Style Sheet Driven Virtual Camera for Defining a Navigation Presentation

Some embodiments of the invention provide methods for generating navigation presentations that display a device navigating a route on a map. The method uses a virtual camera that, based on detected changes to the navigation context, dynamically modifies how it captures map portions to produce navigation scenes in the presentation. The method of some embodiments identifies attribute sets describing different navigation contexts and uses these attribute sets to identify virtual camera operating styles. The method uses an identified style to specify the virtual camera's positional attributes, which define the map portions identified for rendering to produce navigation scenes over time. During the navigation presentation, each time the navigation context changes, the identified attribute set may change. This, in turn, may cause the method to select a new virtual camera operating style. When the style changes, the method modifies the way the virtual camera captures the map portion to render.