Data processing: vehicles – navigation – and relative location – Navigation – Employing position determining equipment
Reexamination Certificate
2000-06-01
2002-02-12
Beaulieu, Yonel (Department: 3661)
Data processing: vehicles, navigation, and relative location
Navigation
Employing position determining equipment
C701S025000, C701S200000, C701S212000, C340S988000, C340S990000, C340S995190
Reexamination Certificate
active
06347279
ABSTRACT:
FIELD OF THE INVENTION
The present invention relates to a car navigation system for displaying the present location and a heading direction of a car on a map displayed on a screen formed by a cathode ray tube or the like.
BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION
A car navigation system displays a map on a display, and points at the car's position and a heading direction on the map. The map shows placenames and buildings with text or marks in addition to terrain and roads.
When items described with text or marks are closely located, the text and marks sometimes overlap each other. A prior art map has only shown the text closest to the car when such an overlap occurs.
FIGS.
1
(A)-
1
(D) illustrate an example of the prior art map. In FIG.
1
(A), a map (not shown) is displayed on screen
10
, and a car position
11
, place or point-of-interest names and buildings denoted with text
12
,
13
,
14
,
15
and
16
are shown on the map. An arrow mark at car position
11
indicates that the car is heading upward. In FIG.
1
(A), the heading direction is upward with respect to the paper.
In this case, a plurality of text such as
12
,
13
,
14
,
15
and
16
are displayed and some of them overlap each other. This makes the map hard-to-read. Therefore, text
13
is deleted from the overlapping texts of text
12
and text
13
, because text
13
is further away from car position
11
, and text
15
is deleted from overlapping texts of text
14
and text
15
, because text
15
is further away from car position
11
. A resultant map thus drawn is shown in FIG.
1
(B).
However, when the car moves, the text displayed varies accordingly, such as from FIG.
1
(B), to FIG.
1
(D) through FIG. FIG.
1
(C), and the varied text thus blinks. This makes the screen hard-to-read.
SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION
The present invention addresses the problem discussed above, and aims to provide a car navigation system providing an easy-to-read display by avoiding a map hard-to-read due to a plurality of text, and free from text blinking.
The car navigation system of the present invention is defined in the appended claims and comprises the following elements:
a text memory for storing text data included in a map; and
a displayed data memory for storing displayed data.
This car navigation system determines an overlap of the text stored in the text memory with the displayed data stored in the displayed-data-memory, and displays a text free from overlap.
REFERENCES:
patent: 5793310 (1998-08-01), Watanabe et al.
patent: 5825306 (1998-10-01), Hiyokawa et al.
patent: 5917436 (1999-06-01), Endo et al.
patent: 0 738 876 (1996-10-01), None
patent: 07 160 845 (1995-06-01), None
patent: 08021739 (1996-01-01), None
patent: 09 230 785 (1997-09-01), None
European Search Report, Application No. 00111648, dated Sep. 20, 2000.
Beaulieu Yonel
Matsushita Electric - Industrial Co., Ltd.
Ratner & Prestia, PC
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