Animation of customer-provided codes

• US 10,083,535 B2
• Filed: 08/30/2016
• Issued: 09/25/2018
• Est. Priority Date: 09/01/2015
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Animated Codes Made Easy LLC
• Original Assignee: Animated Codes Made Easy LLC
• Inventors: Miller, Peter, Bilton, Will
• Primary Examiner(s): HAJNIK, DANIEL F
• Application Number:
  US15/250,914
• Publication Number:
  US 20170061667A1
• Time in Patent Office: 756 Days
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 10/00 Administration; Management
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 30/00 Commerce
• CPC Class Codes: G06T 13/20 3D [Three Dimensional] animation
• CPC Class Codes: G06T 13/80 2D [Two Dimensional] animation, e.g. using sprites

Abstract

Disclosed herein is an online software application for providing users or customers with newly created animated equivalents of their originally submitted static (aka, un-animated) scannable codes.

Claims

1. A method for generating animations for user-submitted scannable codes, including:

receiving a user request over a network for creating animation of scannable codes, the user request including either one or more scannable codes or a message to be embedded in the scannable codes;

receiving a plurality of animation parameters selected by the user;

generating an animated file based on the animation parameters for the user'"'"'s preview, the animated file including animations of the scannable codes; and

upon the user'"'"'s confirmation of purchase, sending the animated file for a display on the user'"'"'s device,

wherein generating an animated file further comprises;

detecting the scannable codes from the user request;

abstracting 2 dimensional (2D) data from the detected scannable codes, the 2D data including locations, dimensions, color and shape of each code tile in the scannable codes;

storing the 2D data in a tile database; and

based on the abstracted 2D data, converting a 2D model of the scannable codes into a 3 dimensional (3D)model of the scannable codes, the 3D model comprising a plurality of 3D geometric icons based on the 2D code tiles.

2. The method of claim 1, further comprising:

creating the scannable codes for the message if the user request includes only the message to be embedded, the message including a user-supplied image.

3. The method of claim 1, further comprising displaying the animated file on the user'"'"'s device in either a static state or animated state.

4. The method of claim 1, further comprising allowing the user to scan the animated file for information embedded in the animated file.

5. The method of claim 1, wherein the plurality of 3D geometric icons are animated in either a 2D space or a 3D space.

6. The method of claim 1, wherein generating the animated file further comprises applying colors and textures to the plurality of 3D geometric icons.

7. The method of claim 6, wherein generating the animated file further comprises:

identifying a first list of landing spots for the scannable codes and a second list of landing spots for an original image corresponding to the scannable codes;

comparing the first and second lists to identify additional tiles; and

creating animations of the additional tiles so that the additional tiles are animated to match border areas of the codes and image.

8. The method of claim 7, wherein generating the animated file further comprises arbitrarily selecting one or more frames of animation out of all animation frames created for the scannable codes, wherein the additional tiles are animated with various animated positions, colors, textures, sizes and shapes during the selected one or more frames.

9. A computer program product comprising a computer usable non-transitory medium having a computer readable program code embedded therein for controlling a computer, the computer readable program code configured to cause the computer to execute a process for generating animations for user-submitted scannable codes, the process comprising the steps of:

receiving a user request over a network for creating animation of scannable codes, the user request including either one or more scannable codes or a message to be embedded in the scannable codes;

receiving a plurality of animation parameters selected by the user;

generating an animated file based on the animation parameters for the user'"'"'s preview, the animated file including animations of the scannable codes; and

upon the user'"'"'s confirmation of purchase, sending the animated file for a display on the user'"'"'s device,

wherein generating an animated file further comprises;

detecting the scannable codes from the user request;

abstracting 2 dimensional (2D) data from the detected scannable codes, the 2D data including locations, dimensions, color and shape of each code tile in the scannable codes;

storing the 2D data in a tile database; and

based on the abstracted 2D data, converting a 2D model of the scannable codes into a 3 dimensional (3D)model of the scannable codes, the 3D model comprising a plurality of 3D geometric icons based on the 2D code tiles.

10. The computer program product of claim 9, wherein the process comprises further steps of:

creating the scannable codes for the message if the user request includes only the message to be embedded, the message including a user-supplied image.

11. The computer program product of claim 9, wherein the process comprises further steps of displaying the animated file on the user'"'"'s device in either a static state or animated state.

12. The computer program product of claim 9, wherein the process comprises further steps of allowing the user to scan the animated file for information embedded in the animated file.

13. The computer program product of claim 9, wherein the plurality of 3D geometric icons are animated in either a 2D space or a 3D space.

14. The computer program product of claim 9, wherein the step of generating the animated file further comprises applying colors and textures to the plurality of 3D geometric icons.

15. The computer program product of claim 14, wherein the step of generating the animated file further comprises:

identifying a first list of landing spots for the scannable codes and a second list of landing spots for an original image corresponding to the scannable codes;

comparing the first and second lists to identify additional tiles; and

creating animations of the additional tiles so that the additional tiles are animated to match border areas of the codes and image.

16. The computer program product of claim 15, wherein the step of generating the animated file further comprises arbitrarily selecting one or more frames of animation out of all animation frames created for the scannable codes, wherein the additional tiles are animated with various animated positions, colors, textures, sizes and shapes during the selected one or more frames.