Patent ID: 7345699

Claim:
A method of producing road or street section data for a digital map, said method comprising the steps of: a) providing a vehicle ( 7 ) comprising an image producing device ( 1 ) and a position determining device ( 4 ), said image producing device ( 1 ) comprising means for generating image data of surroundings of the vehicle and said position determining device ( 4 ) comprising means for generating vehicle position data, said surroundings of said vehicle including at least one road or street section ( 8 ) on which said vehicle ( 7 ) is driven; b) driving said vehicle on said at least one road or street section ( 8 ); c) during the driving of the vehicle of step b), simultaneously collecting said image data of said surroundings including said at least one road or street section ( 8 ) with said image producing device ( 1 ) and acquiring said vehicle position data with said position determining device ( 4 ); d) analyzing said image data with an image processing means ( 2 ) to put together or assemble a road or street section description, wherein said road or street section description obtained from said image data includes changes in pre-existing road or street section data of a pre-existing digital map due to road construction; e) correlating said vehicle position data and said road or street section description obtained in step d) with a correlation means ( 5 ), in order to produce said road or street section data for said digital map; and f) comparing said road or street section data produced in step e) with said pre-existing road or street section data by means of a comparison means ( 21 ) in order to update said pre-existing digital map for said changes due to said road construction.