Hitachi, Ltd.

Xanavi Informatics Corporation

Other

Hitachi Software Engineering Company, Ltd.

Kishiko Maruyama

Shigeru Shimada

Akinori Asahara

Akio Sumizawa

Atsushi Hiroike

Masaaki Tanizaki

Manabu Morita

Toshiichirou Sasaki

Wataru Oikubo

Hideki Hayashi

Noriyuki Abe

Akira Ishii

Kiyohiro Obara

Nobuya Okayama

Hiroshi Minagawa

Atsushi Matsumoto

Yoshinori Takahara

Kazuhiro Hiraki

Akihiro Kaneko

Katsuya Asada

Yuta Kobayashi

A navigation apparatus comprises a map display control unit that displays a map on a display monitor, a voice information outputting unit that outputs voice information related to traveling of a vehicle, and a highlighting unit that highlights a part of the map that corresponds to the voice information in synchronization with output of the voice information by the voice information outputting unit.

Navigation apparatus

This on-vehicle map display apparatus comprises a map scale setting unit that sets a map scale, a summary map generation unit that generates a summary map by abbreviating road shapes if a map scale that is less than a predetermined scale is set by the map scale setting unit, a summary map display control unit that displays the summary map generated by the summary map generation unit upon a display monitor, a congestion information acquisition unit that acquires congestion information, and a congestion information display control unit that displays the congestion information acquired by the congestion information acquisition unit as superimposed upon the summary map displayed upon the display monitor by the summary map display control unit.

On-vehicle map display apparatus, map display method

There is disclosed a map data delivering system for providing consistent road network information from supplement map information and map update information. The map data delivering system includes a navigation terminal and a map distribution server. The map distribution server includes a management data storage unit which stores an update element representing differential update data representing a difference of the map data, and update element management data containing an update element ID for identifying the update element, an update date before the updating of the map data, and a dependent update element ID for storing dependency on the updating of the map data; an update management data selector unit which selects the update element management data having the dependent update element ID among the update element management data having the located area overlapped with the map area of the map distribution request from the navigation terminal and the corresponding update element management data; and a network I/F unit which performs communication with the navigation terminal.

Map data delivering device, communication terminal, and map delivering method

A map display method whereby the contents of a road map displayed can be easily and clearly grasped regardless of the running conditions of a vehicle. In a summarized map displayed on a display screen, an area including a vehicle position, a destinationand a guide routebetween them is displayed in simplified fashion. At a position far from the destination, as shown in FIG.A, a summarized map of a wide area is displayed and objects including a roadand a facilityare limited to a greater degree. With the approach of the vehicle positionto the destination, as shown in FIG.B, the contraction scale is decreased and a summarized map of a middle area is displayed, while at the same time increasing the objects displayed. With a further approach of the vehicle positionto the destination, as shown in FIG.C, a narrower area is displayed in summarization, while at the same time displaying substantially all the objects, thereby making it possible to grasp the neighborhood of the destinationin detail.

Map display method

The on-vehicle information terminal according to the present invention comprises an abridged road generating device that generates abridged roads by abridging a road map based upon map data, a road decision-making device that makes a decision as to whether or not a road is a special shape road having a predetermined special shape based upon the map data, a substituting device for substitutes a specific road shape pattern stored in memory in advance for a road determined by the road decision-making device to have a special shape and a display control device that displays at the display device an abridged map containing specific road shape patterns used to substitute for special shape roads by the substituting device and the abridged roads generated by the abridged road generating device.

On-vehicle information terminal, abridged map generating apparatus, abridged map display method and display apparatus

This abridged map generating apparatus includes a route searching unit that searches for a plurality of routes from a departure point to a destination which has been set, an abridged map generation unit that generates an abridged map in which road shapes of the routes which are searched out by the route searching unit are simplified, based upon road map data which specifies shapes of roads by shapes of links set for each predetermined road section, and a link compactification unit that compactifies links of the routes based upon relative positional relationships of the routes before the abridged map generation unit generates the abridged map.

Abridged map generating apparatus, on-vehicle information terminal, abridged map distribution system and abridged map generating method

A controller of a navigation terminal (navigation apparatus) is configured to find a plurality of paths from a current position of a vehicle and a destination based on a plurality of different and prioritized path-finding conditions, respectively, and causes a display to show the plurality of paths which includes a navigating path found on the basis of a top-priority path-finding condition and at least one alternative path found on the other path-finding condition(s). In response to detection of deviation of the vehicle, the priority assigned to a path-finding condition based on which a specific alternative path along which the vehicle is running is changed into a top priority, and path-finding operation is performed again for paths from the current position of the vehicle to the destination to show a new navigating path and at least one new alternative path in the display.

This abridged map generating apparatus includes an abridged map generation unit that generates an abridged map in which a shape of a road is simplified based upon road map data, wherein the road map data specifies the shapes of the road by shapes of links set for each predetermined road section, and the abridged map generation unit generates the abridged map by simplifying a shapes of a link or link series with fixed positions of both end points of the link or link series made by lining up a plurality of the links.

An abridged map generating apparatus includes a polygon shape data extraction unit that extracts from map data polygon shape data specifying the shape of a polygon, a polygon shape simplification unit that simplifies the shape of the polygon based upon the polygon shape data which is extracted by the polygon shape data extraction unit, and a polygon drawing unit that draws upon a map the polygon whose shape has been simplified by the polygon shape simplification unit.

A car navigation system by which a user can easily grasp a drop-in target in the course of a route. In a summary road map displayed in a two- or one-window display representation, contents of a two-dimensional road map is properly selected and simplified, roads are made linear, roads connected to an intersection are made orthogonal so that the user can easily see it, the position of a vehicle is expressed by a mark, and even the running route is expressed with a predetermined color or the like. Accordingly, the system offers the user such a display form as able to easily refer to. When the user specifies a target at which the user wants to drop in, the drop-in target is displayed at a corresponding position on the summary road map in the form of a land mark.

Car navigation system

A navigation apparatus includes a route searching unit that searches for a plurality of routes from a departure point to a destination and a map display control unit that displays a map of the plurality of routes searched out by the route searching unit upon a display monitor, and, if any two or more among the plurality of routes overlap upon and pass along a same road, the map display control unit displays the overlapping portions as shifted.

Navigation apparatus, map data distribution apparatus, map data distribution system and map display method

Disclosed is a arrangements of map information supply device for mobile units.

Map information supply device for mobile units

A portable terminal with the function of walking navigation. The portable terminal displays information on its narrow screen so as to make it easy for the user (walker) to understand and realize an interface that enables the user to understand inputs of retrieving conditions intuitively, thereby saving the input labor. Assume now that a user (walker)is lost while walking towards a destination. In such a case, the present invention enables necessary information to be compressed, for example, so as to display both direction and distance to the destination from a present place with an orientation and a length of an arrow on a small screen and further so as to match the orientation of the arrow with the direction of the destination in the actual space. If the user (walker)specifies a compressed information item, orfor inquiry, the present invention controls so that the arrow always points the direction of the destination corresponding to each of those compressed information items, and. The condition of retrieval can also be set by turning, for example, the tip of the portable terminal directly in the desired direction h, or

Portable terminal with the function of walking navigation

A portable terminal has a function of walking navigation. The direction of a destination is displayed by an indicating arrow that always points in the direction of the destination. In the navigation processing, the user enters data to select a menu and/or set retrieving conditions on the setup screen. At first, the user gets the location information of the portable terminal, represented by a latitude/longitude or coordinates and an altitude, for example. Then, the user gets the direction information of the portable terminal, which is the direction of the tip of the portable terminal as determined by a compass, a gyro, or a clinometer. The location information and the direction information are set as terminal information for the retrieving conditions. The system controls retrieving of the database and retrieves the information corresponding to the selected menu, such as route guidance.

Growing community of inventors

Kokubunji, Japan

Kishiko Maruyama