JP2011027692A - Navigation apparatus and navigation program - Google Patents

Abstract

<P>PROBLEM TO BE SOLVED: To enable a search based on abbreviated names with a smaller storage capacity. <P>SOLUTION: An abbreviated name of a facility is expressed by a letter string containing part of the pronunciation of the name of the facility. Accordingly, the amount of data on the abbreviated name is made smaller not by storing letter data representing letters constituting the abbreviated name but by storing, as abbreviated name information, information that has been stored as spot information and specifies the positions of letters constituting the pronunciation of the name. For example, for the pronunciation of a facility "toukyou/patento" and its abbreviated name "toupate", "2/2" is stored as abbreviated name information. <P>COPYRIGHT: (C)2011,JPO&INPIT

Description

  The present invention relates to a navigation device and a navigation program, for example, to a technique for searching for a target facility from its abbreviation.

In recent years, navigation devices have become widespread and have a destination search function, a route search function to a destination point, a guidance function for a searched route, and the like.
In such a navigation apparatus, a facility (destination) is searched in order to display a map of a destination for route search and a desired facility existing around the current position.
When a facility search is performed, it is generally performed based on the official name of the facility, but it is preferable for the user that a wide range of searches can be performed by various other viewpoints and methods.

For example, a technique described in Patent Document 1 has been proposed as a technique that enables a search using similar words.
In this technique, similar words (for example, “Sinema” and “Film”) that are predicted to be input to a search word (for example, “Eiga”) are stored in advance, and not only the input search word but also A technique for searching for a destination including similar words has been proposed.

Further, when searching for a desired facility, it is convenient to be able to search from the abbreviation of the name of each facility in addition to searching by an official name or similar words.
However, in addition to commonly used abbreviations, there are many abbreviations used in limited areas, and there are cases where a plurality of abbreviations exist for one name.
Therefore, if a character string (reading data) representing a name or similar word is saved as search data for abbreviations so that it can be searched after similar as well as the official name, the amount of data to be stored becomes enormous There is.

JP 2005-265688 A

  Therefore, an object of the present invention is to enable retrieval based on abbreviations with a smaller storage capacity.

(1) In invention of Claim 1, the information storage means which memorize | stores the spot information containing a name, the abbreviation information storage means which memorize | stores the abbreviation of the name, the search word input means which receives the input of a search word, Search means for searching for a name and abbreviation corresponding to the received search word, search result display means for displaying a search result corresponding to the search word, and selection receiving means for receiving selection of the displayed search result And the abbreviation information storage means stores abbreviation information for specifying the abbreviation of the name at the position of a character constituting the reading of the name.
(2) In the invention described in claim 2, the search means searches for the abbreviation when a search result of a name corresponding to the accepted search word is equal to or less than a predetermined number. A navigation device according to 1 is provided.
(3) In the invention described in claim 3, the names are delimited in units having a predetermined meaning, and the abbreviation information stored in the abbreviation information storage means is continuous from the first character of the delimiter of the names. The navigation device according to claim 1, wherein the position of the character is specified by the number of characters to be provided.
(4) In the invention according to claim 4, the abbreviation information stored in the abbreviation information storage means includes the number of characters used representing the number of characters of one character or a continuous character string used for the abbreviation in reading the character string. The navigation apparatus according to claim 1 or 2, wherein the position of the character is specified by the number of unused characters that represents the number of one character or consecutive characters that are not used in the abbreviation.
(5) In the invention according to claim 5, in a computer comprising information storage means for storing point information including a name and abbreviation information storage means for storing an abbreviation of the name, a search for accepting an input of a search word A word input function, a search function for searching for names and abbreviations corresponding to the received search terms, a search result display function for displaying search results corresponding to the search terms, and selection of the displayed search results A navigation program for realizing a selection acceptance function on a computer, wherein the abbreviation information storage function stores abbreviation information for specifying an abbreviation of the name at a position of a character constituting the reading of the name; A navigation program is provided.

  According to the present invention, the point information including the name and the abbreviation information that specifies the abbreviation of the name by the position of the characters constituting the reading of the name are stored, and the abbreviation and name corresponding to the accepted search word are searched The abbreviation search can be performed with a smaller data storage amount.

It is a system configuration figure of a navigation device concerning this embodiment. 5 is an explanatory diagram showing an example of a logical configuration of a destination data file 52. FIG. It is a flowchart showing search processing. It is explanatory drawing which illustrated the response | compatibility with the number of unused characters and a control code.

Hereinafter, a preferred embodiment of the navigation device of the present invention will be described in detail with reference to FIGS.
(1) Outline of Embodiment In the navigation device of the present embodiment, abbreviation information for searching from abbreviations is stored in point information for setting a destination and searching for surrounding facilities.
By the way, an abbreviation of a certain facility is generally expressed by a character string using a part of characters (reading) constituting the name (a remaining character string with a part omitted).
Therefore, in the present embodiment, as the abbreviation information, the character data itself representing the characters constituting the abbreviation is not stored, but the reading of the name stored as point information for normal name search is configured. The information for specifying the position of the character is saved as abbreviation information, thereby reducing abbreviation data.

In the present embodiment, as a method of specifying the position of the characters that constitute the name reading, each position is determined by the position of the first character of the character string that is used as an abbreviation in the name reading and the number of the character strings. Specify the character position.
Here, the position of the first character of the character string is specified as follows. The point information of the present embodiment is divided into character strings in units such as a specific meaning and accent such as “Tokyo / Patento / Land” for the name “Tokyo Patent Land” as well as the reading characters. Yes.
Therefore, the start position of the delimited character string is defined as the position of the start character of the character string used for the abbreviation.
This is because a character string that is continuous across a separator such as a semantic unit is not used as an abbreviation, and an abbreviation is often created by a combination of several characters from the beginning of a character string that is divided into semantic units. It depends. For example, in the case of “Tokyo Patent Land”, “Totola” and “Totoran” are not abbreviated, and “Topate” and “Topatera” are used and recognized as abbreviations.

Therefore, for example, “2/2” is stored as abbreviation information for the abbreviation “Toputera” and “2/2/1” is stored as abbreviation information for “Topatera”. The abbreviation information “/” is delimiter information corresponding to the reading of the name.
By saving the abbreviation information in this way, if the abbreviation is saved as “Toto / Pate / Ra” consisting of the character and the delimiter information, a total of 12 bytes of 5 characters and 2 symbols are required. If it is “2/2/1”, it can be reduced to a total of 5 bytes of 3 numbers and 2 symbols.

In addition, since a character string exceeding 9 characters is not used as an abbreviation as a continuous character string, and the abbreviation information is always a combination of character strings from 0 to 9, the delimiter information of the abbreviation information is omitted. Also good.
In this case, the storage capacity can be further reduced to 3 bytes of “221” as the abbreviation information of the abbreviation and “TOUPATE”.

When searching for abbreviations according to the present embodiment, “To”, “Patent”, and “Ra” are read from the reading “Tokyo / Patento / Land” corresponding to the abbreviation information “2/2/1”. A search is performed based on whether the abbreviation “To / Pate / Ra” matches the search character entered by the user.
However, the process of reading out each character from the abbreviation information is slower than the case where the character string “Toto / Pate / Ra” constituting the abbreviation is stored in advance.
For this reason, when a delay in the response to the user operation becomes obvious due to a delay in processing speed, a normal search for searching for a facility from a reading of a name with respect to a search character is performed first, and a candidate ( Abbreviation search may be performed when the number N of search results is equal to or less than a predetermined number n. The predetermined number n is arbitrary, for example, n = 0, 3, 5,..., And may be settable by the user. The predetermined number n may be set to Q−1 or less when the number of search results that can be displayed on one screen is Q, although the search results (facility names) are displayed as a list.

(2) Details of Embodiment FIG. 1 is a system configuration diagram of a navigation apparatus to which this embodiment is applied.
The navigation device is mounted on a vehicle and includes a current position detection device 10, an information processing control device 20, an input / output device 40, and an information storage device 50 as shown in FIG.

The current position detection device 10 is configured as follows.
The azimuth sensor 12 is a means for detecting an angle that has changed relative to a reference angle (absolute azimuth). In this embodiment, a gyro sensor that detects a change in angle using an angular velocity is used. Yes. Note that an optical rotation sensor attached to the rotating part of the handle, a rotary resistance volume, or an angle sensor attached to the wheel part may be used. Further, the direction sensor 12 may be, for example, a geomagnetic sensor that detects in which direction the vehicle is located from detection in the N direction based on a magnet, and may be a means for detecting an absolute direction.

The distance sensor 13 is a means that can measure the moving distance of the vehicle, and for example, a sensor that detects and counts the rotation of a wheel or a sensor that detects acceleration and integrates it twice.
The GPS (Global Positioning System) receiver 14 is a device that receives a signal from an artificial satellite, and includes various signals such as signal transmission time, position information of the receiver, moving speed of the receiver, and traveling direction of the receiver. Information can be obtained.

  The information processing control device 20 performs calculation and control based on information input from the current position detection device 10 and the input / output device 40 and information stored in the information storage device 50, and displays the calculation result on the display 42 and the printer 43. Or it is a means to control to output to output means, such as the speaker 44. FIG.

The information processing control device 20 is configured as follows.
The central processing unit (CPU) 21 performs overall calculation and control of the entire navigation device.
The ROM 22 is a program related to navigation such as search for a route to a destination, display guidance and voice guidance, search word input support according to the present embodiment, a normal search function by name reading, an abbreviation search function by abbreviation, and a search Various programs such as a processing program that exhibits a result display function are stored.
The ROM 22 may be divided into a first ROM and a second ROM, and a navigation program related to voice guidance may be stored in the second ROM, and other programs may be stored in the first ROM.

  The RAM 24 stores information input by the user, such as destination information and passage point information input from the input device 41, and results calculated by the CPU 21 based on the user input information and route search It is a storage means for storing the map result read or the map information read from the information storage device 50.

The communication interface 25 is means for inputting / outputting various information via the transmission path 45. Specifically, the GPS receiver 14, the input device 41, the printer 43, and the information storage device 50 are connected via the transmission path 45.
The timepiece 28 is configured by using, for example, a crystal resonator, and clocks time or provides operation timing of each part of the navigation device by oscillation.
In addition, an image processor dedicated to image processing for processing vector information processed by the CPU 21 into image information, an image memory for storing image information processed by the image processor, and audio information read from the information storage device 50 are processed. However, a voice processor dedicated to voice processing to be output to the speaker 44 may be provided.

  The information processing control device 20 is configured as described above, and the navigation program stored in the information storage device 50 is executed by the CPU 21 so that the destination facility (including the landmark), the current location, Various functions as a navigation device such as normal search and abbreviation search for facilities around the destination are exhibited.

The input / output device 40 includes an input device 41 for inputting data such as a search term, a destination, a passage point, and a search condition by a user, a display 42 for displaying an image, a printer 43 for printing information, and a speaker for outputting sound. 44.
The display 42 displays a map around the current location and a travel route to the destination.
Note that the input / output device 40 may not include the printer 43.

The input device 41 includes, for example, a touch panel, a touch switch, a joystick, a key switch, and the like.
Although the input device 41 of this embodiment is provided with a touch panel and is not illustrated, when the user touches various display areas and input buttons (keys) displayed on the display 42 according to various screens, Corresponding information is entered.
In the search screen in the present embodiment, a character button in which each character of 50 sounds for the user to input a desired search word is displayed, an input character display field in which each character input by the character button is displayed, A completion button or the like for confirming the input search word is displayed.
When the search word is input by the user and the completion button is selected, the information processing control device 20 displays on the display 42 the names of candidate facilities that are the search results of the search (normal search and abbreviation search) based on the determined search word. A list is displayed.

The information storage device 50 is connected to the information processing control device 20 via the transmission path 45.
The information storage device 50 stores a map data file 51, a destination data file 52, other data files 53, and the like.
The information storage device 50 is generally composed of an optical storage medium such as a DVD-ROM, a CD-ROM, or a magnetic storage medium such as a hard disk, but various types such as a magneto-optical disk and various semiconductor memories. You may comprise with an information storage medium.
Information that needs to be rewritten may be constituted by a rewritable hard disk or flash memory, and other fixed information may be a ROM such as a CD-ROM or DVD-ROM.

The map data file 51 stores map data, road data, destination data, guidance point data, detailed destination data, and other data as various data necessary for map display, route search, and route guidance in navigation. .
As map data, a national road map, a road map of each region, a house map, or the like is stored. The road map is composed of roads such as main arterial roads, expressways, narrow streets, and ground targets (facility etc.). A house map is a city map in which a figure representing an outer shape of a ground building, a road name, and the like are displayed. The narrow street is, for example, a relatively narrow road having a road width equal to or less than a predetermined value below a national road or prefectural road.
As for the map data, a map of a predetermined range including a current vehicle position and a point designated by the user is displayed on the display 42 at a predetermined scale. On this map, the current position of the vehicle and the designated point are displayed.

The road data is data regarding roads such as the position and type of each road, the number of lanes, and the connection relationship between the roads, and is composed of node data and link data. The road data is used for route search and map matching, and is also used when the searched travel route is displayed over the map data.
The node data is data representing geographic coordinate data of each node used for route search on a map.
For example, a road connection point such as an intersection is represented by a node, and a road between the connection points (that is, a non-branching area of the road) is represented by a link. In this way, it functions as route data representing the connection relation of the node data route.
In addition, for those where travel is restricted due to traffic restrictions, such as entry prohibition and one-way traffic, attributes indicating this are given to each link, but these attributes should be given to intersection nodes. Also good.
Node data is supplementary to characteristic points between intersections (for example, points at the start, middle and end of a curve, and points where the altitude changes), along with intersection nodes that are always set for each intersection. There is an auxiliary node that may be set to The intersection node includes information related to the intersection such as the geographical position coordinates and name of the intersection.

The destination data is data such as the locations and names of places and facilities that are likely to be destinations such as major tourist spots, buildings, and companies / businesses described in the telephone directory.
Guidance point data is guidance data of a point where guidance is required, such as the content of a guidance display board installed on a road and guidance of a branch point.
Detailed destination data is detailed data related to each facility, etc. stored in the destination data, for example, each tenant's data in a general building, facility parking lots, entrance / exit information, etc. are associated with each destination data. Stored separately. Note that the detailed destination data may be stored together in the destination data.

  The other data file 53 includes, for example, image data of a photograph showing places where visual indications such as various facilities and sightseeing spots or major intersections are required, and when a set travel route is guided by voice. Audio data and the like are stored.

The destination data file 52 is a data file that stores a destination facility and various information related to the facility in association with each other, and stores the name and abbreviation information of the facility.
In this embodiment, the destination data file 52 functions as a storage unit that stores point information including a name.

FIG. 2 is a diagram showing an example of a logical configuration of the destination data file 52.
As shown in FIG. 2, the destination data file 52 includes point information and abbreviated information composed of “name (reading)”, “coordinates”, “address (reading)”, “phone number”, and other information. , Stored for each facility (including landmarks).

  “Name (reading)” is the name (notation) of the facility to be searched in the normal search and its reading. For example, if there is a name written as “Tokyo Patent”, “Tokyo / Patento” is stored in the reading.

“/” Included in the reading is a symbol (separation information) representing a delimitation position obtained by dividing the corresponding name by a predetermined unit such as meaning.
For example, the name “Tokyo Patent” is divided into two character strings in the semantic units “Tokyo” and “Patento”.
Note that “/” as the delimiter information is an example, and other symbols may be used.

  The reading of the name functions as a search key for a normal search, and a name including the input search word in the reading is searched as a candidate. In this case, a match / non-match with the search word is searched by a forward match for each separated character string.

“Coordinates” are the coordinates of the location of the search target related to the point information, and are set using, for example, latitude and longitude.
“Address (reading)” is a search target address related to point information and a hiragana notation of the reading. The reading is divided by the delimiter information “/” like the reading of the name, and functions as a search key when performing address search.
“Telephone number” is a search target telephone number related to point information. The location information can also be searched by the telephone number.

  The “abbreviation information” is information for obtaining an abbreviation from the reading of each name, and is information (location correspondence information) that specifies where each character constituting the abbreviation is arranged in the reading of the name. . That is, it is information indicating which character of the name reading is used to form the abbreviation.

Here, a case where the abbreviations are stored in the same manner as the above-described reading of the name and a case where the abbreviations are stored according to the abbreviation information in the present embodiment will be described.
For the storage of abbreviations, the name (notation) of the facility is “Tokyo patent”, the reading (including delimiter information) that is the search key in the normal search is “Tokyo / Patento”, and the abbreviation is “Toupate” An example will be described.

(1) Saving Abbreviated Character Data In this case, the abbreviated data to be saved is 4 double-byte characters “to”, “u”, “pa”, and “te”, so 2 × 4 = 8 as character information. Bytes are needed. Further, if the delimiter information “/” = 1 byte is stored in accordance with the reading delimiter, the capacity for storing the abbreviation “To / Pate” is 9 bytes in total.

(2) Abbreviation information storage form in the present embodiment In this embodiment, as shown in “abbreviation information” in FIG. 2, the name reading “Tokyo / Patento” is separated by separation information “/”. Each of the character strings “Tokyo” and “Patento” is composed of numbers representing the number of characters from the first character.
In other words, the abbreviation “To / Pate” consists of the first two characters “Tou” of the first character string “Tokyo” and the first two characters of the second character string “Patento”. As shown in FIG. 2, “2/2” is stored as abbreviation information.
In this way, instead of storing the characters that make up the abbreviation, the position of each character used in the abbreviation of the name reading characters is represented by a character string (hereinafter referred to as “within the delimiter”). It consists of the number of characters from the beginning of the character string and the delimiter information.
As a result, the abbreviation information corresponding to the abbreviation “To / Pate” only needs 3 bytes of two numbers “2/2” and one control symbol, and is 9 bytes when character information is saved. Compared to this, the amount of stored data can be greatly reduced.

In this embodiment, as shown in FIG. 2, there is not always one abbreviation information for one name (facility), and there may be a plurality of abbreviations, and each abbreviation information has a predetermined symbol (in this embodiment, “,”).
For example, there are two abbreviations for the reading “Tokyo / Patento”: “2/2” = “Tou / Pate” and “2/1” = “Tou / Pa”. The abbreviation information of “Tokyo / Patento / Land” includes “0/2/2” = “Pate / Ran” and “1/1/1” = “To / Pa / Ra”. Although not illustrated in FIG. 2, there are of course names (facility) for which abbreviation information does not exist.

Note that the number L of characters used in abbreviations from the beginning of the character string in the delimiter is usually about 0 to 3 characters.
Therefore, by displaying the number of characters L from the beginning of the character string in the delimiter as a binary number, the number of consecutive characters 0 to 3 can be stored in 2 bits.
That is, the number 0 is represented by 00 in binary notation, and the number of each character is represented by 2 bits in the same manner, such as the number 1 is 01, the number 2 is 10, the number 3 is 11, and so on.
In this case, since the abbreviation “To / Pate” is the number of characters 2 / number of characters 2, the abbreviation information is “10/10”, which is a total of 12 bits (2 bits + 2 bits + 1 byte), further reducing the amount of stored data. it can.

  In this case, it is also possible to express more numbers in binary numbers by expressing the number L of consecutive characters with m bits (3 ≦ m ≦ 7). However, although it is possible to express from 0 to 127 when m = 7, it is sufficient to express from 0 to 7 by setting m = 3 when actually used as abbreviation information.

In the above-described storage format of abbreviation information (including the above-described modification), the case has been described in which the delimiter information “/” is also stored. In this embodiment, each number represented by the abbreviation information is represented by the corresponding delimiter character. It is specified as the number of characters used from the beginning of the column.
Moreover, in the said modification, it is prescribed | regulated that the number of continuous characters is represented by a 2-bit unit.
For this reason, since the abbreviation information can be created from the abbreviation information without necessarily saving the separator information “/” in the abbreviation information, the separator information may be omitted.
By omitting the abbreviation information, the data amount of the abbreviation information can be further reduced by the number of 1 byte × separation information.

  Here, the correspondence between the numbers in the abbreviation information and the character strings in the separator corresponds to the order of the numbers in the abbreviation information and the order of the character strings in the separator. That is, the p-th number in the abbreviation information corresponds to the p-th character string in the delimiter in the reading of the name.

The facility search operation by the navigation device configured as described above will be described.
FIG. 3 is a flowchart showing search processing.
On the search screen, characters to be searched are sequentially input from the touch panel of the input device 41 by the user, and when the completion button is selected, the information processing control device 20 is input when the completion button is selected. A character string is determined as a search word (step 11), and a normal search is performed (step 13).

That is, in the normal search, the information processing control device 20 searches for a facility name that includes the confirmed search word in the name reading.
In this search, a facility name that matches the search word is extracted as a search candidate with respect to the character string in the delimiter divided in units of delimiter information.

In the actual normal search, instead of starting the search by the search word when the search word is fixed, every time the user sequentially inputs characters from the touch panel of the input device 41, the characters that have been input up to that point Assuming the column as a search word, narrowing down candidates by extracting facility names that are search candidates by performing a normal search.
When the next character is further input, further narrowing is performed by assuming that a character string including a new input character is a search word from the extracted search candidates (facility names).
When the search word is determined by selecting the completion button, a final search candidate is extracted from the search candidates (facility names) narrowed down to the last minute.
In this way, by narrowing down candidates in advance by a temporary normal search using a character string that has been input in advance before the completion button is selected, candidate display after the completion button has been selected can be performed more quickly. .

Next, the information processing control device 20 determines whether or not the number N of facility names extracted as search candidates by the normal search is equal to or less than a predetermined number n (step 15).
When the extracted facility name number N is n or less (step 15; Y), the information processing control device 20 performs an abbreviation search for extracting a facility name whose abbreviation matches the confirmed search word.

That is, the information processing control device 20 creates an abbreviation of the facility from the reading of the name of each facility and the abbreviation information thereof, and extracts the facility name that matches the search word.
For example, as shown in FIG. 2, the facility name reading “Tokyo / Patento” and the two abbreviations “2/2” and “2/1” are used to create “Topate” and “Topa”. If the search term is “Topara”, the abbreviation information does not match and is not extracted.

  On the other hand, reading the facility name “Tokyo / Patento / Land”, the abbreviation “0/2/2” from the abbreviation “Patelan”, and the abbreviation “1/1/1” from the abbreviation “Topara”. create. In this case, since the latter matches the search term “Topara”, the facility information is used as a search result, and the facility name “Tokyo Patent Land” is extracted.

In this embodiment, whether the abbreviation created from the reading of the facility name and the abbreviation information matches or does not match the search word is determined by whether or not there is a forward match. Alternatively, it may be determined whether or not there is a forward match in units of character strings (character strings in the delimiters attached to abbreviations) delimited in units of delimiter information “/”.
Thereby, for example, even when the search word “pateto” is input, the facility name “Tokyo patent” can be extracted with the abbreviation “toe / pate” as a search result.

When the result of the normal search is N> n (step 15; N), or after the abbreviation search (step 17) is completed, the information processing control device 20 displays the search result on the display 42 (step 19).
That is, the names of the facilities extracted by the search are displayed as a list on the display 42.

It should be noted that the predetermined number n set to determine whether or not to perform an abbreviation search is set to n> 1 (n = 0 is not satisfied), and candidates (search results) searched by the normal search are set. When the number N is 1 or more, the facility name by the normal search and the facility name by the abbreviation search exist as search results. In this case, the information processing control device 20 gives priority to the list display order of the normal search. However, conversely, the result of the abbreviation search may be prioritized, and the user may be allowed to select which is prioritized.
Furthermore, when both search results of normal search and abbreviation search exist, they may be displayed so that they can be distinguished from each other. For example, the letters “(abbreviated)” are displayed after the facility name extracted by the abbreviation search.

  When the user selects a facility name listed on the display 42, the information processing control device 20 receives a facility corresponding to the selected facility name as a search result (step 21), and ends the search process.

  Thereafter, the information processing control device 20 performs a route search by setting the facility received as a search result as a destination based on the user's operation, displays detailed information on the facility on the display 42, or displays the display 42. The location of the facility is displayed on the map displayed in.

Next, a case where the search result is used for setting the destination will be described.
The navigation device detects the current position by the current position detection device 10, reads the map information around the current position from the map data file 51 of the information storage device 50, and displays it on the display 42.
When the facility is searched based on the input from the input device 41, the information processing control device 20 searches for (calculates) a plurality of candidates for the travel route from the current position to the destination, and displays the map displayed on the display 42. When displayed on the screen and the driver selects one of the travel routes, the travel route is acquired by storing the selected travel route in the RAM 24.

The information processing control device 20 transmits the current vehicle position (or the input departure point) and the destination set by the normal search and / or the abbreviated name search according to the present embodiment to the information processing center. The travel route may be acquired by receiving the travel route to the destination searched in (1). In this case, communication of the destination and the travel route is performed by wireless communication via the communication interface 25.
In addition, using an information processing device such as a personal computer at home or at work or a PDA (Personal Digital Assistant / personal digital assistant), the travel route from the departure point to the destination is searched and stored in a storage medium such as a USB memory. However, it may be acquired via the storage medium reader. The storage medium reading device in this case is connected to the information processing control device 20 via the transmission path 45.

When the vehicle travels, route guidance is performed by tracking the current position detected by the current position detection device 10.
In the route guidance, the vehicle position on the map is specified by map matching between the road data corresponding to the searched driving route and the current position detected by the current position detection device 10, and a map around the vehicle current position is displayed on the display 42. Then, the searched travel route is displayed on the map, and a current position mark indicating the current position of the vehicle is displayed on the map.
Also, based on the relationship between the searched travel route and the current position, the necessity of guidance, that is, whether or not guidance for a travel route such as a predetermined route change point and direction guidance is necessary when straight traveling continues for a predetermined distance or more, etc. Judgment is made, and if necessary, display on the display 42 and voice guidance are executed.

  As described above, according to the navigation device of the present embodiment, the abbreviation information necessary for the abbreviation search is stored by storing the abbreviation information that specifies the reading position of the facility name, not the character data representing the abbreviation. The amount of stored data can be reduced.

Also, in this embodiment, since abbreviation information that specifies the position of the character is stored instead of the abbreviation character, it is necessary to create an abbreviation from the reading of the name and the abbreviation information at the time of abbreviation search. Since the abbreviation search is performed when the search result number N is less than or equal to the predetermined number n, the search delay can be reduced.
If 1 <N ≦ n, the abbreviation search is performed with the normal search result displayed first, and after the abbreviation search is completed, the abbreviation search result is additionally displayed to the user. You can avoid feeling the delay.

Although one embodiment of the navigation device of the present invention has been described above, the present invention is not limited to the described embodiment, and various modifications can be made within the scope described in each claim.
(1) Although the abbreviation information with a fixed length is stored in the embodiment, the abbreviation information may be stored with a variable length.
That is, from the first character of the facility name reading, the number of characters (used characters) that are used consecutively in the abbreviation (number of used characters) and the number of characters that are not used consecutively (unused characters) (number of unused characters) And abbreviation information are displayed.
However, when an unused character comes last, the number of unused characters is omitted. That is, the end of the abbreviation information is the number of characters used.

In this case, the number of characters to be used is constituted by ordinary numeric data, and the number of unused characters is constituted by a predetermined control code.
FIG. 4 is an explanatory diagram illustrating the correspondence between the number of unused characters and control codes.
As shown in FIG. 4, the ROM 22 and the information storage device 50 store a table in which the control code “◯” is set to the number of unused characters 0, “Δ” is set to 0,.

For example, the abbreviation “patenine” for the name “paten tonema” uses two characters from the beginning of the reading, skips the next two characters, and uses the next two characters. □ 2 ”. In this case, the character data “Pateshine” can be reduced to 3 bytes compared to 8 bytes of 4 characters.
In addition, when the head of the text is an unused character (5 characters), as in the abbreviation “Patelan” for the reading “Tokyo Patrando”, the abbreviation information starts with a code indicating the number of unused characters. 2 □ 2 ”, which can be reduced to 4 bytes.

In this modification, the number of discontinuities is represented by half-width numbers (1 byte). However, as described in the modification in the embodiment, the discontinuity number is represented by a binary number display by 2 bits or m bits (3 ≦ m ≦ 7). You may do it.
Thereby, the data amount of abbreviation information can further be reduced.

(2) Further, as the abbreviation information, the position of the character used for the abbreviation information among the characters constituting the reading of the facility name may be individually specified.
For example, in the case of a facility with the name “Tokyo Patent Land”, when the reading information is “Tokyo Patrando” and the abbreviation is “Topate”, “1267” is stored as abbreviation information. The numbers 1, 2,... Represented by the abbreviation information are used to specify (position specification) which character is present at the position from the top of the reading information “Tokyo Panto Land”.
In this case, since the number can be expressed by 1 byte, the data amount of the abbreviation information is 4 characters and 4 bytes. Ordinarily, when character data representing an abbreviation is saved, 8 bytes are required for 4 characters, whereas the data amount can be halved.

In the above example, the position of each character is specified by specifying the position of each character, but the character string used consecutively in the abbreviation is the reading of the name. If the characters are consecutive, the character positions may be specified by the number of characters that are continuous with the leading position.
For example, the abbreviation information “1362” for “Tokyo Palace and Land” represents three characters that are consecutive from the first character in 1 and 3, and two characters that are consecutive from the sixth character from the beginning. As a result, six characters of “Toki Pate” can be represented by four numbers of 4 bytes of “1362”.

  Also in this modification, the data amount of the abbreviation information can be further reduced by displaying numbers in binary numbers.

(3) Further, in the embodiment described above, when a delay in response to a user operation becomes obvious due to a delay in processing speed, a normal search for searching for a facility from a reading of a name for a search character is performed first. Although the case where the abbreviation search is performed when the number of candidates (search results) searched by the normal search is equal to or less than a predetermined number n (for example, n = 0, 3, 5,...) Has been described, the abbreviation search is performed at the next timing. You may make it perform.
In other words, the abbreviation search may be performed when the narrowing by the normal search using the characters input so far is completed between the operations by the user, that is, in the remaining time by the normal search.
Of course, when the delay in processing speed due to the normal search is such that the user cannot feel it, both the normal search and the abbreviation search may be performed in parallel.

(4) In the embodiment described above, the case where the abbreviation search is performed after the normal search is completed has been described. However, when there is no problem with the processing speed, both may be processed simultaneously (in parallel). .
In particular, as described in the modified example of the normal search, even before the completion button is selected, each time a character string is sequentially input from the touch panel of the input device 41, the facility names as search candidates are sequentially narrowed down. In the same way, narrowing by abbreviation search may be sequentially performed every time a character is input.

(5) In the embodiment and the modification described above, the vehicle navigation device is used. However, a walking navigation device may be used.
Furthermore, it is good also as various search devices (sightseeing spot guidance, an electronic dictionary, etc.) which have a display screen.

DESCRIPTION OF SYMBOLS 10 Current position detection apparatus 12 Direction sensor 13 Distance sensor 14 GPS receiver 20 Information processing control apparatus 21 CPU
22 ROM
23 Sensor input interface 24 RAM
25 Communication Interface 28 Clock 40 Input / Output Device 41 Input Device 42 Display 43 Printer 44 Speaker 50 Information Storage Device 51 Map Data File 52 Destination Data File 53 Other Data Files

Claims (5)

Information storage means for storing point information including a name;
Abbreviation information storage means for storing abbreviations of the names;
A search term input means for accepting input of a search term;
Search means for searching for names and abbreviations corresponding to the accepted search terms;
Search result display means for displaying a search result corresponding to the search term;
Selection accepting means for accepting selection of the displayed search results,
The abbreviation information storage means stores abbreviation information for specifying an abbreviation of a name at a position of a character constituting the reading of the name.
The search means searches for the abbreviation when a search result of a name corresponding to the received search word is a predetermined number or less.
The navigation device according to claim 1.
The names are delimited by units that have a predetermined meaning,
The abbreviation information stored in the abbreviation information storage means specifies the position of the character by the number of consecutive characters from the first character of the name separator,
The navigation device according to claim 1 or 2, wherein
The abbreviation information stored in the abbreviation information storage means includes, in reading the character string, one character used for the abbreviation or the number of characters used to represent the number of characters in the continuous character string, and one character not used in the abbreviation or one continuous character. The position of the character is specified by the number of unused characters representing the number of characters of
The navigation device according to claim 1 or 2, wherein
In a computer comprising information storage means for storing point information including a name, and abbreviation information storage means for storing the abbreviation of the name,
Search term input function that accepts input of search terms,
A search function for searching for names and abbreviations corresponding to the accepted search terms;
A search result display function for displaying a search result corresponding to the search term;
A selection acceptance function for accepting selection of the displayed search results;
Is a navigation program for realizing the above on a computer,
The abbreviation information storage function stores abbreviation information that identifies the abbreviation of the name at the position of the characters that constitute the reading of the name.
A navigation program characterized by that.

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