Navigation system that supports multiple languages and formats
View Patent ↗A navigation system includes a navigation-related information server and one or more customer-interface servers. Each customer-interface server receives requests for navigation-related information from end users who have end user computing platforms. The end users send their requests for navigation-related information from end user computing platforms over a data network to the customer-interface servers. In order to respond to the end users, the customer-interface servers request language and format-independent navigation-related information from the navigation-related information server. The navigation-related information server receives the requests from the customer-interface servers. To response to each request for navigation-related information, the navigation-related information server uses one or more geographic databases to formulate language- and format-independent data structures. These language- and format-independent data structures are sent to the customer-interface servers. The customer-interface servers receive the language- and format-independent responses from the navigation-related information server, and formulate language- and format-specific responses that are sent to the end users. In one embodiment, the language and format-independent responses provided by the navigation-related information server are in XML format. The customer-interface servers use XML style sheets to formulate language and format-specific instructions that are sent to the end users.
1. A navigation system comprising:
end user electronic devices;
a customer-interface server; and
a navigation-services server,
wherein said end user electronic devices send requests for navigation services to said customer-interface server and receive responses to said requests from said customer-interface server;
wherein said customer-interface server includes programming that, upon receiving said requests from said end user electronic devices, transmits query messages over the Internet to said navigation-services server, wherein said query messages request navigation information for responding to said requests;
wherein said navigation-services server receives said query messages from said customer-interface server, and using navigation applications installed on said navigation-services server and a geographic database associated therewith, formulates language-independent reply messages to said query messages, and sends said language-independent reply messages to said customer-interface server, and
wherein said customer-interface server further includes programming that, upon receiving said language-independent reply messages from said navigation-services server, formulates said responses and sends said responses to said end user electronic devices.
2. The navigation system of claim 1 wherein said requests for navigation services from said end user electronic devices are sent to said customer-interface server over the Internet.
3. The navigation system of claim 1 wherein said language-independent reply messages are in XML format.
4. The navigation system of claim 1 wherein said customer-interface server uses XML stylesheets to formulate the responses that are sent to said end user electronic devices.
5. The navigation system of claim 1 wherein the responses that are sent to said end user electronic devices are in HTML format.
6. The navigation system of claim 5 wherein said customer-interface server uses an XML stylesheet to formulate the responses that are sent to said end user electronic devices into HTML format.
7. A method for providing routing information using a navigation system, the method comprising:
on a customer-interface server, receiving a request over a data network from an end user for route guidance to a destination;
from the customer-interface server, sending a message over the data network to a navigation-related information server for maneuvering instructions;
on the navigation-related information server, after receiving the message from the customer-interface server, calculating a route to the destination and determining a series of maneuvers for traveling along a route to the destination;
on the navigation-related information server, forming a language- and format-independent data structure that represents the series of maneuvers;
from the navigation-related information server, sending the language- and format-independent data structure over the data network to the customer-interface server;
on the customer-interface server, using the language- and format-independent data structure received from the navigation-related information server to form language- and format-specific maneuvering instructions; and
from the customer-interface server, providing the form language- and format-specific maneuvering instructions to the end user over the data network.
8. The method of claim 7 wherein the language- and format-specific maneuvering instructions are in HTML format.
9. The method of claim 7 wherein the language- and format-independent data structure is in XML format.
10. The method of claim 7 wherein the data network comprises the Internet.
11. The method of claim 7 wherein said customer-interface server uses an XML stylesheet to form the language- and format-specific maneuvering instructions.