Wayarea Grouping for Clutter-Free Marine Navigation
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Solution Overview
Problem
Existing marine navigation systems face challenges in managing numerous waypoints, leading to clutter and confusion, as users struggle to efficiently locate and interpret relevant locations for specific activities due to the lack of effective grouping and filtering mechanisms.
Innovation Solution
The creation and management of wayareas, which are defined areas encompassing multiple waypoints with shared characteristics, allowing for easier selection and use by grouping them based on filtering criteria such as weather, season, tide, and depth, and displaying them with highlighting to match desired activities.
Engineering Contradictions & Design Principles
Engineering Contradiction Analysis
1Quantity of substance
If users save numerous waypoints to mark locations for various activities, then the system can store more location data, but the chart becomes cluttered and difficult to interpret
Solution Approach 1:
The patent merges multiple individual waypoints into grouped collections called wayareas. Waypoints are aggregated based on shared characteristics (such as activity type, location proximity, or metadata) and displayed as unified visual groups rather than individual markers. This combining approach maintains the quantity of stored location data while simplifying the visual presentation, allowing users to locate desirable waypoints more easily by viewing consolidated groups rather than navigating through numerous individual markers.
2Quantity of substance
If users create many waypoints for specific activities, then more location data is available, but the user experience becomes confusing
Solution Approach 1:
The patent segments waypoints into distinct wayareas based on their characteristics and usage context. Each wayarea is a segmented collection that can be independently managed, filtered, and displayed. This segmentation divides the complex set of individual waypoints into manageable groups, reducing the cognitive load on users and simplifying the overall system interaction while preserving the comprehensive location data.
Solution Approach 2:
The patent applies local quality by allowing different wayareas to have distinct characteristics and properties tailored to specific activities or locations. Each wayarea can be configured with specific filters, display properties, and associated metadata relevant to its purpose. This localized differentiation makes the system more intuitive and easier to manage, as users can interact with wayareas based on their specific needs rather than dealing with a uniform set of individual waypoints.
3Loss of information
If waypoints are displayed individually on the chart, then detailed location information is shown, but the chart becomes difficult to read
Solution Approach 1:
The patent merges multiple individual waypoint markers into consolidated wayarea visual groups on the chart. These grouped representations maintain the underlying detailed location information of constituent waypoints while presenting a cleaner, more interpretable visual structure. Users can access detailed information about individual waypoints through interaction with the wayarea groups, thus preserving information completeness while improving chart readability.
Data Source
AI summary
Systems and methods are provided herein for creating and displaying wayareas on a screen. A system includes a memory and a processor, and the processor is configured to retrieve a plurality of waypoints from the memory. Each of the plurality of waypoints is associated with a location and one or more waypoint characteristics, which include at least one of weather data, season data, time of day data, tide data or depth data. The plurality of waypoints are presented on the screen and a desired set of waypoints are determined based on either a filtering process or user input. A wayarea is created from the desired set of waypoints and then saved to the memory. The system also displays a plurality of wayareas on the screen, each as highlighted shapes, and the plurality of wayareas may be filtered based on certain characteristics.