Method for determining visibility of interest points - Patents.com

Abstract

A method for determining the visibility of a point of interest. The present invention relates to a method for determining the visibility of a point of interest (POI), the method being integrated in an own motor vehicle (1) and comprising: - locating points of interest (POIs), the remaining planned route and the coordinates of the current position of the vehicle on a three-dimensional map; - representing a point of interest (POI) by a polygon having at least three vertices of given coordinates in three dimensions; - representing the remaining planned path by an open dashed line by interconnecting the orientation change points of the remaining planned path; - tracing a line segment having a point on the dashed line as a first end and a point on the polygon as a second end; - determining the visibility of a point of interest (POI) from a first end of a segment; - Steps to identify optimal visibility windows and Includes.

Description

Summary of the Invention

[0001] The present invention relates to determining the visibility of points of interest, in particular to a method and a module for determining the visibility of points of interest, as well as a driver assistance method for implementing such a method. The present invention is advantageously applicable in the form of a motor vehicle equipped with such a module for determining the visibility of points of interest and equipped with a computer program product including program code instructions recorded on a computer readable medium for implementing the steps of the method according to the invention.

[0002] Interest points are characteristic points of a vehicle navigation database, which correspond to a physical space, in particular consisting of buildings. Identifying and taking into account the visibility of interest points has been the subject of various methods. Thus, the document EP1650533 describes a method for selecting notable points for guidance purposes, with the aim of generating a route. Nevertheless, the described method makes it possible to take into account constraints related to the three-dimensional environment, in particular buildings or scenery that may block theoretical visibility. Furthermore, in the document US8489325, the selection of interest points is used for guidance purposes, but the method described therein does not in particular allow constraints related to the three-dimensional environment to be taken into account, and although the visibility scores mentioned are used to select interest points as a navigation aid, they do not allow optimal areas of visibility of interest points to be identified by the vehicle occupant. Finally, although the document WO 2015 / 187474 A1 describes a method for determining whether a structure is visible from a given point in order to build a three-dimensional visibility map that can be presented to a user, the method described in this document in particular does not allow optimal areas of visibility of a point of interest by a vehicle occupant to be identified.One of the objects of the present invention is to overcome at least some of the drawbacks of the prior art by providing a method for determining the visibility of a point of interest that allows a better consideration of the environment visible by a vehicle occupant.

[0003] For this purpose, the invention relates to a method for determining the visibility of a point of interest, the method being integrated in an own motor vehicle and comprising the following steps: - selecting or identifying a point of interest; - receiving navigation information comprising a three-dimensional (3D) map and position coordinates in at least two dimensions of a remaining untraveled route or route portion, in particular a remaining untraveled planned route or estimated route portion, and coordinates in at least two dimensions of a current position of the vehicle; - locating the coordinates of the points of interest, the remaining path or path portion and the current position of the vehicle on a three-dimensional map; - representing the point of interest by a polygon with at least three vertices of given coordinates in three dimensions belonging to the point of interest, the polygon having as vertices characteristic geometric points of the contour of the point of interest, such as, for example, points of change of orientation of the contour of the point of interest and / or points of the same height of the point of interest; - representing the remaining paths or path segments by open dashed lines by interconnecting the points of change in orientation of the remaining paths or path segments; - tracing a straight line segment having as a first end a point on the dashed line and as a second end a point on the polygon belonging to the point of interest; - determining the visibility of the point of interest from a starting point formed by each of the first ends of the segments by determining the visibility of the point of interest for each of the segments; - identifying an optimal visibility window, where in the visibility identifying step, a non-zero visibility of the interest point between two ends of the segment is conditioned on non-intersection between the segment and an element of the three-dimensional map; The present invention provides a method comprising:

[0004] This method, performed on a moving vehicle, makes it possible to identify at which part of the route points of interest are most visible to the vehicle's occupants and, particularly in the vicinity of the vehicle, does not require a camera while using only the vehicle's position and map data accessible on the vehicle or remotely.

[0005] Beneficially, the starting points of the visibility determination include intermediate points distributed between the transition points and / or the second end includes intermediate points distributed between the vertices of a polygon, which allows, among other things, a simple geometric and spatial discretization.

[0006] An advantage associated with the feature that the tracing step includes tracing some of the segments connecting each of the first ends and each of the second ends belonging to the remaining path or path portion is that it makes it possible to trace not all segments, but only those segments whose second ends are located within a radius of, for example, less than a given maximum context-relevant visibility distance.

[0007] Beneficially, in the step of determining the visibility of the interest point, a visibility of zero is determined for all points of the remaining path or path portion located downstream of the start point of the visibility determination behind which the interest point is located, which optimizes the calculations.

[0008] Beneficially, the starting point of the visibility determination behind which the interest point is located corresponds to the starting point of the first visibility determination of the path for which all vector products of the vector connecting the starting point to the first previous starting point multiplied by each of the vectors connecting the starting point to each of the vertices of the interest point are positive; provided that the path does not change, this operation does not require much computing power and needs to be evaluated only once.

[0009] Beneficially, the navigation information includes context-relevant visibility information that depends on local weather conditions and / or external lighting levels, which in particular enables a given maximum context-relevant visibility distance to be defined.

[0010] Beneficially, the method includes a substep of determining the maximum context-related visibility distance as a function of the context-related visibility information, and in particular as a function of the point of interest, in order in particular to adapt the maximum context-related visibility distance to the nature of the point of interest.

[0011] Beneficially, - the method comprises a sub-step of determining a distance, in particular a Euclidean distance, between each start point and each of the vertices of the interest points, the step of tracing comprising tracing only segments whose length is less than or equal to a predetermined maximum context-related visibility distance, and in the step of determining the visibility of the interest points, zero visibility is determined between the start point and the vertex of the interest points if the distance separating the start point and the vertex of the interest points is greater than the predetermined maximum context-related visibility distance, and / or - in the step of determining the visibility of the interest point, the determination of a non-zero visibility of the interest point between the two ends of the segment is further conditioned on the length of the segment being less than a predetermined maximum context-related visibility distance.

[0012] According to one advantageous feature, the step of identifying an optimal visibility window comprises, for each start point of visibility identification of the remaining path or path portion: - identifying a contiguous group of visible points belonging to the point of interest in the second end; - associating a visibility segment with each of the consecutive groups; - a sub-step of summing the lengths of the visibility segments; - a sub-step of dividing the sum by the perimeter of the interest points; - calculating, for each of the visibility-specific starting points of the remaining path or path portion, the visible outer edge of the point of interest as a percentage; - storing, for each particular starting point of the remaining path or path portion, a percentage of the visible outer edge of the point of interest; Includes.

[0013] According to another advantageous feature, the step of identifying an optimal visibility window comprises: - identifying each of the consecutive groups of points from among the starting points of the visibility determination of the remaining paths or path portions, not including those having a stored percentage of zero; - defining a continuous visibility window characterized by a start node, an end node, a length, a distance from the current position of the vehicle, and a visibility score, the value of which is the sum of the percentages of the outer edge of the point of interest that are visible from a contiguous group of points whose stored percentages do not include zero points; - selecting the continuous visibility window with the best visibility score; , which allows for less resource intensive and realizable computations in real time.

[0014] The invention further relates to a driver assistance method implementing the method for identifying the visibility of a point of interest according to the invention, comprising a step of delivering information and / or generating an environment over the identified optimal visibility window, which makes it possible to trigger the delivery of a multisensory environment related to the point of interest to the driver and his passengers when the point of interest is most visible to the vehicle occupants and in particular in the vicinity of the vehicle. This driver assistance method can thus not only help the driver from a safety perspective by alerting him to be careful of high-risk areas (such as schools), but also contribute to the discovery of environments that are in the vicinity of the vehicle and visible to its occupants for entertainment or tourist purposes.

[0015] The invention further relates to a module for determining the visibility of a point of interest, comprising means for implementing the method according to the invention, which has advantages similar to those of the method.

[0016] The invention further relates to a motor vehicle equipped with a module according to the invention, which has advantages similar to those of the method, the device being located on the vehicle.

[0017] The invention further relates to a computer program product downloadable from a communications network and / or recorded on a computer-readable and / or computer-executable data medium, comprising instructions which, when executed by a computer, cause the computer to carry out the method according to the invention.

[0018] The invention further relates to a data storage medium comprising instructions which, when executed by a computer, cause the computer to carry out the method according to the invention.

[0019] The invention further relates to a data carrier signal carrying a computer program product according to the invention.

[0020] Other objects, features and advantages of the present invention will appear on reading the following description, given purely as a non-limiting example, and with reference to the accompanying drawings, in which: [Brief description of the drawings]

[0021] [Figure 1] 2 is a diagram in flow chart form of the steps of a method for determining the visibility of a point of interest according to the present invention; [Diagram 2] FIG. 1 shows the composite elements of the three-dimensional map used. [Figure 3a] FIG. 2 is a schematic diagram of a situation encountered when driving a vehicle, showing an example of a situation where the visibility of a point of interest is non-zero. [Figure 3b] FIG. 2 is a schematic diagram of conditions encountered when driving a vehicle, showing an example of a condition where the visibility of the point of interest is zero. [Figure 4] FIG. 2 is a schematic diagram of a situation encountered when driving a vehicle, showing another example of a situation where the visibility of the point of interest is zero; [Diagram 5] FIG. 2 illustrates an example of interest points discretized by feature points and midpoints. [Figure 6]FIG. 1 illustrates an example of a remaining undriven planned path discretized by turn points and way points. [Figure 7] FIG. 13 illustrates a use case where it has been determined that there is zero visibility of the previous point of interest from points on the remaining planned route. [Figure 8] FIG. 13 is a simplified exemplary diagram of the tracing steps applied in this use case. [Figure 9a] FIG. 13 illustrates the results of the sub-step of identifying contiguous groups of visible points that belong to a point of interest in this use case. [Figure 9b] FIG. 13 illustrates relevant continuous visibility segments in this use case. [Figure 10a] FIG. 13 illustrates the stored results of computing the visibility of the remaining planned route in this use case by the percentage of the visible outer edge of the point of interest for each of the specific starting points. [Figure 10b] FIG. 13 illustrates the results of the sub-steps of defining a continuous visibility window for this use case. DETAILED DESCRIPTION OF THE PREFERRED EMBODIMENTS

[0022] Throughout this specification, the concepts "front" and "rear" are given with reference to the normal forward direction of movement of the vehicle. For the sake of clarity, identical or similar elements are designated by the same reference signs in all figures.

[0023] When a point of interest POI is selected or identified, the activation of actions, such as, inter alia, an audible and / or haptic alarm associated therewith, a prompt to pay attention, the generation of an ambience, in particular in the passenger compartment (through sound and / or light), or even animation (e.g. projection on a screen), should ideally occur when the POI is within the field of view of the vehicle occupant, which may thus form a link between the POI and the action. For this purpose, methods for identifying the visibility of points of interest must be integrated on the vehicle with the aim of identifying these space-time windows and enabling this synchronization.

[0024] 1 shows a flow chart of the steps of a method for determining the visibility of a point of interest POI installed in one's own motor vehicle according to one preferred embodiment of the present invention. The flow chart includes the following steps: - E1: Selecting or identifying points of interest, in particular by actions taken by a user, for example to select a final destination or waypoint, or by identification by the navigation system of approaching POIs based on a route planned by the user, if the user has selected, for example in the navigation system, to receive information or alerts related to all or a particular type of points of interest, or even by automatic suggestions made by the vehicle's computer depending on a geographical context, a temporal context, or even the preferences of the vehicle's occupants, which can be, for example, important alerts to be given when the route passes near a school, important tourist information when a particular monument is approached, etc. Furthermore, the complete route provided by the navigation system, i.e. the planned route, is not always available, in which case it is necessary to infer parts of the vehicle's future route of longer or shorter length, and thus identify the inferred route parts, by analyzing the road network based on the vehicle's current position and based on the most likely route that the vehicle should take, which is the case, for example, when the planned route diverges from a road that includes an intersection where it is not known whether the driver should turn right or left. - E2: receiving navigation information including a three-dimensional map 3D, position coordinates in at least two dimensions x, y of the remaining planned or estimated route parts not yet driven, and coordinates in at least two dimensions x, y of the current position of the vehicle, whose altitude z is obtained from the 3D map based on their latitude and longitude. The 3D map thus has coordinates in three dimensions of each point of the territory with sufficient resolution to represent the altitude of the scenery and the height of all structures with a height that tends to cover the POI, the 3D map may have been prepared upstream outside the vehicle using many data sources including two-dimensional maps and complemented using the 3D information. E3: Locating the coordinates of the points of interest POI, the remaining untraveled path or path portions and the current position of the vehicle on the three-dimensional map 3D. E4: representing the point of interest POI by a polygon with at least three vertices of given coordinates in three dimensions belonging to the point of interest POI, the polygon having as vertices in particular characteristic geometric points of the contour of the point of interest POI, for example points of change of orientation of the contour of the point of interest POI and / or points of equal height of the point of interest POI. E5: Representing the remaining path or path segments by an open dashed line by interconnecting their orientation change points, preferably elevated relative to the terrain by a height of e.g. 1 meter to match the dashed line to the head height of the vehicle occupants, which makes it possible to trace the virtual light path in the tracing step. E6: tracing a straight line segment having as a first end a point on the dashed line and as a second end a point on the polygon belonging to the point of interest POI. E7: determining the visibility of the point of interest POI from the starting point formed by each of the first ends of the segments by determining the visibility of the point of interest POI for each of the segments, the non-zero visibility of the point of interest POI between the two ends of the segments being conditional on a non-intersection between the segment and an element of the three-dimensional map 3D. - E8: Identifying the optimal visibility window.

[0025] Since the position of the own vehicle in the three-dimensional map in step E3 is further updated and taken into account at each time increment of the execution of the method, the looping of the method back to step E6 corresponds to a visual simplification.

[0026] If the planned route or estimated route portion to the POI does not change due to the vehicle's position between the two time increments, the method beneficially avoids a loop back to E6, since all geometric conditions specifying visibility remain the same and the pre-computed predicted maximum visibility remains valid.

[0027] Furthermore, the presented order of the steps is non-limiting and it will become clear, for example, on reading the remainder of the description, that step E5 represented by the open dashed line can be performed not only in parallel as shown in this example, but also after step E4 representing the point of interest POI.

[0028] In this example, the points of interest POI are not reduced to addresses as is common in conventional navigation systems, but are considered to be volumes in order to allow the user to be informed when a point of interest POI is about to enter the user's field of view. These points of interest POI are therefore objects with physical entities described, for example, by length, depth, height and distance to the road. For example, FIG. 2 shows the case of a medieval castle C located 200 meters from the road and visible to the right on a hill at the bend. To determine whether the point of interest POI is in the user's field of view or not, it is necessary to know whether an obstacle blocks the user's line of sight and for how long it will remain so. The visibility estimation in the tracing step E6 uses ray tracing performed on a digital surface model built on the data shown in FIG. 2. As shown, the digital surface model forming the 3D map corresponds to the sum of a digital terrain model including the altitudes Z of all points in the area over their entire surface, preferably in an XY plane, where X corresponds to latitude and Y corresponds to longitude, and the heights H of all buildings in the area of ​​interest. Furthermore, the forest canopy may also be a component of the digital terrain model, thus forming a POI. In particular, a database exists listing such tree-covered surfaces identified by lidar measurements. In addition, transparency estimates can be added depending on the day, the type of canopy, and / or the location (indicating the predominant tree species and their tendency to shed their leaves). What is meant by area of ​​interest is an area surrounding the remaining route or route portion, a distance limit for the route being set for example at 10 km, possibly varying depending for example on weather conditions. These data can be obtained from a database stored in the vehicle and / or on the vehicle that is remotely accessible by the vehicle's connectivity system, for example an XY map can be stored in the vehicle navigation system and updated periodically by a network enabling communication with a remote database or by for example a USB stick, a digital terrain model can be built into the vehicle and / or downloaded from a remote server by the vehicle's connectivity system.The result of the positioning step E3 thus includes the coordinates x, y, (z+h) for each point of the region of interest. In the tracing step E6, the ray tracing corresponds to tracing a straight line segment from the vehicle to the object of interest POI, such as a ray emanating from the vehicle at a height of 1 meter (where the heads of the vehicle occupants are located), and then in the step E7 of determining the visibility of the point of interest POI, it is determined whether this straight line segment is crossed by the landscape or a building, i.e. whether this straight line segment is a secant to the landscape or a building. The height of 1 meter can be increased to 2 meters for commercial vehicles, such as vans, which are taller than passenger cars, or even to approximately 3 meters for large trucks.

[0029] In the first case illustrated by FIG. 3 a , the straight line segments starting from own vehicle 1 and extending to castle C do not intersect and castle C is visible to the occupants of own vehicle 1 .

[0030] In the second case shown by FIG. 3b, a straight line starting from own vehicle 1 and extending to castle C intersects with building I of height z3+h3, and castle C is not visible to the occupants of own vehicle 1.

[0031] Context-related information that is not dependent on the numerical surface model and that negatively affects visibility is used in order to take it further into account in determining the visibility of a point from another, for example darkness related to the time of year or even the presence of fog or rain. Thus, the step E7 of determining the visibility of the point of interest POI comprises a sub-step of determining a maximum context-related visibility distance as a function of context-related visibility information that is itself dependent on the local weather conditions and / or on the external illumination level. This context-related visibility information may thus comprise dynamic information on the local weather visibility distance along the remaining untraveled route or route parts, this information being provided by a remote weather server or information on the local weather visibility distance that originates, for example, from data generated by a rain sensor and / or from data generated by a camera on the vehicle or by fusing these data, if necessary. This context-related visibility information may further comprise local calendar-related visibility distance information calculated at various positions along the remaining route or route portion, for example based on remotely accessible calendar-related data, on the basis of which the local calendar-related visibility distance is set, for example, to zero from 30 minutes after sunset, or derived from data generated by a light sensor located on the own vehicle 1. The maximum context-related visibility distance at a point is preferably determined as the minimum of the local weather visibility distance and of the local calendar-related visibility distance, when both are available. In step E7, the determination of a non-zero visibility of the point of interest POI between the two ends of the segment is therefore further conditioned on the length of the segment being less than a predefined maximum context-related visibility distance. Preferably, in the tracing step, a maximum context-related visibility distance is determined upstream of the trace as well as the distance to the polygonal point of the POI, in order to take into account the maximum context-related visibility in the tracing step and thus limit the number and length of the segments traced from the own vehicle 1 with consistency with a pre-given definition of the area of ​​interest.It is therefore possible to not consider a POI at all if all vertices of its polygon are located at a distance greater than a predefined maximum context-relevant visibility distance, and thus avoid the computationally expensive steps E6, E7 and E8 when identifying non-visibility. In addition, regardless of the embodiment, the length of the traced segment or the maximum context-relevant visibility distance may further depend on the nature of each POI. For example, in the case of a school, intended to trigger the generation of a danger warning during the school term when a vehicle is nearby, the length of the traced segment may be limited to, for example, 50 m.

[0032] Thus, regardless of topographical conditions, a point is considered not visible to another if the distance between the point and another is less than the maximum context-relevant visibility distance. Figure 4 shows a local condition where castle C is not visible to the occupants of own vehicle 1, for example due to fog.

[0033] Although ray tracing in the tracing step E6 makes it possible to determine whether a POI is visible from a given point or not, ray tracing does not make it possible to determine the maximum visibility window, i.e. the maximum distance at which the POI is most visible from the own vehicle 1, before the POI has been passed by. To calculate the maximum visibility window, the following further steps are required: E4: representing the point of interest POI in the 3D map by a polygon having at least three vertices of given coordinates in the third dimension belonging to the point of interest POI. E5: Representing the remaining paths or path segments in the 3D map by open dashed lines by interconnecting the orientation change points of the remaining paths or path segments. An open dashed line, also called an open polygon or open polyline, specifies a sequence of straight line segments that continuously connect a sequence of points.

[0034] The point of interest POI is therefore represented in step E4 by a geometric form discretized by points. What is meant by polygon is a closed line made of interconnected continuous straight line segments. Unlike open dashed lines, (closed) polygons allow the recognition of defined areas and volumes. In the case of points forming an open dashed line, the open dashed line is converted into a polygon by adding vertices between its two ends to generate an approximate area where appropriate. The POI must contain an existing object in the 2D map, and therefore it is polygonal in nature, and if its 3D shape is complex, it may possibly be a polyhedron (but not a polyhedron of any kind), but its area on the ground is actually polygonal and it is considered as such in all steps of the method. Preferably, the polygon has as vertices characteristic geometric points of the contour of the point of interest POI, for example the change points of the orientation of the contour of the point of interest POI and / or the iso-altitude points of the point of interest POI, which belong to the point of interest POI by physical volume occupying objects. In order to optimize the amount of data in the map without overestimating the visibility, the vertices of the polygon are preferably defined as points that have as 2D coordinates the change points of the orientation of the contour of the POI, i.e. the outer envelope, for example the wall to the castle, and as altitude of the point z+h identified via the 3D map from their latitude and longitude. The polygon projected on the ground therefore corresponds to the contour of the POI, and the polygon itself represents the envelope of the upper surface of the outer contour of the POI, whose altitude may therefore vary from point to point. For that one altitude, one ray is traced for each point. If the wall in question is lower than the castle, this compromise leads to an underestimation of the potential visibility, but this is a safe qualitative choice that further allows the size of the 3D map to be limited by limiting the data at the height h of the points of interest POI to the data on their outer envelope. This definition of the polygon therefore then allows to identify the percentage of the visible outer edge, rather than the percentage of the visible volume.Nevertheless, as a variant, a plane or scan-specified visible volume over many heights is specified for a given specified point of the POI in order to describe not only the contour of the POI but also its entire volume, but this variant requires a complete 3D map of the POI and higher computing power that can continue to perform the calculations in real time. Another alternative, especially when an unrestricted map is provided, consists in describing such a polygon using many heights z+h (z levels of the POI), for example to scan by iso-altitude slices. In addition, intermediate points are distributed between the vertices of the polygon. Thus, FIG. 5 shows the geometric structure of a POI in the XY plane, characterized by points with x, y coordinates that represent the vertices of the polygon. The filled black circles correspond to the vertices of the polygon, and the unfilled black circles correspond to the intermediate points.

[0035] The remaining planned path is represented in Fig. 6 by open dashed lines formed from the orientation change points represented by filled black circles and from the intermediate points represented by unfilled black circles distributed between the change points. In particular, in step E5, the remaining planned path is represented by open dashed lines formed by interconnecting the orientation change points (filled black circles) of the remaining planned path, which is a matter of generating equidistant intermediate points (unfilled black circles) based on a list of preferably continuous path segments, the spacing of the intermediate points depending on the predicted speed of the vehicle, so as to be able to perform a simulation of visibility approximately every second of the journey. This representation is further applied to the remaining estimated path parts that have not been traveled, exactly as in the rest of the description.

[0036] Figure 7 shows a use case where the own vehicle 1 follows the remaining planned path in the direction indicated by the orientation of the dashed arrow in the XY plane for simplicity of drawing. It is therefore a problem of identifying a list of continuous road segments between the current position of the own vehicle 1 and its future position where the POI is behind the vehicle, which is also applicable in the round trip case since what is of interest is the remaining planned path that has not been driven. Each of the segments consists of two points with x,y coordinates at each end (black dots). They are connected by a common point. A POI is considered to be behind the vehicle if all of its vertices are behind the vehicle. Let u be the vector that runs from the (particular) current point to the previous point and v be the vector that runs from the (particular) current point to the vertex of the POI, so if the vector product (u,v) is positive, the vertex is behind the vehicle. The heading direction is therefore represented by the vector -u in FIG. 7 and therefore contributes to identifying a front / back or even right / left notion, which is used, for example, to determine whether a POI has been passed, i.e. whether it is present at the rear, or to determine which side of an interior door handle and / or pillar to illuminate as the POI side, or to help the driver to identify the location of the POI, or even to warn the driver that there is a school nearby from which children may be coming out. The dashed line is raised to the height of the heads of the vehicle occupants with respect to the ground, so that the exact shape of the vehicle is not taken into account, due to the sufficient score to average the actual visibility through the windows. In FIG. 7, this is the case only for the rightmost point of the remaining planned path. This means that the visibility identified in step E7 from the identified starting point located downstream of this identified point in the remaining planned path is zero. The first visibility specific start point behind which the point of interest POI is located corresponds to the first start point belonging to the remaining planned route, for which all vector products of the vector u connecting the visibility specific start point to the previous specific start point multiplied by each of the vectors v connecting the visibility specific start point to each of the vertices of the point of interest POI are positive.This mode of operation allows simplifying the identification downstream of a POI, since a zero visibility is obtained without the need to repeat the tracing step. Since in real driving it is dangerous for a user, especially a driver, to continue to indicate a POI after it has been passed, in cases requiring the driver to look back, the sub-step of determining the visibility by computation is therefore stopped for POIs downstream of a POI, and the identification step is therefore simplified in these cases by setting the visibility downstream of the POI to zero.

[0037] Fig. 8 shows an exemplary diagram, partially simplified for clarity, of the tracing step applied to a starting point of the visibility determination of the remaining planned path that is not driven. It is a matter of tracing a straight line segment that has as a first end this starting point corresponding to a point on the dashed line and as a second end a point on a polygon belonging to the point of interest POI, the same process being applied to each of the turning points (filled black circles) and intermediate points (unfilled black circles) of the list of segments, i.e. of the remaining planned path that is not driven. For each starting point, it is preferably determined whether each of the feature points (filled black circles) and intermediate points of the POI (unfilled black circles) is visible as described above, depending on whether the straight line segment is crossed by any obstacle present in the numerical surface model and depending on the context-related visibility distance. Thus, in the example of Fig. 8, a building represented by a black rectangle blocks part of the POI from the starting point of the visibility determination considered in this example. The shape of the POI may further mean that certain points of the POI are blocked by the POI itself, in particular from visibility search points located at an altitude lower than that of the POI. Therefore, for each start point of visibility determination of the remaining planned route, a substep is performed of identifying a contiguous group of visible points of the second end that belong to the point of interest POI, said contiguous group forming a segment, i.e. a line segment.

[0038] Although the drawing depiction is in the XY plane in this example for the sake of clarity, the method steps are applied in the XYZ plane of the 3D map.

[0039] The following figures show partial results of the sub-steps of the visibility determination step E8.

[0040] FIG. 9a shows, for example, a contiguous group of visible points belonging to a point of interest POI identified from the starting point of the visibility determination considered in this example.

[0041] FIG. 9b shows visibility segments associated with each contiguous group of visible points identified in the previous sub-step of identifying contiguous groups of visible points that belong to the point of interest POI.

[0042] Next, the following: - a substep of summing the lengths of the visibility segments, - a sub-step of dividing the sum by the perimeter of the point of interest POI, bearing in mind that what is meant by perimeter is the length of the lines forming a polygon; - calculating, for each of the remaining planned route visibility specific start points, the visible outer edge of the point of interest as a percentage; and - storing, for each of the visibility specific start points of the remaining planned route, a percentage of the visible outer edge of the point of interest, will be implemented.

[0043] FIG. 10a shows the stored percentage of the visible outer edge of the POI, obtained by dividing the sum of the lengths of the visible segments by the outer edge of the POI, for various starting points along the remaining planned route.

[0044] Then, the following sub-steps are performed: - identifying each of the consecutive groups of points from among the remaining planned path visibility determination starting points, none of which have a stored percentage of zero; - defining a continuous visibility window characterized by the number of start nodes, i.e. one visibility specific start point, the end node, the length and distance from the current position of the vehicle 1 (in this example the leftmost node) and a visibility score, the value of which is the sum of the percentages of the outer edge of the point of interest POI that are visible from a continuous group of points not including those whose stored percentage is zero; is executed.

[0045] Figure 10b shows the POI visibility windows obtained in Figure 10a for each consecutive group of points of a road segment, including none with a score of 0, that define a visibility window characterized by the start node, the end node, the length, the distance from the vehicle's current position, and a visibility score, the value of which is the sum of the percentage of the outer edge of the POI that is visible from the group.

[0046] Finally, a substep is performed of selecting the visibility window with the best visibility score. In the example of Fig. 10b, the visibility window with the best score corresponds to the last window with 163 points.

[0047] At the end of the steps, the method has identified which visibility window is the optimal visibility window, its length, its distance from the current position of the car, the point at which an action has to be performed, the surroundings to be generated or animation to be played, and the point at which the POI is no longer visible to one or more users on board the own vehicle 1 due to the POI being located behind the user.

[0048] The method according to the invention further makes it possible to indicate whether a POI is visible or not at any point of the journey in question.

[0049] A driver assistance method comprising steps of performing the method for identifying the visibility of points of interest according to the present invention and delivering information and / or generating an ambient environment over the identified optimal visibility window therefore makes it possible to warn the driver via audio, tactile and / or visual means that he is passing near a school, or to inform the driver via the same means but preferably in a manner adapted to the type of POI and / or the nature of the information (e.g. danger warning or tourist cultural information), of the presence of a nearby church that is considered a historical heritage, or any other information sufficiently relevant to justify triggering a context-relevant action.

[0050] Advantageously, the method according to the invention can use only the vehicle's location and on-vehicle map information. The method according to the invention does not necessarily require a camera or a real-time connection to a computer server to analyze visibility.

[0051] Furthermore, the method steps are performed on the basis of low complexity geometrical operations. The method steps do not require a large amount of computing power and can be easily integrated in a computer on the vehicle. Preferably, the method for determining the visibility of the interest point is hosted in a module for determining the visibility of the interest point of a computer of a Human Machine Interface (acronym HMI) and / or of an Advanced Driver Assistance System (acronym ADAS).

Claims

1. A method for determining the visibility of a point of interest (POI), said method being implemented by processing means integrated into a motor vehicle (1) of interest, and comprising: (E1) a step of selecting or identifying a point of interest (POI); (E2) receiving navigation information comprising a three-dimensional map (3D) and the position coordinates in at least two dimensions of the remaining route or route portion not yet traveled, in particular the remaining planned or estimated route portion not yet traveled, and the coordinates in at least two dimensions of the current position of said vehicle (1); (E3) locating said points of interest (POIs), the remaining route or route sections not yet traveled and the coordinates of the current position of said vehicle in said three-dimensional map (3D); (E4) representing the point of interest (POI) by a polygon with at least three vertices of given coordinates in three dimensions belonging to the point of interest (POI), the polygon having as vertices characteristic geometric points of the contour of the point of interest (POI), for example points of change in the orientation of the contour of the point of interest (POI) and / or points of equal altitude of the point of interest (POI); (E5) representing said remaining paths or path segments by means of open dashed lines by interconnecting the points of change in orientation of said remaining paths or path segments; (E6) tracing a straight line segment having as its first end a point on said dashed line and as its second end a point on said polygon belonging to said point of interest (POI); (E7) determining the visibility of the points of interest (POI) from a starting point formed by each of the first ends of the segments by determining the visibility of the points of interest (POI) for each of the segments; (E8) identifying an optimal visibility window; Including, characterised in that in the visibility determination step (E7) a non-zero visibility of the point of interest (POI) between the two ends of the segment is conditioned on a non-intersection between the segment and an element of the three-dimensional map (3D), A method for determining the visibility of a point of interest (POI).

2. 2. The method for determining the visibility of points of interest of claim 1, wherein the starting points of visibility determination include intermediate points distributed between the transition points and / or the second end includes intermediate points distributed between the vertices of the polygon.

3. 3. A method for determining the visibility of points of interest according to claim 1 or 2, characterized in that in the step (E7) of determining the visibility of the points of interest (POI), a visibility of zero is determined for all points of the remaining route or route sections located downstream of the starting point of visibility determination behind which the point of interest (POI) is located.

4. 4. The method for determining the visibility of a point of interest as described in claim 3, characterized in that the starting point of the visibility determination behind which the point of interest (POI) is located corresponds to the first starting point of the visibility determination of the route for which all vector products obtained by multiplying the vector (u) connecting the starting point to the first previous starting point by each of the vectors (v) connecting the starting point to each of the vertices of the point of interest (POI) are positive.

5. 3. A method for determining the visibility of points of interest according to claim 1 or 2, characterized in that the navigation information comprises context-related visibility information that depends on local weather conditions and / or external lighting levels.

6. 6. The method for determining the visibility of points of interest according to claim 5, characterized in that the method for determining the visibility of points of interest comprises the sub-step of determining a maximum context-related visibility distance depending on the context-related visibility information and in particular depending on the point of interest (POI).

7. the method for determining the visibility of the points of interest comprises a sub-step of determining a distance, in particular a Euclidean distance, between each start point and each of the vertices of the points of interest (POI), and the tracing step (E6) comprises tracing only segments of length less than or equal to the predetermined maximum context-related visibility distance, and in the step (E7) of determining the visibility of the points of interest (POI), the visibility is determined to be zero between the start point and the vertex of the point of interest (POI) if the distance separating the start point and the vertex of the point of interest (POI) is greater than the predetermined maximum context-related visibility distance; and / or in said step (E7) of determining the visibility of said points of interest (POI), the determination of a non-zero visibility of said points of interest (POI) between the two ends of said segment is further conditioned on the length of said segment being less than the predetermined maximum context-related visibility distance, 7. The method for determining the visibility of a point of interest according to claim 6, characterized in that:

8. The step (E8) of identifying an optimal visibility window comprises, for each of the starting points of visibility identification of the remaining path or path portion: - identifying a contiguous group of visible points in said second end that belong to said point of interest (POI); - associating a visibility segment with each of said consecutive groups; - summing the lengths of said visibility segments; - dividing said sum by the outer edge of said point of interest (POI); - calculating, for each of the starting points of visibility identification of the remaining path or path portion, the visible outer edge of the point of interest (POI) as a percentage; - storing, for each of the starting points of visibility identification of the remaining path or path portion, the percentage of the visible outer edge of the point of interest (POI); 3. A method for determining the visibility of points of interest according to claim 1 or 2, characterized in that it comprises:

9. said step (E8) of identifying an optimal visibility window, - identifying each consecutive group of points from among said starting points of the visibility determination of said remaining paths or path portions, not including those for which the stored percentage is zero; - defining a continuous visibility window characterized by a start node and an end node, a length, a distance from the current position of the vehicle (1), and a visibility score, the value of which is the sum of the percentages of the outer edge of the point of interest (POI) that are visible from the continuous group of points, none of which has a stored percentage that is zero; - selecting the continuous visibility window with the best visibility score; 9. The method for determining the visibility of a point of interest according to claim 8, comprising:

10. 3. A driver assistance method implementing the method for determining visibility of a point of interest according to claim 1 or 2, characterized in that it comprises a step of delivering information and / or generating an ambient environment across or from the start of the determined optimal visibility window.

11. A module for determining the visibility of points of interest, comprising means for implementing the method for determining the visibility of points of interest according to claim 1 or 2.

12. Motor vehicle (1) comprising navigation means (4), said vehicle further comprising a module for determining the visibility of points of interest according to claim 11.

13. 3. A computer program product downloadable from a communications network and / or recorded on a computer-readable and / or computer-executable data medium, comprising instructions which, when executed by the computer, cause the computer to perform the method for determining the visibility of points of interest according to claim 1 or 2. Computer program products.

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