Computer graphics processing and selective visual display system – Computer graphics processing – Animation
Reexamination Certificate
1999-03-18
2002-05-28
Vo, Cliff N. (Department: 2671)
Computer graphics processing and selective visual display system
Computer graphics processing
Animation
C345S474000, C345S418000, C345S619000
Reexamination Certificate
active
06396500
ABSTRACT:
FIELD OF THE INVENTION
The present invention relates to the graphical display of slides in a display, and more particularly, to a method and a system for translating slides into pages of animated and non-animated objects for graphical display as a slide show by a viewing facility such as a browser.
BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION
Computer programs often have associated data files that are processed by the computer program during its normal execution. A data file can contain information that is processed and presented to a user either in a video presentation or an audio presentation, or a combination of video and audio. Presentation programs are examples of computer programs that process an associated data file.
Presentation programs enable a user to create, edit, manage, and perform “presentations” such as a slide show displayed by a computer. One example of a popular presentation program is “PowerPoint,” available from “Microsoft Corporation”, of Redmond, Washington. A slide show presentation includes a set of electronic “slides,” each slide corresponding to one screen or page of output. An electronic slide may also be converted to a 35 mm or overhead transparency and displayed in a standard slide projector or overhead projector. Each slide contains one or more objects, such as text, graphical images, or graphic automation. A slide may also include a sound object or video that is played when the slide is displayed during a “slide show” performance.
A presentation program “performs” a slide show by sequentially displaying a series of slides contained within the slide show presentation. The slides are displayed on a computer screen or projected onto a separate surface. During a performance of a slide show, a “presenter” controls the performance by invoking commands to “advance” to the next slide. A command can be entered using a keyboard, a mouse, or another suitable input device.
Alternatively, an author of a slide show presentation can include slide “timings” with each slide. A slide timing corresponding to a slide indicates the number of seconds that the slide is displayed before the presentation program automatically advances to the next slide. During a performance of a slide show, a slide show presentation will automatically advance to the next slide when the existing slide's timing ends. An ordered sequence of slides is predetermined by a slide show presentation author. During a performance of a slide show, a presenter can enter commands to alter the sequence of slides.
The “PowerPoint” program enables a user to save a slide show in an associated slide presentation file, so that the slide show can be recreated at another location that has access to “PowerPoint” and the slide presentation file. Unfortunately, a presentation program such as “PowerPoint” is not commonplace and many computer users do not have access to this type of program. In the past, slide presentation files were often distributed on a storage medium that also contained at least a display only version of the presentation program for graphically displaying the slide show to a user with the information stored in the slide presentation file. Since there is limited space available on a contemporary storage medium that is intended for mass distribution, the number and size of slide presentation files that can economically be distributed in this manner is presently limited. Additionally, since a slide show included in a slide presentation file must be displayed with some version of a presentation program, additional effort is required to locate, purchase and install the program before the slide show can be graphically displayed to other users, if not previously installed.
An on-line information system typically includes one computer system (a server) that makes information available so that other computer systems (clients) can remotely access the information. The server manages access to the information, which can be structured as a set of independent on-line services. The server and client communicate via messages conforming to a communication protocol and sent over a communication channel such as a computer network or through a dial-up connection.
Information resources managed by the server may include files, databases, and programs on the server system or on an external computer system. The information that the server provides may simply be stored on the server, may be converted from other formats manually or automatically, may be computed on the server in response to a client request, may be derived from data and programs on the server or other machines, or may be derived by any combination of these techniques.
The user of an on-line service typically uses a browser program executed on the client system to access the information managed by the on-line service. The browser enables the user to selectively view, search, download, print, edit, and/or file the information managed by the server. On-line services are available on the World Wide Web (WWW, which operates over the global Internet. The Internet interconnects a large number of otherwise unrelated computers or sites. Similar services are available on private networks called Intranets that may not be connected to the Internet, and through local area networks (LANs). The WWW and similar private architectures provide a “web” of interconnected document objects. On the WWW, these document objects are located at various sites on the global Internet.
Among the types of document objects in an on-line service are documents and scripts. Documents that are published on the WWW are written in the Hypertext Markup Language (HTML). HTML documents can be created using programs specifically designed for that purpose or by executing script files. An HTML document includes a hierarchical set of markup elements; most elements have a start tag, followed by content, followed by an end tag. The content is a combination of text and nested markup elements. Tags, which are enclosed in angle brackets (‘<’ and ‘>’), indicate how the document is structured and how to display the document, as well as destinations and labels for hypertext links. There are tags for markup elements such as titles and headers, text attributes such as bold and italic, lists, paragraph boundaries, links to other documents or other parts of the same document, in-line graphic images, and for many other features.
The following lines of exemplary HTML code briefly illustrate how the language is used in a sample HTML document:
Some words are <B>bold</B>, others are <I>italic</I>. Here we start a new paragraph.<P>
Here's a hyperlink to the <A HREF=“http://www.microsoft.com”>Microsoft Corporation </A>home page.
This sample HTML document is a hypertext document because it contains a hypertext link to another document in the line that includes “HREF=. ” The format of this link is described below. A hypertext document may also have a link to other parts of the same document. Linked documents may generally be located anywhere on the Internet. When a user is viewing the document using a browser, the links are displayed as highlighted words or phrases. For example, using a browser, the sample document above might be displayed on the user's screen as follows:
Some words are bold, others are italic. Here we start a new paragraph.
Here's a link to the Microsoft Corporation home page.
In a browser, the link may be selected, for example, by clicking on the highlighted area with a mouse. Typically, the screen cursor changes when positioned on a hypertext link. Selecting a link will cause the associated document to be displayed. Thus, clicking on the highlighted text “Microsoft Corporation” would fetch and display the associated home page for that entity. Similarly, the HTML language also provides a mechanism (the image or “IMG” element) that enables an HTML document to include an image that is stored as a separate file. When the end user views the HTML document, the included image is displayed as part of the document, at the point where the image
Gasser Ralph U.
Parker Robert L. C.
Qureshi Imran I.
Sandoval Gustavo
Christensen O'Connor Johnson & Kindness PLLC
Microsoft Corporation
Vo Cliff N.
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