System and methodologies for visual relevancy-grading of a navigation map

• US 10,030,987 B2
• Filed: 02/05/2015
• Issued: 07/24/2018
• Est. Priority Date: 02/05/2015
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Audi AG (Volkswagen AG), Volkswagen AG
• Original Assignee: Audi AG (Volkswagen AG), Volkswagen AG
• Inventors: Maiwand, Heiko, Lathrop, William Brian, Glaser, Erik, Lobato Fregoso, Marco Antonio
• Primary Examiner(s): Antonucci, Anne M
• Assistant Examiner(s): Malhotra, Sanjeev
• Application Number:
  US14/614,772
• Publication Number:
  US 20160231132A1
• Time in Patent Office: 1,265 Days
• Field of Search: 701 70, 701117, 701532, 705 13, 4555692, 4554042, 34053913, 340575, 345629, 324244
• CPC Class Codes: G01C 21/36 Input/output arrangements for on-board computers
• CPC Class Codes: G01C 21/367 Details, e.g. road map scale, orientation, zooming, illumination, level of detail, scrolling of road map or positioning of current position marker

Abstract

An in-vehicle system and method for presenting a relevancy-graded navigation map to a driver of a vehicle. The relevancy-graded navigation deemphasizes map elements that are not relevant to driving the vehicle. The relevancy-graded navigation map allows the driver to focus more on controlling the vehicle by reducing the amount of time it takes to interpret a navigation map.

Claims

1. A system for outputting a relevancy-graded navigation map, comprising:

a transceiver to receive map data, vehicle location data, and road data, the map data being indicative of a navigation map configured to be output to an operator of a vehicle inside the vehicle, the map data comprising map elements, each map element indicating a feature of interest to the operator of the vehicle on the navigation map, the location data being indicative of the current location of the vehicle, and the road data being indicative of one or more changeable road conditions;

means for determining a relevancy parameter for each map element based on the map data related to the map element, the location data, and the road data, and creating a relevancy-graded navigation map using the relevancy parameters;

a graphical user interface coupled to the vehicle for controlling the output of the relevancy-graded navigation map to the operator of the vehicle and dynamically displaying the relevancy of each map element as the relevancy parameters change in real-time, the dynamic displaying of the relevancy including changing at least one of the an opacity, a saturation, or a color of each map element in response to a real time-time change in relevancy parameter, wherein the relevancy parameter and resulting display of relevancy is determined, at least in part, based on the relevance of each map element to operating the vehicle and

a trigger module to generate trigger data after detecting an occurrence of one or more conditions in the vehicle, wherein relevancy parameters are not determined for each map element until the trigger data has been generated,

wherein the one or more conditions includes whether the vehicle is moving at or above a certain speed.

2. The system of claim 1, wherein a first plurality of map elements represent a plurality of roads indicated in the map data of the navigation map.

3. The system of claim 2, wherein the map data related to each of the plurality of roads includes data indicating a classification of the road on the speed of the road, the capacity of the road, and the access to property provided by the road.

4. The system of claim 2, wherein the road data includes data about each of the plurality of roads indicated in the map data and includes traffic data related to each of the plurality of roads, construction project data related to each of the plurality of roads, and weather data related to each of the plurality of roads.

5. The system of claim 2, wherein the relevancy parameter of each map element includes a likelihood that the operator of the vehicle will travel near the map element, the likelihood being based on an effective driving distance between the vehicle and the map element, and determining a classification of the map element.

6. The system of claim 5, wherein the relevancy parameter of each map element is also based on data indicating a likelihood the vehicle will travel along one of the plurality of roads based on one or more routes outlined between the current location of the vehicle and a destination of the vehicle input by a user.

7. The system of claim 1, wherein a second plurality of map elements represent a plurality of points of interest to the operator of the vehicle including a restaurant, a gas station, and a hotel.

8. The system of claim 1, comprising a location determination module to determine the location data of the vehicle, the location data indicative of the current position of the vehicle, the current rate of travel of the vehicle, and the current direction of travel of the vehicle.

9. The system of claim 1, wherein the relevancy-graded navigation map comprises one or more relevancy-graded map elements, each map element including graphics data indicative of a visual representation of the map element output to the operator of the vehicle, wherein the graphics data of each relevancy-graded map element is different than the graphics data of each corresponding map element.

10. A system for outputting a relevancy-graded navigation map, comprising:

a navigation map module to receive map data and road data, the map data being indicative of a navigation map configured to be output to an operator of a vehicle, the map data comprising one or more map elements that indicate features of interest to the operator of the vehicle, each map element comprising data indicative of a map element type and data indicative of a graphic related to the map element, and the road data being indicative of one or more changeable road conditions;

a location determination module to determine location data of the vehicle, the location data indicative of the current position of the vehicle, the current rate of travel of the vehicle, and the current direction of travel of the vehicle;

a relevancy parameter determination module to determine a relevancy parameter for each map element based on the map data related to the map element, the location data, and the road data;

a relevancy map module to generate relevancy-graded map elements by modifying the data indicative of the graphic of each map element based on the relevancy parameter of each map element, and control the generation of a relevancy-graded navigation map using the relevancy-graded map elements;

a graphical user interface coupled to the vehicle for outputting the relevancy-graded navigation map to the operator of the vehicle; and

a trigger module to generate trigger data after detecting an occurrence of one or more conditions in the vehicle, wherein relevancy parameters are not determined for each map element until the trigger data has been generated,

wherein the one or more conditions includes whether the vehicle is moving at or above a certain speed.

11. A method of displaying a navigation map on an in-vehicle system comprising:

receiving map data and location data, the map data being indicative of a navigation map configured to be output to an operator of a vehicle, the map data comprising one or more map elements, each map element comprising data indicative of a map element type and data indicative of a graphic related to the map element, and the location data being indicative of a current position of the vehicle;

determining a relevancy parameter for each map element based on the map data and the location data;

for each map element, generating a relevancy-graded map element based on the relevancy parameter by modifying the data indicative of the graphic for each relevancy-graded map element;

controlling the generation of a relevancy-graded navigation map using the relevancy-graded map elements;

detecting whether a triggering condition exists,

wherein determining a relevancy parameter only occurs when the triggering condition exists, and

wherein the triggering condition includes whether the vehicle is moving at or above a certain speed.

12. The method of claim 11, further comprising outputting the relevancy-graded navigation map to a graphical user interface associated with an operator of the vehicle.

13. The method of claim 11, further comprising receiving driving conditions data that includes traffic patterns on a plurality of roads included in the map elements, construction being performed on the plurality of roads, and weather experienced by the plurality of roads.

14. The method of claim 11, comprising receiving a destination of the vehicle and receiving one or more determined routes between the current location of the vehicle and the destination of the vehicle.

15. The method of claim 11, wherein determining the relevancy parameter comprises determining the effective driving distance between the vehicle and each map element;

and determining a classification of each map element.

16. The method of claim 11, further comprising receiving data regarding the speed and the direction of travel of the vehicle.

17. A road relevancy mapping module embodied in one or more non-transitory machine accessible storage media, the road relevancy mapping module comprising instructions executable by one or more processors to cause an electronic device to:

receive map data and location data, the map data being indicative of a navigation map configured to be output to an operator of a vehicle, the map data comprising one or more map elements, each map element comprising data indicative of a map element type and data indicative of a graphic related to the map element, and the location data being indicative of a current position of the vehicle;

determine a relevancy parameter for each map element based on the map data and the location data;

for each map element, generate a relevancy-graded map element based on the relevancy parameter by modifying the data indicative of the graphic for each relevancy-graded map element;

control the generation of a relevancy-graded navigation map using the relevancy-graded map elements automatically once a triggering condition is met, the triggering condition includes whether the vehicle is moving at or above a certain speed; and

output the relevancy-graded navigation map to a graphical user interface associated with the operator of the vehicle.