Navigation apparatus with enhanced positional display function

• US 6,122,592 A
• Filed: 04/22/1999
• Issued: 09/19/2000
• Est. Priority Date: 02/18/1992
• Status: Expired due to Term

• Current Assignee: Pioneer Corporation
• Original Assignee: Pioneer Electronics (USA) Incorporated (Pioneer Corporation)
• Inventors: Araki, Morio, Yamanaka, Kiyoshi, Nobe, Kenichi, Arakawa, Takeharu
• Primary Examiner(s): NGUYEN, TAN QUANG
• Application Number:
  US09/295,580
• Time in Patent Office: 516 Days
• Field of Search: 701/201, 701/202, 701/204, 701/208, 701/210, 701/211, 340/990, 340/995
• US Class Current: 701/201
• CPC Class Codes: G01C 21/343 Calculating itineraries, i.e. routes leading from a starting point to a series of categorical destinations using a global route restraint, round trips, touristic trips travelling salesman problem G06Q10/04; optimisation of routes G06Q10/047
• CPC Class Codes: G01C 21/3611 using character input or menus, e.g. menus of POIs character input methods in general G06F3/0233
• CPC Class Codes: G01C 21/3617 using user history, behaviour, conditions or preferences, e.g. predicted or inferred from previous use or current movement
• 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: G01C 21/3682 output of POI information on a road map G01C21/3614, G01C21/3685 take precedence
• CPC Class Codes: G08G 1/0969 having a display in the form of a map

Abstract

A navigation system includes a device for extracting map data and location name data of different locations and their corresponding coordinate data; a position detector which detects the vechile position; a map display controller which displays map data on a display, and a calculating device for determining a straight-line distance from the vehicle position to the different locations thereby producing distance values. A location name display device displays location names on the display in ascending order based on the distance values, and a user selects a desired location from among the location names displayed. The extracting device may segregate the different locations based on different categories, and the map display controller retrieves map data around a location represented by coordinate data corresponding to the desired location selected by the user.

Claims

1. A map display system comprising:

extracting means for extracting map data and location data representing a plurality of locations segregated into different categories and coordinate data corresponding to said plurality of locations;

a display;

a map display controller which displays a map on said display based on said map data;

an input device for inputting location information for a point of interest, said point of interest being different from a location presently occupied by a user of the map display system;

a selector device for selecting at least one category from said different categories;

a calculating device which calculates respective straight-line distances from said point of interest and each of said locations of said one selected category;

a location name display device which displays on said display the location names of said selected category in order of the respective distances between said point of interest and locations of said one selected category.

2. The map display system of claim 1, wherein the location name display device displays the location names in ascending order based on respective distances between said point of interest and locations of said one selected category.