Navigation apparatus

• US 6,668,227 B2
• Filed: 04/09/2003
• Issued: 12/23/2003
• Est. Priority Date: 04/10/2002
• Status: Expired due to Fees

• Current Assignee: Matsushita Electric Industrial Company Limited (Panasonic Holdings Corporation)
• Original Assignee: Matsushita Electric Industrial Company Limited (Panasonic Holdings Corporation)
• Inventors: Yamashita, Atsushi, Hamada, Yuji, Hamada, Hiroyuki, Sakamoto, Kiyomi
• Primary Examiner(s): Camby, Richard M.
• Application Number:
  US10/409,115
• Publication Number:
  US 20030195700A1
• Time in Patent Office: 258 Days
• Field of Search: 701/201-213, 345/419, 345/425, 345/433, 345/427, 345/421, 340/989, 340/990, 340/995.1, 340/995.14, 340/995.24
• US Class Current: 701/208
• CPC Class Codes: G01C 21/3682 output of POI information on a road map G01C21/3614, G01C21/3685 take precedence

Abstract

There is provided a navigation apparatus which displays information concerning facilities or the like which are present in a broad range ahead of a user. An information processing section 4 of a navigation apparatus identifies a facility type to be displayed. Next, a predicted road along which a user is expected to travel is determined, and a reference intersection is selected from among the intersections on the predicted road. The information processing section 4 computes a network of roads beginning from the selected reference intersection, and acquires facility information in the neighborhood thereof. Furthermore, the information processing section 4 generates facility information image data for displaying the acquired facility information on a map.

Claims

1. A navigation apparatus for displaying a road map on a screen of a display device, comprising:

a map data storage section for storing map data including point information concerning points on the map;

a moving state acquisition section for acquiring a location and a traveling direction of a user;

a reference intersection selection section for selecting, from among intersections displayed on the screen, at least one intersection included in a network of roads extending from the location of the user in the traveling direction as a reference intersection;

a point information acquisition section for acquiring, from the map data storage section, point information concerning a point near a road in a network of roads extending beyond a reference road as seen from the reference intersection, wherein the reference road is a road which is connected to the reference intersection but does not extend toward the location of the user from the reference intersection; and

a map displaying section for displaying the road map, and displaying the point information acquired by the point information acquisition section so as to appear associated with the reference road associated with the point information.

2. The navigation apparatus according to claim 1, further comprising a network computation section for computing a search network, wherein the search network is the network of roads extending beyond the reference road as seen from the reference intersection,

wherein, the point information acquisition section acquires point information concerning a point near a road in the search network as the point information associated with the reference road.

3. The navigation apparatus according to claim 2, wherein the network computation section selects only a predetermined category of roads in the map data for the search network.

4. The navigation apparatus according to claim 2, wherein,

the point information acquisition section comprises a condition checking section for determining, if point information is redundantly acquired as a result of acquiring point information associated with a plurality of said reference roads, whether or not each of the plurality of reference roads associated with the point information which has been redundantly acquired satisfies a predetermined condition based on the search network, and

the map displaying section displays the point information redundantly acquired by the point information acquisition section so as to appear associated with those reference roads which are determined by the condition checking section as satisfying the predetermined condition.

5. The navigation apparatus according to claim 4, wherein,

the predetermined condition is a condition concerning the distance of a path from the reference intersection to a point represented by the point information via the reference road, and

the condition checking section determines, by computing the distance with respect to each of the plurality of reference roads using the search network, whether each of the plurality of reference roads satisfies the predetermined condition or not.

6. The navigation apparatus according to claim 4, wherein,

the predetermined condition is a condition concerning an estimated travel time for a path from the reference intersection to the point represented by the point information via the reference road, and

the condition checking section determines, by computing the estimated travel time for each of the plurality of reference roads using the search network, whether each of the plurality of reference roads satisfies the predetermined condition or not.

7. The navigation apparatus according to claim 4, further comprising a road history storage section for storing a history of roads traveled along in the past, wherein,

the predetermined condition is a condition concerning the history of roads, and

the condition checking section determines whether each of the plurality of said reference roads satisfies the predetermined condition, based on a relationship between the search network and history of roads stored in the road history storage section.

8. The navigation apparatus according to claim 1, wherein,

the map data storage section stores map data in which each piece of the point information is associated with a road near the point corresponding to the piece of the point information, and

the point information acquisition section acquires the point information associated with the road in the map data as the point information concerning the point near the road.

9. The navigation apparatus according to claim 1, wherein,

the map data storage section stores map data including location information of the points, and

the point information acquisition section acquires point information concerning a point such that the distance between one of the roads in the search network and the point is equal to or less than a predetermined distance as the point information concerning the point near the road.

10. The navigation apparatus according to claim 1, further comprising a predicted road determination section for determining a predicted road from among the roads displayed on the screen, the predicted road being a road which the user is expected to travel along,

wherein the reference intersection selection section selects the reference intersection from among intersections on the predicted road.

11. The navigation apparatus according to claim 10, wherein the predicted road determination section determines a route from a start point to a destination as the predicted road.

12. The navigation apparatus according to claim 10, wherein, based on the location and the traveling direction of the user, the predicted road determination section determines a road which lies in the traveling direction of the user and belongs to a predetermined road category as the predicted road.

13. The navigation apparatus according to claim 10, wherein, based on the location and the traveling direction of the user, the reference intersection selection section determines an intersection on the predicted road that is closest to the location of the user as the reference intersection.

14. The navigation apparatus according to claim 10, wherein the reference intersection selection section selects as the reference intersection an intersection which is on the predicted road and at which a road belonging to a predetermined category connects to the predicted road.

15. The navigation apparatus according to claim 10, further comprising a road history storage section for storing a history of roads traveled along in the past,

wherein, based on the history of roads stored in the road history storage section, the reference intersection selection section selects as the reference intersection an intersection which is on the predicted road and at which a road stored in the road history storage section connects to the predicted road.

16. The navigation apparatus according to claim 1, wherein the point information acquisition section acquires, from among the point information included in the map data, only a predetermined type of point information.

17. The navigation apparatus according to claim 1, wherein the point information is facility information concerning facilities.

18. The navigation apparatus according to claim 1, wherein the point information is place name information representing names of places.

19. The navigation apparatus according to claim 1, wherein the map displaying section displays the point information in an arrow shape oriented in an opposite direction from the reference intersection.

20. The navigation apparatus according to claim 1, wherein the point information acquisition section acquires a plurality of pieces of point information of different types, and

the map displaying section displays the point information in different shapes depending on the types of point information.

21. A point information displaying method for displaying point information on a road map displayed on a screen of a display device, comprising the steps of:

selecting, from among intersections displayed on the screen, at least one intersection included in a network of roads extending from a location of a user in a traveling direction of the user as a reference intersection,

designating, as a reference road, a road which is connected to the reference intersection but does not extend toward the location of the user from the reference intersection; and

displaying point information concerning a point near a road in a network of roads extending beyond the reference road as seen from the reference intersection so as to appear associated with the reference road.

22. A program for causing a computer to display a road map on a screen of a display device,

wherein the computer stores map data including point information concerning points on the map, the method comprising:

a moving state acquisition step of acquiring a location and a traveling direction of a user;

a reference intersection selection step of selecting, from among intersections displayed on the screen, at least one intersection included in a network of roads extending from the location of the user in the traveling direction as a reference intersection;

a point information acquisition step of acquiring, from the map, point information concerning a point near a road in a network of roads extending beyond a reference road as seen from the reference intersection, wherein the reference road is a road which is connected to the reference intersection but does not extend toward the location of the user from the reference intersection; and

a map displaying step of displaying the road map on the display device, and displaying the point information acquired by the point information acquisition step so as to appear associated with the reference road associated with the point information.

23. A computer-readable recording medium on which the program according to claim 22 is recorded.