Computer graphics processing and selective visual display system – Display peripheral interface input device – Light pen for fluid matrix display panel
Reexamination Certificate
1998-08-27
2001-08-28
Brier, Jeffery (Department: 2672)
Computer graphics processing and selective visual display system
Display peripheral interface input device
Light pen for fluid matrix display panel
C345S002200
Reexamination Certificate
active
06281874
ABSTRACT:
FIELD OF THE INVENTION
This invention relates to downloading graphic images through the Internet.
BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION
With the emerging use of Internet “Web-Browsing”, encapsulation of images within Web pages has become very common. However, in many situations such as art museums' home pages, navigation simulations, aerial imaging and medical archives, the standard technologies do not provide proper and efficient solutions. This is because high-resolution, high quality digital images are required which demand heavy traffic over the network and high processing power in the client machine.
Moreover, it is rarely possible to view the complete image at high resolution owing to the limited size of computer display monitors. Consider, by way of example, a museum home page allowing a visitor on the Web to view artwork on display at the museum. The artwork is stored on the Web server as a series of graphic files each derived by scanning the respective artwork at very high resolution. The resulting graphics files typically contain several millions of pixels whilst the highest quality display monitors currently available rarely have a resolution greater than 1000×1000 pixels. Thus, in order to download the whole image from the server, some of the high resolution inherent in the original graphic image must be sacrificed.
Frequently, however, it is not necessary to view the whole image at high resolution. Typically, a visitor to the Web site is content to view the complete image at relatively low-resolution providing that it is possible to select sections thereof for viewing at the highest resolution inherent in the original image stored on the Web server. This requirement has been addressed in the art, but with only limited success. Thus, a Web Site is known having the access name “www.ZoomMagic.com” in which images are stored on a Web server using the Photo CD file format which is proprietary to the Kodak Company. When a user accesses the Web site, various vignettes are displayed as miniature low-resolution images. Clicking on one of the images with the mouse, results in the selected image being displayed at full size at higher resolution in an area of the display presented as a TV screen having control buttons for allowing zooming and shifting as well as image cropping.
Zooming is achieved by clicking on the zoom button, whereupon the image is magnified by a predetermined factor, typically x2. In order to magnify the image more than this, the zoom button must be clicked again so as to allow the image to be successively magnified by the same magnification ratio, up to a predetermined maximum permitted zoom ratio. If, having thus magnified the image, the user is interested in a section of the image that is off-screen, then the image can be shifted by clicking on appropriate control buttons. The displayed image can also be cropped so as to remove sections thereof that are of no interest and may be distracting. Cropping is achieved by defining a window in the displayed image, whereupon the peripheral image surrounding the window is replaced by non-image data bearing no resemblance to the original image.
Such an approach suffers from several drawbacks. The Photo CD file format of the graphic images stored on the server is not provided in commonly available Web Browsers and therefore the necessary decompression algorithms must also be downloaded to the client. This adds to the overhead and increases the response time.
Furthermore, the manner in which zooming is performed is inflexible and cumbersome. Specifically, only predetermined zoom ratios are possible and integer multiples thereof can be obtained only by repeated zooming in discrete stages. Fine-tuning of the displayed image so as to display off-image sections thereof requires shifting the image after it has been magnified and this further adds to the processing overhead.
These drawbacks result in sluggish performance whereby the initial connection time is slow owing to the need to download proprietary decompression algorithms. Moreover, zooming in on a required section of the image is generally not amenable to a single operation thus requiring repeated graphic processing with the consequent time overhead. Furthermore, whilst image processing is being performed by the client software, the original size image remains intact, there being no pictorial feedback to the user that anything is happening even in the background. It may thus appear to the user that the system has crashed or that the software is defective, possibly resulting in his aborting the program. Bearing in mind that, the client-server communication to provide high-resolution image data imposes a significant time overhead, the lack of feedback is a serious source of frustration.
Many of the above limitations are characteristic of prior art approaches which rely on local processing by the client of image data downloaded from the Web server. Typically, standard compressed image formats such as JPEG are used, thus obviating the need to download proprietary decompression algorithms since the necessary decompression algorithm is already provided in the client's Web browser software. However, since the whole of the graphic image still requires downloading and local processing by the client is mandatory in order to effect the required zooming, prior art approaches are inherently sluggish in performance.
SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION
It is an object of the invention to provide a method and system for downloading graphic images on the Internet in which the drawbacks associated with hitherto-proposed methods are significantly reduced or eliminated.
According to a first aspect of the invention there is provided a method for downloading graphic images from a network server which stores at least one high-resolution graphic image file of a reference image and a corresponding low-resolution graphic image file, the method comprising the steps of:
(a) downloading at least part of said low-resolution graphic image file from the network server to a client connected to the network server for displaying a corresponding low-resolution image on a display device at the client,
(b) uploading from the client to the network server size data uniquely specifying a portion of the image displayed in (a),
(c) extracting said portion of the high-resolution graphic image file from the network server and downloading to the client, and
(d) conforming said portion of the high-resolution graphic image to a display area of the display device for display in said display area thereof.
Typically, the network is the Internet and the high-resolution graphic image file is compressed using a conventional compression format such as JPEG commonly provided in standard Web Browsers. This obviates the need to download decompression software from the Web server to the client.
Preferably, a portion of the displayed low-resolution image can be selected with a pointing device, such as a computer mouse, so as to define a zoom ratio. This is preferable to magnifying the image by a predetermined zoom ratio since it allows any desired fraction of the displayed image to be zoomed in a single action. In order to avoid the feeling that the system has “hung”, the selected portion of the low-resolution image at the client may be immediately displayed whilst the server extracts the corresponding high-resolution image which may take several seconds. Then when the selected portion of the high-resolution image has been extracted, it is downloaded to the client and replaces the low-resolution image already displayed.
According to a further aspect of the invention, there is provided a system for downloading graphic images on a network, the system comprising:
a network server having a network memory for storing at least one high-resolution graphic image file of a reference image and a low-resolution graphic image file corresponding thereto,
a communication line for downloading said low-resolution graphic image file from the network server to a client connected to the network server via the communication line,
a memory at th
Cohen Benjamin
Krupnik Hagia
Sivan Zohar
Brier Jeffery
Browdy and Neimark
International Business Machines - Corporation
Yang Ryan
LandOfFree
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