JP6037985B2 - Display image generation apparatus and display image generation method - Google Patents

Description

  The present invention relates to a technique for generating a display image of a meter cluster of a vehicle.

  Some vehicle meter clusters are equipped with a display screen in addition to meters such as speedometers and tachometers, and warning lights. On the display screen, for example, a map around the vehicle position is displayed. The warning light gives a warning regarding the state of the vehicle, for example, that the door is in an unlocked state or that the remaining amount of gasoline is small.

  Such a meter cluster has a problem that when a warning light is provided in the vicinity of the display screen, the user is attracted attention to the display image on the display screen, and the recognition degree of the warning light is lowered.

  In order to solve this problem, the meter cluster disclosed in Patent Document 1 is designed to make the warning light stand out by controlling the hue of the display image, such as making the display image monochrome when the warning light is turned on. ing.

JP 2007-118892 A

  However, according to the technique of Patent Document 1, the complexity of the graphic shape of the display image remains as it is, and the effect of conspicuous the warning lamp is insufficient.

  Therefore, in view of the above-described problems, an object of the present invention is to improve the visibility of warning display in a meter cluster having an image display unit and a warning display unit.

A display image generation device of the present invention is a display image generation device that generates a display image including a map image in an image display unit of a meter cluster of a vehicle having a warning display unit and an image display unit. A display image generating unit that generates a map image with fewer display objects or a simplified graphic than when no warning is displayed is provided.

A display image generation method of the present invention is a display image generation method for generating a display image including a map image in an image display unit of a meter cluster of a vehicle having a warning display unit and an image display unit, and (a) warning display There is a step of generating a map image in which the number of objects to be displayed is smaller or the figure is simplified when the warning is displayed on the part than when the warning is not displayed.

A display image generation device of the present invention is a display image generation device that generates a display image including a map image in an image display unit of a meter cluster of a vehicle having a warning display unit and an image display unit. A display image generating unit that generates a map image with fewer display objects or a simplified graphic than when no warning is displayed is provided. Therefore, the visibility of the warning display is improved.

A display image generation method of the present invention is a display image generation method for generating a display image including a map image in an image display unit of a meter cluster of a vehicle having a warning display unit and an image display unit, and (a) warning display There is a step of generating a map image in which the number of objects to be displayed is smaller or the figure is simplified when the warning is displayed on the part than when the warning is not displayed. Therefore, the visibility of the warning display is improved.

1 is a block diagram illustrating a configuration of a display image generation device according to Embodiment 1. FIG. It is a figure which shows the structure of a meter cluster. 4 is a flowchart illustrating an operation of the display image generation device according to the first embodiment. It is a figure which shows the example of the display format according to the display level of a map image. 6 is a diagram illustrating an operation of the display image generation device according to Embodiment 1. FIG. 6 is a diagram illustrating an operation of a display image generation device according to a first modification of the first embodiment. FIG. FIG. 10 is a diagram illustrating an operation of a display image generation device according to a second modification of the first embodiment.

<A. Embodiment 1>
<A-1. Configuration>
FIG. 1 is a block diagram showing the configuration of the display image generating apparatus 10 according to the first embodiment, and FIG. 2 is a diagram showing the configuration of the meter cluster 20. The display image generation device 10 is a device that generates a display image in the image display unit 21 of the meter cluster 20 of the vehicle.

  As shown in FIG. 2, the meter cluster 20 includes an image display unit 21, a warning display unit 22 that displays a warning regarding the state of the vehicle, and a mechanical meter 23. The image display unit 21 is a display such as a liquid crystal panel. In the first embodiment, the warning display unit 22 is a warning lamp that displays a warning by turning on. Since the warning display unit 22 is provided in the vicinity of the image display unit 21, the user may not notice the lighting (warning display) of the warning display unit 22 because the user is attracted attention to the display image of the image display unit 21. Therefore, when the warning display unit 22 displays a warning, the display image generation device 10 improves the visibility of the warning display by reducing the display information amount of the display image of the image display unit 21.

  In FIG. 1, a display image generation apparatus 10 includes an operation input unit 1, an in-vehicle LAN (Local Area Network) interface unit 2, a drawing object data storage unit 3, a display content determination unit 4, a display image generation unit 5, and a display output unit 8. It has. The display output unit 8 is connected to the image display unit 21 of the meter cluster 20.

  The operation input unit 1 is an input interface of the display image generation device 10 and accepts user operations. The operation input unit 1 is configured by, for example, a mechanical or electronic switch, and may be configured by a remote controller that is separate from the display image generation device 10.

  The in-vehicle LAN interface unit 2 is connected to the in-vehicle LAN, and acquires vehicle position information and warning information. Here, the warning information is information that warns the state of the vehicle, for example, that the door is in an unlocked state or that the remaining amount of gasoline is small.

  The drawing object data storage unit 3 stores various drawing object data necessary for generating a display image of the image display unit 21 such as map data for generating a map. The drawing object data storage unit 3 includes a storage medium such as a hard disk drive (HDD) or a secure digital (SD) memory. Note that the display image generation apparatus 10 does not include the drawing object data storage unit 3 and may be configured to acquire drawing object data from an external server or the like as necessary.

  The display content determination unit 4 acquires warning information from the in-vehicle LAN interface unit 2, determines the warning content, and determines a display image to be generated.

  The display image generation unit 5 includes a drawing object generation unit 6 and an image simplification unit 7 and generates a display image in response to an instruction from the display content determination unit 4. The drawing object generation unit 6 acquires necessary drawing object data from the drawing object data storage unit 3 and generates a display image such as a map of the vehicle position and the surroundings by combining the drawing objects. The image simplification unit 7 simplifies the display image generated by the drawing object generation unit 6 as necessary. The display content determination unit 4 and the display image generation unit 5 are realized as a CPU (Central Processing Unit) or a GPU (Graphics Processing Unit) that executes a program stored in the memory.

  The display output unit 8 is a communication interface, and outputs the display image generated by the display image generation unit 5 to the image display unit 21 of the meter cluster 20.

<A-2. Operation>
FIG. 3 is a flowchart showing the operation of the display image generating apparatus 10. Hereinafter, the operation of the display image generation apparatus 10 after the power is turned on will be described with reference to FIG.

  When the power is turned on, the display image generating device 10 generates a display image (step S1). Specifically, a display image is generated in accordance with a user operation input from the operation input unit 1. For example, when generating a vehicle position peripheral view, the display content determination unit 4 acquires vehicle position information from the in-vehicle LAN interface unit 2 and outputs the vehicle position information to the display image generation unit 5. And the drawing object production | generation part 6 acquires drawing object data from the drawing object data storage part 3 based on the said positional information, and produces | generates the own vehicle position periphery map. The generated vehicle position peripheral view is output from the display output unit 8 to the image display unit 21 and displayed.

  Next, the display content determination unit 4 determines whether there is warning information (step S2). If the in-vehicle LAN interface unit 2 has not received the warning information, the process returns to step S1 as no warning information. If the warning information is received, the display content determination unit 4 instructs the drawing object generation unit 6 to lower the display level (described later) of the display image by one (step S3). Here, the display content determination unit 4 may determine the content of the warning information, select a predetermined display level, and instruct the drawing object generation unit 6.

  Here, the display level of the display image will be described. The display level is an index related to the display information amount of the display image. The lower the display level, the smaller the display information amount. In this specification, the display information amount of the display image is the amount of information represented in the display image. In the map image, the more graphics are drawn, the more graphics are drawn. The amount of information increases.

  The display format of the map image for each display level is determined in advance by the display content determination unit 4. FIG. 4 shows an example of a display format for each display level of the map image. At display level 6 having the highest display level and the largest amount of display information, the map image is represented in a cruising view format (FIG. 4A). At the next display level 5, it is represented by a combination of a flat road and a building composed of a three-dimensional polygon (FIG. 4B). At the display level 4, the building is represented by a two-dimensional polygon as compared to the display level 5 (FIG. 4C). The map at the display level 3 is a POI (Point of Interest) map that displays only the building figure of the landmark with the icon among the building figures at the display level 4 (FIG. 4D). At display level 2, a map image of only road display is displayed by excluding the landmark building figure from the map at display level 3 (FIG. 4 (e)). At display level 1 with the lowest display level and the smallest amount of display information, a map image obtained by deleting roads other than the vehicle traveling road from the map at display level 2 is displayed (FIG. 4 (f)). Thus, the lower the display level (the lower the display level), the smaller the amount of information displayed on the map. At display levels 6 to 4, the complexity of the representation of building figures is different, but at display levels 3 to 1, the number of display objects is different.

  Returning to FIG. 3, the display image generation unit 5 generates a display image at the display level designated by the display content determination unit 4 (step S4). Specifically, the drawing object generation unit 6 acquires drawing object data in a range for drawing a map from the drawing object data storage unit 3 and draws a map image in accordance with the vehicle position information acquired from the display content determination unit 4. . Further, the image simplification unit 7 performs image simplification processing corresponding to the next lower display level. For example, after the drawing object generation unit 6 draws the map image at the display level 4 shown in FIG. 4C, the image simplification unit 7 performs a process of deleting a building figure other than the landmark, and FIG. A map image of display level 3 shown in d) is generated. When the display level is lowered from the cruising view to the bird's eye view, the drawing object generation unit 6 directly obtains the drawing object data necessary for creating the bird's eye view from the drawing object data storage unit 3 and generates a map image of the bird's eye view. May be.

  The generated display image is output from the display output unit 8 to the image display unit 21 and displayed on the image display unit 21 (step S5).

  Next, the display content determination unit 4 determines whether or not the warning information continues (step S6). If the warning information received in step S2 is still continued, the process returns to step S4 to generate a display image without changing the display level. When the reception of the warning information is completed, the display level is restored (step S7), and the process returns to step S1.

  In the above description, when the warning information is received, the display content determination unit 4 lowers the display level by one. However, the content of the warning information may be determined and the display level may be selected according to the type.

  FIG. 5 is a diagram for explaining the operation of the display image generation apparatus 10 and shows the meter cluster 20. When no warning is displayed on the warning display unit 22, the image display unit 21 displays a map image at the display level 6 shown in FIG. 4A (FIG. 5A). When a warning is displayed, a map image of display level 2 shown in FIG. 4E is displayed (FIG. 5B), and the amount of display information is reduced. Therefore, the user can easily recognize that the warning is displayed.

  The display level shown in FIG. 4 is an example. In addition, display level 3: cruising view (3D), display level 2: bird's eye view (2.5D), display level 1: plane map (2D), The amount of display information may be reduced by reducing the dimensions of the map. Moreover, you may combine reducing the dimension of a map and reducing the number of the above-mentioned display objects.

  When the image display unit 21 performs two-screen display, one of which is a map image, the map image is reduced in the display information amount by changing the map dimension and the number of display objects as described above, and the other screen is black and white. The amount of display information may be reduced by darkening the hue, such as by using a screen.

  In the case of a route guidance image, the amount of display information may be reduced by using a turn-by-turn display.

<A-3. Modification 1>
In the display image generating apparatus 10 of the first embodiment, it has been described that the display output unit 8 outputs a display image to the image display unit 21, but the display output unit 8 controls the warning display of the warning display unit 22 in addition thereto. It may be configured. That is, the display output unit 8 controls the warning display by acquiring the warning information from the display content determination unit 4 and outputting the warning information to the warning display unit 22.

  In addition to the warning lamp, the warning display unit 22 may display a warning using a stereogram warning display image as shown in FIG. That is, at the time of warning display, if the warning display image is made to appear to jump out from the surface of the meter cluster 20 (user side), coupled with the effect of reducing the display information amount of the display image of the image display unit 21, The visibility of the warning display is improved. In particular, if the map image displayed on the image display unit 21 is a planar map, the visibility of the warning display is further improved.

<A-4. Modification 2>
2, 5, and 6, it has been described that the meter cluster 20 includes the mechanical meter 23. However, the display content of the mechanical meter 23 may be handled by the image display unit 21. That is, as shown in FIG. 7, the display image of the image display unit 21 includes a speed display and a tachometer display. Even in such a configuration, when the warning display is performed on the warning display unit 22 (FIG. 7B), the display on the image display unit 21 is compared with the case where the warning display is not performed (FIG. 7A). By reducing the amount of information, the visibility of the warning display is improved.

<A-5. Effect>
The display image generation apparatus 10 according to the first embodiment generates a display image on the image display unit 21 of the meter cluster 20 of the vehicle having the warning display unit 22 and the image display unit 21. Since the display image generation device 10 includes the display image generation unit 5 that generates a display image with a smaller amount of display information when the warning display unit 22 displays a warning than when the warning is not displayed, the meter does not hinder the visibility of the warning display. A display image of the cluster 20 can be generated.

  The display image in the image display unit 21 includes a map image, and the display image generation unit 5 generates a map image in a lower-dimensional display format when the warning display unit 22 displays a warning than when the warning is not displayed. Therefore, it is possible to generate a display image of the meter cluster 20 that does not hinder the visibility of the warning display.

  In addition, the display image generation unit 5 generates a map image with fewer display objects when the warning display unit 22 displays the warning than when the warning is not displayed, so that the visibility of the warning display is not hindered. A display image can be generated.

  In addition, when the image display unit 21 performs multi-screen display including a map image and other images, the display image generation unit 5 displays the hues of the other images when the warning display unit 22 displays a warning than when the warning is not displayed. By darkening, it is possible to generate a display image of the meter cluster 20 that does not hinder the visibility of the warning display.

  When the route guidance image is displayed on the image display unit 21, the display image generation unit 5 generates a turn-by-turn route guidance image when the warning display unit 22 displays a warning, thereby displaying a warning display. A display image of the meter cluster 20 that does not impair visibility can be generated.

  When the warning display unit 22 performs warning display with a stereogram that forms an image on the user side from the surface of the meter cluster 20, the display image generation unit 5 forms the warning display image when the warning display unit 22 displays the warning. Since the map image formed at the position opposite to the user from the position is generated, the display image of the meter cluster 20 that does not hinder the visibility of the warning display can be generated.

  Moreover, the display image of the image display unit 21 may include a meter display image. Even with such a configuration, a display image of the meter cluster 20 that does not hinder the visibility of the warning display can be generated.

  The display image generation method according to the first embodiment is a display image generation method for generating a display image on the image display unit 21 of a meter cluster 20 of a vehicle having a warning display unit 22 and an image display unit 21. (A) Since a step of generating a display image with a smaller amount of display information at the time of warning display of the warning display unit 22 than when no warning is displayed, a display image of the meter cluster 20 that does not hinder the visibility of the warning display is generated. can do.

  In the present invention, the embodiments can be appropriately modified and omitted within the scope of the invention.

  DESCRIPTION OF SYMBOLS 1 Operation input part, 2 in-vehicle LAN interface part, 3 Drawing object data storage part, 4 Display content judgment part, 5 Display image generation part, 6 Drawing object generation part, 7 Image simplification part, 8 Display output part, 10 Display image Generator, 20 meter cluster, 21 image display unit, 22 warning display unit, 23 mechanical meter.

Claims (7)

A display image generation device for generating a display image including a map image in the image display unit of a meter cluster of a vehicle having a warning display unit and an image display unit,
At the time of warning display of the warning display unit, a display image generation unit that generates a map image with fewer display objects or a simplified graphic than when no warning is displayed,
Display image generation device. The display image includes a map image,
The display image generation unit generates a map image of a lower-dimensional display format at the time of warning display of the warning display unit than at the time of warning non-display,
The display image generating apparatus according to claim 1. The image display unit performs a multi-screen display including a map image and other images,
The display image generation unit darkens the color of the other image when displaying a warning in the warning display unit than when displaying no warning.
The display image generation device according to claim 1 or 2 . The map image is a route guidance image,
The display image generation unit generates the route guidance image of a turn-by-turn method at the time of warning display of the warning display unit.
The display image generation device according to claim 1. The warning display unit displays a warning with a stereogram imaged on the user side from the surface of the meter cluster,
The display image generation unit generates the map image formed at a position opposite to the user from the image display position of the warning display at the time of warning display of the warning display unit.
Display image generating apparatus according to claim 1. The display image of the image display unit includes a meter display image,
Display image generating device according to any one of claims 1-5. A display image generation method for generating a display image including a map image in the image display unit of a meter cluster of a vehicle having a warning display unit and an image display unit,
(A) At the time of warning display of the warning display unit, the method includes the step of generating the map image with fewer display objects than when no warning is displayed or a simplified graphic .
Display image generation method.