JP2005266531A - Information display - Google Patents

Abstract

<P>PROBLEM TO BE SOLVED: To solve the problem that arrangement of characters becomes unnatural, characters become thinner, difficult to read and rearrangement becomes impossible when the number of characters intended to display is large in the conventional information display for rearranging the characters by avoiding a broken display unit. <P>SOLUTION: The information display is constituted of an information board 2 on which display pixels 23 consisting at least of light emitting elements in two colors are arranged like a matrix and characters, patterns, etc. are displayed by lighting the display pixels by a dot file and a control part 3 which performs controls so that the characters are displayed by a light emitting element in normal display color when it is detected that a display color in the light emitting element of the information board can not be displayed. <P>COPYRIGHT: (C)2005,JPO&NCIPI

Description

  The present invention relates to an information display device for displaying characters, symbols, and the like by arranging light emitting elements of two or more colors as a display pixel in a matrix, and in particular, an information display used for displaying road traffic information, road weather information, and the like. Relates to the device.

As an example of this type of information display device, for example, there is a technique described in JP-A-7-199851.
In the present invention, in the information display device 1 in which the display units 2 in which the display pixels 3 shown in FIG. 9 of the conventional example are arranged in a matrix are arranged vertically and horizontally as shown in FIG. Depending on the positions 51 and 61, the symbols are removed as shown in FIG. 5 to change the arrangement of characters, or the characters are changed as shown in FIG. Similarly, according to the position 41 of the display unit 2 in which the failure has occurred, the width of the character (prohibition of entry) is narrowed as shown in FIGS. 4 and 7 to avoid the display unit in which the failure has occurred. A method of performing is proposed.
JP-A-7-199851

  However, in this proposal, since the characters are rearranged while avoiding the faulty display unit, the character arrangement becomes unnatural or the characters become thin, which makes it difficult to read. There was a problem that it could not be applied when there were a lot of characters to be tried.

  In addition, conventionally, even if any shift register has failed for each color even though the display unit 2 has a shift register for storing display data for each color, it is uniformly treated as a display unit failure. There was a problem.

  The present invention is intended to solve the above-described problems, and the object of the present invention is to set a display block for monitoring a failure and a display color permission condition for the display block, and to display characters included in the display block. Compare the specified display color with the displayable display color set for the display block, and if the display color specified for the character and the displayable display color do not match, the characters included in each display block An information display device that rewrites the display designated color for the display color to the display color set in the display block and enables display with an alternative display color is proposed.

  The information display device according to the present invention achieves the above-described object, and the means of claim 1 arranges display pixels composed of light emitting elements of at least two colors in a matrix and lights the display pixels in a dotted manner. When it is detected that the display color of the information board for displaying characters, symbols and the like and the display color of the light emitting element of the information board is not displayable, the light is displayed by the light emitting element of the normal display color. And a control unit for controlling the operation.

  According to a second aspect of the present invention, in the above-described means of the first aspect, the control unit detects an operation state of a storage component that transfers and stores the display data such as characters and symbols in units of display blocks. Monitoring means; storage means for storing display color permission conditions for displaying in an alternative display color when any of the display colors cannot be displayed due to a defect in the storage component; and The display color of the display color permission condition in which the operation state of the display block detected by the operation monitoring means is collated with the display color permission condition, and the display color of the display character included in the display block is set based on the collation result And display color conversion means for rewriting to the above.

  The present invention does not change the character arrangement or the character width of the display information, but has an effect that the readability of the displayed information is not deteriorated because only the display color is changed. .

  In addition, since the complicated calculation associated with the change of the character arrangement and the reduction of the character width is not required, there is an effect that the load on the computer is small and the change of the display color can be processed immediately.

  Furthermore, since this method can be realized only by changing the software without any hardware elements, it has an effect that it can be easily applied to modification of an existing information display device.

  In the information board in which display pixels each having at least two colors of light emitting elements are arranged in a matrix, the present invention detects normal display colors when it is detected that the display color of the light emitting elements of the information board is not displayable. The light emitting element is controlled to display at least one character.

In FIG. 1, reference numeral 1 denotes an information display device according to the present invention, which comprises an information board 2 that performs display and a control unit 3 that controls the information board 2 by a display control signal from the center.
Next, the information board 2 is a display composed of shift registers 21R and 21G for red and yellow-green colors, latch driver circuits 22R and 22G, and display pixels 23 containing red and yellow-green light emitting elements 23R and 23G. And a unit 24.

  As in the conventional example, the information board 2 is a matrix of 16 × 16, 24 × 24, 36 × 36 display pixels in which red and yellow-green LEDs are housed in one package (bullet-shaped lamp) as light emitting elements. It is assumed that the display units are arranged in the vertical and horizontal directions, and each display unit 24 is serially connected in the horizontal direction as shown in FIG.

  Further, when the display data from the control unit 3 is input, the shift registers 21R and 21G turn on / off the light emitting elements 23R and 23G of the respective colors of the display pixel 23, and output the display data to the subsequent shift register. In addition, display data in a state where all display data is distributed is held. Next, the latch driver circuits 22R and 22G receive the latch signal (not shown) from the control unit 3 to store the status signals “1” and “0” stored in the shift register, and the control unit 3 Each of the light emitting elements 23R and 23G storing the display data “1” is turned on by receiving an enable signal (not shown) from.

  Therefore, when “1” display data is stored in the latch driver circuit 22R, the red LED of the light emitting element is turned on, so that the display pixel 23 emits red light, and the latch driver circuit 22G also has “1”. Is stored, the yellow-green LED is lit, and the display pixel 23 emits yellow-green light. Therefore, the display data “1” and “1” are stored in the latch driver circuits 22R and 22G. In this case, the red LED and the yellow-green LED are turned on simultaneously, and the display pixel 23 emits light of a mixed color orange.

Next, the control unit 3 includes a CPU 31, a ROM 32, a RAM 33, an operation monitoring unit 34, a display color conversion unit 35, a communication control unit 36, and an input / output unit 37.
The operation monitoring unit 34 and the display color conversion unit 35 are functions executed inside the CPU 31. The ROM 32 stores a control program for executing display control for controlling general display by the CPU 31 and display color conversion processing for performing the functions of the present invention, and a character code in the display information received by the communication control unit 35. A character code-font correspondence table or the like for conversion to a character font for each character code is stored.

  As shown in FIG. 3, the information board 2 displays a block A (for example, “Sekigahara-Yonehara” is displayed), a cause (for example, “freeze” is displayed), and an action (for example, “running attention” Display block B for displaying “)” is set. Then, the display color permission flag (= display color permission condition) stored in the RAM described below is less likely to be displayed in red or yellow-green as in the place name as shown in FIG. For the display block A, display color permission flags “1” and “1” are set, and when the normally used orange color cannot be displayed, either the red or yellow-green display color can be selected.

  On the other hand, a mixed color orange or red is used as the display color, and display color permission flags “1” and “0” are set for the display block B which is an important display portion as information, and orange cannot be displayed. In this case, only red can be selected as the display color. Therefore, when red cannot be displayed on the display block A, it is not possible to select only yellow-green on the display block A because the display units are serially connected as shown in FIG.

  Next, the RAM 33 stores the display information (character code, display color, and display position) input from the communication control unit 36 as each hierarchical data for each display block shown in FIG. A display color permission flag storing display colors that can be displayed for each display block, display data created by the CPU 31 based on the character code-font correspondence table, and various calculation results executed by the CPU 31 Is temporarily stored.

  The operation monitoring unit 34 is a known technique for detecting a faulty display position. As in the above-described conventional example, the signal indicating that the display data after the faulty shift registers 21R and 21G of the information board 2 is “1” or “0” is used. Since the data is transferred to the subsequent shift register, the monitor data returned to the control unit 3 by reversing the input / output direction of the shift register is compared with the display data output to the shift register. A display block including a failed shift register is detected from the position where the mismatch occurs.

  The memory storing the display color permission flag includes a conversion table of display failure position → display unit → display block (A, B) (not shown). The calculated display block and displayable display color Are temporarily stored in the RAM 33.

  In the above description, the method of collating the display data and the monitoring data, which is an easy-to-understand method as a method for detecting the position of the failed shift register, has been described. Various methods have been proposed for detection, and of course, any method may be adopted.

  The input / output unit 36 outputs display data to the shift registers 21R and 21G for each color of the information board 2 and inputs the monitoring data from the shift register. Further, the above-described latch signal (not shown), an enable signal for driving the display element 23 to be turned on, and a clock signal are output to the display unit 24.

  Next, display color conversion processing executed by the control program stored in the ROM 32 when the yellow-green shift register 21G included in the display block B fails will be described with reference to the flowchart of FIG.

  First, display information including the JIS character code, display color, and display position received by the communication control unit 36 (step S1) is stored in the RAM 33 in the format shown in FIG. 5 (step S2).

  Next, display data is generated for each color based on the character code and the character code-character font conversion table stored in the ROM and the display color and display position data (step S3), stored in the RAM 33, and input data. The output unit 36 outputs the information to the shift registers 21R and 21G of the information board 2 (step S4).

  The display color data received by the communication control unit 36 uses 2 bits of 1-byte data, and red, yellow-green, and orange are transmitted by signals “10”, “01”, and “11”, respectively. The

  Next, the monitoring data returned from the shift register 21R or 21G to the input / output unit 36 is input (step S5), and the input monitoring data is collated with the display data stored in the RAM 33 by the operation monitoring unit 34 (step S5). S6). Then, the collation result is stored for each display block (step S7), and the CPU 31 determines whether the collation of the monitoring data of each color is completed (step S8), and the collation of the monitoring data for all display colors is incomplete. In step S5, the same process as described above is repeatedly executed.

  If it is determined in step S8 that collation for all display colors has been completed, then whether or not all collation matches is monitored, and if it is determined that they match, each color is latched. A latch signal and a lighting signal (not shown) are output to the driver circuits 22R and 22G, display lighting control (step S10) is executed, and the display control is terminated.

  On the other hand, if it is determined in step S9 that they do not match, the display color designated as orange is displayed using orange or red, so that the red operating state, which is the display color common to them, is initially displayed. Is determined whether or not “red matches” (step S11). When the matched display color is not yellow-green but red, only the yellow-green display color can be used in the display block B displaying the important items, and the display is performed while avoiding the failed display unit. Display control similar to the example is executed (step S19).

  On the other hand, if the matched display color is determined to be yellow-green in step S11, the collation result for each display block stored in step S7 is read (step S12), and the yellow-green display color permission flag for the display block is read. Are respectively read (step S13), and the comparison result is compared with the display color permission flag (step S14). Specifically, as shown in FIG. 7, the yellow-green collation result for each display block is collated with the display color permission flag.

  Then, in step S14, it is determined whether or not the collation results match (step S15). If it is determined that the collation results do not match, the process proceeds to step S19 described above, and it is determined that they match. In this case, the display color data corresponding to the character code included in the display block A in FIG. 3 is rewritten to the data matched in step S15 (step S16). In other words, the orange “11” display color of the display block A and the display block B stored as shown in FIG. 5 is rewritten to the orange “11” and the display block B to the red “10”.

  Next, it is determined whether or not the display color rewriting for each display block has been completed (step S17). If this determination is not complete, the process returns to step S15. If it is determined that the display color has been completed, the display color is displayed. Is notified to the center (step S18), and the process returns to step S3 to create display data. Thereafter, the processing of steps S3 to S9 is executed, the display lighting control step S10 with a new display color is executed, and the processing is terminated.

Although the case where the display color permission flag is stored in the RAM 33 in advance has been described in the above embodiment, the display color permission flag may be attached to the display information from the center.
FIG. 6 is a processing flow for explaining the technical idea of the present invention, and it goes without saying that the flow is not limited to the contents and procedure.

In the above embodiment, the case where the display units are serially connected in the horizontal direction has been described. However, the case where the display units are serially connected vertically as shown in FIG. 8 will be described.
In this case, as shown in FIG. 9, a display block A for displaying symbols and a display block B for displaying characters are set, and the same display color permission flag as in the above embodiment is stored. As a result, even if the yellow-green shift register of the display block B occupying a large portion on the display surface fails, the display color can be rewritten to red and the display can be continued.

  In the above description, the method of serially connecting the shift registers of the display block A and the display block B using one signal line is illustrated in both the first and second embodiments. However, the present invention is based on the connection method of the above embodiment. Needless to say, each display block may be controlled by a plurality of signal lines. In this case, since the display color failure of the upper block does not affect the lower block, it is possible to set the red and orange display color permission flags for each display block and the red, yellow green, and orange colors remain. It is possible to rewrite the display color with multiple colors.

  In addition, the above embodiment has a function of a unit path for separating and displaying the failed display unit as in the cited patent and transferring the display data excluding the data corresponding to the shift register to the subsequent shift register for display. This method can also be applied to non-information display devices. However, in the case of an information display device having the above-mentioned unit path function, the display color is rewritten to display only the characters including the failed display unit. Therefore, it is possible to rewrite the display color to the minimum character unit and to rewrite (color expression) with multiple colors as in the previous section.

  For example, in FIG. 3, when the display block B is divided into a block B1 representing the cause and a block B2 representing the action, and the shift register storing the yellow-green display data of the block B1 representing the cause fails, "10" may be rewritten to "10" by the above method, and the corresponding shift register of the block B1 indicating the cause may be disconnected. This makes it possible to display “Sekigahara-Maihara” and “Running caution” in the designated display color orange, and display only “Freeze” in red.

  As described above, the present invention sets a display block on the display surface and performs display with an alternative display color for which a display color permission condition is set when the designated display color cannot be displayed. An alternative display color that does not interfere with the display by changing the display color, compared to the conventional method of changing the character arrangement by avoiding display units that include storage components such as a defective shift register. Therefore, the same content can be displayed by using the program, so that a display that is not different from that before the failure can be performed by a slight program change.

1 is a system block diagram of an information display device according to the present invention. It is a block diagram which shows an example of the connection method of a display unit. It is a front view which shows the display state by an information board. It is a figure for demonstrating a display color permission flag. It is explanatory drawing that the display information is stored for every display block. It is a flowchart for demonstrating the operation | movement by the system block of FIG. It is a figure which shows the relationship between the collation result in step S14 of a flowchart same as the above, and a display color permission flag. FIG. 10 is a block diagram illustrating a display unit connection method according to a second embodiment. It is a front view which shows the display state by the information board in Example 2. FIG.

Explanation of symbols

DESCRIPTION OF SYMBOLS 1 Information display apparatus 2 Information board 21R, 21G Shift register 22R, 22G Latch driver circuit 23R. 23G LED
23 Display Pixel 24 Display Unit 3 Control Unit 31 CPU
32 ROM
33 RAM
34 Operation Monitoring Unit 35 Display Color Conversion Unit 36 Communication Control Unit 37 Input / Output Unit

Claims (2)

An information board for displaying characters, designs, etc. by arranging display pixels composed of light emitting elements of at least two colors in a matrix, and lighting the display pixels with dot stitching, and a display color of the information board on the light emitting elements An information display device comprising: a control unit that controls to display a character with a light emitting element having a normal display color when it is detected that the display is in a non-displayable state. The control unit described above detects the operation state of the storage component that transfers and stores the display data such as characters and symbols in units of display blocks, and any one of the display colors depends on the defect of the storage component. Storage means for storing a display color permission condition for performing display with an alternative display color when display becomes impossible in units of display blocks, an operation state of the display block detected by the operation monitoring means, and the display color The display color conversion unit is configured to collate with the permission condition and rewrite the display color of the display character included in the display block to the display color of the set display color permission condition according to the collation result. The information display device according to claim 1.

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