JP4685049B2 - Map display device, map display method and program - Google Patents

Description

  The present invention relates to a map display system that displays a map including POI (Point of Interest) information.

Conventionally, a map display device capable of displaying a point (POI) such as a restaurant or facility on a map is known. For example, Patent Literature 1 discloses a map display device that displays facilities on a map at a scale that is easy for a user to see. The map display device described in Patent Document 1 automatically changes the scale so that 1 to 50 facilities are included in the displayed range. In addition to Patent Document 1, various devices for displaying a map including a POI are known.
Japanese Patent Laid-Open No. 11-73099

  As described above, an example of simply displaying a POI is known, but an example of displaying an area where a POI group having a common feature exists is not known. In order to display a common POI group area, it is conceivable to generate an area including a POI having a common feature and display it as a common feature area.

  However, when an area including the same POI is displayed according to the actual position of the POI on the map, the following situation is expected when a plurality of POI groups having different characteristics exist in the display range. Is done. That is, it is expected that it is difficult to grasp the characteristics of the POI group because areas having the same characteristics are displayed in succession or areas having different characteristics overlap each other.

  In view of the above background, an object of the present invention is to provide a map display device that can easily grasp the characteristics of a displayed area.

  The map display device of the present invention includes a point information storage unit that stores information about points existing on a map, a display range reception unit that receives designation of a display range of a map, and information about points that exist within the display range. A clustering processing unit that is obtained from the point information storage unit and classifies a plurality of points existing in the display range into clusters having a common feature based on information on the point, and a plurality of points included in the same cluster A common feature area demarcating unit that demarcates an area including the center of gravity of the point as a common feature area having common features, and a map display unit that displays the map of the display range by superimposing the common feature area.

  By defining a common feature area including the center of gravity of a plurality of points, for example, even if points classified into the same cluster are dispersed within the display range, a group of common feature areas can be defined. . By displaying the common feature area defined in this way on the map, it is possible to easily grasp the place where the common feature area exists.

  In the map display device of the present invention, the common feature area defining unit determines a shape of the common feature area based on variations of a plurality of points included in the same cluster, and defines the common feature area of the shape. Good.

  Thus, by displaying the common feature area having a shape based on the variation of a plurality of points included in the same cluster, it is possible to grasp the spread of the common feature area.

  In the map display device of the present invention, the common feature area demarcating section includes a first axis extending in the direction of the center of gravity from the center of the display range, and a second axis passing through the center of gravity and orthogonal to the first axis. An ellipse having an axis as a diameter may be defined as a common feature area.

  By displaying the common feature area by an ellipse in this way, the spread of the common feature area can be grasped, and calculation processing for defining the common feature area can be easily performed.

  The map display device of the present invention includes a relative position calculation unit that calculates a relative position representing a positional relationship among a plurality of points included in the same cluster in a common feature area, and the map display unit includes the relative position calculation unit. You may display the said point based on the relative position calculated | required by.

  Thus, by displaying the relative position of each point in the common feature area, the positional relationship between the points constituting the common feature area can be grasped.

  The map display device of the present invention may include a point feature display unit that displays the strength of the feature of each point included in the common feature area.

  Thus, by displaying the strength of the feature at each point, the features at a plurality of points can be compared. The point feature display unit may display the strength of the feature of each point simultaneously with the display of the map by the map display unit, or selectively display the strength of the feature of each point with the display of the map by the map display unit. May be displayed. When displaying the map and the strength of the features of each point selectively, when the common feature area on the map is clicked, the feature strength of the points included in the common feature area is displayed. An interface may be adopted.

  A map display device according to another aspect of the present invention includes a display range receiving unit that receives designation of a display range of a map, and the centers of gravity of a plurality of points having common characteristics among points existing in the display range A map display unit that displays the area superimposed on the map of the display range.

  Thus, by displaying the common feature area including the centers of gravity of a plurality of points superimposed on the map, it is possible to easily grasp the place where the common feature area exists.

  The map display method of the present invention includes a step of preparing a point information storage unit that stores information related to points existing on a map, a step of accepting designation of a display range of the map, and information regarding points existing within the display range. Is obtained from the point information storage unit, and a plurality of points existing in the display range are classified into clusters having a common feature based on information on the points, and a plurality of points included in the same cluster Defining an area including the center of gravity of the point as a common feature area having a common feature, and displaying a map of the display range by superimposing the common feature area.

  With this configuration, similarly to the map display device of the present invention, an area including the center of gravity of a plurality of points is displayed as a common feature area on the map, so that a place with the common feature area can be easily grasped. Various configurations of the map display device of the present invention can also be applied to the map display method of the present invention.

  The program of the present invention is a program for displaying a map including information relating to a point, the step of receiving a designation of a display range of the map on a computer, and information relating to a point existing in the display range on a map. And a step of classifying a plurality of points existing in the display range into clusters having a common feature based on the information on the points, acquired from the point information storage unit storing information on the points existing in A step of defining an area including the centers of gravity of a plurality of points included in the cluster as a common feature area having a common feature and a step of displaying the map of the display range by superimposing the common feature area are executed.

  With this configuration, similarly to the map display device of the present invention, an area including the center of gravity of a plurality of points is displayed as a common feature area on the map, so that a place with the common feature area can be easily grasped. Various configurations of the map display device of the present invention can also be applied to the program of the present invention.

  Since the present invention defines a common feature area including the center of gravity of a plurality of points, it is possible to define a group of common feature areas and to easily grasp an area having a common feature. .

  Hereinafter, a map display system according to an embodiment of the present invention will be described with reference to the drawings. In the following description, a navigation device will be described as an example of a map display system. However, the present invention is not limited to the navigation device, and can be applied to, for example, a system that provides a map via the Internet. It is.

(First embodiment)
FIG. 1 is a diagram showing a navigation device 1 which is a map display system according to an embodiment of the present invention. The navigation device 1 includes a map information storage unit 10 that stores map information, a POI information storage unit 12 that stores information related to a plurality of POIs existing on the map, and a display range input that accepts input of information specifying a display range. A unit 14 and a map display unit 24 for displaying a map in a specified range are provided.

  The display range input unit 14 accepts designation of a location that is the center of the display range. The display range input unit 14 is connected to the current position acquisition unit 16 and receives the current position of the vehicle acquired by the current position acquisition unit 16 as a location that is the center of the display range. Thereby, the navigation apparatus 1 can automatically display the surrounding map of the current position. Note that the display range input unit 14 may accept an input of an address or the like as a location that is the center of the display range.

  FIG. 2 is a diagram illustrating an example of data stored in the POI information storage unit 12. The POI information storage unit 12 stores POI “name”, “position”, and “feature” data in association with the “ID” that identifies the POI. The position of the POI is specified by longitude and latitude. The “feature” of the POI is, for example, POI type data such as a cafe, a restaurant, or a park, and data that describes the POI such as high-end, calm, and fashionable.

  In addition, the navigation device 1 according to the present embodiment performs clustering processing for clustering each point included in the display range based on the feature so that the features of the plurality of points in the display range can be grasped at a glance. A common feature area defining unit 20 for obtaining an area where a POI group having a common feature obtained by clustering is present, and a relative feature of each POI within the common feature area defined by the common feature area defining unit 20 A relative position calculation unit 22 for obtaining relative position information representing a specific position.

  The clustering processing unit 18 has a function of reading POI information within the display range input from the display range input unit 14 from the POI information storage unit 12 and clustering the POI based on the position and characteristics of the POI.

  FIG. 3 is a diagram for explaining an example of the clustering process. The vertical axis of the graph shown in FIG. 3 indicates the characteristics of each point, and the horizontal axis indicates the geographical positional relationship between the points. The vertical axis indicates that the predetermined feature becomes stronger toward the top. As shown in FIG. 3, the clustering processing unit 18 obtains the similarity of each point based on the strength of the feature and the positional relationship between the points, and groups nearby points on the graph shown in FIG. By doing so, a plurality of points having similar features and geographically close are classified into the same cluster.

  The clustering processing unit 18 is not limited to the method shown in FIG. For example, clustering can be performed using a SOM (Self-Organization-Map), a k-means method, and an expectation maximization (EM) algorithm.

  The common feature area defining unit 20 has a function of obtaining a common feature area where a POI included in the cluster obtained by the clustering process exists. Hereinafter, the common feature area defining unit 20 will be described in detail.

  FIG. 4 is a diagram illustrating an example of a map on which a POI is displayed. The POIs “C1” to “C7” indicated by triangles in the figure are clustered POIs based on the characteristics of coffee shops, and the POIs “R1” to “R8” indicated by squares are clustered based on the characteristics of restaurants POI.

  FIG. 5 is a diagram showing the common feature areas A1 and A2 of the POI shown in FIG. The process of the common feature area demarcating unit 20 will be described with reference to FIG. First, the common feature area defining unit 20 obtains the centroids of a plurality of POIs classified into the same cluster. In FIG. 5, the center of gravity G1 of the POI classified into the cluster of the coffee shop and the center of gravity G2 of the POI classified into the cluster of the restaurant are obtained. Next, the common feature area defining unit 20 defines a common feature area by an ellipse centered on the centroids G1 and G2. Here, a cluster of coffee shops will be described as an example.

  The common feature area demarcating unit 20 converts the position information of each POI “C1” to “C7” into coordinates (r, θ) in a polar coordinate system centered on the center O of the display range. Next, the common feature area defining unit 20 obtains the standard deviation (variation) of the radius r and the standard deviation of the angle θ of each POI “C1” to “C7”. Subsequently, the common feature area demarcating unit 20 sets a line segment L1 determined by the standard deviation of the radius r on a straight line from the center O toward the center of gravity G1, and sets an angle θ in a direction passing through the center of gravity G1 and orthogonal to the line segment L1. A line segment L2 determined by the standard deviation is set. The common feature area defining unit 20 defines an ellipse having a diameter of the line segment L1 and the line segment L2 and sets it as a common feature area. In the example illustrated in FIG. 5, an ellipse having the line segment L1 as the major axis and the line segment L2 as the minor axis is generated as the common feature area.

  The relative position calculation unit 22 has a function of calculating a relative position that expresses the positional relationship of a plurality of POIs included in the same cluster within the common feature area. Specifically, the relative position calculation unit 22 determines the relative position in the common feature area based on the deviation from the center of gravity of each POI.

  The map display unit 24 displays a map of the display range specified by the display range input unit 14 and is calculated by the common feature area defined by the common feature area definition unit 20 and the relative position calculation unit 22. It has a function to display the relative position.

  FIG. 6 is a diagram illustrating an example in which the relative position calculated by the relative position calculation unit 22 is displayed superimposed on the common feature area. Further, as shown in FIG. 6, the map display unit 24 displays labels L1 and L2 indicating the features of the area with attachment. The contents to be displayed on the labels L1 and L2 are determined by selecting a feature word that includes the features of the area from the feature words indicating the features of each point included in the area. In FIG. 6, POI “R1 ′” and “R2 ′” describe the true position of the POI for convenience of explanation (in actual screen display, POI “R1 ′” and “R2 ′” are displayed. Not) As can be seen from the fact that the display positions of the POIs “R1 ′” and “R2 ′” have moved to the POIs “R1” and “R2” in the common feature area in FIG. 6, the POI “R1” is displayed in the map display shown in FIG. "R2" does not indicate the actual POI position. The same applies to other POIs. The map display shown in FIG. 6 shows the relative position of the POI within the common feature area.

  FIG. 7 is a flowchart illustrating the operation of the navigation device 1 according to the first embodiment. The navigation device 1 first acquires the current position information by the current position acquisition unit 16, and accepts designation as a map display range with a predetermined range centered on the acquired current position information (S10). Next, the navigation device 1 reads the POI included in the display range from the POI information storage unit 12 (S12), and performs POI clustering using the position and features (S14). The navigation apparatus 1 obtains a common feature area where POIs classified into the same cluster exist (S16), and calculates a relative position representing the positional relationship of a plurality of POIs in the common feature area (S18). Then, the navigation device 1 displays a map of the input display range and displays the common feature area and the relative position of the POI in a superimposed manner (S20). The configuration and operation of the navigation device 1 according to the first embodiment have been described above.

  The navigation device 1 according to the first embodiment displays an elliptical common feature area centered on the centroids G1 and G2 so that areas having the same feature can be displayed as a group, and regional features can be displayed. Can be understood at a glance. For example, when the map shown in FIG. 4 is displayed by the conventional method, the restaurants R1 and R2 exist near the coffee shops C5 and C6, and the coffee shop C7 exists near the restaurants R3 and R4. When a common feature area is generated so as to include a common feature area, areas with different features overlap each other, and it is possible to grasp at a glance which feature area is in which direction. Is difficult. On the other hand, in the present embodiment, as shown in FIG. 6, there is a region with a strong restaurant feature in the upper right (front right direction) direction, and a region with a strong coffee shop feature in the left direction. Can easily grasp this.

  Moreover, since the navigation apparatus 1 of this Embodiment displays the relative position of each point in a common feature area, it can grasp | ascertain roughly the positional relationship of each point which comprises a common feature area. As shown in FIG. 6, the relative position of the POI displayed in the common feature area does not represent the actual position of the POI. However, if the user wants to know the characteristics of the region or determines the destination, In order to obtain this, it is not necessary to accurately grasp the position of each POI. As shown in FIG. 6, by indicating the relative position of each POI within the common feature area, it is convenient because the POI included in the common feature area can be grasped at a glance. The navigation device 1 may adopt a configuration in which when the POI shown in FIG. 6 is clicked, the clicked POI is set as a destination and a route to the POI is set.

  Also, when switching between the normal map display that displays the true POI position and the map display that shows the common feature area shown in FIG. 6, it shows how the POI gradually moves using animation. Also good.

FIG. 8 is a diagram illustrating an example of obtaining the position of the POI when performing the process of moving the POI by animation. In FIG. 8, POI “P1” indicates the true position of the POI, and POI “P2” indicates the position of the POI moved from the true position. Here, an angle formed by the POI “P1” and the center of gravity G1 across the center O is an angle θ1, and a difference between the distance from the center O to the center of gravity G1 and the distance from the center O to the POI “P1” is a distance r1. The angle θ2 formed by the POI “P2” and the center of gravity G1, and the difference (distance r2) between the distance from the center O to the center of gravity G1 and the distance from the center O to the POI “P2” (distance r2) is expressed as the degree of deformation α (0 <α ≦ 1). The position of POI “P2” is determined by obtaining the following equation using
θ2 = θ1 × α
r2 = r1 × α

  As can be seen from the above equation, when α = 1, the POI “P2” coincides with the true position “P1”, and the POI “P2” approaches the center of gravity G1 as α approaches zero. Accordingly, it is possible to realize an animation in which the POI approaches the center of gravity G1 by gradually approaching α, and the POI approaches the true position by gradually approaching alpha by 1. Note that the value of the deformation degree α may be operable by a slide bar or the like.

(Second Embodiment)
FIG. 9 is a diagram illustrating a configuration of the navigation device 2 according to the second embodiment of this invention. In addition to the configuration of the navigation device 1 of the first embodiment, the navigation device 2 of the second embodiment further includes a feature display unit 26 that displays the common feature area and the features of each POI included in the common feature area. I have. The feature display unit 26 has a function of reading information about POI from the POI information storage unit 12 and displaying the feature of POI based on the information about POI.

  FIG. 10 is a diagram illustrating a display example of features by the feature display unit 26. As shown in FIG. 10, the feature display unit 26 displays the two features of the POI and the distance to the POI using a three-dimensional graph. That is, the POI is plotted at the corresponding positions of the two axes of “settlement” and “high class” representing the characteristics of each POI and the axis in the depth direction indicating the distance to the object. In addition, a plurality of POIs included in the same common feature area are surrounded and displayed.

  As described above, the POI feature and the distance to the POI can be grasped at a glance by the graph representing the feature of the POI in three dimensions.

  FIG. 11 is a diagram illustrating a modification of the present embodiment. As shown in FIG. 11, the feature display unit 26 may be configured to change the contents of two axes indicating features by a list box 28. Options set in the list box 28 can be determined based on the characteristics of the POI within the display range. As described above, the configuration in which the feature can be selected from the list box 28 allows the user to select the feature that the user wants to see.

  FIG. 12 is a diagram illustrating a second modification of the present embodiment. As shown in FIG. 12, the feature display unit 26 may display the position and features of the POI on two screens. Further, when the POI on the map display screen 32 is clicked, the POI on the feature display screen 30 may be blinked or highlighted, and the position display and the feature display may be linked. As shown in FIG. 12, by displaying the position and feature on two screens, the position and feature of POI can be grasped simultaneously.

  FIG. 13A is a diagram showing a third modification of the present embodiment, and FIG. 13B is a diagram showing a fourth modification of the present embodiment. In the example shown in FIG. 13A, the strength of the luxury feature is indicated by the distance from the center O, and the direction with the POI is indicated by the direction from the center O. That is, the POI farther from the center O indicates a higher-grade POI. By this display, the direction of the POI and the strength of the characteristic of the POI can be grasped at a glance. In the example shown in FIG. 13B, the distance from the current position to the POI is indicated by the distance from the center O, and the strength of the high-grade feature is indicated by the direction from the center O. The positive direction of the x-axis is set to zero in the high grade, and the direction around the left is set to be positive, indicating that the POI has a high grade as the angle increases. The navigation device 2 according to the second embodiment of the present invention has been described above.

  Since the navigation apparatus 2 of the second embodiment displays the POI feature strength together with the POI position information by the feature display unit 26, the POIs can be compared with each other.

(Third embodiment)
FIG. 14 is a diagram illustrating the navigation device 3 according to the third embodiment. The navigation apparatus 3 according to the third embodiment is an apparatus having a configuration in which POI information is stored in advance and POI information storage unit 12 is replaced with POI description information acquired from the Web server 50.

  The navigation apparatus 3 according to the third embodiment includes a description information acquisition unit 42, a morpheme analysis unit 44, and feature extraction as a configuration for acquiring point information (POI) such as stores and facilities included in the display range. A unit 46 and a position information acquisition unit 48 are provided. Hereinafter, these configurations will be described.

  The description information acquisition unit 42 has a function of communicating with a Web server 50 that provides a Web site via the Internet 54 through the communication unit 40 and acquiring POI description information from the description information storage unit 52 of the Web server 50. The description information includes all information described on the website. For example, the descriptive information includes an explanatory text introducing the store, word-of-mouth information of the store, and the like.

  The navigation device 3 may determine in advance the Web server 50 from which the description information acquisition unit 42 acquires the description information, or may acquire the description information from an arbitrary Web server 50. When acquiring the description information from the predetermined Web server 50, the description information acquisition unit 42 acquires the description information for each point by acquiring an arbitrary field definition from the HTML structure, for example. If the Web server 50 from which the description information is to be acquired is not determined in advance, the description information acquisition unit 42, for example, “information extraction from semi-structured data using a tag tree pattern with contractible variables” Miyahara. Descriptive information can be obtained using a known method described in Tetsuhiro (Hiroshima City University).

  The morpheme analysis unit 44 has a function of decomposing the description information acquired by the description information acquisition unit 42 into parts of speech by morphological analysis and extracting words from the description information.

  The feature extraction unit 46 has a function of obtaining a feature word indicating the feature of each point and a variable indicating the strength of the feature indicated by the feature word using the word extraction result by the morphological analysis unit 44. Specifically, the feature extraction unit 46 includes a frequency (TF: term frequency) of words included in the description information described for each point, and a frequency (IDF: inverse document) where the words are included in the description information of other points. On the basis of (frequency), a feature word indicating the feature of each point and a variable indicating the strength of the feature are obtained. In addition, although the example which extracts a feature word using the analysis result by the morphological analysis part 44 is demonstrated here, when the description information provided by the Web server 50 is hierarchized according to the category beforehand, The feature words may be extracted by using the hierarchical structure. For example, Yahoo! In the (registered trademark) portal site, the information to be provided is hierarchized by category, and thus feature words can be easily extracted by extracting the category name.

  The position information acquisition unit 48 has a function of acquiring position information of each point such as a store or a facility. When the description information includes latitude and longitude information, the position information acquisition unit 48 extracts the latitude and longitude information as the position information. When the address information is included in the description information, the position information acquisition unit 48 converts the address information into latitude and longitude information.

  The clustering processing unit 18 performs POI clustering using the POI features extracted by the feature extraction unit 46 and the POI position information acquired by the position information acquisition unit 48.

  The navigation apparatus 3 according to the third embodiment differs from the navigation apparatus 3 according to the first embodiment in the process until the POI description information is acquired. However, the subsequent processes after acquiring the POI description information are as follows. This is the same as in the first embodiment.

  The navigation device 3 according to the third embodiment has the effect that, as with the navigation device 1 according to the first embodiment, the areas having the same characteristics can be displayed as a group and the regional characteristics can be grasped at a glance. Have.

  In addition, since the navigation apparatus 3 according to the third embodiment acquires POI information from the Web server 50, a common feature area can be defined and displayed based on the latest information.

  The map display apparatus of the present invention has been described in detail with reference to the embodiment, but the present invention is not limited to the above-described embodiment.

  In the above-described embodiment, the navigation device for displaying a map and the map display method by the navigation device have been described. However, a program having a module for realizing the map for displaying the map of the above-described navigation device is also included in the present invention. include.

  In the above-described embodiment, the common feature area defining unit 20 defines the common feature area by an elliptical area centered on the centroids G1 and G2 of the plurality of POIs, but the common feature area is not limited to the elliptical shape. . The shape of the common feature area may be determined based on the standard deviation of a plurality of POIs included in the same cluster. Further, the common feature area defining unit 20 may define the common feature area so as not to overlap with other common feature areas.

  As described above, the present invention has the effect of being able to display a map that can easily grasp areas having common characteristics, and is useful for, for example, a navigation device.

It is a figure which shows the structure of the navigation apparatus of 1st Embodiment. It is a figure which shows the example of the data memorize | stored in the POI information storage part. It is a figure which shows an example of a clustering process. It is a figure which shows the example of the map on which POI was displayed. It is a figure which shows the common characteristic area of POI. It is a figure which shows the example which displayed the relative position of POI in the common feature area. It is a flowchart which shows operation | movement of the navigation apparatus of 1st Embodiment. It is a figure explaining the process which moves POI by animation. The figure which shows the structure of the navigation apparatus of 2nd Embodiment. It is a figure which shows the example of a display of the characteristic of POI by the navigation apparatus of 2nd Embodiment. It is a figure which shows the example of a display of the characteristic of POI by the apparatus which concerns on a modification. It is a figure which shows the example of a display of the characteristic of POI by the apparatus which concerns on a 2nd modification. (A) It is a figure which shows the example of a display of the characteristic of POI by the apparatus which concerns on a 3rd modification. (B) It is a figure which shows the example of a display of the characteristic of POI by the apparatus which concerns on a 4th modification. The figure which shows the structure of the navigation apparatus of 3rd Embodiment.

Explanation of symbols

1-3 Navigation device 10 Map information storage unit 12 POI information storage unit 14 Display range input unit 16 Current position acquisition unit 18 Clustering processing unit 20 Common feature area definition unit 22 Relative position calculation unit 24 Map display unit 26 Feature display unit 28 List Box 30 Feature display screen 32 Map display screen 40 Communication unit 42 Description information acquisition unit 44 Morphological analysis unit 46 Feature extraction unit 48 Location information acquisition unit 50 Web server 52 Description information storage unit 54 Internet

Claims (7)

And the point information storage unit that stores positional information and features and information of the strength of a point existing on the map as the information related to the point,
A display range accepting unit for accepting designation of a display range of the map;
Acquires information regarding points existing in the display range from the point information storage unit, acquires the position and information of the strength of the features of a plurality of points having the same characteristics, the strength of the positions and characteristics of the point And a clustering processing unit that clusters a plurality of points existing in the display range so that points having similar characteristics and geographically close to each other are classified into the same cluster,
A common feature area demarcating section that demarcates an area including the center of gravity of a plurality of points included in the same cluster as a common feature area having a common feature;
A map display unit for displaying a map of the display range by superimposing the common feature area;
A map display device comprising:   The map display device according to claim 1, wherein the common feature area demarcating unit determines a shape of the common feature area based on variations of a plurality of points included in the same cluster, and demarcates the common feature area of the shape.   The common feature area demarcating section includes a first axis extending in the direction of the center of gravity from the center of the display range, and an ellipse having a diameter passing through the center of gravity and perpendicular to the first axis, The map display device according to claim 1, wherein the map display device is defined as a common feature area. A relative position calculation unit that calculates a relative position representing a positional relationship of a plurality of points included in the same cluster in the common feature area;
The map display device according to claim 1, wherein the map display unit displays the point based on the relative position obtained by the relative position calculation unit.   The map display apparatus in any one of Claims 1-4 provided with the point feature display part which displays the strength of the feature of each point contained in the said common feature area. A method of displaying a map with a map display device,
The map display device accepting designation of a display range of a map;
The map display device, from the point information storing unit that stores information of the position information and the feature and its strength point existing on the map as the information related to the point, collected information regarding points existing in the display range Tokushi , it acquires the position and information of the strength of the features of a plurality of points having the same characteristics, based on the strength of the position and characteristics of the site, a plurality of points existing in the display range, characterized Clustering such that similar and geographically close points are classified into the same cluster;
The map display device defining an area including the center of gravity of a plurality of points included in the same cluster as a common feature area having a common feature;
The map display device displaying the map of the display range by superimposing the common feature area;
A map display method comprising: A program for displaying a map containing information about a point, on a computer,
A step of accepting specification of a map display range;
From the point information storing unit that stores positional information and features and information of the strength of a point existing on the map as the information related to the point, to obtain information regarding points existing in the display range, the plurality having the same characteristics Information on the position of the point and the strength of the feature is acquired, and based on the position of the point and the strength of the feature, a plurality of points existing within the display range are similar in terms of features and geographically close Clustering so that the points are classified into the same cluster;
Defining an area including the centroids of a plurality of points included in the same cluster as a common feature area having a common feature;
Displaying the map of the display range by superimposing the common feature area;
A program that executes

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