Computer graphics processing and selective visual display system – Display peripheral interface input device – Light pen for fluid matrix display panel
Reexamination Certificate
1997-11-10
2001-04-03
Wu, Xiao (Department: 2674)
Computer graphics processing and selective visual display system
Display peripheral interface input device
Light pen for fluid matrix display panel
C345S182000, C345S215000
Reexamination Certificate
active
06211857
ABSTRACT:
BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION
The present invention relates to an interaction support system and method in which data created under control of a drawing program are utilized to develop an interaction display screen for a run program and actions are defined with respect to arbitrary objects in a defined picture displayed on the interaction screen.
As computer hardware advances, there have been developed many interactive run programs which are based on frequent graphical display. These run programs require not only a program part for computation of numerical values or for problem solution but also a program part for interaction between user and run program through the graphical display such as the understandable indication of computational results or the user's input prompting indication on the screen. Recently, it is not rare that the program part for interaction between user and run program occupies more than 50% of the whole development of the run program. For this reason, in order to improve the development efficiency of the run program, it becomes necessary to support the development of such interaction program part.
In the development of such interactive run program based on graphical display, conventionally, a defined picture desired to be displayed on the screen is prepared and then the program part for causing the display of the same defined picture on the screen is created. For commercial run programs, such display design is often conducted by an art design specialist.
Meanwhile, there has been recently developed such a drawing program that performs such drawing and designing work under control of a computer. Defined pictures for display design of the run programs tend to be often created using such drawing program. Such tendency is because the design results can be stored as data in the computer, the design can be easily modified and edited, and also easily deposited and retrieved. Such drawing program, however, has been originally designed to aim mainly at printing the defined picture on paper, and much consideration has not been paid to the utilization of the design results stored within the computer by other run programs. For this reason, even in the case where a defined picture for the interactive display of a run program is prepared using a computer, it has been necessary to newly create the interactive screen display part of the run program.
Upon developing the interactive screen display part of the run program, if data on the defined picture on the screen drawn by the drawing program in the computer can be used as they are, then the development efficiency of the run program can be improved. A prior art system of utilizing data created by a drawing program to provide an interactive screen for a run program is discussed in a book titled “Towards a Comprehensive User Interface Management System”, Computer Graphics, Volume 17, Number 3, July (1983), pp 35-42. In this system, one picture or a plurality of pictures, which are previously created by the drawing program and registered as files, are freely laid out on the screen and actions are defined with respect to the respective pictures to be correlated with processing procedures peculiar to the pictures.
With this system, however, one of the actions can be defined only with respect to one of the pictures previously registered as files and cannot be defined with respect to only part or figures of one picture. This requires, on drawing a defined picture, the need for previous registration of a picture part whose action is to be previously defined, in a separate file. Further, when it is desired to modify that part of a picture whose action is to be defined, it becomes necessary to modify the file organization once more or redraw the picture, which results in a low work efficiency. In addition, data on defined pictures created by the drawing program cannot be utilized in developing a screen display program. Even in the event where the defined picture data can be utilized, different actions cannot be defined with respect to any ones of the constituent elements of the picture, which disadvantageously results in that, at the time of creating a defined picture, different files must be previously provided and stored for different parts of the defined picture whose actions are to be defined.
SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION
It is an object of the present invention to provide an interaction support system and method in which different actions can be defined with respect to different arbitrary constituent elements of a defined picture on an interactive screen drawn by a drawing program.
Another object of the invention is for a designer to directly define an action with respect to any one of the constituent elements of a defined picture drawn on the display screen. This enables the elimination of the need for creation of a display program for defined-picture display and the improvement of development efficiency of a run program.
A further object of the invention is to provide an interaction support method which can define actions with respect to the respective constituent elements of a picture already drawn.
The above objects are attained by providing a system which comprises figure means for providing a character or a figure on a display, means for specifying one displayed object or a plurality of displayed objects provided on the display, and means for defining predetermined action or actions with respect to the displayed object or the plurality of displayed objects specified by the displayed-object specifying means. These objects are also attained by providing a system which comprises means for reading in a defined picture data previously created by another device, means for specifying one displayed object or a plurality of displayed objects read on a display by the defined-object reading means, and means for defining predetermined action or actions with respect to the displayed object or the plurality of displayed objects specified by the displayed-object specifying means. The system itself can comprise means for drawing a character or a figure.
A designer for the interactive display screen freely draws a design on the display screen with use of the drawing means. The designer first specifies one displayed object or any ones of a plurality of displayed objects in a defined picture drawn on the display with use of the displayed-object specifying means, and then a programmer for creating a run program for the interactive display defines an action or actions for the specified display object or objects with use of the action defining means.
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“Macpaint”, a menu of Macintosh.
Arai Toshifumi
Tani Masayuki
Tanifuji Shinya
Tanikoshi Koichiro
Antonelli Terry Stout & Kraus LLP
Hitachi , Ltd.
Wu Xiao
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