Dynamic Map Feature Styling for Route Emphasis

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Solution Overview

Problem

Existing digital map navigation systems often obscure important map features by highlighting navigation routes with overlays or pins, leading to increased bandwidth and processing requirements.

Innovation Solution

A dynamic mapping system that employs multiple visual styles (minimal, standard, and rich) for map features, allowing client devices to selectively render navigation routes with higher detail and de-emphasize non-route features, reducing the need for overlays and improving visual clarity.

Engineering Contradictions & Design Principles

VSEngineering Contradiction Analysis

1Ease of manufacture

If navigation routes are highlighted with overlays or pins, then the navigation route is emphasized, but important map features are obscured and bandwidth requirements increase

Engineering Contradiction:

Improvevisual clarityVSAvoidmap feature visibility

Core Design Contradiction:

Ease of manufactureVSLoss of information

Solution Approach 1:

The patent applies different visual styles (minimal, standard, rich) to different map features based on their relevance to the navigation route. Route-related features receive rich styling with high detail, while non-route features receive minimal styling with low detail, eliminating the need for overlays while preserving map feature visibility

Inventive Principle:

Principle #3Local quality

Solution Approach 2:

The system dynamically adjusts the visual style of map features based on their relationship to the navigation route. Map features are re-rendered in real-time with appropriate styles applied, allowing the visualization to adapt dynamically without requiring static overlay layers

Inventive Principle:

Principle #15Dynamics

2Ease of manufacture

If multiple visual styles are applied to map features, then visual clarity is enhanced, but rendering complexity increases

Engineering Contradiction:

Improvevisual clarityVSAvoidrendering complexity

Core Design Contradiction:

Ease of manufactureVSDevice complexity

Solution Approach 1:

The patent segments map features into three categories (route-related, nearby, and other) and applies different visual styles to each segment. This segmentation allows the rendering system to manage complexity by processing features in groups rather than individually, reducing overall rendering complexity while maintaining visual clarity

Inventive Principle:

Principle #1Segmentation

3Ease of manufacture

If navigation routes are highlighted with overlays, then the route is emphasized, but bandwidth requirements increase

Engineering Contradiction:

Improveroute emphasisVSAvoidbandwidth

Core Design Contradiction:

Ease of manufactureVSQuantity of substance

Solution Approach 1:

The patent extracts the emphasis function from separate overlay layers and integrates it directly into the map feature rendering process. By applying visual styles directly to map features during rendering, the system eliminates the need for separate overlay data transmissions, reducing bandwidth requirements while maintaining route emphasis

Inventive Principle:

Principle #2Taking out (Extraction)

Data Source

PatentEP3797264B1Dynamic restyling of digital maps

Publication Date: 2023.02.15 GOOGLE LLC

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AI summary

To dynamically restyle map features related to a navigation route on a digital map, a server device and/or a client device selectively applies different visual styles to certain map features to emphasize and de-emphasize navigation routes or other logically linked sets of map features. For example, the server device instructs the client device to visually emphasize the road segments included in the navigation route, de-emphasize road segments not in the navigation route, and leave the remaining features at the default (standard) level of detail. The client device then re-renders the map features accordingly.