Alpine Electronics, Inc.

David T Schaaf

Andrew S De Silva

Kerry M White

Ihung S Tu

Tien Vu

Ji-Bih Lee

A map scrolling method and apparatus for a navigation system prevents from displaying certain icons while displaying other icons based on conditions and settings of the navigation system during a transition period of a map scrolling operation. The map scrolling method includes the steps of: detecting activation of a map scrolling operation; checking whether there is any limit condition attached to icons as to remove them from a map image; scrolling the map image while removing the icons to which the limit condition is attached from the map image during a transition period of the map scrolling operation; and displaying all of the icons when the map scrolling operation is completed.

Map scrolling method and apparatus for navigation system for selectively displaying icons

A navigation system is able to find an optimum route to a destination even when a large non-digitized area exists between a starting point to the destination. The navigation system produces processing points based on a particular shape and size of the large non-digitized area and determines whether such processing points should be used for route search operations. When it is determined that the route search operation is effective, the navigation system performs A* algorithm search operations with respect to the start point, processing points and the destination and detects an optimum route to detour the large non-digitized area.

Route determination method and apparatus for navigation system

A navigation system user interface identifies and displays a list of all addresses which contain address components in conformity with the user provided 'city name', 'street base name' and 'house number' and prompts the user to choose an address from the list thus provided. Alternatively, the interface generates a list of all the city names which contain valid addresses in conformity with the user provided 'street base name' and 'house number'. The system, subsequently, displays a list of all possible addresses with components matching those entered/selected by the user and prompts the user to select an address from the list thus provided.

User interface for selecting destinations by address in a vehicle

A four-byte data structure for representing alphanumeric or numeric house numbers (addresses) for use in a mapping system. The data structure has the same field size as that used for representing house numbers with numeric characters. One bit of the data structure is used to determine the presence of a non-numeric character in the house number. If the bit stream defined by bit positions 30-28 is either '000' or '100' or 101' or '110' or '111', then fourteen bits represent the numeric portion preceding the alphabetic character, ten bits represent the numeric portion succeeding the alphabetic character, two bits represent leading zeroes preceding any alphabetic and numeric characters and two bits represent leading zeroes disposed after an alphabetic character and before a numeric character succeeding the alphabetic character. If the bit stream defined by bit positions 30-28 is '001', then one bit identifies whether the first character of a house number is numeric or non-numeric, thirteen bits identify the alphabetic character used in a house number, ten bits represent house numbers larger than 999 or represent characters other than the alphabetic characters, ten bits represent the numeric portion of a house number and two bits represent leading zeroes.

Growing community of inventors

Torrance, CA, United States of America

David T Schaaf