Sony Corporation

Sony Electronics Inc

Other

Nghi Dong Doan

Eduardo Sciammarella

Tom Grauman

Kenneth Herndon

Franklin Servan-Schreiber

Jad Nehme

A computer interface is provided for easy organization, arrangement and zooming of logical sets of zooming objects in a zooming graphical user interface. Information is displayed as a zooming universe of graphical objects, including groups of associated member objects, that can be manipulated with interactive input devices. The interface permits a user to associate logically related objects in a space-grid group object, a two dimensional table of cells forming rows and columns on the zooming space. Objects may be positioning in each cell. If such positioning results in an object overlaying the dimensional boundaries of the cell or other zooming objects in the cell, cell dimensions are automatically increased and the positioning of objects in the cell adjusted, allowing a newly added object to be positioned at the user indicated position. Cells with the same row coordinate have the same height dimension. Cell with the same column coordinate have the same width dimension. Adjustment of the dimension of any one cell are translated throughout the entire space-grid structure, resulting in the repositioning of cells and their contents relative to the zooming space, while the positioning among objects contained in a particular cell is preserved.

Zooming space-grid for graphical user interface

As various objects, images, etc. are selectively enlarged or reduced in size on a screen using a zooming operation, at least three marks are displayed to provide a visual indication of the limits for zoom-in and zoom-out operations. The first and second marks indicate limits for enlarging and decreasing a picture, respectively, while the third mark indicates a position of the current screen display with respect to the displayed limits for the zoom-in and zoom-out operations.

Zooming scale indicator in computer graphics

A graphical universe that is larger than a display screen is displayed on a screen using a panning operation. To view portions of the graphical universe, a cursor positioned on the display screen using an input device is utilized to fix a reference location for the panning operation. By moving the cursor on the display screen, a line between the cursor and the reference location is provided. The direction of the line indicates direction of the panning operation, while the length of the line determines speed of the panning operation.

Dynamic control of panning operation in computer graphics

Multiple images are displayed on a screen of a computer system to reflect a temporal relationship among them. Based on date and time when an image is obtained in relation to other displayed images, its size is set accordingly. Namely, the more recent the image, the larger its size on the screen. In addition, the larger the size of the image, the more processing operations, including graphical or text processing functions, are available to a user to be performed on that image.

Display of multiple images based on a temporal relationship among them

Various objects, images, pictures, etc. are selectively enlarged or reduced on a screen using a zoom operation. To view an object, for example, on the screen with less details or more details than the current display of the object, a cursor positioned on the screen display using an input device is utilized to fix a reference location located on a circle of a predetermined diameter. By moving the cursor on the screen display, a line between the cursor and the reference location is provided. The direction of the line indicates direction of the zoom operation: if the line is inside the circle, the object is zoomed-out, and if the line is outside the circle, the object is zoomed in. The length of the line determines speed of the zoom operation.

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New York Township, NY, United States of America

Nghi Dong Doan