METHOD FOR CREATING MAP DATA AND MAP DATA UTILIZATION APPARATUS

• US 20110191388A1
• Filed: 01/26/2011
• Published: 08/04/2011
• Est. Priority Date: 01/29/2010
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: DENSO Corporation
• Original Assignee: DENSO Corporation
• Inventors: Fujimoto, Hidetoshi, MATSUNAGA, Takayuki
• Granted Patent: US 9,098,496 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 707/803
• CPC Class Codes: G01C 21/32 Structuring or formatting of map data
• CPC Class Codes: G01C 21/3878 Hierarchical structures, e.g. layering
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 16/00 Information retrieval; Database structures therefor; File system structures therefor
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 16/28 Databases characterised by their database models, e.g. relational or object models
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 16/29 Geographical information databases

Abstract

Map data includes, for each of multiple links used for representing a road in a map, a link record and a speed limit record for a certain link. The link records and the speed limit records of the multiple links for representing a road are collected to form separate data lists of respective attribute types, that is, a link record data list and a speed limit record data list, instead of collecting records by a unit of each link. The map data structured as separate attribute data lists of respective attribute data types for links in the map data, for example, establishes inter-attribute data association between different attribute data types for the certain link based on the arrangement orders of the respective attribute data types in the data list indicative of the same arrangement order of the multiple links.

Claims

1. A method of creating map data for representing a map for use in a map data utilization apparatus, the map made up from a plurality of map components and each of the plurality of map components having a plurality of attribute types defined in the map data, the method comprising:

listing, in a form of a data list, attribute data elements for each of the plurality of attribute types of each of the plurality of map components, wherein

the attribute data elements for representing each of the plurality of attribute types of each of the plurality of map components are formed as one data list, and

both of the data list of one of the plurality of attribute types and the data list of different one of the plurality of attribute types respectively have an arrangement of the attribute data elements to represent a same arrangement order of the plurality of map components in the map data.

2. The method of claim 1, wherein

a group of data lists for each of the plurality of attribute types includes an extended data list that belongs to a main data list, and

the formulating the data list includes:

formulating the extended data list as a data list that lacks attribute data element being associated with a part of the plurality of map components that are associated with the attribute data element in the main data list; and

formulating the main data list as a data list that has arrangement of attribute data element of each of the plurality of map components in the map, having embedding of attribute data identifying information of the attribute data that is non-existent in the extended data list.

3. The method of claim 2, wherein

the formulating of the main data list embeds a flag in the attribute data of each of the plurality of map components in the main data list, the flag representing whether a corresponding attribute data exists in the extended data list.

4. The method of claim 1, wherein

the formulating of the data list includes:

a basic data list formulation procedure for formulating a basic data list that is formed as arrangement of basic attributes that are indispensable in the map data as the attribute data; and

an extended data list formulation procedure for formulating an extended data list that is formed as arrangement of extended attributes that are dispensable in the map data as the attribute data, and

the map data is created in a plurality of different forms according to inclusion and non-inclusion of the extended data list based on the basic data list.

5. The method of claim 4, wherein

the extended data list formulation procedure formulates the extended data list by appropriately omitting the attribute data that corresponds to a part of the plurality of map components associated with the attribute data element in the basic data list, and

the basic data list formulation procedure embeds, in the basic data list, identifying information that enables identifying of the omitted attribute data element that is omitted from the extended data list.

6. The method of claim 5, wherein

the basic data list formulation procedure embeds, in the attribute data of each of the plurality of map components in the basic data list, a flag that represents existence of corresponding attribute data of the component in the extended data list.

7. The method of claim 1, wherein

the map component is a link that represents a road as a unit of the map data, and

the data list is an arrangement of a plurality of attribute data elements that represent attributes of a corresponding link.

8. A map data utilization apparatus comprising:

a processor for processing map data; and

a map data input unit for inputting the map data to the processor, wherein

the map data has a plurality of map components for drawing a map,

each of the plurality of map components has a plurality of attributes represented by respectively different types of attribute data,

each of the different types of attribute data is formulated as a data list, and

arrangement of the data list for each of the different types of attribute data for each of the plurality of map components has a same arrangement order.

9. The map data utilization apparatus of claim 8, wherein

a group of data lists for each of the different types of attribute data elements include a main data list and an extended data list that belongs to the main data list,

arrangement of attribute data elements in the extended data list indicates lack of the attribute data elements corresponding to a part of the plurality of map components whose attribute data elements are arranged in the main data list, and

the main data list formed as arrangement of the attribute data elements of the plurality of map components of the map has embedded information of the lack of the attribute data elements in the arrangement of the attribute data elements in the extended data list.

10. The map data utilization apparatus of claim 9, wherein

the embedded information indicative of the lack of the attribute data elements in the extended data list is a flag embedded in the main data list.

11. The map data utilization apparatus of claim 8, wherein

the map component is a link that represents a road as a unit of the map data, and

the data list is an arrangement of the plurality of the attribute data elements that represent attributes of a corresponding link.

12. The map data utilization apparatus of claim 8, wherein

a group of data lists for each of the different types of the attribute data elements includes a main data list and an extended data list that belongs to the main data list,

arrangement of the attribute data elements in the extended data list indicates lack of the attribute data elements corresponding to a part of the plurality of map components whose attribute data elements are arranged in the main data list, and

each of attribute data of the plurality of map components in the main data list has an absence indicator indicative of absence of corresponding attribute data elements in the extended data list.

13. The map data utilization apparatus of claim 12, wherein

the absence indicator of the corresponding attribute data elements in the extended data list is a presence flag in the attribute data elements of the main data list.

14. The map data utilization apparatus of claim 8, wherein

the data list is categorized either as a main data list or an extended data list that is dependent on the main data list,

the main data list is an arrangement of main attribute data elements representative of each of the plurality of map components,

the extended data list is an arrangement of extended attribute data elements,

a part of the plurality of map components in the main data list have no extended attribute data element in the extended data list,

each of the plurality of map components in the main data list has extended attribute data element presence information, and

the extended attribute data element presence information is included in the main data list.

15. The map data utilization apparatus of claim 14, wherein

the extended attribute data element presence information is included as a flag in the main data list.