JP5094659B2 - Region name extraction method and apparatus for extracting region name representing region - Google Patents

Description

The present invention relates to a region name extraction method and apparatus for extracting a region name representing a region. In particular, the present invention relates to an area name extraction method and apparatus for extracting an area name that is associated with position information and position information and that represents a region using a category specified by a user.

Conventionally, as a method of providing regional information, a method of displaying administrative divisions on a map and providing information for each division has been disclosed (for example, Patent Document 1).
JP-A-2005-208434

  By the way, in the method of providing regional information according to a section such as an administrative section as described above, since the areas such as the living sphere and the action range differ depending on the area, the density of the regional information in each section also varies. Therefore, in this method, depending on the type of area information, there are cases where a large amount of information is provided to the area corresponding to this section and cases where only a small amount of information is provided. The information density will vary. Therefore, it is difficult to provide information with a constant information density for each region.

  This invention is made | formed in view of this situation, and it aims at making the information density for every area constant irrespective of an area.

  The present invention provides the following solutions.

(1) A region name extraction method for extracting a region name representing a region of a category designated by the user using a computer having storage means for associating and storing facility location information on the map and the category designated by the user In the area specified by the user, the computer extracts the location information of the facility previously associated with the category specified by the user from the storage means, and the facility extracted in the extracting step A step of extracting the position information of the facility arbitrarily from the position information of the facility, and uniformly thinning out the position information of other facilities existing at a position closer than a predetermined distance from the position indicated by the position information. And only one location information of the facility that was not thinned out in the thinning-out step and before In the step of creating a plurality of regions in the regional area where boundaries are formed by a part of the perpendicular bisector between the facilities, and in each of the plurality of regions, the location information of the facilities included in the region Extracting the region name associated in advance , and a region name extracting method.

According to this structure, the region name extraction method can be extracted in the Region designated by the user, the position information of the facility based on the user-specified categories. Then, a plurality of areas are included in which only one location information of the facility is included and a boundary line is formed by a part of the perpendicular bisector between adjacent facilities. In each of the plurality of areas, The area name can be extracted from the location information of the included facilities.

  By doing so, each of the plurality of created areas includes only one piece of position information extracted based on the category designated by the user. In each of the plurality of regions, the name of each region is extracted based on the facility position information. Therefore, the information density regarding the category designated by the user corresponding to each area name is constant. Therefore, the information density for each region can be made constant regardless of the region.

(2) The location name extraction method according to (1), wherein the location information of the facility includes longitude / latitude information and address information.

  According to such a configuration, the location information of the facility includes longitude / latitude information and address information. By doing so, it is possible to extract facility location information based on longitude / latitude information and address information.

(3) The location name extraction method according to (1) or (2), wherein the location information of the facility includes text information that can be written on a map.

  According to such a configuration, the facility location information includes text information that can be written on a map. By doing in this way, the famous area name which is not described as an address can be used as an area name showing a region.

( 4 ) The step of creating the plurality of regions creates the plurality of regions by creating a Voronoi diagram with respect to the extracted location information of the facility. (1) to ( 3 ) The region name extraction method described in any of the above.

  According to such a configuration, by creating a Voronoi diagram, in each of the plurality of regions, the boundary line of the region becomes a part of the vertical bisector of the position information of each facility. By doing in this way, the information density regarding the positional information on a facility in each of a plurality of areas can be made constant.

( 5 ) A region name extraction device having storage means for associating and storing location information of a facility on a map and a category designated by a user, and extracting a region name representing a region of the category designated by the user in the Region specified by the user, the position information of the pre-associated with the facility to the category the user-specified location information extracting means for extracting from said storage means, the position of the facility that has been extracted by the position information extraction means Location information thinning out by extracting location information of facilities arbitrarily from the information and thinning out the location information of other facilities existing at a position closer than a predetermined distance from the position indicated by the location information. means, position information of the facilities which have not been thinned by the position information decimating means contains only one and two vertical between the facility adjacent bisector An area creating means for creating multiple in the region area of the region boundaries consists of some, in each of the plurality of regions, the region name previously associated with the position information of the facility included in the region An area name extracting device comprising: an area name extracting means for extracting.

  According to such a configuration, the same effect as in (1) can be expected by constructing the device.

  According to the present invention, the information density for each region can be made constant regardless of the region.

  Hereinafter, embodiments of the present invention will be described with reference to the drawings.

  FIG. 1 is a diagram illustrating a configuration example of a region name extraction apparatus 1 according to the present embodiment.

  The area name extraction device 1 includes a control unit 10 and a storage unit 20. The control unit 10 includes a user input receiving unit 11, a position information extracting unit 12, a position information thinning unit 13, a region creating unit 14, a region name extracting unit 15, and a region distribution map creating unit 16. The The storage unit 20 stores a POI (Point of Interest) information DB 21.

  The user input reception unit 11 receives input of a category and a regional area from which location information of the facility is extracted from the user. In the present invention, the location information of the facility is associated with the category, and the location information of the facility can be extracted based on this category. A facility is a building represented on a map, such as a station, a hospital, or a school, and is associated with location information. The location information extraction unit 12 extracts the location information of the facility from the POI information DB 21 based on the category and the region received from the user, and displays the facility information on the map of the facility received by the user input reception unit 11. Plot points indicating location information.

Here, the POI information DB 21 will be described with reference to FIG. The POI information DB 21 is a DB that stores information related to POI. Here, POI refers to a point of interest on a map, and refers to attribute information related to a point such as facility or store information at this point. The POI information DB 21 has categories, facility names, and position information. The position information includes longitude, latitude, state, and municipal Mura及 beauty Machihinoto. The POI information DB 21 is referred to when the location information extraction unit 12 extracts facility location information and the region name extraction unit 15 extracts region names. In the present embodiment, the POI information DB 21, prefectures, but stores the positional information about the address such as municipal Mura及 beauty Machihinoto is not limited thereto. For example, an area name related to location information such as a university name, a famous name, a station name, or a route name, that is, text information that can be written on a map may be stored. By doing in this way, the famous area name which is not described as an address can be used as an area name showing a region.

  Returning to FIG. 1, the position information thinning unit 13 uniformly thins out the facility position information extracted by the position information extracting unit 12. Specifically, an arbitrary point is extracted from the point indicating the location information of the facility, and another point existing at a position closer than a predetermined distance from the point is set as a thinning target. The predetermined distance can be defined by the user or automatically controlled by the number of pieces of position information extracted. Here, although thinning is performed as described above, the present invention is not limited to this. For example, the map may be divided into grids, and in each grid, thinning may be performed so that the number of points on the grid is within the number set by the user.

  The area creation unit 14 creates a plurality of areas on the map of the regional area accepted by the user input acceptance unit 11 based on the location information of the facility that has not been thinned out by the location information thinning unit 13. Specifically, a Voronoi diagram is created using points that have not been thinned out. A Voronoi diagram is a diagram in which a plurality of points arranged at arbitrary positions in a certain distance space, that is, a mother point, is divided into regions according to which mother point is close to other points on the same distance space. It is. In the case of a plane, that is, in the embodiment of the present invention, the boundary line of the region becomes a part of the perpendicular bisector of each generating point. When a Voronoi diagram is created, the facility location information in each area becomes one. In addition, since the position information thinning unit 13 performs thinning uniformly, the point indicating the position information of the facility in each region obtained by creating the Voronoi diagram is the point indicating the position information of the facility before the thinning Even if there is, there will be almost the same number. Therefore, even if there is a point indicating the location information of the facility before being thinned out, the amount of location information of the facility included in the region does not change regardless of the size of the region. The density is also constant.

The region name extraction unit 15 extracts a region name based on the location information of the facilities included in the region in each of the plurality of regions created by the region creation unit 14. Specifically, the size of the area is calculated in each of the plurality of areas created by the area creating unit 14. Then, from those corresponding to the POI information DB21 prefecture stored in (FIG. 3), the position information of the facility included in the region a municipal Mura及 beauty cho Ding, based on the size of the area To select and extract. Here, based on the size of the region, prefecture, has been decided to extract selected from municipal Mura及 beauty cho Ding is not limited thereto. For example, with respect to the position information of the facility, associate nearest station name, based on the size of the region, state, city, also possible to extract selected from the station name of the town Cho及 beauty nearest Good. In addition, when the extracted area name is the same in the location information of a plurality of facilities, the area name of the area from which the same area name is extracted is set as a detailed area name such as a street address. It may be. Also, in the adjacent area, if different municipalities are mixed in the extracted area name, the area name of the area where different municipalities are mixed, for example, the area name indicating a wide area such as a prefecture You may make it do. Thus, by selecting a region name according to the size of the region, it is possible to select a region name suitable for the size of the region.

  The regional distribution map creation unit 16 creates a regional distribution map using the regional names extracted by the regional name extraction unit 15. Specifically, the extracted area name is displayed at a point indicating the location information of the extracted facility on the map, and the displayed area name is surrounded by a predetermined figure to create an area distribution map. Thus, by extracting the location information of the facility according to the category designated by the user, it is possible to create a regional distribution map of this category. In the process of creating the area distribution map, the area name extraction unit 15 determines the area name based on the size of the area, so that an area distribution map in which the area name suitable for the area size is displayed is created. Will be. For example, in the user input reception unit 11, when the facility is in accordance with the category received from the user and the facility is concentrated in a specific area, a small area is created in the specific area. Therefore, the region name is displayed as a detailed region name, and in a region where facilities are not concentrated, a large region is created, so the region name is displayed as a wide region name. Note that the regional distribution map is created as described above, but the present invention is not limited to this. For example, the extracted area names may be arranged in a grid pattern. At this time, the regional names may be arranged based on positional information such as longitude and latitude associated with the extracted regional names so that the positional relationship between the regional names is not different from the actual positional relationship. Then, the location name of the facility in the region corresponding to the region name and the information of the location information of the thinned out facility in the region corresponding to the region name are associated with the region name displayed in the region distribution map, You may enable it to provide the information of the facility which belongs to each area.

[Hardware configuration diagram of area name extraction device 1]
FIG. 2 is a diagram illustrating a hardware configuration of the area name extraction device 1 according to the present embodiment. The hardware configuration of the area name extraction apparatus 1 in which the present invention is implemented may be a standard one, and an example of the configuration is shown below.

The area name extraction apparatus 1 includes a central processing unit (CPU) 1010 (a plurality of CPUs such as a CPU 1012 may be added in a multiprocessor configuration), a bus line 1005, a communication I / F (I / F). Interface) 1040, main memory 1050, BIOS (Basic Input Output System) 1060, display device 1022, I / O controller 1070, input device 1100 such as a keyboard and mouse, hard disk 1074, optical disk drive 1076, and semiconductor memory 1078. Incidentally, a hard disk 1074, optical disk drive 107 6及 beauty semiconductor memory 1078 collectively referred to as the storage unit 20.

  The control unit 10 is a part that controls the area name extraction device 1 in an integrated manner. By appropriately reading and executing various programs stored in the hard disk 1074, the control unit 10 cooperates with the hardware described above, and relates to the present invention. Various functions are realized.

  The communication I / F 1040 is a network adapter when the area name extraction device 1 transmits and receives information to and from a terminal or the like via a communication network. The communication I / F 1040 may include a modem, a cable modem, and an Ethernet (registered trademark) adapter.

  The BIOS 1060 records a boot program executed by the CPU 1010 when the area name extracting device 1 is started, a program depending on the hardware of the area name extracting device 1, and the like.

  The display device 1022 includes a display device such as a cathode ray tube display device (CRT) or a liquid crystal display device (LCD).

The I / O controller 1070 may be connected to the hard disk 1074, optical disk drive 107 6及 beauty storage unit 20 is a storage device such as a semiconductor memory 1078.

  The input device 1100 is for accepting input by the administrator of the area name extraction device 1.

Hard disk 1074, the present hardware stores various programs, programs and DB tables and records to perform the functions of the present invention to function as a regional name extraction device 1. Note that the area name extraction apparatus 1 can also use a hard disk (not shown) separately provided as an external storage device.

As the optical disk drive 1076, for example, a DVD-ROM drive, a CD-ROM drive, a DVD-RAM drive, and a CD-RAM drive can be used. In this case, the optical disk 1077 corresponding to each drive is used. A program or data may be read from the optical disk 1077 by the optical disk drive 1076 and provided to the main memory 1050 or the hard disk 1074 via the I / O controller 1070.

  The computer referred to in the present invention refers to an information processing device including a storage device, a control device, and the like, and the area name extraction device 1 includes an information processing device including the storage unit 20 and the control unit 10 as described above. This information processing apparatus is included in the concept of the computer of the present invention.

[Processing flow]
FIG. 4 is a flowchart showing the contents of the area name extraction process executed by the control unit 10 in the area name extracting apparatus 1 according to this embodiment.

  First, in step S110, the user input receiving unit 11 receives a category input from a user. Specifically, an input of a category and a regional area is received by an operation of the input device 1100 by the user.

  Next, in step S <b> 120, the position information extraction unit 12 extracts the position information of the facility based on the category received by the user input reception unit 11.

  Next, in step S <b> 130, the position information thinning unit 13 thins out the position information of the facility extracted by the position information extracting unit 12.

  Next, in step S140, the area creating unit 14 creates a plurality of areas for the regional area accepted by the user input accepting unit 11 based on the location information of the facility that has not been thinned by the location information thinning unit 13. To do.

  Next, in step S <b> 150, the region name extraction unit 15 calculates the size of each of the plurality of regions created by the region creation unit 14.

  Next, in step S160, the region name extraction unit 15 selects and extracts a region name from the POI information DB 21 based on the calculated region size.

  Next, in step S <b> 170, the region distribution map creation unit 16 creates a region distribution map based on the region name extracted by the region name extraction unit 15 and the location information of the facility.

[Example of region name extraction]
FIG. 5 to FIG. 11 are diagrams for explaining the process from the time when the area name extraction apparatus 1 according to the present embodiment receives a category and area from the user until the area distribution map is created. Here, it is assumed that the user designates the category as “Beauty Salon / Hair Salon” shown in the POI information DB 21 of FIG. 3 and designates the regional area near Minato-ku, Tokyo.

  FIG. 5 is a diagram illustrating a state in which points indicating location information of facilities belonging to a category designated by the user are plotted in a regional area designated by the user. As shown in the figure, it can be confirmed that a plurality of points indicating position information are plotted in the designated regional area.

FIG. 6 is a diagram illustrating a state in which a point to be thinned out is determined with respect to a point indicating facility position information. Here, the points indicated in the upper left of FIG. 6 and P1, when the predetermined distance L, the point closer than the distance L from P1 P2, P 3 及 beauty P4 are subject to thinning. Since P5 is a point farther than L, it is left as a point. Then, since P5 remains as a point to be left, a point closer to P5 than a predetermined distance L is set as a thinning target. This process is sequentially performed on the points indicating the location information of the facility, thereby determining the points to be left and points to be thinned out. In FIG. 6, the points to be thinned out are indicated by white dots.

  FIG. 7 is a diagram illustrating a state in which thinning-out points are thinned out. The region creation unit 14 creates a plurality of regions by creating a Voronoi diagram using the points that are not thinned as shown in FIG.

  FIG. 8 is a diagram illustrating a state in which a Voronoi diagram is created. It can be confirmed that the boundary line of the region is constituted by a part of the vertical bisector of each generating point, that is, a point indicating the location information of the facility.

  FIG. 9 is a diagram illustrating a state in which the size of each region is calculated. Here, the size of each designated area, that is, the size of each region when the overall size is 100 is calculated.

  FIG. 10 is a diagram illustrating a state in which region names are extracted based on the size of each region. Here, for the area whose area size calculated in FIG. 9 is 11 or less, “Machicho” stored in the POI information DB 21 of FIG. 3 is selected as the area name to be extracted, and the area size is selected. For an area where is greater than 11, the “city” stored in the POI information DB 21 of FIG. 3 is selected as the area name to be extracted. For example, if the point P6 is “A beauty salon” shown in FIG. 3, the size of the area including P6 is “8.6”, and therefore “Roppongi”, which is “machicho”. To extract. Also, assuming that the point P7 is “D hair salon” shown in FIG. 3, the area including P7 has a size of “12.9”, so that “Shinagawa-ku” Is extracted. Here, the extracted area name is displayed in the vicinity of the point indicating the position information.

  FIG. 11 is a diagram showing an area distribution map created based on the extracted area names. Here, with respect to FIG. 10, the boundary line of the region is deleted, and the region name displayed in the designated region is displayed so as to be surrounded by a rectangle to create a region distribution map.

  As mentioned above, although embodiment of this invention was described, this invention is not restricted to embodiment mentioned above. The effects described in the embodiments of the present invention are only the most preferable effects resulting from the present invention, and the effects of the present invention are limited to those described in the embodiments of the present invention. is not.

It is a figure which shows the structural example of the area name extraction apparatus 1 which concerns on this embodiment. It is a figure which shows the hardware constitutions of the area name extraction apparatus 1 which concerns on this embodiment. It is a figure which shows POI information DB21 which concerns on this embodiment. 5 is a flowchart showing the contents of a region name extraction process executed by a control unit 10 in the region name extraction apparatus 1 according to the present embodiment. It is a figure which shows the state which plotted the point which shows the positional information which belongs to the category which the user which concerns on this embodiment specified to the regional area which the user specified. It is a figure which shows the state which determined the point used as the object of thinning | decimation out with respect to the point which shows the positional information which concerns on this embodiment. It is a figure which shows the state in which the thinning-out point made into the object of the thinning which concerns on this embodiment was performed. It is a figure showing the state where the Voronoi diagram concerning this embodiment was created. It is a figure which shows the state by which the magnitude | size of each area | region which concerns on this embodiment was calculated. It is a figure which shows the state from which the area name was extracted based on the magnitude | size of each area | region which concerns on this embodiment. It is a figure which shows the area distribution map produced based on the extracted area name which concerns on this embodiment.

Explanation of symbols

DESCRIPTION OF SYMBOLS 1 Area name extraction apparatus 10 Control part 11 User input reception part 12 Location information extraction part 13 Position information thinning part 14 Area creation part 15 Area name extraction part 16 Area distribution map creation part 20 Storage part 21 POI information DB

Claims (5)

A region name extraction method for extracting a region name representing a region of a category designated by a user by using a computer having storage means for storing the location information of a facility on a map and a category designated by the user in association with each other ,
The computer is
Extracting the location information of the facility previously associated with the category designated by the user from the storage means in the area designated by the user;
The location information of the facility is arbitrarily extracted from the location information of the facility extracted in the extracting step, and the location information of other facilities existing at a position closer than a predetermined distance from the position indicated by the location information is to be thinned out A step of uniformly thinning out, and
An area in which only one piece of location information of the facility that has not been thinned out in the thinning-out step is included and a boundary line is formed by a part of a perpendicular bisector between the adjacent facilities in the regional area Creating multiple steps,
In each of the plurality of regions, extracting the region name associated in advance with the location information of the facility included in the region;
To extract the region name.   The area name extraction method according to claim 1, wherein the location information of the facility includes longitude / latitude information and address information.   The region name extraction method according to claim 1, wherein the location information of the facility includes text information that can be represented on a map. 2. The step of creating a plurality of regions , wherein the computer creates a plurality of regions in the regional area by creating a Voronoi diagram for the extracted location information of the facility. To 3. The region name extraction method according to any one of 3 . A region name extraction device that includes a storage unit that associates and stores location information of a facility on a map and a category specified by a user, and extracts a region name representing a region of the category specified by the user,
Position information extraction means for extracting, from the storage means, position information of a facility previously associated with a category specified by the user in a region designated by the user;
The location information of the facility is arbitrarily extracted from the location information of the facility extracted by the location information extraction means, and the location information of other facilities existing at a position closer than a predetermined distance from the position indicated by the location information is thinned out. Position information thinning means for thinning uniformly by making it a target;
A region in which only one piece of location information of the facility that has not been thinned out by the location information thinning unit is included, and a boundary line is formed by a part of a perpendicular bisector between adjacent facilities A plurality of area creating means for creating in
In each of the plurality of regions, a region name extracting unit that extracts the region name previously associated with the location information of the facility included in the region;
An area name extraction device comprising:

Images