JP2006258514A - Navigation system - Google Patents

Abstract

<P>PROBLEM TO BE SOLVED: To solve the conventional problem that when scrolling a map a cursor must be moved to a desired road, that there is a phenomenon in which even when the cursor is moved to near the desired road a byroad near the desired road is selected and the map is then scrolled, and that the map cannot be scrolled along the desired road. <P>SOLUTION: A candidate for a road which can be scrolled (hereinafter referred to as a scroll candidate road) is extracted out of a map displayed on a screen and is displayed on a display screen. When one of the displayed scroll candidate roads is selected, a predetermined display map range is calculated from the road data of the selected scroll candidate road and is displayed on the display screen. A selectable scroll direction is displayed and selected on the basis of the direction attribute of the selected scroll candidate road, thereby allowing the map presently displayed to be scrolled in the selected scroll direction. <P>COPYRIGHT: (C)2006,JPO&NCIPI

Description

  The present invention relates to a mobile navigation device that is mounted on, for example, an automobile or carried by an operator, and particularly relates to a navigation device having a novel map scrolling function. In addition, although this invention is a navigation apparatus of a mobile body, the example of a motor vehicle is demonstrated for convenience of explanation.

  In a navigation device mounted on a general automobile, a GPS signal from a GPS satellite, a gyro signal from a gyro sensor, a vehicle speed pulse signal from a vehicle speed sensor, etc. are acquired to obtain the current automobile position (coordinate values indicated by latitude and longitude). ), The direction of travel of the car, the traveling speed, etc., and map data including road data stored in a recording medium such as a DVD-ROM or hard disk is searched to include the current car position (coordinates). The map and the vehicle position mark are displayed on the display screen of the navigation device so that a triangular icon (hereinafter referred to as the vehicle position mark) indicating the position of the vehicle is located at a predetermined position based on the read map data. It is designed to display above.

By the way, the display device of the navigation device has a touch panel equipped with a pointer function on the display screen itself so that the user can directly specify and select various setting functions using menus and destination points and registered points with a finger. Widely used.
Then, when a map is displayed on such a touch panel type display screen (hereinafter referred to as a touch panel screen) and an arbitrary location on the touch panel screen is specified by pressing with a finger, the specified location is positioned at the center of the touch panel screen. The technology that allows the map to be scrolled is used.

However, if the operator wants to know how far the road that intersects the road that is running on the map continues, or what the road is ahead of when the road continues to run, In the method of designating the part, the touch panel screen had to be designated each time to scroll the map along the road.
For this reason, if the road is greatly undulating, it is necessary to change the designated place each time, which requires a troublesome operation for the operator, resulting in poor usability.
JP-A-8-190343

  In order to solve these problems, the above-mentioned Japanese Patent Application Laid-Open No. 8-190343 (Patent Document 1) describes a map in a specified direction along the road on which the cursor is displayed or the road closest to the cursor position. A technique of scrolling has been proposed.

However, even in this case, when scrolling the map, the cursor must be moved to the desired road, or even if the cursor is near the desired road, another road, such as a side road, is located near the road. If there is a narrow street, there is a phenomenon that the map is scrolled by selecting it, and there is a fear that the map cannot be scrolled along the desired road.
In view of the above, an object of the present invention is to provide a navigation device having a novel scroll function that can easily and reliably scroll a map along a desired road.

  A feature of the present invention is that a scrollable road candidate (hereinafter referred to as a scroll candidate road) is extracted from a map displayed on the screen and displayed on the display screen, and one of the displayed scroll candidate roads is displayed. When selected, a predetermined display map range is calculated from the road data of the selected scroll candidate road and displayed on the display screen, and further selectable scroll directions based on the direction attribute of the selected scroll candidate road. The navigation apparatus includes a novel scroll means for scrolling a currently displayed map in a selected scroll direction by displaying and selecting the map.

  By providing the means described above, the operator can scroll along the desired road with a simple operation.

  An embodiment of the present invention will be described in detail below with reference to the drawings. However, it is needless to say that the present invention can be variously modified and applied without being limited to the embodiment described below.

First, an example of the internal configuration of a navigation device mounted on an automobile according to the present invention will be described with reference to FIG.
The navigation device 1 includes an arithmetic processing unit 10, an external storage device 20, a sensor unit 30, a display unit 40, an external information receiving unit 50, an input / output unit 60, and the like.

  The arithmetic processing unit 10 includes a CPU (Central Processing Unit) 11, a storage device 12 including a Flash ROM (Read Only Memory), and a DRAM (Dynamic Random Access Memory) 13. Of course, there are other elements constituting the arithmetic processing unit 10, but illustration of elements not related to the description of the present invention is omitted.

  The CPU 11 is used for performing various calculations in addition to executing application programs described later. For example, a signal from the sensor unit 30 is calculated according to a predetermined logic, or the current position of the vehicle is calculated based on information from a GPS (Global Positioning System) signal receiving unit 51, and necessary for display from the calculated current position information. The map information is read from the external storage device 20 and displayed on the display unit 40 together with the vehicle position mark as the current position.

The storage device 12 stores application programs for various functions of the navigation device 1 and data necessary for the calculation thereof. Here, the Flash ROM 12 is used, but an EPROM or the like having equivalent functions is used. Also good.
The DRAM 13 is used as a work area being processed or used for temporarily storing map data, etc. Map information and calculation data such as position information of a designated place on the touch panel described later and a selected road are used. For example, it stores point information and the like.

The external storage device 20 stores information necessary for navigation processing, such as map data, road types, road data for route calculation such as nodes constituting the road data and link configuration information, facility information such as coordinate values, telephone numbers, and addresses. Is building as.
The external storage device 20 is configured by one or a combination of one or both of a DVD drive 21 in which a DVD (Digital Versatile Disk) 23 storing the above-described information is inserted and a PC card interface 22 in which a memory card 24 is inserted. ing.

The sensor unit 30 includes an azimuth sensor 31 and a gyro 32. The azimuth sensor 31 detects the direction of the automobile by detecting the magnetic field of the earth. Used to detect the angle of rotation of the car.
The signals detected by the azimuth sensor 31 and the gyro 32 are converted into digital signals by an analog-digital converter (A / D) 34 and sent to the arithmetic processing unit 10 via the internal bus 70.

  Further, the sensor unit 30 includes a wheel speed sensor 33. The wheel speed sensor 33 detects a travel distance signal of the automobile by counting a pulse signal output with the rotation of the wheel by a counter 35. Similarly, the distance signal is sent to the arithmetic processing unit 10 via the internal bus 70.

  The GPS signal receiving unit 51 receives a signal from a GPS satellite via the GPS antenna 54, and measures the distance between the vehicle and the satellite and the rate of change of the distance, whereby the current position, traveling direction, and traveling direction of the vehicle. These measurement data are sent from the SCI (Serial Communication Interface) 53 to the arithmetic unit 10 via the internal bus 70.

  Further, the traffic information receiving unit 52 periodically receives the VICS information superimposed on the FM broadcast via the FM multiplex receiver 55, captures traffic information such as traffic jam information, traffic regulation and traffic accident occurrence information, Information is sent from the SCI 53 to the computing unit 10 via the internal bus 70, and the traffic information is displayed on the display unit 40 together with the map information.

The display unit 40 includes display control means including a display driver 41, a controller 43, a buffer 44, and the like, and a liquid crystal panel 42, and stores data sent from the arithmetic processing unit 10 via the internal bus 70 in the buffer 44. Based on this, the display device 42 displays a map, a guidance route, a vehicle position, and the like.

In addition, the controller 43 receives signals from a number of proximity sensors provided on the touch panel 45 installed on the liquid crystal panel 42 and performs processing for detecting a position pressed by a user's finger or the like. The information is interrupted and sent to the CPU 11.
A display screen obtained by combining the liquid crystal panel 42 and the touch panel 45 provided with a touch sensor is expressed as a touch panel screen 100 as shown in FIG.

The input / output unit 60 is a key PAD 62 configured by a hard switch or a jog switch that receives an instruction from the user, a remote control light receiving unit 61 that receives an optical signal from a remote control 65 operated by the user, and a user generated by the arithmetic processing unit 10. Is converted to a voice signal by a speaker (SP) 66, and a voice code inputted through a microphone 68 is taken in and converted by a CODEC 63 or the like.
These exchange data with the arithmetic processing unit 10 via a PIO (Port Input / Output) 64 and an internal bus 70.

Next, a series of processes in the navigation device of the present invention will be described.
FIG. 2 is an example of a display screen in which a map near the current position where the vehicle is present is displayed at a predetermined scale, and the guidance route is usually guided on this display screen.

3 and 4 show examples of display screens after an arbitrary place is pressed by the operator on the map of the touch panel screen as shown in FIG. 2 displayed on the touch panel screen. Such a one-screen map is changed to two screens, the map that has been displayed so far is reduced and displayed on the right side of the screen, and the scrollable road list of the displayed map is displayed on the left side of the screen. Yes.
In this case, the prefectural road (1) is selected by the operator, and the selected prefectural road (1) is displayed blinking on the map so that it can be distinguished from other roads. In FIG. 3, a broken line is displayed instead of a blinking display.
Here, FIG. 4 is an example in which the display of narrow streets is omitted, and a road that can be scrolled is displayed. In this way, it is possible to expect an effect that the correspondence between the scrolled road and the road list can be quickly taken and the usability is good.

  FIG. 5 shows a display screen when the prefectural road (1) is selected from the road list to be scrolled from the road list on the left side of the screens of FIGS. 3 and 4, and the “road scrolling process” described later is executed. ing. In FIG. 5, the prefectural road (1) selected in the same manner as in FIGS. 3 and 4 is indicated by a broken line instead of blinking.

Specific processing operations will be described below based on the flowcharts of FIGS. 6 and 7 using the display screens of FIGS.
First, FIG. 6 is a flowchart showing the process of the navigation device of the present invention until the scroll process is performed.

  As shown in FIG. 2, when the touch panel screen 100 is pressed with an operator's finger or the like while the map is displayed, the controller 43 sends an interrupt signal to the CPU 11. Upon receiving this interrupt signal, the CPU 11 starts the interrupt process shown in FIG.

First, in step 102 (hereinafter, step is abbreviated as S), the CPU 11 causes the display unit 40 to divide the display screen into two parts from one screen of the current map as shown in FIG.
The two divided screens are a map screen 120 that displays a reduced map on the right side and a road list screen 110 that displays a list of road candidates that are used as a reference for scrolling on the left side.
Here, the map screen 120 is displayed on a screen as shown in FIG. 3 in which the map in FIG. 2 is reduced as it is, or in FIG. 4 in which narrow streets that are not scroll targets are omitted in accordance with the reduction of the map.

  Thereafter, the process proceeds to S104 to determine whether or not the touch panel is further pressed. When it is determined that nothing is pressed (in the case of “N” in S104), the process returns to S104 again and the touch panel screen 100 is pressed. Wait.

  Next, when it is determined in S104 that the touch panel screen has been pressed (in the case of “Y” in S104), the process proceeds to S106 and any road is selected from the road list screen 110 displayed on the touch panel screen 100 (corresponding location). Is touched). In S104 and S106, it is determined whether or not the road list screen 110 is pressed and the operator is willing to scroll.

  If none of the roads displayed on the road list screen 110 in S106 is selected (in the case of “N” in S106), the process proceeds to S108 and is displayed on the road list screen 110 of FIGS. It is determined whether the return key “130” has been pressed.

  If it is determined in S108 that the “return key” 130 has been pressed, the display returns to the original map screen shown in FIG. 2 from the two-screen display shown in FIG. Here, when the narrow street is not displayed on the map display screen 120 shown in FIG. 4, the screen shown in FIG. 2 is displayed so that the narrow street is displayed. When it is determined in S108 that the “return key” 130 has not been pressed (in the case of “N” in S108), the process returns to S104 and waits for the touch panel screen 100 to be pressed.

On the other hand, when one of the road candidates serving as a reference for scrolling is selected in S106 (in the case of “Y” in S106), the process proceeds to S110 to determine whether or not the same road is selected.
That is, as shown in FIGS. 3 and 4, it is determined whether or not the touch panel screen 100 where the prefectural road (1) is displayed is pressed again in a state where the prefectural road (1) is blinkingly displayed. When it is determined that is pressed (in the case of “Y” in S110), the process proceeds to a scroll process (hereinafter referred to as a road scroll process) along the prefectural road (1).

  On the other hand, when a road different from the one selected first in S110 is selected ("N" in S110), the process proceeds to S112, and the selected road is displayed blinking on the map on the right screen, and then again S104. Return to and wait for the touch panel to be pressed.

  Next, the “path scrolling process” executed when it is determined in S110 that the touch panel screen 100 is pressed (“Y” in S110) will be described with reference to FIG.

If it is determined in S110 in FIG. 6 that the touch panel screen 100 has been pressed, the process proceeds to the “scrolling process”.
First, in S202, as shown in FIG. 5, the road (here, the prefectural road (1)) selected in the vicinity 150 of the crossing point of the cross cursor that crosses the center of the screen left and right and up and down (this corresponds to the center of the display screen). The map 102 scrolled so as to be displayed is displayed.
Further, a directional arrow icon 140 that is an index indicating the scroll direction is displayed near the cross cursor and the selected road.
Here, the map range to be displayed is calculated from the road data of the scroll candidate road with the vicinity of the intersection 150 of the cross cursor as a reference point.

  In the case of FIG. 5, the selected road is the prefectural road (1), and the direction arrow icon 140 of the prefectural road (1) extending in the horizontal direction of the screen is in the horizontal direction, but the national road (1) If the road extends in the vertical direction as shown above, an up and down arrow is displayed.

  Next, in S204, it is determined whether or not the touch panel screen 100 is pressed. If it is determined that the touch panel screen 100 is not pressed (in the case of “N” in S204), the process returns to S204 and waits for the touch panel screen 100 to be pressed. .

  On the other hand, if it is determined that the touch panel screen has been pressed (“Y” in S204), the process proceeds to S206, where it is determined whether or not the pressed position is the “current location key” 160 shown in FIG. If it is determined that the key “160” has been pressed (“Y” in S206), the process proceeds to return processing and returns to the current location display as shown in FIG.

Conversely, if it is not the “present location key” 160 that was pressed in S206 (in the case of “N” in S206), the process proceeds to S208, and it is determined whether or not the pressed position is the “return key” 130. If the “return key” 130 is selected, the above-described normal scroll mode is entered.
If the key pressed in S208 is not the “return key” 130, the process proceeds to S210 to determine which of the touch panel's up, down, left, and right directions.

  This determination can be made based on the cross cursor. For example, as shown in FIG. 5, in the case of the prefectural road (1), since the road extends in the horizontal direction on the screen, the left and right direction arrow icons 140 are displayed. In this case, the left and right direction may be determined based on the vertical line of the cross cursor.

On the other hand, in the case of the national road (1), since the road extends in the vertical direction of the screen, a vertical direction arrow icon 140 is displayed. In this case, the vertical direction is based on the horizontal line of the cross cursor. Can be determined.
In this way, the direction arrow icon 140 that is an index indicating the scroll direction is determined based on the direction attribute of the selected road extending on the display screen.

  Therefore, in the case of FIG. 5, if the pressed position on the touch panel screen 100 is on the right side of the vertical line of the cross cursor, the process proceeds to S212, the left arrow icon is erased, and scrolling to the right is started. If the left side is touched (ie, the left side is touched), the process proceeds to S214, where the right arrow icon is deleted and scrolling in the left direction is started.

  After that, it is determined whether or not the operation of the touch panel screen 100 is canceled in S216 or S218, that is, whether or not the touch panel screen 100 is stopped being pressed, and when it is determined that the pressing is stopped (“Y” in S216 or S218). In the case), the process proceeds to S200 to stop the scrolling of the map, returns to S204 again, and waits for the touch panel to be pressed.

When the touch panel screen is pressed while the scroll direction is specified in this way, the reference point that is the intersection 150 of the cross cursor is a point that constitutes the road in the scroll direction based on the road data of the selected scroll candidate road. Scrolling is executed by periodically changing to.
In the above explanation, the case where the road is curved and extends in a different direction while scrolling was not explained, but the scrolling can be performed by continuing the same operation while the selected road exists. Can be done continuously.

  In the embodiment described above, an example of operating the touch panel screen has been shown. However, when operating with the keys of the remote control, for example, the jog key having eight buttons in the up / down / left / right diagonal directions or the same name displayed on the touch panel ("Current location" and "Back") buttons are provided, and it is possible to respond by the following operations.

1) Press any position on the touch panel to enter the scroll mode by pressing any of the jog keys. 2) Select / determine the road to be scrolled with the up / down keys of the jog key, 3) The direction of scrolling is performed by pressing the left or right key of the jog key.

It is a figure explaining the internal structure of the navigation apparatus which is one Example of this invention. It is an example of the display screen which reduced and displayed the map of the present position vicinity where the own vehicle exists at a predetermined scale ratio. It is the 1st example of a display screen after arbitrary places are pushed on the map of a touch panel screen by an operator. It is a 2nd example of the display screen after arbitrary places are pushed on the map of a touchscreen screen by the operator. It is an example of a display screen when the road to be scrolled is selected and the road is scrolled. It is a flowchart figure of the process which transfers to the scroll mode in the navigation apparatus of one Example of this invention. It is a flowchart figure of the scroll process in the navigation apparatus which is an Example of this invention.

Explanation of symbols

  DESCRIPTION OF SYMBOLS 1 ... Navigation apparatus, 10 ... Arithmetic processing part, 11 ... CPU, 12 ... Flash ROM, 13 ... DRAM, 20 ... External storage device, 21 ... DVD drive, 22 ... PC card I / F, 30 ... Sensor part, 40 ... Display unit 51 GPS signal receiving unit 52 Traffic information receiving unit 60 Input / output unit 70 Bus

Claims (4)

Storage means for storing information necessary for navigation processing such as map data and road data, and a current position is detected and a map around the current position is searched from the storage means. On the searched map In a navigation device comprising control means for displaying the current position on a display screen in an overlapping manner,
The control means includes
Scroll candidate road extracting means for extracting predetermined scroll candidate roads (hereinafter referred to as scroll candidate roads) from the map displayed on the screen and displaying them on the display screen;
When any one of the scroll candidate roads is selected, a display range calculation unit that calculates a map range to be displayed using a predetermined point as a reference point from road data of the selected scroll candidate roads;
Scroll reference point changing means for periodically changing the reference point to a point constituting the road in the scroll direction based on road data of the scroll candidate road road selected when a scroll direction is designated. A navigation device characterized by that. Storage means for storing information necessary for navigation processing such as map data and road data, and a current position is detected and a map around the current position is searched from the storage means. On the searched map In a navigation device comprising control means for displaying the current position on a display screen in an overlapping manner,
The control means includes
Scroll candidate road extracting means for extracting a scrollable road candidate (hereinafter referred to as a scroll candidate road) from a map displayed on the screen and displaying it on the display screen;
When one of the scroll candidate roads is selected, a display range calculating unit that calculates a predetermined display map range from road data of the selected scroll candidate road road and displays it on the display screen;
A map indicating a scroll direction that can be selected based on a direction attribute of the selected scroll candidate road is displayed on the map displayed by the display range calculation means, and the map is currently displayed according to the selected scroll direction A navigation device comprising scroll means for scrolling the screen. Storage means for storing information necessary for navigation processing such as map data and road data, and a current position is detected and a map around the current position is searched from the storage means. On the searched map In a navigation device comprising control means for displaying the current position on a display screen in an overlapping manner,
The control means includes
Scroll candidate road extracting means for extracting a scrollable road candidate (hereinafter referred to as a scroll candidate road) from a map displayed on the screen and displaying it on the display screen;
When one of the scroll candidate roads is selected, display range calculation means for displaying a map by calculating a map range to be displayed from road data of the scroll candidate road selected using the vicinity of the center of the screen as a reference point;
An index indicating a scroll direction that can be selected based on the direction attribute of the road data of the scroll candidate road is displayed, and the reference point is periodically changed to a point constituting the road in the scroll direction based on the selected index. And a scroll reference point changing means. Storage means for storing information necessary for navigation processing such as map data and road data, and a current position is detected and a map around the current position is searched from the storage means. On the searched map In a navigation device comprising control means for displaying the current position on a display screen in an overlapping manner,
The control means includes
Scroll candidate road extracting means for extracting a scrollable road candidate (hereinafter referred to as a scroll candidate road) from the map displayed on the screen and displaying it on the display screen together with the map;
When one of the scroll candidate roads is selected, a cross-cursor that crosses the vicinity of the center of the screen left, right, up and down is displayed, and the map range to be displayed from the road data of the scroll candidate road with the vicinity of the intersection of the cross cursors as a reference point Display range calculating means for calculating and displaying a map;
An index indicating a scroll direction that can be selected based on a direction attribute of road data of the scroll candidate road with respect to the cross cursor is displayed, and a map that is currently displayed in the scroll direction defined by the selected index is displayed. A navigation device comprising scroll means for scrolling.

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