Data processing: vehicles – navigation – and relative location – Navigation – Employing position determining equipment
Reexamination Certificate
2003-04-09
2003-12-23
Camby, Richard M. (Department: 3661)
Data processing: vehicles, navigation, and relative location
Navigation
Employing position determining equipment
C701S213000, C701S209000, C340S990000
Reexamination Certificate
active
06668227
ABSTRACT:
BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION
1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a navigation apparatus, and more particularly to a navigation apparatus which displays a map together with information concerning facilities and the like around a user's location.
2. Description of the Background Art
A primary purpose of a navigation apparatus is to compute a route to a destination and display the computed route. Some navigation apparatuses display, together with the computed route to the destination, various information which is useful for the user. For example, a navigation apparatus has been proposed which displays various facilities (e.g., gas stations, restaurants, and the like) which are in the neighborhood of the current location of a vehicle incorporating the navigation apparatus (hereinafter simply referred to as “the vehicle”). In the following description, information on facilities which are in the neighborhood of the vehicle, as displayed by the navigation apparatus, will be referred to as “facility information”.
One example of a conventional navigation apparatus capable of displaying the aforementioned facility information computes a distance (or the like) from a current location to each facility which is present along a predetermined road, and generates a table containing information concerning such facilities.
FIG. 22
shows an exemplary image displayed by such a navigation apparatus. As shown in
FIG. 22
, the following information is displayed: facilities (e.g., C
1
, R
1
, and G
1
) which are present along a predetermined road, distances (e.g., 2 km, 3 km, and 5 km) to the facilities, and which side of the road each facility is located. Thus, with respect to facilities which are present along the predetermined road, the user can easily ascertain their locations, distances thereto, and the like.
Another example of a conventional navigation apparatus looks for, when a route has been set, facilities which are present within a certain distance from the route, and displays information concerning such facilities. The user is thus enabled to easily obtain information concerning facilities in the neighborhood of the route.
As described above, the conventional technique which displays the exemplary image as shown in
FIG. 22
displays information concerning facilities present along a predetermined road. However, this technique only makes it possible to obtain information concerning facilities which are present along the predetermined road. No facility information can be obtained for any roads other than the predetermined road, even for roads which lie generally in the traveling direction of the vehicle. Therefore, the user cannot obtain facility information concerning any other roads branching from the predetermined road. For example, if the user wishes to visit a gas station while traveling along a route to a destination, the navigation apparatus will not display any gas station information unless there is a gas station which is along the route to the destination. Therefore, the user cannot obtain information on any gas station which is located along a road branching off from the route to the destination.
The other conventional technique which looks for facilities which are present within a certain distance from the route and displays screen information on the found facilities as a separate image allows the user to know the existence of facilities which are in the neighborhood of the route. However, with this technique, it is impossible for the user to obtain detailed information concerning the facilities, e.g., which intersection to turn in order to arrive at a facility, or the travel distance and estimated travel time before arriving at the facility. Moreover, this technique assumes that a route has been set, so that it is impossible to look for such facilities unless a route has been set.
Thus, the above-described two conventional techniques, which display information related to a preselected road or the neighborhood thereof, the user may not necessarily be able to obtain sufficient information concerning facilities lying ahead of the user along his/her traveling path.
SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION
Therefore, an object of the present invention is to provide a navigation apparatus which provides a user with information concerning facilities or the like which are present in a broad range ahead of the user, such information being displayed in a comprehensible manner.
The present invention has the following features to attain the object mentioned above.
A first aspect of the present invention is directed to a navigation apparatus for displaying a road map on a screen of a display device, comprising a map data storage section, a moving state acquisition section, a reference intersection selection section, a point information acquisition section, and a map displaying section. The map data storage section stores map data including point information concerning points on the map. The moving state acquisition section acquires a location and a traveling direction of a user. The reference intersection selection section selects, 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. As used herein, the location of a user is a notion which encompasses a virtual location of the user, as well as the current location of the user. The point information acquisition section acquires, 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. Alternatively, roads extending toward the current location from the reference intersection may also be designated as reference roads. The map displaying section displays the road map, and displays the point information acquired by the point information acquisition section so as to appear associated with the reference road associated with the point information.
According to the first aspect, point information concerning a point existing beyond an intersection located ahead of the user (reference intersection) is displayed so as to appear associated with a road connected to the intersection (reference road) (see FIG.
10
). As used herein, the “point information” is information concerning a point on the map, and is a notion encompassing facility information concerning facilities and information such as names of places. Thus, the user can immediately understand what lies beyond each road connected to an intersection which is located ahead of the user. In other words, with respect to each piece of point information displayed on the screen, the user can immediately understand which way to turn at which intersection. Since it is possible to display point information for a plurality of roads connected to a reference intersection, the user can obtain point information concerning points in a broad area range ahead of the user.
In the first aspect, the navigation apparatus may further comprise 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.
In the first aspect, the network computation section may select only a predetermined category of roads in the map data for the search network. Thus, a search network composed only of major roads such as national and/or prefectural roads can be defined. In this case, only the point information concerning points which are present near major roads is displayed on the display device. Since the user is generally believed not to travel along roads other than the
Hamada Hiroyuki
Hamada Yuji
Sakamoto Kiyomi
Yamashita Atsushi
Camby Richard M.
Matsushita Electric - Industrial Co., Ltd.
Wenderoth , Lind & Ponack, L.L.P.
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