JPH08166763A - Map display device for vehicle - Google Patents

Abstract

PURPOSE: To grasp the direction of progress of a vehicle at a glance by displaying a mark showing a position of a vehicle. CONSTITUTION: When a vehicle starts to run, a control circuit 4 detects the present position and the direction of progress of the vehicle, and decides the direction of looking down from a view point so that a road map in the direction of progress of a vehicle can be displayed. Next, a road map data is read from a map storage memory 3 based on the present position and the direction of looking down, data having data classification satisfying a prescribed condition is extracted an converted into a bird's-eye view data out of read road map data. Next, a display screen of a display device 7 is divided into plural regions, bird's-eye view data is processed for each region and they are converted into map picture data. Next, a vehicle position mark in accordance with the direction of display of a bird's-eye view is read from a character memory 8 and vehicle information picture data is prepared, the map picture data and the vehicle information picture data are stored in a picture memory 6 and displayed on the display device 7.

Description

Detailed Description of the Invention

[0001]

BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION 1. Field of the Invention The present invention relates to a vehicle map display device capable of displaying on a display device a road map within a set range from a present location to a destination.

[0002]

2. Description of the Related Art A map display device for a vehicle is known in which a road map in the traveling direction of a vehicle or a destination direction is displayed on a display device. However, when displaying the traveling direction of the vehicle, for example, when the traveling route curves greatly, the display direction of the road map also changes abruptly, and the direction of the road map may not be known. Therefore, when displaying a road map, a vehicle map display device has also been proposed that displays the direction on the screen so that the direction of the road map can be confirmed (for example, see JP-A-60-79499). .

[0003]

However, in the conventional vehicle map display device, since the mark indicating the direction of the compass or the like and the mark indicating the current position of the vehicle are displayed at different positions, the traveling direction of the vehicle can be confirmed. When doing, both marks had to be compared, and it took a lot of time to confirm the direction.

An object of the present invention is to display a mark indicating the direction of the road map at the vehicle position on the road map displayed on the display device so that the traveling direction of the vehicle can be grasped at a glance. The purpose of the present invention is to provide a map display device.

[0005]

The present invention will be described with reference to FIG. 1 showing an embodiment. The present invention detects a vehicle position and a road map storage means 3 for storing road map data relating to a road map. It is applied to a vehicle map display device provided with vehicle position detection means 1 and 2 and display control means for displaying road map data around the vehicle position on the display device 7, and the orientation of the road map displayed on the display device 7. By configuring the display control means so as to display a mark at the vehicle position on the road map displayed on the display device 7 so that the direction of the displayed road map can be seen, The above object is achieved. The invention according to claim 2 is
The vehicle map display device according to claim 1, further comprising mark storage means for storing marks respectively corresponding to a plurality of different azimuths, and the mark storage means 8 for storing marks corresponding to the azimuths detected by the azimuth detection means. The display control means is configured to display the selected mark at the vehicle position on the road map.

[0006]

According to the first aspect of the present invention, the direction of the road map displayed on the display device 7 is detected, and a mark indicating the direction of the displayed road map is displayed at the vehicle position on the road map. In the invention according to claim 2, the marks corresponding to each of a plurality of different azimuths are stored in advance, the mark corresponding to the azimuth detected by the azimuth detecting means is selected, and the selected mark is displayed on the road map. Display at vehicle position.

Incidentally, in the section of means and action for solving the above problems for explaining the constitution of the present invention, the drawings of the embodiments are used for making the present invention easy to understand. It is not limited to.

[0008]

1 is a block diagram of an embodiment of a vehicle map display device according to the present invention. In FIG. 1, 1 is a mileage sensor that detects the mileage of the vehicle, and 2 is a azimuth sensor that detects the traveling azimuth of the vehicle. Reference numeral 3 denotes a map storage memory for storing road map data, which is composed of, for example, a CD-ROM and its reading device. The road map data stored in the map storage memory 3 mainly includes road data, name data, background data, and the like. Further, the map storage memory 3 stores road map data of a plurality of map scales.

Reference numeral 4 is a control circuit for controlling the entire apparatus,
It consists of a microprocessor and its peripheral circuits. Reference numeral 5 is an input device for inputting the destination of the vehicle. An image memory 6 stores image data to be displayed on the display device 7. The image data stored in the image memory 6 is appropriately read and displayed on the display device 7.

Numeral 8 is a character memory for storing a vehicle position mark that allows the direction of the road map displayed on the display device 7 to be known, and stores, for example, several tens of kinds of marks having different display forms depending on the direction. 2A and 2B are diagrams showing an example of the vehicle position mark, the triangular mark indicates the current position of the vehicle, and the arrow head of the arrow indicates the north direction. In this embodiment, the display direction of the road map can be confirmed by changing the direction of the arrow tip according to the display direction of the road map. Therefore, the character memory 8 stores a plurality of vehicle position marks having different arrowhead directions.

3 and 4 are flowcharts showing the main processing of the control circuit 4, and the operation of the present embodiment will be described below based on this flowchart. The control circuit 4 is
When the key is operated to the ignition on position, the processing of FIGS. In step S1 of FIG. 2, the current position and the traveling direction of the vehicle are detected using the mileage sensor 1 and the azimuth sensor 2. Alternatively, GPS (Global P
Positioning System) A GPS sensor (not shown) that detects a GPS signal from a satellite may be used to detect the current location.

In step S2, the display direction of the bird's-eye view is determined based on the traveling direction of the vehicle detected in step S1 in order to display the bird's-eye view in the traveling direction of the vehicle. Step S3
Then, the current position detected in step S1 and step S
Road map data around the current location is read from the map storage memory 3 based on the display direction determined in 2. For example, the road map data of several 10 km square including the current location is read.

In step S4, the data used for displaying the bird's-eye view is selected from the road map data read in step S3. FIG. 5 is a flowchart showing details of the process of step S4. Illustrated step S1
In 01, the data which has not been subjected to the processing of step S102 and thereafter described below is selected from the road map data read in step S3 of FIG. In step S102, it is determined whether or not the data type of the data selected in step S101 is to be displayed on the display device 7.
For example, when the data selected in step S101 is road data, it is determined whether or not the road type has a higher priority than a national road. This step S102
By the processing of 1, the amount of road map data displayed on the display device 7 can be reduced.

If the determination in step S102 is affirmative, the flow advances to step S103 to determine whether the data selected in step S101 is within the range displayed on the display device 7. That is, it is determined whether the data selected in step S101 is within the range displayed on the display device 7. If the determination in step S103 is positive, step S
In step 104, the data selected in step S101 is selected as data for converting into a bird's-eye view. When the process of step S104 ends, or step S10
When the determination of No. 2 is denied, or when the determination of step S103 is denied, the process proceeds to step S105, and steps S101 to S1 are performed for all the data read from the map storage memory 3 in step S4 of FIG.
It is determined whether the processing up to 04 has been performed. If the determination is affirmative, the process returns, and if the determination is negative, a step S1
Return to 01.

As described above, in the process of FIG. 5, only the data of which the data type satisfies the predetermined condition is extracted from the road map data read from the map storage memory 3, and the bird's eye view is further extracted from the extracted data. Select data for display.

Returning to FIG. 3, in step S5, the road map data selected in step S4 is converted into bird's-eye view data. FIG. 6 is a diagram for explaining the conversion into bird's-eye view data, and shows an example in which the road map is the XY plane, the viewpoint M is placed on the Z axis orthogonal to the XY plane, and the angle of looking down from the viewpoint M is φ. The illustrated rectangle abcd shows the display range of the display device 7 as enlargedly displayed in FIG. 7, and the trapezoidal area ABCD of FIG. 6 shows the road map range displayed on the display device 7. In step S5, all the road map data in the trapezoidal area ABCD can be displayed on the display device 7.
After the height Z of the viewpoint M, the down-looking angle φ from the viewpoint M, and the spread angle θ from the viewpoint are determined, bird's-eye view data projected onto the rectangular area abcd in FIG. 6 is created using these parameters. At this time, the looking-down angle φ is set such that the vicinity of the center line connecting the midpoints of the upper side and the lower side of the display screen of the display device 7 is the traveling direction of the vehicle.

In step S6 of FIG. 3, the bird's-eye view data converted in step S5 is converted into final map image data to be displayed on the display device 7. FIG. 8 shows step S
6 is a flowchart showing details of the process of No. 6. In step S201 of FIG. 8, data that has not been converted into map image data is selected from the bird's-eye view data obtained by the process of step S6 of FIG. Step S202
Then, the display range of the display device 7 is divided into a plurality of regions, and the number of divided regions is assigned to the variable N.

As shown in FIG. 9, in this embodiment, the display range of the display device 7 is divided into four areas. In FIG. 9, 500 dots in the X-axis direction of the display screen of the display device 7,
An example is shown in which the Y-axis direction is 400 dots and the lower left corner of the screen is the origin of the coordinates. Further, in FIG. 9, among the four regions, the first region has a Y-axis coordinate range of 0 to 200 dots, the second region has a Y-axis coordinate range of 200 to 300 dots, and the third region has a Y range. Axial coordinate is 300-350
In the dot range, the fourth region has coordinates in the Y-axis direction of 350 to 4
The range is 00 dots.

In step S203 of FIG. 8, step S
It is determined whether the display position of the data selected in 201 belongs to the Nth area. If the determination is negative, step S20.
4, the value obtained by subtracting 1 from the variable N is set as a new N, and the process returns to step S203. If the determination in step S203 is affirmative, the process advances to step S205 to convert the bird's-eye view data into map image data based on the value of the variable N. For example,
The road data in the first area has a line width of 4 points, the road data in the second area has a line width of 2 points, and the road data in the third area has a line width of 1 point. Further, since an image showing the sky is displayed in the fourth area, all road map data included in the fourth area is deleted, and blue-colored image data is created instead. The display color of the fourth area may be changed depending on day and night.

In step S206, it is determined whether or not all the bird's eye view data has been converted into map image data. If the determination is negative, the process returns to step S201, and if the determination is affirmative, the process returns.

As described above, in the processing of FIG.
Since the display range of is divided into a plurality of areas and the display format of the bird's-eye view data is changed for each area, a more stereoscopic bird's-eye view can be displayed and the sense of distance can be easily grasped. In particular, since the image showing the sky is displayed in the fourth region closest to the upper side of the display screen without displaying the road map, the bird's-eye view can have a greater depth.

Returning to FIG. 3, in step S7, the vehicle position mark (see FIG. 2) corresponding to the display direction of the bird's-eye view displayed on the display device 7 is read from the character memory 8. In step S8, vehicle information image data is created so that the vehicle position mark and the mark indicating the destination are displayed on the display device 7.

FIG. 10 is a flow chart showing details of the processing in step S8. In step S301 of FIG. 10, vehicle position mark data is created to display the vehicle position mark set in step S7 of FIG. 3 at the display position corresponding to the current position G of the vehicle. In step S302,
The distance GP between the current position G of the vehicle and the destination P is calculated. In step S303, it is determined whether the distance GP is less than or equal to the predetermined distance L.

If the determination in step S303 is affirmative, the flow advances to step S304 to create destination mark data so as to display the flag mark shown in FIG. If the determination in step S303 is negative, the process proceeds to step S305, in which destination mark data is created so as to display a flag mark at the boundary between the third region and the fourth region, and the process returns. Also, the above steps S304 and S
At 305, the size of the flag mark is changed according to the display position of the destination. For example, when the destination is in the first area, the flag mark is the largest, and in the following, the flag mark is the second largest in the second area and the smallest in the third area.

As described above, in the processing of FIG. 10, when the destination is within the range displayed on the display device 7, the flag mark is displayed at the display position corresponding to the destination, and the destination is displayed within the display range. If not, the flag mark is displayed at the display position that is toward the destination and is closest to the destination on the display screen. As a result, the flag mark can always be displayed regardless of the distance from the current position to the destination, and the driver can always grasp the direction of the destination. Also, because the size of the flag mark is changed according to the display position on the display screen,
The flag mark does not interfere with the display of other map information.

Returning to FIG. 3, in step S9, the map image data created in step S6 and the vehicle information image data created in step S8 are stored in the image memory 5. Next, in step S10 of FIG. 4, drawing is performed on the display device 7 based on the data stored in the image memory 5.
As a result, a bird's-eye view as shown in FIG. 9 is displayed on the display device 7. In addition, the roads shown by diagonal lines in FIG. 9 represent recommended routes.

Returning to FIG. 4, in step S11, the current position and the heading of the vehicle are detected as in step S2. In step S12, it is determined whether the vehicle has traveled a predetermined distance or more. If the determination is affirmative, the process returns to step S2 in FIG. 2, and if the determination is negative, the process proceeds to step S13. In step S13, it is determined whether the traveling direction of the vehicle has changed. If the determination is affirmative, the process proceeds to step S14, and the vehicle position mark corresponding to the traveling direction of the vehicle is read again from the character memory 8. Both when the determination in step S13 is negative and when the processing in step S14 is completed, the process proceeds to step S15, only the display position of the vehicle position mark is changed according to the traveling distance of the vehicle, and the process returns to step S11.

In summary of the processing of FIGS. 3 and 4 described above, when the vehicle starts traveling, the control circuit 4 detects the current position and traveling direction of the vehicle and sets the direction to look down from the viewpoint when displaying the bird's-eye view. . Next, the road map data is read from the map storage memory 3 based on the current position and the direction of looking down, and the data whose data type satisfies a predetermined condition is extracted from the read road map data, and the extracted data is used as bird's-eye view data. Convert. Next, the display screen of the display device 7 is divided into a plurality of areas, and bird's-eye view data is processed for each area and converted into map image data. For example,
The road line width in the area on the lower side of the display screen is made thicker, and the road line width in the area on the upper side is made thinner. Next, the vehicle position mark corresponding to the display direction of the bird's-eye view is read from the character memory 8 and vehicle information image data is created. Then, when the creation of the map image data and the vehicle information image data is completed, the data is displayed on the display device 7, and then the current position of the vehicle is detected again.

As described above, according to the above-described embodiment, since the vehicle position mark indicating the display direction of the road map is displayed at the current position on the road map, the heading of the vehicle can be grasped accurately and immediately. Like Further, by performing such mark display, even if the display direction of the road map suddenly changes, the direction of the displayed road map is not lost.

In the above embodiment, the arrow indicating the north direction is displayed in the vehicle position mark. However, the display form of the bearing is not limited to the embodiment, and instead of displaying the arrow, for example, a symbol indicating the bearing is displayed. It may be displayed. Further, as shown in FIG. 11, a shadow may be displayed, for example, on the north side of the triangular mark indicating the vehicle position. Since the north direction on the road map can be confirmed by the position where the shadow is displayed, the same effect as in the above embodiment can be obtained. When such a shadow display is performed, the position where the shadow is displayed differs depending on the display direction of the road map. Therefore, a plurality of triangular marks with shadows are stored in the character memory 8 in advance, and one of these marks is selected. Just select it.

In the above embodiment, an example of displaying the road map of the traveling direction of the vehicle in a bird's-eye view is shown, but the direction in which the bird's-eye view is displayed is not limited to the traveling direction of the vehicle. For example, the present invention can be applied to a bird's-eye view display of a road map in the direction of a destination or in the direction of a waypoint in the middle of the destination. Further, in the above embodiment, the example of displaying the bird's eye view of the road map has been described,
As shown in FIG. 12, it can also be applied to the case of displaying a normal plane map.

In the embodiment thus constructed, the map storage memory 3 serves as road map storage means, the control circuit 4 serves as display control means, the mileage sensor 1 and the azimuth sensor 2 serve as vehicle position detection means, and The azimuth sensor 2 corresponds to the azimuth detecting means, the input device 4 corresponds to the destination setting means, and the character memory 8 corresponds to the mark storing means.

[0033]

As described in detail above, according to the present invention, the vehicle position on the road map displayed on the display device is
In order to display the mark so that you can see the direction of the road map,
The traveling direction of the vehicle can be grasped quickly and accurately. Further, since the bearing is displayed so as to be superimposed on the vehicle position, the bearing can be displayed without hindering the display of the road map. According to the invention described in claim 2, since the marks corresponding to each of the plurality of different directions are stored in advance and one of the marks is selected, the display direction of the road map is changed. However, the mark can be rewritten immediately.

[Brief description of drawings]

FIG. 1 is a block diagram of an embodiment of a vehicle map display device according to the present invention.

FIG. 2 is a diagram showing a vehicle position mark according to the present embodiment.

FIG. 3 is a flowchart showing main processing of a control circuit.

FIG. 4 is a flowchart following FIG. 3;

5 is a flowchart showing details of the processing in step S4 of FIG.

FIG. 6 is a diagram illustrating a method of converting to bird's-eye view data.

FIG. 7 is an enlarged view of the rectangular area abcd shown in FIG.

FIG. 8 is a flowchart showing details of the processing in step S6 of FIG.

FIG. 9 is a diagram showing an example of a bird's-eye view display.

10 is a flowchart showing details of the processing in step S8 of FIG.

FIG. 11 is a view showing a modified example of a vehicle position mark.

FIG. 12 is a diagram showing an example in which an orientation mark is displayed on a plane map.

[Explanation of symbols]

 1 mileage sensor 2 azimuth sensor 3 map storage memory 4 control circuit 5 input device 6 image memory 7 display device 8 character memory

─────────────────────────────────────────────────── ─── Continuation of the front page (51) Int.Cl. ⁶ Identification code Internal reference number FI Technical display location G06T 1/00 G08G 1/0969 G09B 29/00 AC

Claims (2)

[Claims] 1. A road map storage means for storing road map data relating to a road map, a vehicle position detection means for detecting a vehicle position, and a display control means for displaying the road map data around the vehicle position on a display device. In a vehicle map display device provided with, comprising a direction detection means for detecting the direction of the road map displayed on the display device, the display control means, in the vehicle position on the road map displayed on the display device, A map display device for a vehicle, wherein a mark is displayed so that the direction of the displayed road map can be understood. 2. The map display device for a vehicle according to claim 1, further comprising mark storage means for storing the marks corresponding to a plurality of different azimuths, and the display control means is operated by the azimuth detection means. A map display device for a vehicle, wherein the mark corresponding to the detected azimuth is selected from the mark storage means and the selected mark is displayed at a vehicle position on a road map.