JP3640445B2 - Information display device in the tunnel - Google Patents

Description

[0001]
BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION
The present invention relates to a method and apparatus for displaying traffic information and the like for an automobile occupant traveling in a tunnel on an expressway, for example, and more particularly to a technique for scrolling and displaying information consisting of character strings and figures.
[0002]
[Prior art]
On highways and the like, it is necessary to convey information such as traffic jams and various caution information to the driver, and various types of information display boards have been developed and put into practical use. A large-sized signboard type is usually used for the display content being fixed, and a so-called electric bulletin board type is used for changing the display content. As an electronic bulletin board capable of displaying free information centered on characters, a dot matrix type display board using a high-intensity LED lamp or other lamps is known.
[0003]
In this type of information display board, it is important that the driver of the automobile traveling at high speed can read the display information naturally and reliably without moving the line of sight so as not to disturb safe driving. Therefore, in many cases, a large display board that can be read from a distance is installed on the road or on the side of the road so that the driver looking at the front can see the display with a natural line of sight.
[0004]
[Problems to be solved by the invention]
An electronic bulletin board type or dot matrix type information display board is also installed in the tunnel. There is a special situation in the tunnel that there is almost no extra space around the road. As described above, a large display panel is required to enable a driver of an automobile traveling at high speed to read display information from a distance without moving his line of sight. However, it is normal that there is no space to install a large display board in the tunnel. If the side wall in the tunnel is parallel to the road, any number of large display boards can be installed. However, no matter how large such a display plate is in parallel with the road, it is quite difficult for a driver of an automobile traveling at high speed to display important traffic information in such a form. Even in road facilities such as soundproofing, protection, and snowproofing where a high wall structure is provided in the shape of a tunnel or semi-tunnel on the road side, there is often no space for installing a large display board. Such soundproofing / protection / snowproofing facilities are included in the category of “tunnel”.
[0005]
In the tunnel, a dot matrix type display board has been conventionally used to variably display information centered on character strings such as `` Slow down speed '', `` Warning at the exit side wind '', `` Turn on car radio '', `` Exit is snow '' is set up. However, due to the circumstances described above, the width of the display board cannot be increased in order to reduce the projecting dimension to the road side. Therefore, it is common to display a character string vertically by using a vertically long display board. In any case, the display board cannot be made so large that it is difficult to read from a distance.
[0006]
The present invention has been made in view of the above-described conventional problems, and its purpose is to provide a natural line of sight when the driver of a car looks forward in a tunnel where there is very little space for projecting a display board on the road side. It is to display traffic information so that it can be read from far enough.
[0007]
[Means for Solving the Problems]
The information display device in the tunnel according to the present invention is specified by the following items (1) to (5).
(1) A character for a car occupant existing on a remote destination road area that is close to the indicator line installation position on the inner wall of the tunnel of the expressway, with many bar-shaped indicators, cables, and a central control device. An information display device that scrolls and displays graphic information.
(2) Each bar-shaped display device includes a light emitting cell array in which a large number of light emitting cells are arranged in a straight line at a close interval, and a drive circuit that drives each light emitting cell to emit light individually.
(3) Each bar-shaped indicator is installed vertically in parallel at a much larger interval than the light-emitting cell interval at the indicator row installation position on the inner wall of the tunnel, and is emitted from the light-emitting cell of each bar-shaped indicator. It is set so that the light to be directed to the destination road range.
(4) Each bar-shaped indicator is interconnected in series with a cable and connected to a common central control unit.
(5) The central control unit selects and extracts column data from the bitmap format image data stored in the image memory, and serially transfers the extracted column data to display each bar in turn. a process for distributing the drive circuit of the vessels, a process of Ru was driven to emit light based on the light emitting cells in the column data by providing a latch signal to each drive circuit at the time of distributing the column data to each drive circuit, image data plane The process of repeating each process by shifting the position of the column data to be selected one by one is performed.
[0008]
As described above, the tunnel includes a road facility such as a soundproof / protective / snowproof structure in which a high wall-like structure is provided in a tunnel shape or a semi-tunnel shape on the road side. Further, in addition to each of the above requirements, the installation interval of each bar-shaped indicator is set to be gradually increased toward the traveling direction of the automobile, or the arrangement interval of the light emitting cells in each bar-shaped indicator is set to the traveling direction of the automobile. The bar-shaped display in front of the vehicle is set smaller, and the bar-shaped display farther away from the bar-shaped display is set larger, or the brightness of the light emitting cell in each bar-shaped display is set to the bar-shaped display before the vehicle traveling direction. Set the size of the indicator small and set the indicator farther away from it, or increase the light from the light emitting cell of each indicator to the vehicle occupant who has approached each indicator to a predetermined range. May be set such that the light emission directivity and the installation direction of the bar-shaped display are not visually recognized.
[0009]
DETAILED DESCRIPTION OF THE INVENTION
[External appearance of embodiment]
An example of the appearance of an embodiment of the present invention is shown in FIGS. This is an example in which the present invention is applied to a straight tunnel which is often seen on a highway. On the side wall surface 1 of this tunnel, 32 bar-shaped indicators 2 are vertically attached substantially vertically.
[0010]
The total length of the bar-shaped indicator 2 is about 2 meters, and 64 light emitting cells (LED collective lamps) 3 are arranged in a straight line at a pitch of about 3 centimeters on the front. The 32 bar-shaped indicators 2 are installed on the tunnel side wall surface 1 in parallel at substantially constant intervals of about 5 meters.
[0011]
In the system of this embodiment, it is considered to display information for passengers of automobiles traveling on a road 30 to 300 meters before the position where the bar-shaped indicator 2 is attached. This road range is referred to as “target range” or “target road range”.
[0012]
The 64 light emitting cells 3 in each bar-shaped display 2 are arranged with the same directivity so as to project light in the same direction, and the spread of the directivity is set to be moderately small. In addition, when the 32 bar-shaped indicators 2 are attached to the road outer wall 1, the attachment angle around the vertical axis is adjusted so that the center of the light emitted from each of the light emitting cell 3 rows is directed to the target road range. It is set.
[0013]
Further, as described above, by setting the spread of the directivity of each light emitting cell 3 to be moderately small, an automobile occupant who has approached the mounting position of each bar-shaped indicator 2 to a certain degree or more can start from each light emitting cell 3. The projection light is devised so that it is hardly visible to the eyes.
[0014]
[Display control circuit system]
A circuit system for display control according to one embodiment of the present invention is shown in the block diagram of FIG. As described above, each bar-shaped indicator 2 includes a light emitting cell array Ai in which 64 light emitting cells (LED collective lamps) 3 are arranged in a straight line at a close interval, and for driving the light emitting cell array Ai. A 64-bit drive circuit DSi is incorporated. Note that i is an integer indicating the order of arrangement of the 32 bar-shaped indicators 2 and i = 1, 2, 3,...
[0015]
The drive circuit DSi is a circuit in which a 64-bit shift register 4, a 64-bit latch circuit 5 and a 64-bit driver 6 are integrated. The latch circuit 5 receives the 64-bit display data transferred to the shift register 4. The driver 6 displays and drives the 64 light emitting cells 3 according to the 64-bit display data.
[0016]
The 32 bar indicators 2 are interconnected in series by a cable and are connected to a common central controller 7. The 32 64-bit shift registers 4 respectively included in the 32 drive circuits DSi are all connected in series to form a (64 × 32) -bit shift register as a whole, and this serial shift register is centrally controlled. It is connected to the device 7.
[0017]
The image memory 8 of the central control unit 7 stores bitmap-format image data of 64 bits in length and freely in the horizontal direction. The 64-bit data in each column of the image data is referred to as column data, and the numbers D1, D2, D3,... Are sequentially assigned to the column data (general terms are expressed as Dj). The image memory 8 has a configuration of 1 word = 64 bits, and column data Dj is stored at an address j.
[0018]
The processor 9 of the central controller 7 performs read access to the image memory 8 as follows. The column data Dj read out from the image memory 8 in parallel in 64 bits is serialized via the parallel / serial conversion shift register 10, and as described above, the 32 64-bit shift registers 4 are serialized ( 64 × 32) bit shift register. 32 bits of column data are serially input from the central control unit 7 to the (64 × 32) bit shift register, thereby giving 64 bits of column data to the 32 64-bit shift registers 4 respectively. become. At this time, a latch signal is given from the central control unit 7 to each drive circuit DSi, the data of the shift register 4 is transferred to the latch circuit 52 and held, and the 64 light emitting cells 3 are set by the driver 6 by the 64-bit display data. To drive. At the same time, the data in each shift register 4 is updated. Scroll display is performed by repeating the above operation.
[0019]
[Display control procedure]
The control procedure of the read access of the image memory 8 by the processor 9 in the central controller 7 is shown in the flowchart of FIG. In the first step 601, the start pointer P is set to 0, and in the next step 602, the value of the start pointer P is moved to the address pointer j (j = P = 0 in this explanation stage). In step 603, the column counter C is set to zero.
[0020]
In the next step 604, the image memory 8 is read-accessed at the address j indicated by the address pointer j, and the read column data Dj is transferred in series as described above. In the next step 605, 10 is added to the address pointer j. Here, instead of adding 1 to the address pointer j, “add 10 to j” directly represents the feature of the skip scroll display system of the present invention (the meaning of which will be described in detail later).
[0021]
In the next step 606, 1 is added to the column counter C, and in a subsequent step 607, it is checked whether or not the value of the column counter C has reached the final value n = 32. The process returns to step 604 until C = 32, and the image memory 8 is read-accessed according to the address pointer j updated at step 605. When C = 32, the column data is distributed to the 32 shift registers 4 respectively. In this case, the process proceeds to step 608 to generate a latch signal as described above.
[0022]
Of course, the column data in the image memory 8 constitutes image data continuously as Dj → D (j + 1) → D (j + 2) → D (j + 3) → D (j + 4) → D (j + 5) → D (j + 6) →. ing. In the skip scroll display system of the present invention, if the column data Dj is transferred to the drive circuit DS32 of the first bar-shaped display 2 by the above-described data transfer control, it is transferred to the drive circuit DS31 of the bar-shaped display 2 adjacent thereto. Column data D (j + 10) is transferred, column data D (j + 20) is transferred to the drive circuit DS30 of the adjacent bar-shaped display 2, and similarly column data D (j + 30) is driven to the drive circuit DS29. The column data D (j + 40) is transferred to the circuit DS28, and the column data selected every tenth column is transferred to each bar-shaped display 2 respectively.
[0023]
In the next step 609, 1 is added to the start pointer P to prepare for advancing the image to be displayed by one unit in the scroll direction. In the next step 610, it is checked whether or not the value of the start pointer P has reached a value MAX indicating the edge of the image to be displayed. Until P = MAX, the process returns to step 602 to advance image scrolling. When P = MAX, the process returns to step 601 and image scrolling is restarted from the beginning.
[0024]
[Flying scroll display method]
The display control in the above embodiment can be expressed as follows. Then, the scroll display having such requirements is referred to as a jump scroll display method.
[0025]
(A) The n = 32 bar-shaped display 2 having m = 64 light emitting cells 3 tunnels a strip-like screen region of 64 dots by 64 dots and 32 dots wide by (64 × 32) light emitting cells 3. Whereas the bit map format image data stored in the image memory 8 is formed along the side wall surface, the band-like screen area has m = 64 dots in the vertical direction and w = (n X11) -10 = 342 It is created by regarding the screen on which pixels of 342 dots are arranged.
[0026]
(A) As described above, in the band-like screen area regarded as a screen having a pixel configuration of (64 × 342) dots, at a certain moment, 10 rows are horizontally arranged in the image data of (64 × 342) dots. The (64 × 32) light emitting cells 3 are driven by data of (64 × 32) dots that are selected every other time.
[0027]
[How to see the flying scroll display]
In order to explain how the jump scroll display system looks to the observer, it is an example different from the embodiment of FIGS. 1 to 4, but the relationship between the light emitting cell column Ai and the column data Dj is schematically shown in FIG. Is shown.
[0028]
In the example of FIG. 5, a flow of image data in a bitmap format of two characters “Maru”, each character consisting of 16 × 16 dots, and six light emitting cell rows Ai to A (i + 5) are overlapped. expressing. A portion where the dot of the data and the dot of the light emitting cell 3 overlap is indicated by a black circle, but the black circle cell 3 emits light. As shown in detail, only three column data selected in a skipping manner from one character data composed of 16 column data are displayed in three light emitting cell columns. The 13 columns of data are not displayed at all. However, for example, by performing scroll display control at a speed of 4 characters per second, a person who observes the display recognizes the characters as a 16 × 16 bit configuration.
[0029]
Similarly, as in the embodiment of FIGS. 1 to 4, even if the installation interval of the bar-shaped indicator 2 is large (in the specific example, 5 meter interval), the density of the image data to be scrolled is sufficiently high (specifically In the example, the density is 11 times), and by performing scroll display control while selecting row data every 10 rows as in the above-described procedure, it is displayed in a flying manner by the action of the retina and visual center of the human eye. A recognition action (afterimage effect) that compensates for the gap between the data strings occurs, and the vehicle occupant traveling in the target road range can visually recognize the scroll image as intended (according to the dot density of the image data). Of course, the scrolling speed needs to be increased to some extent in order to obtain the intended visual effect. FIG. 2 shows a state where the character string “Caution for exit” is scroll-displayed. The scroll direction can be either direction, but it is natural to see how it fits in the direction of travel of the car.
[0030]
[Other examples of embodiment]
In order to make the intervals between the bar-shaped indicators 2 appear constant when viewed from the above-described destination road range, the installation intervals of the bar-shaped indicators 2 may be set gradually larger toward the traveling direction of the vehicle. . Further, in order to make the length of each bar-shaped indicator 2 appear constant when viewed from the destination road range, the arrangement interval of the light emitting cells 3 in each bar-shaped indicator 2 is set to a bar shape in front of the traveling direction of the automobile. What is necessary is just to set small the thing of a display device, and to set large as the bar-shaped display device far from this. Furthermore, in order to make the brightness of each bar-shaped indicator 2 appear constant when viewed from the range of the destination road, the brightness of the light emitting cell 3 in each bar-shaped indicator 2 is displayed in the bar-like direction in front of the vehicle traveling direction. It is only necessary to set the size of the instrument smaller and to increase the distance from the bar-like display farther away. In any case, it is only necessary to determine the size and characteristics of each bar-shaped indicator 2 and the mounting interval while experimenting how it is preferable to see the display from the target road range.
[0031]
In the display control system shown in FIGS. 3 and 4, a moving image can be scroll-displayed by temporally changing the image in the memory 8 by another processing system. 3 and FIG. 4, the processor 9 picks up the image data from the memory 8 and transfers it to the respective bar-shaped displays 2 for distribution. The present invention is not limited to such a system. For example, by outputting the image data in series without gaps and delaying the data in each bar-shaped indicator 2, the same display output operation can be realized even when each bar-shaped indicator 2 picks up the skipped column data. it can.
[0032]
【The invention's effect】
(1) Even if the band-shaped screen region having a sufficient height and length is formed on the wall surface in the tunnel, they are composed of a large number of the bar-shaped indicators, and each bar-shaped indicator is very thin. It is lightweight and can be attached to the tunnel wall surface with a very simple structure, and the protruding dimension from the tunnel wall surface to the road side is insignificant. Therefore, the present invention can be easily applied to an existing tunnel with little extra space.
[0033]
(2) Even if the interval between the bar-shaped display devices is large, the density of the image data to be scroll-displayed is kept sufficiently high, and the scroll display control is performed while selecting the above-mentioned flying column data. A recognizing action (afterimage effect) that compensates for the gap between the displayed data strings is generated by the action of the retina and visual center of the car, and the car occupant visually recognizes the image scrolling as intended (according to the dot density of the image data). You can get it.
[0034]
(3) As described above, the installation on the tunnel wall is very simple, and the projecting dimension on the road side is very small, but the array density of the bar-shaped indicators is larger than the dot density in the horizontal direction of the image data. Therefore, even if the belt-like screen area is sufficiently long in the horizontal direction, the implementation cost can be reduced. In other words, a scroll display system of sufficient length can be realized at such a low cost, so abundant information consisting of many character strings can be displayed simultaneously, the time during which the same character is displayed can be lengthened, and information transmission The performance can be made sufficiently high.
[0035]
(4) By setting so that light from each bar-shaped display is hardly visually recognized by the vehicle occupant who has approached each bar-shaped display to a predetermined range, the display light is displayed when the scroll image is no longer recognized. Can be prevented from being obstructed by the display light blinking mischievously without being noticed by the vehicle occupant.
[Brief description of the drawings]
FIG. 1 is an external view showing an example of an embodiment of the present invention.
FIG. 2 is an external view in which a display character string is added to the embodiment.
FIG. 3 is a block diagram of a display control circuit system corresponding to the embodiment;
FIG. 4 is a flowchart showing a display control procedure in the system;
FIG. 5 is a schematic diagram for explaining how the jump scroll display system according to the present invention is viewed.
[Explanation of symbols]
DESCRIPTION OF SYMBOLS 1 Tunnel side wall surface 2 Bar-shaped indicator 3 Light emitting cell 4 Shift register 5 Latch circuit 6 Driver 7 Central controller 8 Image memory 9 Processor 10 Shift register Ai Light emitting cell row DSi drive circuit

Claims (1)

An information display device in the tunnel specified by the following items (1) to (5).
(1) A character for a car occupant existing on a remote destination road area that is close to the indicator line installation position on the inner wall of the tunnel of the expressway, with many bar-shaped indicators, cables, and a central control device. An information display device that scrolls and displays graphic information.
(2) Each bar-shaped display device includes a light emitting cell array in which a large number of light emitting cells are arranged in a straight line at a close interval, and a drive circuit that drives each light emitting cell to emit light individually.
(3) Each bar-shaped indicator is installed vertically in parallel at a much larger interval than the light-emitting cell interval at the indicator row installation position on the inner wall of the tunnel, and is emitted from the light-emitting cell of each bar-shaped indicator. It is set so that the light to be directed to the destination road range.
(4) Each bar-shaped indicator is interconnected in series with a cable and connected to a common central control unit.
(5) The central control unit selects and extracts column data from the bitmap format image data stored in the image memory, and serially transfers the extracted column data to display each bar in turn. a process for distributing the drive circuit of the vessels, a process of Ru was driven to emit light based on the light emitting cells in the column data by providing a latch signal to each drive circuit at the time of distributing the column data to each drive circuit, image data plane The process of repeating each process by shifting the position of the column data to be selected one by one is performed.

Images