JPH07271295A - Present place display device by gps - Google Patents

Abstract

PURPOSE:To provide a present place display device by a GPS constituted to display the position on a map where a user travels at present by, for example, an automobile, by means of character data and to make it possible to link this display to a map book. CONSTITUTION:The radio waves from the GPS satellite are received by an antenna 11 and the latitude and longitude of the present place (present place information) are determined by the GPS unit 12 and are inputted to a microcomputer 13. This microcomputer 13 reads out the place name data stored in a ROM 15 in accordance with the present place information and further reads out the map link information, such as the page stating this place and the block where the place is stated, in the prescribed map book. Such place name data and map link information are converted to character data including KANJI (Chinese characters) which are displayed on a display device 16 so that the position stated in the prescribed map book is distinctly assigned.

Description

Detailed Description of the Invention

[0001]

BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION 1. Field of the Invention The present invention relates to a GPS current position display device which enables the user to confirm the current position on a map book while traveling by an automobile.

[0002]

2. Description of the Related Art A navigation device mounted on an automobile or the like receives a signal from, for example, a GPS satellite to obtain a present location, and displays map information corresponding to the present location on a video display device such as a CRT or a liquid crystal display. It is designed to display a map of the area where etc. are currently traveling. By doing this, the map information of the current position can be viewed directly on the display device, but this makes the device larger and the map information is displayed on the display device screen of a limited area. However, it is difficult for an occupant such as a driver to examine the map contents in detail.

As means for coping with such a problem, for example, the GPS disclosed in Japanese Patent Laid-Open No. 215563/1993.
The location recognition device receives radio waves from GPS satellites to find the latitude and longitude of the current position, and displays the place name corresponding to the latitude and longitude. In addition, by inputting the location of the destination, the distance and the direction from the obtained current position to the destination are displayed.

However, there are many demands for users who are driving automobiles to always know where they are at present on the map, and they also want to know what is around their current location. Therefore, displaying only such a place name cannot meet such a request. In particular, the amount of peripheral information is insufficient, and even when a map is displayed on the display screen surface, the peripheral information of the current location cannot be confirmed.

[0005]

SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION The present invention has been made in view of the above points, and is intended to make it possible to easily know the current location and its peripheral information by a simple display. The present invention intends to provide a GPS current position display device capable of giving detailed information about the current position on the map and its surrounding information requested by the user.

[0006]

A GPS current position display device according to the present invention receives a signal from a GPS satellite to obtain current position information of latitude and longitude of a current position, and at the same time, displays the current position information. The corresponding place name data is stored and set, and further the map link information shown in relation to the latitude and longitude in the specified atlas is stored and set,
The stored place name data is read based on the obtained present location information, and further, present location link information including the relevant page of the map book in which the relevant area is described is obtained. Then, the display means displays the place name based on the present location information, and further the corresponding page of the map book in which the corresponding area is described in characters, and the display on the display means is the place name and the specified part of the map book. I tried to link it. In this case, the map book can correspond to a plurality of suitable items, and the description portion is appropriately indicated together with the page.

[0007]

In the GPS current position display device configured as described above, the latitude and longitude of the current position are always obtained by receiving the radio waves from the GPS satellites. The place name information read out based on the longitude information and the description page information on the map book in which this part is described are stored, and this stored information is read out based on the obtained latitude and longitude information. Then, the information such as the place name and the description page on the map book read out in this way is displayed by characters on the display device and can be read by the user, and the user can read it on the displayed map book. The current position can be recognized in detail by the described part and place name.

[0008]

DETAILED DESCRIPTION OF THE PREFERRED EMBODIMENTS An embodiment of the present invention will be described below with reference to the drawings. FIG. 1 shows the configuration, and a GPS unit equipped with an antenna 11 for receiving radio waves from GPS satellites.
12 is provided, and the GPS unit 12 calculates the latitude and longitude of the current position based on the received radio waves. Then, the latitude and longitude information of the current position obtained by the GPS unit 12 is input to the microcomputer 13 that executes various arithmetic controls.

An operation switch 14 for inputting various operation commands and the like is connected to the microcomputer 13, and an R storing the place name data and map information linked to a map book is stored.
An OM 15 is connected, and a predetermined display is performed on the display device 16 by the output from the microcomputer 13. Here, the ROM 15 stores character information such as kanji for displaying characters on the display device 16 as well as place name data and map information.
In 16, the place name and the link information with the map book are displayed in characters.

Specifically, the ROM 15 stores the place name data existing at the latitude and longitude by using the latitude and longitude information as an address. The GPS input to the microcomputer 13 is stored in the ROM 15. Based on the latitude and longitude information from the unit 12, the place name data of the position is read from the ROM 15.

The place name data linked to the position information (latitude and longitude) stored in the ROM 15 is, for example, "North latitude XX degree XX minutes XX seconds, east longitude XX degrees XX minutes XX seconds".
The place name data corresponding to is stored so as to be read by the address corresponding to the position information. In addition, the map link information is the page on which the map corresponding to "North latitude XX degree XX minutes XX seconds, east longitude XX degrees XX minutes XX seconds" is listed in the specified atlas and the description category on that page. The display part information is composed of the display part information indicating the region, and the display part information is read based on the obtained position information.

FIG. 2A illustrates the state of the map link information. For example, each page of the Chubu edition map book is divided so that it can be addressed in a grid pattern by numbers and alphabets. However, the description page data and the description section data representing the description section in this map book are stored in correspondence with the position information of latitude and longitude.

For example, assuming that the shaded area in FIG. 2A is the area corresponding to the position information corresponding to the latitude and longitude obtained by the GPS unit 12,
Based on this position information, for example, the data of "○○ Map Chubu 135F-4" as shown in FIG.
It is read from 15, and this is displayed in characters on the display device together with the place name data corresponding to the position information.

Therefore, the user can read this display, open page 135 of the corresponding "XX map central edition", and see the section area of "F-4" to recognize the current position in the map book. Like By checking such a map book, it is possible to clearly confirm the current position where the user is currently on the map, and the map book makes it possible to easily recognize various information in the surrounding area.

FIG. 3 shows a flow of the operation of the apparatus configured as described above, and in this example, it is assumed that only one type of map book is linked. First, when the operation switch 14 is activated, the GP is started in step 101.
The S unit 12 receives the radio wave from the GPS satellite and obtains the latitude and longitude of the current position based on the input information.

When the latitude and longitude of the present position are obtained in this way, the latitude and longitude stored in the initial address in the ROM 15 in step 102 and the GPS information (latitude and longitude) obtained in step 101 To compare. When the latitude and longitude of the both do not match, the routine proceeds to step 103, where the address storing the latitude and longitude of the ROM 15 is advanced, and the routine returns to step 102. In this way, the GPS information is compared with the latitude and longitude of the ROM 15 while updating the address of the ROM 15, and this processing operation is repeated until the both match.

If it is determined in step 102 that the latitude and longitude of the current position obtained by the GPS processing and the latitude and longitude stored in the address of the ROM 15 match, the process proceeds to step 104 and the current time of the ROM 15 is read. The place name data corresponding to the latitude and longitude positions stored in the address of is read into the microcomputer 13. Next, at step 105, the map link information corresponding to the latitude and longitude is provided to the microcomputer 13
Read into.

In this way, from the ROM 15 to the GPS unit
If the latitude and longitude place name data of the current position and map link information obtained in 12 are obtained, step 10
Proceed to step 6 to convert the character data for expressing the place name data and map link information into a kanji pattern. When converting to this Kanji data, the Kanji font stored in the ROM 15 is appropriately used. And step
At 107, these place name data and map link information are displayed on the display device 16 as shown in FIG.

That is, latitude and longitude information based on GPS information, for example, "North latitude XX degree XX minute XX second, east longitude XX"
The characters "○ degree XX minutes XX seconds" are displayed, and further map link information such as "XX map central edition 135F-4" is displayed. According to such display contents, if you open the corresponding page of the corresponding map book and look at the corresponding division area, the displayed place name data part can be confirmed on the map, and the current position and the map information of the surrounding area can be confirmed. Can be effectively recognized.

In the above embodiment, the case where the map book to be basically used is specified is shown. However, there are many types of map books according to the purpose thereof, and if each map book can be selectively used, the current location information can be recognized more effectively. That is,
In this embodiment, in the ROM 15 that stores map information and the like, not only limited map link information of one type of map book but also map link information of each of a plurality of types of map book is classified by code, for example. Remembered

FIG. 4 shows the flow of processing in such an embodiment. In step 201, the code of the map book is input by the user using the operation switch 11. That is, a map book is selected. If such a map book selection process is performed, steps 101 to 104 are performed similarly to the process in FIG.
The place name data of latitude and longitude based on the information is read into the microcomputer 13.

When the place name data of the current position is read in this way, it is determined in step 202 whether the map book code set by the user and the map book code stored in the ROM 15 match. . If the two codes do not match, the process proceeds to step 203 and the address of the ROM 15 in which the map link information is stored is advanced. After the address for specifying the map book is updated in this way, the process returns to step 202 again to compare the address for specifying the map book. In step 202, the map book code specified by the user and the code in the ROM 15 match. If it is determined that the result is, the process proceeds to step 105 to read the corresponding map link information, the place name and the map link information are converted into a kanji pattern in step 106, and step 107
To display this.

By doing so, not only one type of map book is limited, but the map link information with various map books edited according to the purpose is stored in the ROM 15. Even if a map book specified for this device is not required, the map book on hand can be used. In addition, for the purpose of movement, especially when there is a map book for each purpose corresponding to the type of the movement target, it is possible to select and specify the map book most suitable for the purpose,
It has a great effect in practical use.

[0024]

As described above, according to the present position display device by GPS according to the present invention, the present position is clearly specified on the portable map book, and therefore, it is sufficient to read this map book. In detail, it is possible to easily and clearly recognize the map information of the present location and the map information of the surrounding area.

[Brief description of drawings]

FIG. 1 is a configuration diagram for explaining a current location display device using GPS according to an embodiment of the present invention.

2A and 2B are views for explaining a display mode in the above embodiment, FIG. 2A is a diagram for explaining an example of classification display in a map book, and FIG.

FIG. 3 is a flowchart illustrating the flow of display processing according to the above embodiment.

FIG. 4 is a flowchart illustrating a flow of display processing according to another embodiment.

[Explanation of symbols]

11 ... Antenna, 12 ... GPS unit, 13 ... Microcomputer, 14 ... Operation switch, 15 ... ROM, 16 ... Display device.

 ─────────────────────────────────────────────────── ─── Continuation of the front page (72) Inventor Motoharu Ezaki 1-1, Showa-cho, Kariya city, Aichi Prefecture, Nihon Denso Co., Ltd. (72) Inventor Shin-ichi Hori 1-1-chome, Showa town, Kariya city, Aichi prefecture Sozo Co., Ltd.

Claims (4)

[Claims] 1. A GPS unit that receives a signal from a GPS satellite and obtains current position information of latitude and longitude of a current position, and map information of a specified map book based on current position information of latitude and longitude A storage unit for storing the place name data, and map link information including a description site such as page information describing the current location of a predetermined map book; and a storage unit stored in the storage unit based on the current location information obtained by the GPS unit. The current place name and map link information calculating means for reading out the place name data and the map link information, the place name data indicating the corresponding region of the map book obtained by the place name and map link information calculating means for this current place, and the description of the corresponding region And a display means for displaying the corresponding page of the above-mentioned atlas by characters. The display means records the current location in the atlas. Sites and place names are displayed by the character, the current position display device according to GPS, characterized in that so as to be linked with the atlas. 2. The map link information storage means stores map information respectively corresponding to a plurality of different map books, and the current location link information calculation means maps a map link based on the map information corresponding to the specified map book. 2. The GPS current position display device according to claim 1, wherein information is requested. 3. The map information of the map link information storage means is configured to include, together with the corresponding page of a map book, section information that divides the page into areas, and the display section displays the corresponding page and the section information. The present position display device by GPS according to claim 1, wherein characters are displayed together with the place name. 4. The storage means stores and sets map link information corresponding to a plurality of types of map books, and the map link information of the input and specified map book is read and displayed. 1. The present location display device by GPS according to 1.