FACILITY SEARCH DEVICE

• US 20120066240A1
• Filed: 07/31/2009
• Published: 03/15/2012
• Est. Priority Date: 07/31/2009
• Status: Abandoned Application

• Current Assignee: Mitsubishi Electric Corporation
• Original Assignee: Mitsubishi Electric Corporation
• Inventors: Mizuguchi, Takehisa, Okada, Reiko, Yamazaki, Wataru, Matsumoto, Atsushi, Morimoto, Takuji
• Application Number:
  US13/319,168
• Publication Number:
  US 20120066240A1
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 707/758
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 16/29 Geographical information databases

Abstract

A facility search device includes: a facility information storage unit that stores facility information; an additional information storage unit that stores additional facility information; a facility search unit that searches for facilities from the facility information and the additional facility information; a sameness determination unit that determines the sameness of facilities based on identifiers contained in the facility information on each of the facilities when the plurality of facilities are searched for by the facility search unit; a facility information synthesis unit that synthesizes the facility information on the facilities determined to be the same by the sameness determination unit among the searched facilities; a display image generation unit that generates images for displaying the searched facilities or the facilities synthesized by the facility information synthesis unit; and a display unit that displays the images generated by the display image generation unit.

Claims

1. A facility search device, comprising:

a facility information storage unit that stores facility information that is information relating to facilities;

an additional information storage unit that stores additional facility information;

a facility search unit that searches for facilities from the facility information stored in the facility information storage unit and the additional facility information stored in the additional information storage unit;

a sameness determination unit that determines the sameness of facilities based on identifiers contained in the facility information on each of the facilities when the plurality of facilities are searched for by the facility search unit;

a facility information synthesis unit that synthesizes the facility information on the facilities determined to be the same by the sameness determination unit among the facilities searched for by the facility search unit;

a display image generation unit that generates images for displaying the facilities searched for by the facility search unit or the facilities synthesized by the facility information synthesis unit; and

a display unit that displays the images generated by the display image generation unit.

2. The facility search device according to claim 1, wherein the sameness determination unit has a similarity determination unit that calculates the similarity of each of the facilities from information other than the identifiers contained in the facility information, and determines the facilities to be the same when the calculated similarity exhibits not less than a certain value.

3. The facility search device according to claim 2, wherein the similarity determination unit calculates the similarity based on at least one of facility name, address, telephone number, coordinates and genre.

4. The facility search device according to claim 1, wherein when the facilities indicated on the basis of the facility information synthesized by the facility information synthesis unit and other facilities indicated on the basis of facility information not synthesized constitute an overlapping portion, the display image generation unit generates an image in which an antero-posterior relation is changed.

5. The facility search device according to claim 1, wherein the display image generation unit highlights the facilities indicated on the basis of the facility information synthesized by the facility information synthesis unit.

6. The facility search device according to claim 5, wherein the display image generation unit performs the highlighting on the basis of at least one of affixation of a mark, change of character size, change of color tone, and change of brightness to the facilities indicated on the basis of the facility information synthesized by the facility information synthesis unit.

7. The facility search device according to claim 1, wherein when facilities that are determined to be different facilities by the sameness determination exist within a predetermined range, the display image generation unit displays the facilities based on the facility information, in which the additional data and time added to the additional information storage unit are new, on the front of the facilities based on old facility information.

8. The facility search device according to claim 7, wherein the display image generation unit highlights the facility to be displayed on the front.

9. The facility search device according to claim 1, wherein the facility search unit searches for the facilities from the facility information stored in the facility information storage unit and additional facility information retained in an external information source.

10. The facility search device according to claim 9, wherein the external information source retaining the additional facility information is a mobile phone.

11. The facility search device according to claim 9, wherein the external information source retaining the additional facility information is a server connected via a network.

12. The facility search device according to claim 1, wherein the facility information storage unit storing the facility information and the additional information storage unit storing the additional facility information are configured from a single information storage unit, and

the facility search unit searches for the facilities from the facility information and the additional facility information stored in the information storage unit.

13. The facility search device according to claim 1, further comprising a synthesized result storage unit that stores the determination result of the sameness determination unit and the synthesized result of the facility information synthesis unit, wherein

the sameness determination unit uses the determination result stored in the synthesized result storage unit that determines the sameness of the plurality of facilities searched for by the facility search unit, and

the facility information synthesis unit uses the synthesized result stored in the synthesized result storage unit that synthesizes the facility information on the facilities determined to be the same by the sameness determination unit.