System and method for disambiguating scene graph loads

Details System and method for disambiguating scene graph loads System and method for disambiguating scene graph loads

1998-02-03

2001-08-07

Sheikh, Ayaz R. (Department: 2781)

Error detection/correction and fault detection/recovery

Data processing system error or fault handling

Reliability and availability

C714S038110, C714S002000, C714S011000, C713S152000, C713S152000, C380S227000

Reexamination Certificate

active

06272650

ABSTRACT:

BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION
1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates generally to animated scenes, and more particularly to a system and method for incrementally loading an animated scene on a computer.
2. Related Art
The Internet is rapidly becoming a staple medium for today's business and industry. Businesses of all types and sizes rely on the Internet as a tool for promoting their business and for making their business better known to the public. Businesses that rely on the Internet use it as a medium for providing the general public with information about their company and the products and services they offer. Many businesses even sell their products over the Internet.
The Internet, however, is not restricted to use by businesses. In fact, governmental organizations, clubs, special interest groups, other organizations and even individuals are among the many diverse parties who rely on the Internet to help disseminate information about their organization or about themselves.
As more and more parties have posted web pages, competition among them has grown. In the early stages of its evolution, the “high-tech” Internet web page included text accompanied by still photos. However, as advertisers have upped the ante to capture the users' attention, web pages have evolved dramatically. To make their sites more appealing to users, contemporary Internet sites include animated multi-color graphics and accompanying video and sound tracks.
However, in Internet applications as well as other environments, animated graphics and associated video and sound tracks do not come without a price. These enhanced features are typically resource-intensive. That is, they usually require a relatively significant resource pool to operate quickly and effectively. One such resource is communications bandwidth, and another is processing power. Providing an animated graphics scene to a user's web browser requires a fair amount of bandwidth. As the complexity of the animations increases, the size of the files required to provide the animation to the user tends to increase as well. Consequently, the time required to download such animations to a user's computer increases. Although communication speeds across the Internet and into a user's home or office are increasing, the communications technology typically cannot keep up with the demands of contemporary animations. Furthermore, not every user has the latest and fastest communications interface available to them. Thus, the resolution, complexity and speed of an animation provided with a web page are often limited by the bandwidth of the communications interfaces.
Additionally, animations are computed and rendered by the user's computer. As such, the programmer cannot be assured of a particular level of processing power to create and display the animation. In fact, while some users have the latest and fastest machines to browse the web, others are still using machines which are one or more generations old, and which therefore do not have the processing power to quickly render animated scenes.
Some conventional techniques are utilized for optimizing the creation and rendering of animated scenes. One conventional technique, referred to as PHIGS, provides some optimization in that it allows the creation and reuse of objects through scene graphs. VRML is another technique which utilizes a scene graph for generating animated scenes. At the highest level of abstraction, VRML is a way for objects to read and write themselves. The Inventor® product available from Silicon Graphics, Inc., of Mountain View, Calif., is a predecessor to VRML. However, even with PHIGS and VRML, there are inherent inefficiencies which can slow down the delivery or rendering of an animated scene. The designers of Inventor®, VRML and PHIGS required a relatively large engine to implement and execute scenes.
SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION
The present invention is directed toward a system and method for the efficient handling of animated scenes in an extensible environment. Preferably, in accordance with one embodiment of the invention, the invention is directed toward the efficient handling of animated scenes for the downloading and execution of the animated scenes in an interactive manner at a user's computer at a remote location. An example environment in which this embodiment can be applied is the Internet. For example, in this embodiment, web page authors often provide animated sequences to be downloaded to a user's computer. The user can interact with the animated sequences to cause additional downloads to be made.
In accordance with one embodiment of the invention, the animated sequence is provided in a highly extensible animation language such that the sequence can easily be run on any of a variety of computers. Preferably, in this embodiment, the animated sequence is re-written utilizing one or more custom opcodes. These opcodes provide for efficient techniques for rendering the animated scenes on the user's computer. As such, the scenes are acceptable for use with a broader range of processors having a broad range of processing powers. An advantage of this aspect of the invention is that it allows the animated sequence to be more accessible to a broader range of customers or users.
In accordance with another aspect of the invention, the animated sequence is divided into a plurality of pieces which are successively loaded onto the user's machine. These pieces are referred to as loads. The loads can include functionality as well as any data necessary to render a portion of the animated scene on the user's computer. Proper apportionment of functionality and data to the various loads allows for an efficient process for downloading the data to the user's computer. For example, in one embodiment, the initial load provided to the user's computer includes a minimum set of functionality and data needed to initially render the animated scene on the user's computer. Subsequent loads provide only the additional functionality and data needed to provide whatever additional animation was requested. Preferably, to optimize the downloading of an animated sequence, each load includes only that data and functionality that is necessary to animate the part of the scene intended for that load.
For example, consider a sample animation which is a banner advertisement having an initial animated sequence. The initial animated sequence includes an animated scene and overlaid with a corporate logo. In this example, when an event occurs (e.g., the user interacts with the banner ad), buttons are added to the animation such that the user can make a selection. Depending on the selection made, a form may be downloaded or a different animated scene may be downloaded. According to one embodiment for implementing this example, the sample animation may be provided in four loads. The first load includes only the functions and data necessary to render the initial animated scene on the user's machine. The second load includes only the functions and data necessary to add the buttons to the animation. The functions and data necessary for the original animation and company logo do not have to be re-loaded because they were already provided in the first load. The third load includes only the functionality and data needed to draw the form and accept responses to the form, while the fourth load includes only the functionality and data needed to render the new animated scene. Any functions or data provided in the first load, which could also be used to render the new animated scene do not need to be provided in the fourth load. Because user input may determine whether the form or the new animated sequence are downloaded, the temporal order of the third and fourth loads is not fixed.
One feature of the invention is that a nanokernel can be created and provided with the first load. In this embodiment, the nanokernel provides the minimum set of functionality needed to render the initial animated scene. Because the nanokernel is defined with minimal

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