Computer graphics processing and selective visual display system – Display driving control circuitry – Controlling the condition of display elements
Reexamination Certificate
1997-11-05
2001-03-06
Bayerl, Raymond J. (Department: 2773)
Computer graphics processing and selective visual display system
Display driving control circuitry
Controlling the condition of display elements
C345S215000, C345S950000
Reexamination Certificate
active
06198483
ABSTRACT:
FIELD OF THE INVENTION
This invention relates to the use of a visual interface to enable a user to access data located on computer servers.
BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION
Today's principal commercial computer user interface is the GUI (Graphical User Interface). It is based upon two simple user interface elements: the mouse controlled cursor and the pull-down menu. These elements have also been used in tandem to enable hypertext linking.
The current implementations of a GUI has serious limitations when used to navigate through large databases. It presents tree-like structures of file names, file contents and links on the Web. In doing so, 95% of the time it presents lists as vertical or horizontal screen displays. Just as the graphical format display of telephone books, GUI's tree-structures relegates the user to a tedious search through lists, and lists of lists, reached through only two features: scroll up and down buttons and links. In either case, the complete content of the database is not effectively presented and the format soon exhausts the user's attention span, making GUI inefficient at best for speedy navigation and location of desired content.
Numerous hierarchical tree-like structures, branching and sub-branching methodologies have been developed to ease this limitation. Their common flaw lies in the method of data presentation. The method of presentation has but one purpose: the communication of information to the user's mind. Thus, the presentation problem should be approached from the point of view of the mind's “information acquirement” abilities. A step towards higher cognitive processing should not ignore such information acquirement factors as differentiation, elimination, in-depth analysis and context identification with formal commitment to memory.
BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF THE INVENTION
The present invention does not supplant the usual user interface elements, but provides arrangements of elements presented on the GUI to facilitate the acquisition of information from a small or large database.
The present invention utilizes features of the mind's acquirement patterns to improve the ability to navigate through large databases of images, text or a combination of both. In enabling this approach, the inventor avoids having all information presented in a static form, in which once accessed it remains immobile on the page and the screen. Hence, navigation for the purpose of a fast visual fly-over analysis of a database's content-terrain is effectuated in the present invention by particular motion of graphical elements on a console. Mere motion is not sufficient, however, but as enabled in this invention it takes into account basic principles of the user's mind's viewing patterns. The invention avoids the prior art, which merely had the user clicking on a scroll button to pull-down a list or stack-up an array of windows. In essence, this motion carefully feeds data to the user in an easily digestible form rather than having the user feeding the data to himself/herself. Eliminating this self-feeding process as implemented in the present invention by particular formats designed for easy assimilation is a unique and unprecedented approach.
In making the invention, it was found that several categories of information could be viewed simultaneously once the information was put in motion and the self feeding eliminated during a fast visual fly-over analysis. Concurrent viewing of two or more sets of information greatly increases the speed with which information acquirement can occur, beyond that already expected by the velocity by the motion. Where the increase persists as multiple layers of information are presented to the user, the increase in speed greatly exceeds the speed of data access of conventional methods.
Applications for the invention are wide ranging. These include any applications where navigation (or browsing) through a large database for the purpose of locating a single piece of data or samples of data is necessary and where the search process calls for selection from strings of data. (Strings of data is defined for our purposes as numerous pieces of information pertaining to a defining category.)
A medical imaging application using the invention, as a case in point, might help a student looking for video clips of two specific surgical procedures. He/She could utilize the invention to display (in data cells) clips pertaining to key images of each case scenario. Those relating to the first procedure could be displayed in motion on a left quadrant and those relating to the second procedure on the right quadrant (FIG.
1
). Along with the still image of each case scenario, a key title would be superimposed on the image in each data cell. The student, with the aid of this invention, can visually skim through 1,000 images for each procedure in just a few minutes! As soon as a data cell arouses his/her attention, the student need only interrupt the flow and through a click of the mouse, enlarge the image, access an in-depth textual description and view the surgical procedure's video clip.
The invention can also be applied to electronic shopping where a user wants to search through the hundreds of VCR's and TV sets available at a cybermall. The invention can be applied to Video On Demand where a consumer in the near future may browse through an entire video library of a large video store in about 45 minutes, a feat not feasible by physically walking the aisles of an actual large Store. The invention can also be used to help a car purchaser search through hundreds or even thousands of options on the World Wide Web.
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Bayerl Raymond J.
Nguyen Cao H.
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