JP4992634B2 - Road display device and program for road display device - Google Patents

Description

  The present invention relates to a road display device that displays a photographed image of a road on a display, and a program for the road display device.

  2. Description of the Related Art Conventionally, a technique is known in which an enhanced image that emphasizes a guide route of a host vehicle is superimposed on a captured image of a road by a camera and a composite image generated thereby is displayed on a display (Patent Document 1).

In this technique, the position in the captured image at which the enhanced image is superimposed, that is, the position in the captured image where the guidance route is located is determined as follows. First, photographing data indicating from which direction (a depression angle, a direction, etc.) the camera has photographed the road is acquired. Next, using the map data used for navigation, a plan view of a guide route at a position corresponding to the captured image is generated. Finally, the plan view is converted from a bird's-eye view based on the above-described photographing data to generate an emphasized image, and the emphasized image is superimposed on the photographed image (see paragraphs 0039 to 0042 of Patent Document 1).
JP 11-2111499 A

  However, in the method as described above, since it is necessary to perform a bird's-eye conversion of a planar image, a processing load for that is generated. In addition, complicated bird's-eye view conversion processing may cause errors.

  In view of the above points, the present invention realizes the identification of the superimposed position without relying on complicated processing such as bird's-eye conversion in a technique for superimposing and displaying an image that emphasizes the guidance route of the host vehicle on a captured image of a road. For the purpose.

Feature of the present invention for achieving the above object, a road display device, the captured image in which a predetermined plurality of road has been photographed (20,71), and the image reference roads arrangement data (72), geographic road The arrangement data (74) is received from the roadside radio (1), and the route geographical data (82) is acquired from the storage medium .

The road arrangement data (72) is data indicating the arrangement of each of the plurality of roads in the photographed image with reference to the ID of the link to which the road belongs and the photographed image of the link . The geographical road arrangement data (74) is data indicating the arrangement of each of the plurality of roads based on the ID of the link to which the road belongs and the geographical coordinates of the link. The route geographic data (82) is data indicating the geographic coordinates of the guide route to the destination.

The road display device uses the geographical road arrangement data to extract the ID of the link whose geographic coordinates coincide with the link in the guide route in the route geographic data among the links in the captured image. Furthermore, the road display device uses the image reference road arrangement data to specify the arrangement based on the photographed image corresponding to the extracted link ID , and assigns the road to the road in the specified arrangement from other roads. Also, the enhanced images (61, 62) for emphasizing are superimposed, and the resultant composite image (60, 81) is displayed on the display (5).

  In this way, the road display device identifies the road belonging to the guide route among the roads in the captured image using the geographical road arrangement data, and determines the position of the road in the captured image based on the image reference. Identify using road layout data. In this way, the road display device uses information representing the correspondence between the geographical layout of the road in the captured image and the layout based on the image, such as the geographical road layout data and the image reference road layout data. The emphasized image can be superimposed on the captured image with an accurate arrangement without resorting to complicated processing such as bird's-eye conversion.

  The road display device may use a transparent color image superimposed on the road corresponding to the guide route in the captured image as the emphasized image. In this way, the road on which the host vehicle should travel can be recognized more clearly.

  The features of the present invention can also be understood as a program for a road display device according to the present invention.

  In addition, the code | symbol in the parenthesis in the said claim shows the correspondence of the term described in the claim, and the concrete thing etc. which illustrate the said term described in embodiment mentioned later.

  Hereinafter, an embodiment of the present invention will be described. FIG. 1 conceptually shows the configuration of the road-vehicle communication system according to the present embodiment. In this embodiment, in addition to the roadside radio 1 installed near the intersection and the camera 2 that repeatedly captures the intersection in a fixed and overhead view, the vehicle radio terminal 3 mounted on the vehicle, the vehicle navigation device (road 4, which corresponds to an example of a display device, and a display 5.

  FIG. 2 shows a hardware configuration of the roadside radio 1. The roadside radio 1 includes a radio unit 11 and a control circuit 12. The wireless unit 11 is a device having a modulation / demodulation function, a frequency conversion function, an amplification function, and the like for mediating wireless communication between the control circuit 12 and the vehicle wireless terminal 3.

  The control circuit 12 is a device composed of a known microcomputer or the like. The control circuit 12 sequentially acquires captured images of the road captured by the camera 2 and generates moving image data 71 composed of the acquired plurality of captured images.

  FIG. 3 shows an example of the captured image 20 that is one frame of the moving image data 71 (that is, one image captured by the camera 2). In this example, the captured image 20 includes an intersection 25 and roads 21 to 24 extending from the intersection 25. The control circuit 12 starts transmission of the moving image data 71 to the vehicle wireless terminal 3 at the start of communication with the vehicle wireless terminal 3.

  The control circuit 12 stores road shape data 72, direction data 73, latitude / longitude data 74, and scale data 75. Hereinafter, these data 72 to 74 will be described with reference to FIG.

  The road shape data (corresponding to an example of the image reference road arrangement data) 72 is data indicating the pixel arrangement of the links 51 to 54 to which the road belongs for each of all the roads 21 to 24 in the captured image 20. is there. The pixel arrangement here refers to an arrangement based on the pixels of the captured image 20. For example, the image arrangement of the link 51 may be represented by pixel coordinates of the nodes 31 and 35 at the end points of the link 51. Here, the pixel coordinates are vertical X-horizontal Y coordinates in 1-pixel units with the lower left of the captured image 20 as the origin.

  The captured image 20 may not include both end points of the link. For example, the end points 31, 33 and 34 of the links 51, 53 and 54 in FIG. 4 are located outside the captured image 20. In this case, the pixel coordinates of the end points outside the captured image 20 are also values that are out of the range of the captured image 20. In the road shape data, for each link, the link ID is associated with the pixel coordinates of the end point of the link.

  The orientation data 73 is data indicating a deviation angle 38 from the north direction 37 of the photographing orientation 36 of the intersection 25 by the camera 2.

  Latitude / longitude data (corresponding to an example of geographical road arrangement data) 74 is the geographical coordinates (for example, latitude) of links 51 to 54 to which the road belongs for each of all roads 21 to 24 in the captured image 20. , Longitude). Specifically, in the latitude and longitude data, for each link, the ID of the link is associated with the geographic coordinates of the end point of the link.

  The scale data 75 is a ratio between the length based on the pixels in the captured image 20 and the size near the actual intersection 25 (for example, the ratio of the length in the left-right direction in the captured image 20 at the center of the intersection 25). It is data which shows.

  These various data 72 to 74 may be set by a contractor based on the actual captured image of the camera 2 when the roadside radio device 1 and the camera 2 are installed or manufactured. The control circuit 12 transmits the stored data 72 to 75 at the start of communication with the vehicle wireless terminal 3.

  The vehicle radio terminal 3 is a device having a modulation / demodulation function, a frequency conversion function, an amplification function, and the like for mediating wireless communication between the roadside radio device 1 and the vehicle navigation device 4.

  The vehicle navigation device 4 is a device that displays a guide route to a destination on the display 5. FIG. 5 shows a hardware configuration of the vehicle navigation device 4. The vehicle navigation device 4 includes a position detector 41, an operation unit 43 that receives user operations, a speaker 44, a map data acquisition unit 46, and a control circuit 47.

  The position detector 41 includes a well-known sensor (not shown) such as a geomagnetic sensor, a gyroscope, a vehicle speed sensor, and a GPS receiver. The current position and direction of the vehicle based on the characteristics of each of these sensors. , And information for specifying the speed is output to the control circuit 47.

  The map data acquisition unit 46 includes a nonvolatile storage medium such as a DVD, a CD, and an HDD, and a device that reads data (and writes data if possible) to the storage medium. The storage medium stores a program executed by the control circuit 47, map data for route guidance, and the like.

  The map data has road data and facility data. The road data includes link position information, type information, node position information, type information, information on connection relations between nodes and links, and the like. The link position information includes geographical coordinates (for example, latitude and longitude) of the end point of the link. Further, the position information of the node includes the geographical coordinates of the node. The facility data includes data indicating name information for each facility, location information, facility type information, and the like.

  A control circuit (corresponding to a computer) 47 is a microcomputer having a CPU, a RAM, a ROM, an I / O, and the like. The CPU executes a program for the operation of the vehicle navigation device 1 read from the ROM or the map data acquisition unit 46, and reads information from the RAM, the ROM, and the map data acquisition unit 16 when executing the program. Information is written to the storage medium of the map data acquisition unit 16 (if possible), and signals are exchanged with the display 5, the position detector 41, the operation unit 43, and the speaker 44.

  Specific processing performed by the control circuit 47 executing the program includes current position specifying processing, guidance route calculation processing, route guidance processing, and captured image display processing. The current position specifying process is a process for specifying the current position and direction of the host vehicle based on a signal from the position detector 41.

  The guide route calculation process is a process of receiving an input of a destination by the user from the operation unit 43 and calculating an optimum guide route from the current position to the destination. The control circuit 47 stores the geographic coordinates of all nodes on the guidance route as guidance route data (corresponding to an example of route geographic data) indicating the guidance route.

  In the route guidance process, map data is read from the map data acquisition unit 46, and an image in which the calculated guidance route, destination, waypoint, current position, etc. are overlaid on the map indicated by the map data is displayed on the display 5. This is a process for causing the speaker 44 to output a guidance voice signal instructing a right turn, a left turn, etc., when necessary, such as when the host vehicle arrives before the guidance intersection.

  The captured image display process is a process of superimposing an enhanced image for emphasizing the guide route on the captured image in the moving image data received from the roadside radio device 1 and displaying the superimposed image on the display 5. When the own vehicle approaches the intersection where the roadside radio 1 is installed and enters the communicable range of the roadside radio 1, the control circuit 47 starts this captured image display process. FIG. 6 shows a flowchart of the program 100 executed by the control circuit 47 for the captured image display process.

  First, when starting the captured image display process, the control circuit 47 acquires various data in step 105. Specifically, the moving image data 71, road shape data 72, azimuth data 73, latitude / longitude data 74, and scale data 75 (see FIG. 1) are acquired from the roadside radio 1 via the vehicle radio terminal 3, The guide route data stored in the guide route calculation process described above is acquired.

  Subsequently, in step 110, the variable n is set to zero. Subsequently, until the variable n reaches the maximum number (step 150), the variable n is incremented by 1 (step 120) and the determination in step 130 is performed. If the determination is affirmative, step 140 is executed. Here, the maximum number is the total number of links 51 to 55 to which the roads 21 to 25 in the captured image 20 belong. This total number is specified from the road shape data 72. Then, the determination in step 130 is executed for each of the links 51 to 55.

  In step 130, based on the latitude / longitude data 74, it is determined whether the target link is included in the guidance route. Specifically, if the geographical coordinates of both end points of the target link match the geographical coordinates of both end points of the link included in the guide route data, the determination result is affirmative. The result is negative.

  In step 140 following step 130 when the determination is affirmative, the control circuit 47 paints the road in the captured image 20 corresponding to the link that is the determination target in the immediately preceding step 130 with a transparent color.

  Specifically, the end point of the pixel coordinate associated with the ID of the target link is read from the road shape data 72. Then, in the captured image 20 of each frame, a transparent color band image (corresponding to an example of an emphasized image) is superimposed on a range along a straight line connecting the read end points. Here, the transparent color refers to a color that allows the road in the captured image 20 to be visually recognized. FIG. 7 shows a diagram in which a transparent color image 61 is superimposed on a road corresponding to the guide route in the captured image 20.

  Note that the thickness of the belt image may be a constant value that is not related to the road, or the road radio 1 matches the range of each road in the captured image 20 for each link as part of the road shape data 72. If there is range data for specifying the fill range to be performed, the range data may be received wirelessly and the fill range may be determined based on the range data.

  After the processing of steps 120 to 150 is performed for all links in the road shape data 72, the control circuit 47 continues in step 160 so as to overlap the transparent color image 61 in the composite image 60 with an arrow image ( 62 (which corresponds to an example of an emphasized image) is superimposed. The arrow image 62 is an arrow indicating a guide route and a traveling direction along the guide route.

  Subsequently, at step 170, the setting of the display orientation of the composite image 60 is north-up (ie, orientation with north facing up) or heading up (that is, the approach direction of the host vehicle to the intersection 25 is increased. Orientation). The north up / heading up setting can be determined in advance by the user operating the operation unit 43.

  If heading up is set, then in step 180, the orientation of the composite image 60 is rotated so that the approach direction of the host vehicle to the intersection 25 is the upward direction in the display 5 display. In FIG. 7, the image is rotated 90 ° clockwise to realize heading-up. The rotation angle is specified by the approach direction to the intersection 25 of the host vehicle that can be specified from the direction data 73 and the guide route data.

  If the north-up setting is set, subsequently, in step 190, the orientation of the composite image 60 is rotated using the orientation data 73 so that the north direction becomes the upward direction in the display of the display 5.

  After steps 180 and 190, the execution of the program 100 is terminated. For the moving image data 71 continuously transmitted from the roadside radio 1, the superimposed position of the transmission color image 61 and the arrow image 62 determined in the execution of the program 100 and the rotation angle of the composite image 60 are continued. adopt. Further, in order to reflect the scale data 75 on the composite image 60 displayed on the display 5, an image 63 indicating the correspondence between the distance in the screen and the actual distance may be superimposed.

  Thus, the vehicle navigation device 4 identifies the roads 21 and 24 belonging to the guide route among the roads 21 to 25 in the captured image 20 using the latitude / longitude data 74 and the guide route data, and the road 21 , 24 are specified using the road shape data 72. As described above, the vehicle navigation device 4 uses the road shape data 72 and the latitude / longitude data 74, which represents information indicating the correspondence between the geographical layout of the road in the captured image 20 and the layout based on the pixels. Thus, it is possible to specify the superimposition position without resorting to complicated processing such as bird's-eye conversion.

  Further, a transparent color image 61 superimposed on the roads 21 and 24 corresponding to the guide route in the photographed image is used as the emphasized image. In this way, the road on which the host vehicle should travel can be recognized more clearly.

(Other embodiments)
As mentioned above, although embodiment of this invention was described, the scope of the present invention is not limited only to the said embodiment, The various form which can implement | achieve the function of each invention specific matter of this invention is included. It is.

  For example, in the above-described embodiment, various data 71 to 75 are transmitted from the roadside radio device 1 to the vehicle navigation device 4, and each captured image 20 in the moving image data 71 is based on the latitude and longitude data 74 based on the data 72 to 75. Processing such as superposition of the emphasized images 61 and 62 is performed on the image.

  However, the on-road radio device 1 may perform processing such as superimposition on the captured image 20. For example, as shown in FIG. 8, the vehicle navigation device 4 may transmit the guide route data 82 to the roadside radio device 1 using the vehicle radio terminal 3. Then, the control circuit 12 of the roadside radio device 1 executes processing such as superposition and rotation by executing the program 100 of FIG. 6 based on the received guide route data 82 and the data 72 to 75 stored in itself. May be applied to the captured image 20 of the moving image data 71, and the resultant combined moving image data 81 may be transmitted to the vehicle wireless terminal 3. In this case, the vehicle radio terminal 3 only needs to display the received composite image 60 on the display 5. In this case, the roadside radio device 1 corresponds to an example of a road display device.

  In the above embodiment, each function realized by the program executed by the control circuit is realized by using hardware having these functions (for example, an FPGA capable of programming the circuit configuration). It may be like this.

It is a conceptual diagram which shows the structure of the road-vehicle communication system which concerns on embodiment of this invention. 1 is a block diagram illustrating a configuration of a roadside radio device 1. FIG. 2 is a diagram illustrating an example of a captured image 20. FIG. It is a conceptual diagram which shows the content of the road shape data 72, the direction data 73, and the latitude longitude data 74. 2 is a block diagram showing a configuration of a vehicle navigation device 4. FIG. 4 is a flowchart of a program 100 executed by a control circuit 47. 5 is a diagram illustrating an example of a composite image 60. FIG. It is a conceptual diagram which shows the structure of the road-vehicle communication system which concerns on other embodiment of this invention.

Explanation of symbols

DESCRIPTION OF SYMBOLS 1 ... Road radio apparatus, 2 ... Camera, 3 ... Vehicle radio | wireless terminal, 4 ... Vehicle navigation apparatus,
5 ... Display, 11 ... Radio unit, 12 ... Control circuit, 20 ... Captured image, 21 ... Road,
22 ... road, 23 ... road, 24 ... road, 25 ... intersection, 31-35 ... node,
36 ... shooting direction, 37 ... north direction, 38 ... angle, 41 ... position detector, 43 ... operation unit,
44 ... Speaker, 46 ... Map data acquisition unit, 47 ... Control circuit, 51-54 ... Link,
60 ... Composite image, 61 ... Transparent color image, 62 ... Arrow image, 63 ... Scale display,
71 ... Movie data, 72 ... Road shape data, 73 ... Direction data,
74 ... Latitude and longitude data, 75 ... Scale data, 81 ... Composite video data,
82 ... guide route data, 100 ... program.

Claims (4)

A road display device mounted on a vehicle,
Receiving predetermined photographing image in which a plurality of roads are taken (20,71) from the road radio (1), for each of the plurality of road in the photographed image of the ID and the link of the link to which the road belongs Image reference road arrangement data (72) indicating an arrangement based on the captured image is received from the roadside radio (1), and for each of the plurality of roads, the ID of the link to which the road belongs and the geographical coordinates of the link are obtained. Acquisition means for receiving geographical road arrangement data (74) indicating the arrangement based on the reference from the roadside radio (1) and acquiring route geographical data (82) indicating the geographical coordinates of the guide route to the destination from the storage medium. (105)
Extraction means (130) for extracting, from the links in the captured image, an ID of a link whose geographic coordinates coincide with the link in the guide route in the route geographic data using the geographical road arrangement data. When,
Using the image reference road arrangement data, the arrangement based on the captured image corresponding to the ID of the link extracted by the extraction unit is specified, and the road is placed on the road in the specified arrangement from other roads. And a display control means (140) for superimposing the emphasized images (61, 62) for emphasizing and displaying the resultant composite images (60, 81) on the display (5).   The road display device according to claim 1, wherein the display control unit uses a transparent color image on the road specified by the specifying unit as the emphasized image. A program used for a road display device mounted on a vehicle,
Receiving predetermined photographing image in which a plurality of roads are taken (20,71) from the road radio (1), for each of the plurality of road in the photographed image of the ID and the link of the link to which the road belongs Image reference road arrangement data (72) indicating an arrangement based on the captured image is received from the roadside radio (1), and for each of the plurality of roads, the ID of the link to which the road belongs and the geographical coordinates of the link are obtained. Acquisition means for receiving geographical road arrangement data (74) indicating the arrangement based on the reference from the roadside radio (1) and acquiring route geographical data (82) indicating the geographical coordinates of the guide route to the destination from the storage medium. (105),
Extraction means (130) for extracting, from the links in the captured image, an ID of a link whose geographic coordinates coincide with the link in the guide route in the route geographic data using the geographical road arrangement data. and,
Using the image reference road arrangement data, the arrangement based on the captured image corresponding to the ID of the link extracted by the extraction unit is specified, and the road is placed on the road in the specified arrangement from other roads. A program that causes a computer to function as display control means (140) for superimposing emphasized images (61, 62) for emphasizing and displaying the resultant composite images (60, 81) on a display (5). The program according to claim 3, wherein the display control unit uses a transparent color image on a road specified by the specifying unit as the emphasized image.

Images