Microsoft Technology Licensing, LLC

Andrew Douglas Reddish

Vijay Mital

Olivier Colle

Darryl Ellis Rubin

Suraj T Poozhiyil

Sridhar Chandrashekar

Dale Rogerson

Amir Netz

Christian Beaumont

Brian C Beckman

Nizam Anuar

Justin McRoberts

Wenlong Dong

Gary Shon Katzenberger

Jaideep Sarkar

Radu Bogdan Gruian

Praful Chavda

J Shane McRoberts

James Charles Finger, Ii

David G Green

Martin Regen

Henry Hun-Li Reid Pan

Bao Quoc Nguyen

Richard W Russell

Joel B Deaquero

Krasimir A Aleksandrov

The present invention extends to methods, systems, and computer program products for using cinematic techniques to present data. Embodiments of the invention can be used to infer and generate cinematic techniques or combinations thereof based on a model and user action. Cinematic techniques can be used to meet the data exploration and analysis requirements of a user. As such, embodiments of the invention permit users (including non-programmers) to employ cinematic techniques (possibly in combination with other techniques) to gain insights into their data and also convey appropriate emotional messages.

Using cinematic techniques to present data

Operating an application in response to spatial status of objects within a physical environment in which the application operates. A system detects the spatial status (e.g., orientation, movement, position, and so forth) of multiple environmental objects that operate within a physical environment from which input is provided to, and to which output is provided from, an application. The relationship between at least some different environmental objects result in altered a behavior of the application. The spatial status of at least some of the environmental objects is subject to change. Thus, a mechanism is described that allows an application to adjust in a manner that is highly responsive to the physical environment in which the application interfaces.

Application operation responsive to object spatial status

The compilation of a transformation chain of a recalculation user interface that displays an electronic canvas that contains one or more displayed result of a transformation chain. The transformation chain includes transforms between a respective data source and data sink. User editing of the recalculation user interface could cause one or more of the transforms to be re-executed, thereby causing recalculation. The compilation involves analyzing the transformation chain of the recalculation user interface for dependencies to create a dependency graph of dependencies between entities. For instance, some dependencies might be between entities so as to indicate that if one entity is evaluated, then the other should be also. The dependency graph is then used to create a lower level of execution steps. The dependency graph is further provided to a runtime for the program, so that the dependency graph may be available during operation of the recalculation user interface.

Compilation of transformation in recalculation user interface

The present invention extends to methods, systems, and computer program products for using cinematic technique taxonomies to present data. Embodiments of the invention can be used to infer and identify cinematic techniques or combinations thereof based on a model and user action. Cinematic techniques can be used to meet the data exploration and analysis requirements of a user. As such, embodiments of the invention permit users (including non-programmers) to employ cinematic techniques from a cinematic technique hierarchy (possibly in combination with other techniques) to gain insights into their data and also convey appropriate emotional messages.

Using cinematic technique taxonomies to present data

Techniques for representing and publishing an interactive document useful for analyzing data. The document may be represented as a directed acyclic graph of entities interconnected by edges. The entities may be of multiple types. Yet, a broad range of interactive documents may be represented by a limited number of types of entities and the capabilities to interconnect entities of different types and to share a data schema across entities of different types. A tool may enable a user to author such documents. The tool may also facilitate publishing of the document. For publishing, the document may be converted to an executable form. Prior to such a conversion, the graph may be modified for more efficient processing. The graph may also be partitioned such that portions of the graph, when distributed across tiers of a computing system, such as a cloud-based platform, execute on computing devices that provide efficient operation.

Representation of an interactive document as a graph of entities

Software interfaces are configured to enable functionality that is commonly implemented in special-purpose hardware for mixing AV content into a set of 2.5-D graphics planes to be exposed to high level processes executing in a computing environment in a fully portable manner. Illustratively, the interfaces include a planar mixer (named 'IPlanarMixer') that abstracts the mixing hardware, and a graphics plane interface (named 'IPlane') that abstracts individual instances of planes that are retrieved from, and handed off to the planar mixer as the 2.5-D graphics planes are built up and rendered in a computing environment to support interactive graphic experiences for a user.

Time-synchronized graphics composition in a 2.5-dimensional user interface environment

A system for presentation of help files on a computer with an operating system and a display is provided. Presentation-independent information associated with an application is stored on the computer. A help application is adapted to access the presentation-independent information based on user interactions and automatically to select between available rendering applications at runtime for displaying the presentation-independent information on the display.

Mechanism to dynamically host multiple renderers based on system capabilities

Triangulating quadrilaterals. A method includes accessing an irregular grid comprising a plurality of irregular quadrilaterals. A determination is made that each of the irregular quadrilaterals in the irregular grid is not a concave and is a convex quadrilateral. On a grid basis and as a result of determining that each of the irregular quadrilaterals in the irregular grid is not a concave and is a convex quadrilateral, each of the irregular quadrilaterals in the irregular grid is triangulated to create a triangular mesh by defining diagonals from at least one vertex point of each of the irregular quadrilaterals in the irregular grid to the diagonally opposed vertex point of the same irregular quadrilateral. The triangular mesh is stored in a computer readable storage medium that can be accessed by an application for performing tasks related to data visualization, computer graphics, computational geometry, etc.

Almost rectangular triangulations

A content author provides content to be displayed, including some content elements for which display is conditional on the state of the machine in which the content will be viewed. The conditional statements controlling the display of these content elements, in one embodiment refer to states provided by a state monitor. The state may refer to the state of any aspect of the viewing environment, including hardware, software, firmware, user preferences, software operating modes, and any other detectable state. The resulting content is optionally combined with other similar content via a structural transform. This content is transformed with a presentation transform. One of the transforms checks the states and resolves the conditional statements included by the content author. The result of the transforms is presentation data. A display of this presentation data includes the content which, according to the conditional statements and the state of the viewing environment is appropriate for display.

Activating content based on state

Content including links to behaviors (code which can be executed and return supplemental content for insertion, or can modify existing content) is stored, and at run-time, the links to behaviors are followed and the supplemental content or the modifications to existing comment are used to create a final version of content which will be presented to the user. Security enhancements including a security check ensure that only behaviors which are secure will be run. Default content may be provided, which may be inserted if the security check is not passed, or if the content returned from the behavior is unusable for some reason.

In-place content substitution via code-invoking link

Flexible information appearance and behavior can be achieved with an extensible multi-phase transform engine. The transform engine can apply a series of transforms to markup language content. In a help service embodiment, application creators can specify a Uniform Resource Indicator (URI) for help content, and a collection of transforms and/or executable code for formatting and presenting the help content. The transforms may be custom transforms registered with the help service, or may be selected from a set of stock pre-registered transforms. The transforms can be applied by the engine to the help content. Custom transforms and transform selection may be used to control content appearance and engine output format. Transform operation may also trigger custom executable code to accomplish desired help behaviors.

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Redmond, WA, United States of America

Andrew Douglas Reddish