longitude information corresponding to the region name is selected and set as a region code.

For example, if the prefectural menu is set and the items selected in the hierarchical menu are "Kanagawa", "Yokohama", and "Totsuka-ku", the "Kanagawa prefecture""35.38.20,139.43.60" corresponding to "Totsuka-ku, Yokohama-shi" is set as an area code. Procedure for examining regional input items (230
In step (0), if the current location is selected as the target area, the procedure for receiving the current location (25)
00), the value of the latitude and longitude information received from the current location input means (1500) in FIG. As the current position input means (1500), a current position grasping device such as a GPS is used. At last, the object code and the area code are transferred to the operation means (3000) by the coded data transfer procedure (2600).

The coded information is stored in the operating means (3000)
Passed to. As the database operation means, for example, a means for retrieving information in a database operation language. It is preferable to search for information spanning a plurality of databases, or to hold search results and prepare for the next and subsequent searches, in order to increase the search efficiency of the user. In the present embodiment, the database (4000) is searched by embedding coded information in an SQL sentence.

As shown in FIG. 7, the database (400
In each record (4100) of (0), for example, a name field, a location field, a facility type field, a facility information field, and the like are set. As the name field, for example, a facility name such as a shop name or a place name may be stored. A common name may be set as the facility name in addition to the official name. In the present embodiment, the facility name is stored as the name field (4110). As the location field (4120), for example, an address and a latitude and longitude may be stored. Further, storing the nearest station or nearby major roads or nearby facilities is preferable from the viewpoint of improving the search efficiency of the user. Further, information that can limit an area, such as a postal code or an area code, may be stored.

In this embodiment, since the area information is managed by latitude and longitude, it is stored as a combination of latitude and longitude.
As the facility type field (4130), for example,
There are eating and drinking facilities, accommodation facilities and leisure facilities. It is preferable to systematically subdivide and store facility types in order to increase the search efficiency of the user. In the present embodiment, coding is performed according to the menu hierarchy.
Stored as ×, and stored as 1010 for tourist facilities → hot spring facilities. The facility information field (4140) includes, for example, an electric field number, business hours, a fee, and the like.

These items are out of the search target when the user performs the database processing, and can be displayed only when the user wants to view and compare detailed information. If there is an item to be searched by the user, another field may be set. Further, it is preferable to set the facility information field (4140) as an external area of the basic database from the viewpoint of database management efficiency. Further, for example, if the information is set as a link to a page on a Web server, the information provider itself can update the information. In the present embodiment, the facility information field (414
0) is stored as the telephone number.

The operating means (3000) first receives the object code and the area code from the analyzing means by a data receiving procedure (3100). Next, the threshold value corresponding to the objective code is set from the threshold value table (3210) shown in FIG. 6 by the threshold value setting procedure (3200) using the objective code. Then, in the database search procedure (3300), the facility type field (4130) of the database (4000) is searched by an SQL statement using the object code as a search key.

For example, if the purpose code is 2010, the facility information records 4101, 4102, and 4103 are searched for 4101 and 4102. Although all the search results can be output, in the present embodiment, narrowing down is performed so as to exclude facilities far from the target area.
For each record obtained by the search, the relative distance is calculated from the difference between the latitude and longitude of the location field (4120) and the area code by the procedure for calculating the relative distance (3400), and by the narrowing procedure (3500)
Eliminate records that exceed the threshold.

Thus, for example, if the threshold value table (3210) is set such that the threshold value is 10 km for the purpose code indicating the restaurant, only restaurants within 10 km can be searched. In the present embodiment, the threshold value table (32) is set so that the threshold value is 100 km for the purpose code 1010 meaning hot spring.
Because it is set to 10), only hot springs within 100 km from the target area are searched. Finally, the remaining records are passed to the comparison means (5000) by the search record delivery procedure (3600).

The searched facility information is stored in the information comparing means (500
0). As the comparison means, for example, facility information provided by database operation is weighted by geographical information. It can be sorted in order from the north according to the latitude and longitude of the facility information. In the present embodiment, the searched facility information records (4100) are rearranged in ascending order of the relative distance from the target area input by the user. According to FIG. 8, first, a procedure for receiving information (51)
00), the facility information record and the target area code are received, and then, for each record, the relative distance is calculated from the latitude and longitude of both by the procedure (5200) for calculating the relative distance. Further, the facility information records searched by the facility information record rearranging procedure (5300) are rearranged in ascending order of relative distance, and the facility information is sent to the output means by a procedure (5400).

The sorted facility information is output to an output unit (70).
00). The output means is, for example, a display or a printer. The result of weighting the searched facility information by geographical information is sequentially output, or a list is displayed according to the weighting order.

Further, it is preferable to display the searched facility information on the map image of the corresponding area in order to increase the efficiency of comparison and examination by the user. In the present embodiment, a mouse and a display device are provided as output means. In FIG. 10, first, ten items are displayed in the information display area (7100) in the order of proximity to the target area, and when further information is desired to be displayed, a button (7340) for displaying the next ten items and the previous ten items are displayed. A button (7350) for returning to the display was provided.

To view the displayed information in detail, select the information with the mouse pointer (7110) and click the detailed information display button (7330) to display the information in the facility information field (4140) on the database. Can be displayed in the information display area (7100). When the facility selected by the mouse pointer (7110) satisfies the user's purpose, the facility is determined by the facility determination button (7310). When the selected facility does not satisfy the purpose, the facility is canceled by the stop button (7320).

In this embodiment, the map information around the destination area input by the user is displayed in the information display area (7100).
, And the searched information is displayed at the corresponding place. Further, in the present embodiment, the facility display image table (7500) shown in FIG. 11 is provided, and the facility display image table (7500) is searched before displaying the facility information, and the image corresponding to the purpose code is selected. By displaying, the displayed image can be changed according to the purpose.

The map information storage means (6000) stores a map of the execution area (all areas in Japan in this embodiment) at several scales, and selects a map that can display the target area and the search result. , Along with search results. In the present embodiment, the number-of-facility display area (7210)
The number of facilities in the search results and the number of facilities currently displayed are now displayed.

Further, in the present embodiment, the display area change button (7220) and the display scale change button (7230)
, So that the map displayed in the information display area (7100) can be moved up, down, left, and right, and the scale of the map can be changed. Furthermore, in the present embodiment, a local information display area (7400) is provided, and a character string attached to the map being displayed can be displayed.

In the above-described embodiment, when the frequency of searching for a target facility near the current location is high, the current location as a target area can be automatically determined by using a means for grasping the current location as input means (1500). Can be input in a convenient manner, and the complexity of the search can be reduced.

In the embodiment provided with the current position input means (1500), an item "current location" is added to the area input hierarchy menu (1210), and the user selects this item to check the area input item (2300). ) Is set so as to always use the current position as a reference, and the data from the current position input means (1500) is coded into the target area code by the procedure (2500) for receiving the current position, and the destination facility near the current position is set. Can be searched.

In the above embodiment, by setting a plurality of purpose input buttons (1100), it is possible to search for facility information satisfying a plurality of purposes. The analyzing means (2000) checks the selected state of each purpose input button and encodes it, and the database operating means (3000)
Search using the object code as a key, and comparing means (5
000), it is possible to retrieve a combination having a small relative distance from a combination of a plurality of facility information.

In this embodiment, a display image corresponding to a main target facility is displayed as a facility display image, with the top one of a plurality of target input buttons (1100) as a main target facility and the other purposes as sub-target facilities. Select the information display area from the table (7
100). When the detailed information button (7330) is clicked, information on the sub-purpose facility is displayed in the information display area (7100). Thus, for example, “cinema” is set by the top purpose input button, and 2
If "parking lot" is set by the second purpose input button and "Yurakucho station" is set by the area input button (1200), "the movie theater near Yurakucho station and near the parking lot" can be searched and displayed.

Further, in the above-described embodiment, as for the map information of each area displayed on the output means (7000), the information accompanying the area is stored in the map information storage means (600).
By including the information in 0), when a certain area is displayed, information accompanying the area can be automatically displayed.
As a result, for example, "route bus stop information", "local sightseeing information", and "local company advertisement" can be realized by automatically displaying characters, images, and voices. In addition, by making it possible to change the information attached to the area at any time via a network, etc.
"0", "local weather forecast", and "administrative newspaper" can be realized. In the present embodiment, the advertisement message of the display area company is displayed in the area information display area (7400).

[0041]

As described above, according to the present invention, it is possible for a user to weight facility information based on geographical information or relative distance to a user when searching or listing a database, and the user obtains appropriate information. become able to.

Further, by using the current location input means as a means for ascertaining the current location at any time, the complexity of the search can be eliminated.

Further, by inputting a plurality of purposes, it is possible to search for facility information satisfying the conditions.

Furthermore, by including information associated with a region in map information, information associated with the region can be automatically displayed.

[Brief description of the drawings]

FIG. 1 is a block diagram showing one device according to an embodiment of the present invention.

FIG. 2 is a block diagram showing a configuration example of an input unit.

FIG. 3 is a flowchart illustrating an analysis unit.

FIG. 4 is a block diagram showing a configuration example of a latitude / longitude information table of an analysis unit.

FIG. 5 is a flowchart showing operation means.

FIG. 6 is a block diagram showing a configuration example of a threshold value table of the operation means.

FIG. 7 is a block diagram showing a configuration example of a database and a record format.

FIG. 8 is a flowchart illustrating a comparison unit.

FIG. 9 is a block diagram showing one device as an application example of the embodiment of the present invention.

FIG. 10 is a block diagram showing an output unit.

FIG. 11 is a block diagram showing a configuration example of a facility display image table of an output unit.

[Explanation of symbols]

1000 ... input means, 1100 ... purpose input button, 1110 ... input candidate hierarchy menu, 1120 ...
Input candidate hierarchy menu, 1200 ... region input button,
1210: area hierarchy menu, 1300: search start button, 1400: mouse pointer, 1500 ...
Current location input means, 2000: analysis means of user input, 2100: procedure for receiving user input, 220
0: purpose coding procedure, 2300: procedure for examining area input items, 2400: area coding procedure, 241
0: latitude / longitude information table, 2420: latitude / longitude information table, 2500: procedure for receiving the current location, 2600
... Coded data transfer procedure 3000 ... Database operation means 3100 ... Data receiving procedure
3200: threshold value setting procedure, 3210: threshold value table, 3300: database search procedure, 3
400: Procedure for calculating relative distance; 3500: Refinement procedure; 3600: Search record delivery procedure; 4000: Database; 4100: Information storage record; 4110: Name field; 4120: Location field; 4130: Facility type field;
4140: Facility information field, 5000: Comparison means, 5100: Procedure to receive information, 5200: Procedure to calculate relative distance, 5300: Procedure to sort information, 5400: Procedure to send information to output means, 600
0: storage means for storing map information, 7000: information output means, 7100: display area for map information and facility information, 7110: mouse pointer, 7210: display area for search results and the number of display items, 7220: display area Change button, 7230 ... Display scale change button, 7310 ...
OK button, 7320 ... Stop button, 733
0: Search result display change front button, 7340: Search result display change rear button, 7350: Regional information display area, 7400: Regional information display area, 7500: Facility display image table.

 ────────────────────────────────────────────────── ─── Continuing on the front page (72) Inventor Akio Takahashi 5030 Totsuka-cho, Totsuka-ku, Yokohama-shi, Kanagawa Prefecture F-term in the Software Development Division, Hitachi, Ltd. (Reference) 5B075 ND03 NK02 NK54 PP02 PP03 PP13 PP28 PQ02 PQ38 PQ46 QP05 UU13

Claims (4)

[Claims] 1. A system for providing information and services created based on a map, wherein a user of the system performs database search and list processing by inputting a purpose of use and a target area. Facility information search and display device. 2. A facility information search and display device according to claim 1, wherein the target area is a movable current location. 3. The facility information search and display device according to claim 1, wherein a database search or a list process is performed according to a relative distance between a plurality of candidate sites for use purposes. 4. In a system for providing information and services created based on a map, when displaying map information, information accompanying a region is automatically taken into consideration in consideration of a user's purpose of use and geographical information. A facility information search and display device provided.