Cognos, Inc.

Don Campbell

Stephan F Jou

Ian Ballantyne

An interactive system for visualizing business data organized according to the dimensional model allows to combine data from more than one data source and present the data in the form of a graphical, multi-metric data visualization. The visualizations are hierarchically structured and built from visualization elements including, in ascending order of hierarchy, charts, panels, scenes and sheets. The system provides a large variety of two- and three-dimensional visualization elements, mostly predefined charts, which can be combined in any number into fully customized visualizations. In a preferred embodiment, a visualization is built by the system, which prompts the user to select data sources, data items to be visualized, and certain features of the presentation layout. In response to the user input, the system generates a number of candidate visualizations and presents them to the user for selection in descending order of preference, based on numerical scores assigned to the candidate visualizations by a scoring algorithm. The data to be visualized can be filtered, drilled down for details, or presented in a series of consecutive visualizations, to create an animation effect.

Interactive business data visualization system

A method of rendering screen of a computer display device under conditions requiring frequent repainting of the screen is disclosed. The display is a part of a computer system running an application under control of an operating system. The application detects the onset of conditions requiring frequent repainting of the screen by checking messages sent by the operating system to the application's message queue. The application then starts the repainting of the screen based on the information retrieved from the queue while checking periodically the message queue to see if the originally detected conditions still apply. If this is the case, the application terminates the original repainting operation and starts a new repainting operation based on the updated information retrieved from the message queue. This cycle is repeated until it is determined that the originally detected conditions no longer apply, in which case a final complete repaint of the screen takes place. The method is particularly useful for the display of a graphically complex scene during a navigation operation, such as panning or zooming, when complete repainting of the scene as the navigation progresses fails to provide to the user an acceptable visual feedback of the navigation progress.

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Kanata, Canada

Don Campbell