Abstract:
The manager or host of the computer generating mapping method compiles and stores a list of most of the landmarks within the geographic area within which the deliveries are to be made. The new user is prompted to choose from the stored list all of the landmarks with which he is familiar and knows how to reach. This set of user known landmarks is stored in association with the particular user. When a delivery by the user is to be made within the region, a determination is made of the optimum landmark from which the user may proceed to the destination, and a map is generated only from the landmark to the destination. The basic assumption is that the user knows the starting landmark and how to reach it.

Description:
TECHNICAL FIELD  
       [0001]     The present invention relates to methods and programs for computer generated maps, and particularly to such methods that are easy to use by even novice users who use such maps in the delivery of goods and services.  
       BACKGROUND OF RELATED ART  
       [0002]     The explosive development of the Internet or World Wide Web (Web) has had a major, and still expanding, impact on the consumer purchasing and shopping functions of our society. This has resulted in the rapidly increasing purchase of products over the Internet. Virtually all aspects of shopping and purchasing, e.g. ordering, billing and payment, have been made faster and more efficient by the Internet.  
         [0003]     However, there is one function on which the rapid Internet purchasing boom has placed a great burden. All of the purchased products have to be delivered to the ultimate consumer in a timely manner consistent with the speed and efficiency of the other Internet purchasing functions. Conventional delivery carriers such as UPS or FedEx and the US Postal Service have had to deal with this increasing demand for delivery services.  
         [0004]     This has created a new work force of less experienced delivery people. Many in this work force work on a part time basis. Many small business delivery services are starting up to meet this demand. The FedEx Corporation, for example, has worked with small business partners in establishing FedEx Home Delivery Services in which small trucking businesses are franchised. Actually, such developments are potentially beneficial to the economy through the creation of new jobs in the delivery business to replace the traditional retail jobs that may be lost to Internet shopping.  
         [0005]     These new delivery service functions will be carried out by users inexperienced in the intricacies of destination location using conventional road and street maps, particularly in urban geographical regions. These new delivery functions are likely to operate on tight margins with little tolerance for time wasted in looking for destinations. There is, of course, available to such users, an established variety of computer generated mapping services for locating destinations.  
         [0006]     A general survey of available services for generating route maps is described in the article,  Rendering Effective Route Maps Improving Usability Through Generalization , by M. Agrawala and C. Stolte, Stanford University, published in Siggraph 2001, and available from the Internet at http://graphics.stanford.edu/papers/routemaps. Also, the operating system WindowsXP™ offers expedients based upon Global Positioning Systems (GPS), as described in the article,  Navigate with a Tablet PC and Microsoft Streets  &amp;  Trips  2005  With GPS Locator , Tony Northrup, April 2005, and available on the Internet at http://www.microsoft.com/windowsxp/using/tablepc/learnmore/n orthrup_navigate.mspx.  
         [0007]     While there are many available systems for generating maps to aid in destination location in urban street environments, these would present additional complexities to new delivery drivers.  
       SUMMARY OF THE PRESENT INVENTION  
       [0008]     The present invention provides an implementation for the computer generation of destination maps that are easy to use and intuitive to the new or novice delivery user by taking advantage of what the user already knows. The manager or host of the computer generating mapping method compiles and stores a list of most of the landmarks within the geographic area within which the deliveries are to be made. The new user is prompted to choose from the stored list, all of the landmarks with which he is familiar, and knows how to reach. This set of user known landmarks is stored in association with the particular user. When a delivery by the user is to be made within the region, a determination is made of the optimum landmark from which the user may proceed to the destination, and a map is generated only from the landmark to the destination. The basic assumption is that the user knows the starting landmark and how to reach it. The optimum landmark is usually the landmark from which the route distance to the destination is shortest. However, other algorithms for selecting the optimum landmark may be used. One alternative would include selecting a departure point, and then determining the minimum route distance from the departure point to the destination via the landmark. Another alternative may involve determining the optimum landmark by a combination of the minimum route distance and the complexity of the routing from the landmark to the destination. In any event, the complexities of optimum landmark selection are unknown and transparent to the user. All he has to do is get to the chosen optimum landmark on his own, and then use the generated map from the landmark to the destination.  
     
    
     BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF THE DRAWINGS  
       [0009]     The present invention will be better understood and its numerous objects and advantages will become more apparent to those skilled in the art by reference to the following drawings, in conjunction with the accompanying specification, in which:  
         [0010]      FIG. 1  is a map view of a region in a city within which a delivery man is to deliver, for example, pizzas or packages; this map on a display circles all of the significant landmarks in the region from which the user will be prompted to select a set of these landmarks with which he is familiar;  
         [0011]      FIG. 2  is the map of  FIG. 1  but only the landmarks in the user selected set are circled;  
         [0012]      FIG. 3  is the Map of  FIG. 2  but illustrating an alternate embodiment of the invention;  
         [0013]      FIG. 4  shows an illustrative delivery map generated using the preferred embodiment of the invention;  
         [0014]      FIG. 5  shows an illustrative delivery map generated using an alternate embodiment of the invention;  
         [0015]      FIG. 6  is a block diagram of a generalized data processing system including a central processor unit that provides a very general illustration of the computer control system that could be used for the generation of the delivery route maps as used in the present invention;  
         [0016]      FIG. 7  is an illustrative flowchart describing the setting up of the elements needed for the program of the invention for the generation of the delivery route maps as used in the present invention; and  
         [0017]      FIG. 8  is a flowchart of an illustrative simplified run of the program set up in  FIG. 7 .  
     
    
     DETAILED DESCRIPTION OF THE PREFERRED EMBODIMENT  
       [0018]      FIG. 1  is a map view of a region in a city within which a delivery person is to deliver, for example, pizzas or packages. This map on a computer controlled display circles or otherwise highlights all of the significant landmarks  10 - 18  in the region from which the user will be prompted to select a set of the landmarks with which he is familiar. As shown in  FIG. 2 , the user has selected four landmarks: the visitor center  11 , the boat dock  12 , the high school  15  and the hospital  18 . These four landmarks will be stored as a set for the particular delivery person. Then, as shown in the illustration of  FIG. 4 , when a call for a delivery to a particular destination is received, the landmark from the stored set for the delivery person closest to this destination is calculated using any of the conventional methods referenced above. The route from only that closest landmark to the destination has to be generated. This will be like the simple map shown in  FIG. 4  to destination  23 . The map shows the route  24  from the closest or optimum landmark from the delivery persons set, Hospital  18 . The route from the starting point, which, in the illustration, is a Pizzeria, need not be shown since the user/delivery person is presumed to know the way to the known landmark  18 .  
         [0019]     In an alternative embodiment illustrated with respect to  FIG. 3 , the optimum landmark need not be the landmark closest to the destination. In the situation illustrated in  FIG. 3 , the closest landmark to the destination  21  is Hospital  18  but the Visitor Center  11  is selected as the optimum landmark. Visitor Center  11  is chosen by an alternate algorithm when it calculates the route that is the minimum distance from the starting point, Pizza Shop  20 , via the landmark, Visitor Center  11 , to the destination  21 . In this embodiment, the calculation is unknown and transparent to the user/driver who, in any event, gets a simple map, even simpler than  FIG. 5 , showing only the route  25  from the Visitor Center  11  to the destination  21 .  FIG. 5  also shows that the shorter route shown in dashed lines from Hospital  18  to destination  21  would actually be longer than the chosen route  26 , shown in dashed lines from the starting point  20  via landmark  18  to the destination  21 .  
         [0020]     The optimum landmark for the destination may be chosen by algorithms that weigh the complexity of the route in combination with the shortest distance. For example, the algorithm may take into account weights entered by the system manager for number of turns, number of traffic lights and anticipated traffic densities for different times of the day.  
         [0021]     However, irrespective of the method used, all the driver gets is a simplified map from the optimum landmark to the destination. Where the delivery vehicle has a dashboard display, the route may be shown on the display. More likely in a simplified system, the map will be printed out and given to the driven along with his delivery assignment. While the illustration involved a pizza delivery, the invention may be even more effectively used in package delivery by commercial carriers. In such cases, the route may be printed out directly on the delivery bill or invoice.  
         [0022]     Referring now to  FIG. 6 , there is provided a diagrammatic view of an illustrative computer control system that may function to generate the route maps using selected known landmarks in the practice of the present invention. A central processing unit (CPU)  30 , such as one of the PC microprocessors or workstations, e.g. RISC System/6000™ series available from International Business Machines Corporation (IBM), or Dell PC microprocessors, is provided and interconnected to various other components by system bus  52 . An operating system  41  runs on CPU  30 , provides control and is used to coordinate the function of the various components of  FIG. 1 . Operating system  41  may be one of the commercially available operating systems, such as IBM&#39;s AIX 6000™ operating system or Microsoft&#39;s WindowsXP™ or Windows2000™, as well as UNIX and other IBM AIX operating systems. Application programs  40 , controlled by the system, are moved into and out of the main memory Random Access Memory (RAM)  34 . These programs include the programs of the present invention for generating delivery destination maps using optimum landmarks that will be described hereinafter. A Read Only Memory (ROM)  36  is connected to CPU  30  via bus  52  and includes the Basic Input/Output Systems (BIOS) that control the basic computer functions. RAM  34 , I/O adapter  48  and communications adapter  59  are also interconnected to system bus  52 . I/O adapter  48  may be a Small Computer System Interface (SCSI) adapter that communicates with the disk storage device  50 . Communications adapter  59  interconnects bus  52  with the outside Internet or Web network if necessary. I/O devices are also connected to system bus  52  via user interface adapter  42  and display adapter  36 . Keyboard  54  and mouse  56  are all interconnected to bus  52  through user interface adapter  42 . It is through such input devices that the user may interactively relate to the programs of this invention. The user/delivery person may be prompted to select his set of known landmarks through the display and make his entries via mouse  56 . Similarly, the system manager may set up the landmarks and enter any weights needed for the traffic complexity weighted system via display  38  and mouse  56 . The generated maps may be output on display  38  or printed by printer  58  connected via printer adapter  57 .  
         [0023]     Display adapter  36  includes a frame buffer  39  that is a storage device that holds a representation of each pixel on the display screen  38 . Images may be stored in frame buffer  39  for display on monitor  38  through various components, such as a digital to analog converter (not shown) and the like. By using the aforementioned I/O devices, a user is capable of inputting information to the system through keyboard  24  or mouse  26  and receiving output information from the system via display  38 .  
         [0024]     Now, with reference to the programming shown in  FIG. 7 , there will be described how the system and programs of the present invention are set up. Provided is any suitable conventional program for generating maps from entered starting points in a geographical area or region, step  70 . The manager of the Map generating function, usually the manager of the delivery function, is enabled to set up and store a displayable list of all of the landmarks within the geographical area, step  71 . A display is provided for prompting a user/delivery person to select via a computer controlled display screen, a subset from the total list stored in step  71  of landmarks that the user knows and can reach the location, step  72 . A routine is provided which, responsive to the entry of a destination, will automatically select the landmark from the set selected in step  72  that is closest to the destination, step  73 . Provision is made for the generation of a Map showing the route from the closest landmark to the destination, step  74 .  
         [0025]     Provision is also made for the optional activation of an alternative routine to replace the routine of step  73  that is responsive to the entry of a destination and will select the landmark in the driver&#39;s set from which the routing distance from the starting point to the destination will be the shortest, step  75 . The system may provide for the printing of the Map of step  74  to the destination on the bill of the provider of goods or services so that the driver may conveniently have the map together with the invoice or shipping bill, step  76 .  
         [0026]     Now, with reference to the flowchart of  FIG. 8 , a simplified illustrative run of the process set up in  FIG. 7  will be described. The new driver is prompted, as previously described, to select through the interactive display his set of familiar landmarks, step  80 . A delivery call is awaited, step  81 . If Yes, the destination is determined, step  82 , and the landmark from the driver&#39;s set closest to the destination is determined, step  83 , and a simplified route map is generated from the closest landmark to the destination, step  84 . Optionally, as an alternative, a landmark from the driver&#39;s set is determined from which the overall distance from the starting location to the destination is shortest, step  85 , and a simplified route map is generated from this landmark to the destination, step  86 . After a map is generated, step  84  or  86 , a determination may conveniently be made as to whether the delivery operation is over, step  87 . If Yes, the program is exited. If No, the process is returned to step  81  where the next delivery call is awaited.  
         [0027]     It should be noted that the operational principles described hereinabove are applicable if the delivery person is to make a plurality of deliveries on a delivery route. The initial shipping or departure point is still operative to select the first landmark. Then, the first and subsequent destinations receiving a delivery are considered as shipping points in the subsequent determination of optimum landmarks for each subsequent destination.  
         [0028]     Although certain preferred embodiments have been shown and described, it will be understood that many changes and modifications may be made therein without departing from the scope and intent of the appended claims.