Tiled Map Display on a Wireless Device

摘要

A tiled-map display control with a predictive caching technique that minimizes user wait time and provides at least the illusion of continuous panning, even while map tile images are being loaded. Important components of the tiled map display are its definition and cached use of map tiles, as well as the way that the map tiles are put together on a small screen. Easy, seamless, wait-free and convenient viewing of a map for a user of a wireless device provides information, e.g., mapped traffic conditions. The disclosed embodiments are techniques that have been reduced to practice in both a BREW platform, and then in a J2ME platform, and deployed for operation in major carrier wireless networks. The invention has particular applicability for use in wireless devices with typically smaller display screens requiring the need for panning, and limited bandwidth capabilities of the supporting wireless network.

主权项

1. A display module in a wireless device, comprising:
an image tile loader module; and image tile cache memory adapted to contain a plurality of image tiles, at least one of said plurality of image tiles not being in a viewable section of an overall image when downloaded to said wireless device; and a predictive selection module to cause said image tile loader module to fetch a next image tile before said next image tile is required for display on said wireless device.