JP2002181559A - Scene display device - Google Patents

Abstract

PROBLEM TO BE SOLVED: To provide a scene display device whereby a scene in an arbitrary direction can be displayed, a place having a best scene can be searched automatically, a scene in an actual place can be investigated in advance before going to the place and the scene can be guided in any place so as to match a movement. SOLUTION: By using altitude information in map information 3 or a database 4, the state of mountains as viewed from an arbitrary position is displayed by a mountains-shape display function 8. A mountain-name and altitude display function 9, a wide-area display function 10, a sky-information display function 11 and a target display function 12 perform a display operation so as to create the scene. A scene created with reference to a plurality of preliminarily set places is evaluated by an evaluation-value calculation function 20, and the place having the best scene is found out. A calculation method for a scene evaluation value differs according to its purpose so as to have a plurality of kinds of calculation methods. A cut-surface display function 21, an altitude-graduation display function 22 and a propagation-track display function 24 have a function capable of analyzing the propagation state of radio waves between two points.

Description

DETAILED DESCRIPTION OF THE INVENTION

[0001]

BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION 1. Field of the Invention The present invention relates to a scene display device in an on-vehicle navigation device, a sightseeing spot guidance system, a wireless service assisting device, and the like.

[0002]

2. Description of the Related Art In recent years, a navigation device for displaying a current position on a map by combining an electronic map and a device for estimating the current position of a moving object has begun to spread. The map displayed here is a schematic representation of a landscape like an aerial photograph viewed from the sky above your location, and you can see at a glance the positional relationship between your location and your destination. Because it is a plan view, it is difficult to see the view from any point.

[0003] Scenery information combined with a sundial is often seen at a vantage point in a tourist spot. A description of the east, west, north and south scenery is written from that point, so you can see the shape of the mountains, the name of the mountain, the height, the name of the plain / basin, the name of the sea / lake etc. by comparing with the actual scenery It has become.

When selecting a place where a wireless relay station or a wireless station itself for an unspecified number of people is to be installed, not only conditions such as ease of installation and securing of land, but of course, the radio wave should reach as many houses as possible. Choose a place with a good view. Conventionally, a service range is estimated and selected while looking at a map including contour lines.

When observing astronomical objects, a constellation quick-view board is often used. This simply displays the state of the starry sky from the position, time, and the like. The structure is such that several circular cardboards can be stacked and rotated at one point at the center, and the scale of the position, date, time, etc. is set. The starry sky appears in a circular window.

[0006]

However, the above-described conventional techniques have the following problems. First of all, it is only necessary to provide a fixed view guide like a view point at a tourist spot, but otherwise it is difficult to understand the contents of the view. In particular, in the case of a moving object, since fixed view guidance is meaningless, there is only a method of estimating the view by looking at a map. It is convenient to be able to see the scenery guide anywhere.

Second, in the case of a fixed scenery guide, it cannot be seen unless the user is actually at the installation location. It is convenient to be able to see the scenery in any direction in any place without having to go to that place.

Third, in the method of estimating the scenery by looking at a map, it is difficult to find a place with the best scenery. It is convenient to quantify the beauty of the scene in some way so that it can automatically find the best place.

Fourth, when viewing the starry sky using the constellation chart, if the number of clouds is too small to see the stars and the direction is not clear, the correspondence between the constellation chart and the actual starry sky Can not get well. If the scenery on the ground is displayed at the same time as displaying the starry sky, it will be very easy to respond.

[0010] In view of the above problems, the present invention can display a scenery in an arbitrary direction at an arbitrary place, and can automatically search for a place with the best scenery. Provided is a landscape display device which can be searched and a landscape guide can be viewed at any place as the user moves.

[0011]

SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION In order to solve the above-mentioned problems, a landscape display device of the present invention has altitude information in accordance with conventional map data, and is capable of creating and displaying a landscape in graphics. It is characterized by comprising a map data, an image display device, and a position input device, for example, an automatic position detection device such as a GPS, so that a scene viewed from the input position is created from the map data and displayed on the image display device.

With the above arrangement, a scenery at an arbitrary place and an arbitrary direction can be created and displayed.
If an automatic position detection device such as a PS is used, the scenery of the current position can be automatically displayed without inputting a position by a person, and the scenery display changes according to the movement when moving. Displaying the names of places, cities, mountains, rivers, and lakes in the map data can be useful for scenery guidance and can be used conveniently.

[0013]

DETAILED DESCRIPTION OF THE PREFERRED EMBODIMENTS Hereinafter, a scene display device according to an embodiment of the present invention will be described with reference to the drawings. FIG. 1 is a functional block diagram of a scene display device according to an embodiment of the present invention. The configuration and the operation will be described with reference to FIG. Here, the present scenery display device has many hardware components in common with the in-vehicle navigation device, and it is convenient to have a navigation function at the time of actual use, so that the navigation device has a navigation function.

In FIG. 1, reference numeral 1 denotes a keyboard. 2
Is a GPS (Global Positioning Sy) as an automatic position detecting device which is an example of a position input device.
and an absolute position on the earth is obtained using radio waves from GPS satellites. The navigation device 24 displays the map and the current position mark on the display 25 based on the current position information and the map information 3. When a person switches the state of the system or inputs information, the keyboard 1 is used. When a menu is selected on the screen, the cursor displayed on the display 25 by the cursor display function 32 is used. Further, the keyboard 1 is not limited to a keyboard, but may be any input device used for computer application equipment such as a mouse and voice recognition.

Next, the scene screen display will be described. The position obtained from the keyboard 1 or the GPS 2 is set as a first position, and the mountain shape display function 8 uses the altitude (contour line) information included in the map information 3 to create a mountain shape as viewed from the first position. The basic algorithm for the creation exists in the computer graphics world as a conventional technique, and will not be described in detail here. In addition, Yamana
The altitude display function 9 also reads the names of the mountains and hills and the altitudes of the mountains and hills from the map information 3 and displays them on the display 25. Similarly, the wide area display function 10 displays the names of cities, lakes, seas, wide green spaces, and the like, and displays the names thereof.
Displays the names of target buildings, such as tall buildings, towers, and famous temples and schools. In some cases, the building itself may be displayed. The absolute direction display function 15
A scale is placed at the bottom of the displayed scene so that the north, south, east and west can be seen. The relative azimuth display function 16 is similar to the absolute azimuth display function 15, except that the direction is displayed in a relative azimuth based on the moving azimuth obtained from the GPS2. Tick the scale in the form of the right and left times, or the direction of what time. The elevation azimuth display function 17 is a function for displaying the azimuth in the vertical direction in the same manner as in the horizontal direction. FIG. 2 shows an example of displaying the scenery in this manner.

If the display 25 cannot display a 360-degree view in all directions, a part of the view is displayed.
For example, a range of ± 40 degrees ahead is displayed. At this time, when the keyboard 1 is operated, a panning display is performed. For example, if a clockwise operation is performed in the display of ± 40 degrees in the north direction, the display angle remains ± 40 degrees, and the center smoothly scrolls from north to north-northeast, northeast, east-northeast, and east. This feature is not special,
After creating the 60-degree scenery data, simply change the display window. When this panning operation command is obtained from the gyro 5 instead of the keyboard 1, the panning function is more effectively exhibited. The gyro 5 normally detects a rotational angular velocity, and integrates its output to obtain a rotational angle. Assuming that this output is a panning operation command, that is, the center of the scenery display direction, if the body direction is changed while holding the scenery display device in the view stand, the scenery display will be panned in synchronization with the change. In other words, the same scenery as the scenery you actually see is displayed in any direction. Also,
The gyro 5 may be anything as long as it detects the azimuth, and may be a geomagnetic detector or the like.

Next, the starry sky display will be described. It is well known that if the position on the earth and the date and time are determined, what star is in which direction is determined uniquely. This function displays the state of the starry sky. With the above-described scene display function, a scene of the ground at any position and in any direction is created and displayed. Similarly, when the starry sky display is selected by the keyboard 1, the sky information display function 11 reads the class and position of each star at that date and time, which constellation belongs, the name of the constellation, etc. from the database 4, The information is displayed on the display 25 so as to overlap the scene. By doing so, even when the number of visible stars is small, it is easy to understand what the star is by responding to the scenery on the ground. Also, if the orbit information of the sun is also stored in the database 4, the sunrise
It can also calculate and display sunset times and places in the scenery.

The scene evaluation value calculation will be described. This is a function that is used when you want to find the most scenic location. Consider the following three cases. The first case is
In this case, it is determined which parking lot to take a break at while driving on a winding drive course along a coastline near a cliff such as a ria coast. The area determination function 19 determines that the view from the keyboard 1 is as good as possible when the sea can be seen from a wide viewing angle, that is, the view evaluation area (unit is the square of degree) in which the sea in the view can be directly viewed is used as the scene evaluation value. Set to. Next, the user inputs the location of a candidate break point. A map is displayed on the display 25, and the cursor displayed by the cursor display function 32 is sequentially aligned with each candidate location, and the cursor can be selected by pressing the confirmation key of the keyboard 1. Instead of points, you can also select roads on the map. In this case, the road is automatically set as a candidate site every 25 m. The scenes are created by sequentially setting the candidate sites thus identified as the first position. Once created, a region having a sea attribute is extracted by the area determination function 19, and the viewing angle area is calculated. Here, the viewing angle area means that when the object occupies a viewing angle of 15 degrees in the horizontal direction and occupies a viewing angle of 10 degrees in the vertical direction,
And 10 = 150 [degrees / degree].
The viewing angle area is stored in the evaluation value display memory 6 as a scene evaluation value. After calculating the scenery evaluation values for all the candidate sites, search for points with high scenery evaluation values,
The evaluation value display function 13 displays the points on a map displayed by the navigation function 24 on the display 25 by plotting marks or the like. In this way, the most scenic location can be known on the map.

The second case is to find a scenic place in a mountainous area. The usage of the scenery display device is almost the same as the previous case, and the difference is the definition of the scenery evaluation value. In this case, in the viewing angle area where the ground surface can be seen, the average of the line-of-sight distance per unit viewing angle area is set as the scene evaluation value. That is, it is assumed that the farther the average line-of-sight distance of the scene except for the sky is, the better the scene is.

The third case is a case in which the installation location of a radio station operating in the very high frequency band or higher is determined. In the case of a relay station such as a television, in order to cover the service area as completely as possible, it is installed at a point where the service area can be widely viewed. Also, when deciding the mobile operation location of amateur radio stations, urban areas with a high population density are usually the same as broadcast relay stations, except for the purpose of long-distance communication using mountain diffraction of radio waves. Choose a place with a view. The method of using the scene display device in this case is also substantially the same as in the previous case, except for the definition of the scene evaluation value.
In other words, the scenery evaluation value in this case is the total population within a viewable range. The calculation method is the same as in the previous case, and the sum of the population per unit viewing angle area is obtained. In this case, if only a specific area is targeted, the content is input to the area determination function 19 from the keyboard 1 so that the population other than the specific area is not added when calculating the total population. Can also.

Next, the function of displaying the relative orientation with respect to the second position will be described. This means that when the second position is input from the keyboard, the information is input to the second position display function 18,
The second position is indicated by a downward arrow or the like in the already displayed scenery display screen. If the second position is not within the line-of-sight range, an arrow is displayed in the air above that direction, so that the second position is displayed in a distinguishable manner.
In addition, the straight line distance between the first position and the second position is also displayed together with the arrow display.

Next, the cut surface display function will be described. An example is shown in FIG. When the cut plane display is selected by the keyboard 1, the cut plane display function 21 refers to the altitude information from the map information 3 and cuts the earth in a vertical plane including the first position and the second position. indicate. At the same time, the altitude scale display function 22 displays the altitude scale. The propagation trajectory display function 23 calculates and displays the propagation trajectory of the radio wave and the length of the trajectory. The propagation trajectory becomes a straight line if the first position and the second position can be seen, but becomes a polygonal line in the case of mountain diffraction.

Next, a beam antenna driving device will be described. When the above-described second position is input from the keyboard 1 and the azimuth of the second position with respect to the first position (the elevation angle is also calculated at the same time) is calculated, the beam azimuth / direction for detecting the direction in which the beam antenna 28 faces is calculated. The azimuth / elevation angle comparison function 26 compares the output of the elevation angle detection device 29 with the azimuth / elevation angle, sends the output to the antenna driving device 27, and drives the beam antenna 28 until the calculated azimuth / elevation angle is reached. Thus, the direction of the beam is automatically directed to the second position.

Next, a signal of the scan output 30, which will be described for measuring the beam antenna reception pattern, is sent to the antenna driving device 27. The beam antenna 28 scans according to the signal. Beam azimuth / elevation angle detector 29 at that time
And the output of the reception output measuring device 31 are stored in the reception level display memory 7. The reception output measuring device 31 measures the level at which the beam antenna 28 receives the radio wave of the partner station (transmission side) at the second position. If there is no influence such as reflection from a mountain, the pattern stored in the reception level display memory 7 becomes the directivity pattern of the beam antenna 28. Actually, because of the influence of mountains and buildings,
It is different.

When the scanning is completed, the contents of the reception level display memory 7 are read out by the reception level display function 14 and displayed on the display 25 simultaneously with the scenery. Figure 4 shows a display example
Shown in In FIG. 4, the reception level is displayed in three stages. What is also detected on the hillside of the mountain A is the effect of reflection.

[0026]

As described above, the present invention provides an apparatus for displaying scenery using altitude information in map data, and has the following effects.

That is, it is possible to display a scenery in an arbitrary direction at an arbitrary place, to automatically search for a place with the best view, and to investigate the scenery of the place before going to the site. In addition, you can see the scenery guide at any place as you move.

Also, since the number of broadcast receivers such as TVs and amateur radio stations is proportional to the population, if the population in the visible range is regarded as the scenery evaluation value, the evaluation as the installation location of the radio equipment must be quantitative. Can be.

Also, since the scenic evaluation value can be used to automatically search for the best scenic spot at a plurality of points, it is far more accurate than when a human looks at a map and estimates the scenic view to find the best scenic spot. fast.

Further, in the calculation of the scenery evaluation value, by adding a condition that a specific area is not visible, it is possible to exclude an area that is not intentionally added to the service area of the radio station. In addition, when performing a general scenery evaluation, if the size of the viewing area such as the sea or a green belt is used as the scenery evaluation value, it is possible to search for a point where the sea is best viewed.

When the evaluation value is calculated at a plurality of points, the points must be input. If you are driving, you will be traveling on the road. If you use this method, selecting a road will automatically set multiple points, so you can save a lot of trouble.

[Brief description of the drawings]

FIG. 1 is a block diagram of a scene display device according to an embodiment of the present invention;

FIG. 2 is a view showing an example of a scene display screen in the scene display device.

FIG. 3 is a diagram showing an example of a cut surface display screen in the scenery display device.

FIG. 4 is a diagram showing an example of a reception level display screen in the same scene display device.

[Explanation of symbols]

1 Keyboard 2 GPS (Global Positioning)
System) Receiver 3 Map information 4 Database 5 Gyro 6 Evaluation value display memory 7 Reception level display memory 8 Mountain shape display function 9 Mountain name / elevation display function 10 Wide area display function 11 Sky information display function 12 Target object display function 13 Evaluation value Display function 14 Reception level display function 15 Absolute azimuth display function 16 Relative azimuth display function 17 Elevation azimuth display function 18 Second position display function 19 Area judgment function 20 Evaluation value calculation function 21 Cut plane display function 22 Advanced scale display function 23 Propagation trajectory Display Function 24 Navigation Function 25 Display 26 Azimuth / Elevation Angle Comparison Function 27 Antenna Driver 28 Beam Antenna 29 Beam Azimuth / Elevation Angle Detector 30 Scan Output 31 Receive Level Measuring Device 32 Cursor Display Function

Claims (7)

[Claims] 1. A position input device for inputting map data and position information, means for displaying a scene created from the map data viewed from a position input from the position input device, population density information or population A database having density distribution information, a landscape evaluation means for determining a population in a visible range viewed from the position input from the position input device, and calculating the population as a landscape evaluation value of the input position; A means for displaying an evaluation value. 2. A plurality of points are input from the position input device, and the scene evaluation means obtains scene evaluation values at the plurality of points, sorts the plurality of scene evaluation values in descending order of the evaluation values, and 2. The scene display device according to claim 1, wherein a value is obtained, and the sorted result and the maximum value are stored and displayed. 3. The image processing apparatus according to claim 1, further comprising: a region selecting unit, wherein when the scene evaluation unit calculates the scene evaluation value, whether or not the region is selected by the region selection unit is also used as a condition of the scene evaluation value calculation. The scene display device according to claim 1 or 2, wherein 4. The scene display apparatus according to claim 1, wherein said scene evaluation means obtains a view area of an area including a sea, a lake, and a green belt and sets the view area as a scene evaluation value. 5. The apparatus according to claim 1, further comprising a road selection unit, wherein a plurality of points selected by the scene evaluation value are automatically set along the road selected by the road selection unit. Landscape display device. 6. The scene display device according to claim 1, wherein the position input device includes an automatic position detection device including a GPS. 7. A navigation device comprising the scene display device according to claim 1. Description: