Method for displaying places of interest

Abstract

Method for displaying places of interest on a display unit of a vehicle and / or a mobile terminal, wherein - nearby locations of interest are aggregated into a cluster using a clustering algorithm, - each type of place of interest is assigned a main icon (H1, H2) and a decoration icon (D1, D2), - depending on a given priority, at least one prioritized place of interest is displayed on the display unit by means of the respective main icon (H1, H2) and the other places of interest of the cluster are displayed by means of the respective decoration icon (D1, D2), and - prioritization is based on an evaluation of the user's historical behavior.

Description

[0001] The invention relates to a method for displaying places of interest on a display unit of a vehicle and / or a mobile terminal, wherein adjacent POIs are aggregated into a cluster by means of a cluster algorithm.

[0002] DE 10 2013 006 025 A1 discloses a method and a system for resolving and operating POI stacks in a virtual environment displayed on a screen. Upon selection of a first POI stack with a set of POIs contained in the POI stack, the display of the virtual environment is automatically scaled such that POIs contained in the first POI stack are displayed on the screen such that individual POIs, when correctly positioned in the virtual environment, maintain a minimum size and a minimum distance from their respective neighboring POIs. If the minimum distance is not maintained, a subset of the set of POIs in the first POI stack is combined into a second POI stack depending on the respective position of the individual POIs in the virtual environment.

[0003] Furthermore, DE 10 2017 218 205 A1 describes a method for displaying POIs on a navigation system display and a navigation system. POIs are displayed aggregated into a cluster by a cluster algorithm module of the navigation system.

[0004] US 2013 / 0 321 465 A1 describes a device for displaying map information, comprising: - a display device configured to display map information, including a map and facility information; and - a navigation device configured to, when a specific facility and a peripheral facility located within a predetermined distance from the specific facility are included in the map information displayed by the display device, display specific facility information indicating the specific facility and peripheral facility information indicating the peripheral facility together on the map, wherein the navigation device is configured to display the specific facility information and the peripheral facility information together with information indicating a connection between the specific facility and the peripheral facility.

[0005] DE 10 2007 037 386 A1 describes a method for operating a navigation system with the following process steps: - Calculating and displaying a map view on a display device, the map view representing a section of a geographical area; - Selection of the places to be highlighted (= points of interest, POI for short), which are located in the area of the displayed geographical region and are each assigned to a POI symbol in the map view, from a database; - Display of the POI symbols in the map view, whereby POI symbols that symbolize places to be highlighted within a common local area are displayed as a common combination symbol, so that each combination symbol represents several POI symbols.

[0006] The combination symbol has a display area in which a POI symbol can be displayed, whereby the POI symbols assigned to the combination symbol are displayed in the display area in a temporally alternating manner.

[0007] Furthermore, a method for displaying map symbols is known in “GONG, Xinyu; LI, Zhilin; LIU, Xintao: Structures of compound map symbols represented with Chinese characters. In: Journal of geovisualization and spatial analysis, Vol. 6, 2022, No. 1, Art. 6 (14 p.). - ISSN 2509-8810”.

[0008] The invention is based on the object of specifying a novel method for displaying POls on a display unit.

[0009] The object is achieved according to the invention by a method which has the features specified in claim 1.

[0010] Advantageous embodiments of the invention are the subject of the subclaims.

[0011] In the method according to the invention for displaying points of interest on a display unit of a vehicle and / or a mobile terminal, closely located points of interest are aggregated into a cluster using a cluster algorithm. Each type of point of interest is assigned a main icon and a decorative icon. Depending on a predetermined priority, at least one prioritized point of interest is displayed on the display unit using the respective main icon, and the other points of interest in the cluster are displayed using the respective decorative icon. Prioritization is automated based on an evaluation of the user's historical behavior.

[0012] Places of interest are also referred to as points of interest (POIs for short), where type refers to places for satisfying daily needs, such as supermarkets or pharmacies, and / or places for travel-specific needs, such as parking garages, parking meters, restaurants, accommodations, petrol stations or ATMs.

[0013] By applying this method, it is possible to display, based on priorities, essentially adjacent points of interest of different categories simultaneously on the display unit. A user searching for a charging station to charge their vehicle, for example, can use this display to identify that there is also a restaurant or a shop nearby that may be of interest to the user, who might want to spend time there, which requires charging at the charging station.

[0014] Embodiments of the invention are explained in more detail below with reference to drawings.

[0015] Showing: Fig. 1 schematically a number of main icons and associated decoration icons and Fig. 2 schematically shows a possible display after prioritization of a place of interest.

[0016] Corresponding parts are provided with the same reference numerals in all figures.

[0017] Fig. 1 shows two main icons H1, H2 and two decoration icons D1, D2 for each POI, with one decoration icon D1 being assigned to a main icon H1 and another decoration icon D2 being assigned to another main icon H2.

[0018] It is generally known that several points of interest (POIs), such as gas stations, charging stations, restaurants, etc., are often located close to one another. This makes it comparatively difficult to simultaneously display these closely spaced points of interest in a digital map, especially in a navigation system, such as a vehicle or a mobile device.

[0019] Typically, only the point of interest with the highest predefined priority, such as a charging station for charging a vehicle, is displayed on a display unit of the vehicle or a user's mobile device. Other points of interest close to the charging station location, such as restaurants, are displaced by the display of the prioritized point of interest, or are not displayed at all, or only a number of displaced points of interest are displayed. After selecting the visible point of interest, a list of all displaced points of interest then appears, for example.

[0020] In order to show a user several places of interest in the digital map displayed by the display unit, it is provided that each category of places of interest is assigned a decoration icon D1, D2 in addition to a main icon H1, H2.

[0021] According to the Fig. In the embodiment shown in Figure 1, the main icon H1 and the decoration icon D1 represent restaurants as a place of interest and the further main icon H2 and the further decoration icon D2 represent charging stations as a place of interest.

[0022] In particular, all nearby points of interest are clustered and thus assigned to a cluster. Points of interest that would otherwise be crowded out in a map representation are clustered together. Clustering is performed primarily using well-known clustering algorithms.

[0023] The points of interest in the cluster are prioritized based on a user-specified criterion, so that the main icon H1, H2 of the highest-priority point of interest is displayed on the digital map. The decorative icons D1, D2 are used in descending order of priority to decorate or complement the main icon H1, H2 with the highest priority.

[0024] In one embodiment, the size of displayed decorative icons D1, D2 is scaled depending on the priority of the additional points of interest. Thus, a decorative icon D1, D2 of an additional point of interest with a first priority is displayed larger than a decorative icon D1, D2 of an additional point of interest with a second priority, whereas the decorative icon D1, D2 of the second priority is displayed larger than a decorative icon D1, D2 of an additional point of interest with a third priority.

[0025] Fig. 2 shows such an arrangement of a main icon H1 and a decoration icon D2.

[0026] The user has assigned the charging station a high priority as a point of interest, so the charging station is displayed with the main icon H2 on the display unit. A restaurant is located close to the charging station, although the user may have specified a priority for a dining option that is lower than that of the charging station. Therefore, restaurants are also displayed as points of interest in the digital map on the display unit, for example, of the vehicle and / or the mobile device, using a decorative icon D1 that decorates the main icon H2. This means that such an arrangement of points of interest is displayed if there is a restaurant near the charging station.

[0027] If the user is looking for a charging station as a place of interest and has prioritized it, the user can see, when applying the procedure, that there is a restaurant in the immediate vicinity of the charging station, which may be of interest to the user, especially for waiting there while the vehicle is charging at the charging station.

[0028] In one embodiment of the method, prioritization is carried out dynamically depending on the current location of the vehicle and a time of day, so that, especially at lunchtime, a display of charging stations with a nearby restaurant is given higher priority as another place of interest.

[0029] In addition, it is intended that the prioritization of other places of interest will be done manually by the user, particularly with regard to his current preferences.

[0030] Alternatively or additionally, the prioritization of the other places of interest can be automated and / or dynamic based on an evaluation of the user's historical behavior, in particular with regard to location and / or time. List of reference symbols H1, H2 main icon D1, D2 decoration icon

Claims

[1] Method for displaying places of interest on a display unit of a vehicle and / or a mobile terminal, wherein - nearby locations of interest are aggregated into a cluster using a clustering algorithm, - each type of place of interest is assigned a main icon (H1, H2) and a decoration icon (D1, D2), - depending on a given priority, at least one prioritized place of interest is displayed on the display unit by means of the respective main icon (H1, H2) and the other places of interest of the cluster are displayed by means of the respective decoration icon (D1, D2) and - prioritization is based on an evaluation of the user's historical behavior. [2] Method according to claim 1, characterized by that the respective main icon (H1, H2) is decorated using the decoration icons (D1, D2) of the cluster. [3] Method according to claim 1 or 2, characterized by that the decoration icons (D1, D2) are displayed in different sizes depending on their priority. [4] Method according to one of the preceding claims, characterized by that prioritization is done dynamically depending on a location and / or time.

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