JP2005189582A - Information display device and information display method - Google Patents

Abstract

<P>PROBLEM TO BE SOLVED: To provide an information display device and an information display method capable of appropriately displaying minimum required road information by using a normal display unit, even if a considerable number of the display units are out of order. <P>SOLUTION: Short words and phrases to be displayed on a display screen 3 in place of normal display items, are prepared as alternative items in a memory for the alternative items. When failure of the display unit is detected, the alternative items corresponding to the present display items are read from the memory for the alternative items, and a temporary display area 5 having a size necessary for displaying the read alternative items and not including failure display unit is detected from the screen 3, and the alternative items are displayed on the detected temporary display area 5. Thus, even if some of the display units are out of order, the minimum necessary road information can be displayed to a driver without being affected by the failure display units. <P>COPYRIGHT: (C)2005,JPO&NCIPI

Description

  The present invention relates to an information display device and an information display method for displaying road information such as characters and symbols in a dotted manner by arranging display units in which display elements are arranged in a matrix. More specifically, the present invention relates to an information display device and an information display method capable of appropriately displaying the minimum necessary road information even when there is a failed display unit.

In an information display device that displays road information using a display element group, a display unit including a predetermined number of display elements is used as a control unit. Patent Document 1 has been proposed in order to prevent a part of characters displayed on the display board from being lost when the display unit breaks down. In the information display of Patent Document 1, when there is a broken display unit, the display information is displayed by performing conversion processing such as narrowing the character spacing or reducing the character width. This is because the area required for display is reduced by the conversion process, so that even if some display units are out of order, display can be performed while avoiding the display units.
Japanese Patent No. 3297893

  However, the information display device disclosed in Patent Document 1 has the following problems. That is, depending on the number and position of the failed display units, even if the conversion process such as reducing the character spacing or reducing the character width is performed, appropriate display may not be possible. For example, in the situation of FIG. 4B in the same document, it is assumed that one of the display units related to the “prohibited” character newly fails. This situation is shown in FIG. As a result, even with the technique of Patent Document 1, it is no longer possible to perform display that avoids the failed display unit. For this reason, in the actual information display device adopting the technique of Patent Document 1, when a predetermined number (about 3) of display units breaks down, the display is continued with some of the road information displayed as missing characters. Or it had to be hidden.

  The present invention has been made to solve the problems of the above-described conventional information display apparatus and information display method. That is, the problem is that an information display device and an information display that can appropriately display the minimum necessary road information using a display unit that does not fail even when there are a considerable number of display units that have failed. It is to provide a method.

  In order to solve this problem, the information display device of the present invention displays road information by causing the display elements arranged in a matrix on the display surface to emit light, and breaks down a display unit composed of a predetermined number of display elements. In the information display device as a monitoring unit, display control means for controlling the light emission of the display element to display road information on the display surface, and alternative item storage means for storing alternative items to be displayed instead of the normal display items And a display determination means for determining whether to display a normal display item or a substitute item for the normal display item based on the presence status of the failed display unit, and the display determination means to display the substitute item. Display position detecting means for detecting from the display surface a display area that can display the alternative item without hanging on the failed display unit. Stage, when it is determined to display an alternative item by display determining means, the display area detected by the display position detection means, and displays the alternate item.

  The basic operation of this information display apparatus is to display road information such as characters and symbols by using the display elements arranged in a matrix of vertical and horizontal directions, and using the display control means to stipple the display elements. Here, in the information display device of the present invention, a display unit comprising a predetermined number of display elements is used as a unit for fault monitoring. Therefore, an alternative item to be displayed instead of the normal display item is prepared in case some display units fail. The substitute item is stored in the substitute item storage means. When some of the display units fail, the display determining means determines which of the normal display items and the alternative items to display based on the presence status of the failed display units. If it is decided to display the substitute item, the display position detecting means detects a display area in which the substitute item can be displayed without being hooked on the failed display unit. Then, the display control means displays a substitute item for the original display item in the detected display area. In this way, when a part of the display units fails, the substitute items, which are the minimum necessary items, are displayed avoiding the failed display units.

  Here, it is desirable that the substitute item storage means stores substitute items within a predetermined number of characters. In other words, the alternative item stored in the alternative item storage means is preferably an item within a predetermined number of characters. The predetermined number of characters is about 4 to 6 in the case of kanji mixed. With such short items, there is a high possibility that even if some display units fail, they can be displayed without being over the failed display units.

  In the information display device of the present invention, the display position detecting means sets a temporary display area having a size corresponding to the alternative item to be displayed and determines whether or not there is a faulty display unit in the temporary display area. It is desirable to shift the temporary display area when there is a failed display unit and to detect the temporary display area as the display area when there is no failed display unit. In this way, the display area can be detected regardless of where the failed display unit is located on the display surface.

  Further, the information display method of the present invention displays road information by causing the display elements arranged in a matrix on the display surface to emit light, and displays information with a display unit comprising a predetermined number of display elements as a unit for fault monitoring. In the information display method using the device, substitute items to be displayed instead of the normal display items are specified in advance, and the normal display items and the substitute items for the normal display items are determined based on the existence status of the failed display unit. When it is decided to display which alternative item is to be displayed, a display area that can display the alternative item without hanging on the failed display unit is detected from the display screen, and the detected display area The alternative item is displayed on the screen.

  According to the present invention, even when there are a considerable number of display units that have failed in the display unit, the minimum necessary road information can be appropriately displayed by using the display units that have not failed.

  DESCRIPTION OF EXEMPLARY EMBODIMENTS Hereinafter, preferred embodiments of the invention will be described in detail with reference to the accompanying drawings. In the present embodiment, the present invention is embodied as an information display device including a control unit 1 and a display unit 2 as shown in FIG. The display unit 2 in the information display apparatus of FIG. 1 has a display surface 3 as shown in FIG. The display surface 3 has display elements such as LEDs arranged in a vertical and horizontal matrix. And the display part 2 displays road information, such as a character and a pattern, by the point spelling by the blink of a display element by control from the control part 1. FIG. FIG. 2 shows an example in which the character string “No more tunnel accidents closed” is displayed in two lines. The display elements constituting the display surface 3 form one display unit by a predetermined number (here, a total of 256 elements of 16 × 16). This display unit is a unit for control by the control unit 1. In the display surface 3 of FIG. 2, each square area partitioned by a dotted line corresponds to one display unit. The display surface 3 is composed of a total of 168 display units of 8 × 21 in the vertical direction.

  Returning to FIG. 1, the control unit 1 is outlined, mainly with the CPU 10, the display position detection unit 11, the hand operation unit 12, the transmission unit 13, the substitute item memory 14, the failure display unit memory 15, the control program memory 16, and the display items. Each block of the memory 17, the display data output unit 18, and the display unit monitoring unit 19 is connected.

  The CPU 10 reads out the alternative item memory 14 and the display item memory 17 and performs display control based on the read out by the control program stored in the control program memory 16. The display position detection unit 11 stores coordinate data for the display surface 3 in advance, and detects a display area necessary for displaying the substitute item read from the substitute item memory 14 from the display surface 3. The hand operating unit 12 is used to select which display item stored in the display item memory 17 is to be displayed. The transmission unit 13 performs transmission / reception with a central control unit (not shown). That is, a display instruction signal is received from the central controller, or the control status of the display unit 2 is transmitted to the central controller as a monitoring signal. The substitute item memory 14 is a memory that stores substitute items displayed on the display surface 3 instead of normal display items. The failure display unit memory 15 is a memory for storing the number of display units constituting the display surface 3 (hereinafter referred to as “failure display units”) and their positions. The control program memory 16 is a memory for storing a control program for the CPU 10 to read items from the substitute item memory 14 and the display item memory 17 and perform other processes. The display item memory 17 is a memory for storing display items to be displayed on the display surface 3 at normal times. The display data output unit 18 transmits display data to the display unit 2. The display unit monitoring unit 19 monitors the failure status of the display unit 2.

  In the information display device having such a configuration, display data is supplied from the display data output unit 18 of the control unit 1 to the display unit 2, and the display unit 2 performs display on the display surface 3 based on the display data. . In addition, display data is returned from each display unit of the display unit 2 to the display unit monitoring unit 19 of the control unit 1 at an appropriate timing. Then, the display unit monitoring unit 19 compares the returned display data with the display data transmitted to the display unit. Then, it is diagnosed whether or not the display unit is broken depending on whether the two display data match. Thereby, the failure status of the display unit 2 is grasped in units of display units. Information on the position and number of failure display units obtained in this way is stored in the failure display unit memory 15.

  Next, the relationship between the display items stored in the display item memory 17 and the alternative items stored in the alternative item memory 14 will be described with reference to FIG. An example of normal display items stored in the display item memory 17 is shown on the left side in FIG. These display items are mainly text examples that notify the driver of an event occurring in front of the installation location of the information display device. On the other hand, what is shown on the right side in FIG. 3 is an example of alternative items stored in the alternative item memory 14. These alternative items are words that indicate the minimum information that should be notified to the driver when an event has occurred ahead. Here, all alternative items are short phrases of 4 characters or less. FIG. 3 shows that the normal display items on the left side and the alternative items on the right side do not necessarily correspond one-to-one. For example, the same alternative item “block” is assigned to the above two display items, “closed tunnel accident closed” and “closed heavy rain closed”.

  In the information display device of the present embodiment configured as described above, one of the display items stored in the display item memory 17 is normal, that is, when no failure has occurred in the display unit of the display unit 2. Are read out and sent from the display data output unit 18 to the display unit 2 as display data. Selection of the display item is usually performed by receiving a display control signal from the central control unit (not shown) via the transmission unit 13. The display unit 2 performs display on the display surface 3 based on the display data. Here, when the display unit monitoring unit 19 detects a failure of the display unit, a process unique to the failure different from the normal time is performed.

  The flow of processing at the time of failure will be described with reference to the flowchart of FIG. In the process at the time of failure, first, it is determined whether or not the number of failure display units is two or more (S1). When it is not two or more, that is, when the number of failure display units is one (S1: No), the display item is subjected to known processing such as conversion and reduction (S2). The content of the processing here may be the same as that described in the gazette shown as the prior art. Then, display items converted, reduced, etc. are displayed (S7), and the process is terminated.

  When the number of failure display units is two or more in S1 (for example, FIG. 5) (S1: Yes), an appropriate countermeasure cannot be taken with the conventional method. For this reason, characteristic processing as the present invention is performed. First, substitution items are read (S3). That is, from the alternative items (right side in FIG. 3) stored in the alternative item memory 14, the item corresponding to the current display item is selected and read. For example, as shown in FIG. 2 and FIG. 5, when the current display item is “Fast tunnel accident passage closed”, as shown in FIG. It ’s closed. As a result, items to be displayed on the display surface 3 are determined instead of the display items to be originally displayed.

  Next, it is determined where the alternative item is displayed on the display surface 3. This is because the failure display unit in the display surface 3 must be avoided and displayed. For this purpose, first, a temporary position is determined as an initial value (S4). Here, as an initial value, it is assumed that the temporary display area 5 is located in the upper left corner of the display surface 3 as shown in FIG. Furthermore, as shown in FIG. 7, it is assumed that the required area size per character is 3 × 3 units. Therefore, when the alternative item to be displayed is a three-letter phrase, the required area size is 3 × 9 units.

  Next, it is determined whether or not the current temporary display area 5 overlaps with the failure display unit (S5). If the current temporary display area 5 is as shown in FIG. 6, it is determined No because a fault display unit exists in the temporary display area 5. If the determination of S5: No is made, the position of the temporary display area 5 is shifted horizontally or vertically by one unit (S6). Then, the determination at S5 is performed again. Thus, the shift (S6) and the determination (S5) are repeated until the temporary display area 5 does not overlap with the failure display unit. When the temporary display area 5 that does not overlap with the failure display unit is obtained (S5: Yes), the temporary display area 5 is set as the display area, and alternative items are displayed in the display area (S7). That is, as illustrated in FIG. 8, the alternative display items are displayed in the temporary display area 5 that does not include the failure display unit. In this case, the display unit 2 bypasses the display data at the location of the failure display unit, and causes the display data to flow to the subsequent display unit. This completes the processing according to the flowchart of FIG.

  Here, the order of the shift in S6 is not particularly limited. Anything such as priority in the horizontal direction and priority in the vertical direction shown in FIG. 9 may be used. The odd-numbered rows (columns) and the even-numbered rows (columns) may be alternated, or may be in an order including a shift in an oblique direction. Further, the initial value of the position of the temporary display area 5 in S4 is not limited to the upper left corner. Other corners or places other than the corners may be used as the initial value of the position of the temporary display area 5. An initial value may be set near the center of the display surface 3. In that case, the order of moving the temporary display area 5 in a spiral shape can be adopted as the shift order of S6. This has the following advantages. That is, as shown in FIG. 10, when the fault display units are distributed near the edge in the display surface 3, the temporary display area 5 can be determined preferentially near the center in the display surface 3.

  As described in detail above, in the information display device according to the present embodiment, short words to be displayed on the display surface 3 instead of normal display items are prepared in case a failure occurs in the display unit of the display unit 2. The substitute item memory 14 is prepared as a substitute item. When a failure of two or more display units is detected, an alternative item corresponding to the current display item is read from the alternative item memory 14 and has a size necessary for displaying the read alternative item. A temporary display area 5 that does not include a display unit is detected from the display surface 3. Then, the alternative item is displayed in the detected temporary display area 5. For this reason, even if some display units are out of order, the minimum necessary road information can be displayed to the driver without being affected by the failure display unit. Here, since the alternative items are limited to short words, the necessary size of the temporary display area 5 can be small. Therefore, even if the number of failure display units is large to some extent, there is no problem in display in many cases.

  This embodiment is merely an example, and various improvements and modifications can be made without departing from the scope of the present embodiment. For example, the temporary display area has a size of 1 unit vertical by 9 units wide, and the display position detection unit 11 detects whether a display area with a width of 9 units can be secured continuously for 3 units vertically. Also good. Further, the upper limit of the number of characters of the substitute item is not limited to “4”, but may be another number. Further, the provisional display area 5 may be determined by numerical calculation using a coordinate difference between failure display units, and it may be determined whether or not the display area of 3 units × 9 units can be secured. .

It is a block diagram which shows schematic structure of the information display apparatus which concerns on embodiment. It is a figure which shows the example of a display in the display surface of a display part. It is a block diagram which shows the correspondence of a normal display item and an alternative item. It is a flowchart which shows the flow of control in a control part when a failure generate | occur | produces in a display unit. It is a figure which shows the condition of a display surface when a failure generate | occur | produces in a display unit. It is a figure which shows typically the condition which determined the position of the temporary display area temporarily in the flowchart of FIG. It is a figure explaining the size of the area | region required for the display of a substitute item. It is a figure which shows the example of the condition which is displaying the alternative item in the display area finally determined. It is a figure which illustrates the shift order of a temporary display area. It is a figure which shows another example of the condition which is displaying the alternative item in the display area finally determined. It is a figure which shows the case where it cannot display with a failure display unit in the conventional information display apparatus.

Explanation of symbols

1 Control Unit 2 Display Unit 3 Display Surface 10 CPU
11 Display Position Detection Unit 14 Substitute Item Memory 15 Fault Display Unit Memory 17 Display Item Memory

Claims (4)

In an information display device that displays road information by causing display elements arranged in a matrix on a display surface to emit light, and uses a display unit composed of a predetermined number of display elements as a unit for fault monitoring.
Display control means for controlling the light emission of the display element to display road information on the display surface;
Alternative item storage means for storing alternative items to be displayed instead of the normal display items;
A display determining means for determining whether to display a normal display item or a substitute item for the normal display item based on the presence status of the failed display unit;
Display position detecting means for detecting, from the display surface, a display area capable of displaying the substitute item without being hooked on the failed display unit when the display determining means decides to display the substitute item;
The display control means displays the substitute item in the display area detected by the display position detecting means when the display determining means decides to display the substitute item. apparatus. In the information display device according to claim 1,
The information display device according to claim 1, wherein the substitute item storage means stores substitute items within a predetermined number of characters. In the information display device according to claim 1 or 2,
The display position detecting means sets a temporary display area of a size corresponding to the alternative item to be displayed, determines whether or not there is a failed display unit in the temporary display area, and there is a failed display unit. An information display device that shifts the temporary display area in the case, and detects the temporary display area as the display area when there is no defective display unit. In an information display method using an information display device that causes a display element arranged in a matrix on a display surface to emit light to display road information and uses a display unit composed of a predetermined number of display elements as a unit for failure monitoring,
Specify alternative items to be displayed instead of the normal display items in advance,
Based on the existence status of the failed display unit, decide whether to display the normal display item or the alternative item for it.
When it is decided to display the substitute item, the display area where the substitute item can be displayed without hanging on the failed display unit is detected from the display screen.
An information display method comprising displaying the substitute item in a detected display area.

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