METHOD FOR DISPLAYING BACKGROUND SKY IN NAVIGATION SYSTEM AND APPARATUS THEREOF

• US 20090088970A1
• Filed: 01/26/2007
• Published: 04/02/2009
• Est. Priority Date: 04/27/2006
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Thinkware Systems Corporation
• Original Assignee: Thinkware Systems Corporation
• Inventors: Kim, Hak Soo
• Granted Patent: US 8,229,667 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 701/208
• CPC Class Codes: G01C 21/3635 Guidance using 3D or perspective road maps
• 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
• CPC Class Codes: G08G 1/0969 having a display in the form of a map

Abstract

A method of displaying a background sky in a navigation system, the method including: storing and maintaining map data and background sky image data with respect to one or more directions of the map data in a database; detecting a driving direction angle of a vehicle; computing a position of a background sky image corresponding to the detected driving direction angle; extracting background sky image data corresponding to the computed position of the background sky image from the database; and displaying the extracted background sky image data as a background sky with respect to the map data.

Claims

1. A method of displaying a background sky in a navigation system, the method comprising:

storing and maintaining map data and background sky image data with respect to one or more directions of the map data in a database;

detecting a driving direction angle of a vehicle;

computing a position of a background sky image corresponding to the detected driving direction angle;

extracting background sky image data corresponding to the computed position of the background sky image from the database; and

displaying the extracted background sky image data as a background sky with respect to the map data.

2. The method of claim 1, wherein the storing and maintaining divides a background sky panorama image of 360°

into data of an N number of images, stores and maintains the data of the N number of images in the database, and the extracting extracts the background sky image data by combining image data corresponding to the computed position of the background sky image from among the data of the N number of images.

3. The method of claim 1, wherein the computing comprises:

computing a start position of the background sky image corresponding to the detected driving direction angle; and

computing an end position of the background sky image corresponding to the detected driving direction angle.

4. The method of claim 3, wherein the extracting extracts background sky image data corresponding to an area from the start position of the background sky image to the end position of the background sky image from the background sky image data stored in the database.

5. A computer-readable recording medium storing a program for implementing the method according to any one of claims 1 through 4.

6. An apparatus for displaying a background sky in a navigation system, the apparatus comprising:

a background sky image storage unit storing and maintaining map data and background sky image data with respect to one or more directions of the map data;

an angle detection unit for detecting a driving direction angle of a vehicle;

an image position computation unit for computing a position of a background sky image corresponding to the detected driving direction angle;

an image extraction unit for extracting background sky image data corresponding to the computed position of the background sky image; and

a display unit for displaying the extracted background sky image data as a background sky with respect to the map data.

7. The apparatus of claim 6, wherein the background sky image storage unit stores a background sky panorama image data of 360°

by dividing the background sky panorama image data of 360°

into data of an N number of images, and the image extraction unit extracts the background sky image data by combining image data corresponding to the computed position of the background sky image from among the data of the N number of images.

8. The apparatus of claim 6, wherein the image position computation unit computes a start position of the background sky image corresponding to the detected driving direction angle, and computes an end position of the background sky image corresponding to the detected driving direction angle.

9. The apparatus of claim 8, wherein the image extraction unit extracts background sky image data corresponding to an area from the start position of the background sky image to the end position of the background sky image from the background sky image data stored in the database.