Toyota Navigation System Map View

North up for me, though it's fun to switch once in a while.

I make maps of the local area. Many streets near Chicago form a rectilinear grid anyway, so there is little to be gained from putting my heading at the top. I find the spin of the screen on turns (even though I'm NOT looking at it) a little nauseating.

Though I occasionally put up maps at work with South at the top, just to make people think about the other side in a new way.

 

Wy wife like heads-up - but then she handles paper maps that way.

I - on the other hand - only use it with North up. (Something about my Geology training, I suspect)

It's the first thing we change when we change drivers - before we even touch the rearview mirrors.

 

I used to do the split thing with the main one N up and the little one with the direction that I am going. Now I usually just use the big one and have that the way I am going. Every once in a while I play with the system and find things that I forgot about so make adjustments.

 

I like the head-up perspective.

 

I prefer heads-up, though sometimes N up is better, especially when using a split screen.

 

:idea: Heads up.

Seems to make more sense to me if I am "navigating.". If I am not actually "navigating" and just want a map for reference, North up is my choice.

 

I prefer 'heads up' unless I'm driving in the mountains. A little too distracting to see all the twists and turns while I'm experiencing same and the display twisting and turning, too. Never got car sick before but came close with this.

 

In the city I use head up, it reduces disorientation.
On cross-country drives, I use north up (it reminds me of the maps on airplanes that show me where I am)

 

Always north-up, I force my brain to calculate the turn direction and all that. do not know why, I just do.

-m.

 

Always head-up, for a very practical reason: This maximizes the amount of map visible in the direction that you're heading.

I also happen to prefer it, but I really can't understand why anyone would saddle themselves with the extremely limited range visible in north-up mode.

OTOH, I drive with the map zoomed to 700 feet, so...

There's an interesting question: what are people's preferred zoom levels? Don't mean to hijack your post... this seems pretty closely related.

 

How does orientation change your range of view?

RFlagg brings a point to mind. I always have problems with RC cars because of sense of direction. Training my brain with north up would help here.

 

In head-up mode, the car is at the bottom of the display. In north-up mode, it's in the center of the display.

Assuming for the moment that you care more about stuff that is in front of and to the right and left of your current direction, you see much more of what you care about in head-up mode.

Of course, this advantage is minimized when you're heading east or west, but then the right and left directions are limited.

An even more optimal mode (though no one seems to do this) would get head-right mode. That way the vehicle icon could be at the left edge of the screen, and on-track visibility would be maximized. Probably would be too disorienting, though... A portrait-mode display would also work.

 

I use 700. Seems like the best balance of immediate reference and advance notice of what's coming...

 

I use head up because of dyslexia. Makes the up coming turns better. I wish the little compass gave the heading with out changing screens. This is just because I like maps and to know the heading.

 

Heads up.

 

Split screen - left with zoomed out North up, right with zoomed in heading up.

 

I've got the ghetto Prius without Nav, so I'm not totally sure which I'd prefer. But something related to contribute..

I rented a car from Hertz last summer with their "NeverLost" system. It does head-up (car in center) when zoomed in, and switches to north-up (still centered) when zoomed out to more than a few miles. (Probably also has something buried in its menus to let you choose one or the other all the time instead of the auto-switch, but I didn't go looking.) I found this quite appropriate, at least on the routes I was driving -- having the orientation of the small-scale map match your small-scale vision outside the windows makes sense, but larger-scale maps seem to be more recognizable when north-up, since that's the way we tend to encounter printed maps.

Not sure what I'd do in a Prius with Nav -- is the heads-up view always car-at-back? Seems it'd be useful to know what you just passed as well as what's coming.