Method and system for route guiding

A navigation system comprising:

• a voice recognizing unit operable to recognize a voice uttered by a user of the navigation system;
• a route guide request presence or absence determining unit operable to determine whether a route guide request is included in a speech portion provided by a user whose voice is recognized by said voice recognizing unit;
• an institution name extracting unit operable to extract an institution name from the speech portion recognized by said voice recognizing unit;
• an institution retrieving unit operable to retrieve at least one institution located near the position of a vehicle equipped with the navigation system utilizing stored institution data and the institution name extracted by said institution name extracting unit;
• a user-uttered institution specifying unit operative to specify an institution corresponding to the institution name uttered by the user from at least one institution retrieved by the institution retrieving unit;
• a route guide unit operative to guide a route from a route from a specified institution provided by said user-uttered institution specifying unit to a place to be guided when it is determined by said route guide request presence or absence determining unit that there has been a route guide request;
• and
• a voice synthesizing unit operable'to convert a signal provided from said route guide unit into a voice signal and output the voice signal.

A navigation system comprising:

• a marker name recognizing unit operable to recognize a marker name related to a guide route from a speech portion uttered by a user of the navigation system;
• a marker retrieving unit operable to retrieve at least one marker located near the position of a vehicle equipped with the navigation system utilizing the marker name recognized by said marker name recognizing unit;
• a user-uttered marker specifying unit operable to specify a marker corresponding to the marker name uttered by the user from at least one of the markers retrieved by the marker retrieving unit;
• and
• a route guide unit operable to aurally guide a route from a marker specified by said user-uttered market specifying unit to a place to be guided.

A route guiding method in a navigation system comprising the acts of:

• recognizing an institution name from a speech portion uttered by a user of the navigation system;
• retrieving at least one institution located near the position of a vehicle equipped with the navigation system;
• specifying an institution corresponding to the institution name uttered by the user;
• and
• aurally guiding a route from the specified institution to a place to be guided.

A route guiding method in a navigation system comprising the acts of:

• recognizing a voice uttered by a user of the navigation system;
• determining whether a route guide request is included in a speech portion with a recognized voice;
• extracting an institution name from the speech portion;
• retrieving at least one institution located near the position of a vehicle equipped with the navigation system utilizing the extracted institution name;
• specifying an institution corresponding to the institution name uttered by the user from among the retrieved institutions;
• and
• aurally guiding a route from the specified institution to a place to be guided when a route guide request is included in the speech portion.