Systems and methods for digital document processing

• US 20010044797A1
• Filed: 04/16/2001
• Published: 11/22/2001
• Est. Priority Date: 04/14/2000
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Samsung Electronics Co. Ltd.
• Original Assignee: Picsel (Research) Limited
• Inventors: Anwar, Majid
• Granted Patent: US 6,925,597 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 707/102
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 3/1206 resulting in increased flexibility in input data format or job format or job type
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 3/1228 Printing driverless or using generic drivers
• CPC Class Codes: G06T 11/60 Editing figures and text; Combining figures or text
• CPC Class Codes: G06T 15/00 3D [Three Dimensional] image rendering
• CPC Class Codes: G06T 15/005 General purpose rendering architectures
• CPC Class Codes: G09G 2340/10 Mixing of images, i.e. displayed pixel being the result of an operation, e.g. adding, on the corresponding input pixels

Abstract

Display technologies that separate the underlying functionality of an application program from the graphical display process, thereby eliminating or reducing the application'"'"'s need to control the device display and to provide graphical user interface tools and controls for the display. Additionally, such systems reduce or eliminate the need for an application program to be present on a processing system when displaying data created by or for that application program, such as a document or video stream. Thus it will be understood that in one aspect, the systems and methods described herein can display content, including documents, video streams, or other content, and will provide the graphical user functions for viewing the displayed document, such as zoom, pan, or other such functions, without need for the underlying application to be present on the system that is displaying the content. The advantages over the prior art of the systems and methods described herein include the advantage of allowing different types of content from different application programs to be shown on the same display within the same work space.

Claims

1. A method for representing digital content, comprising

receiving a source of data representative of the digital content,

processing the source of data to identify objects that occur within the source,

for each object, creating a document object that represents an internal representation of the encountered object and that separates the structure of the object from the data content of the object,

organizing the document objects into a document structure that represents the structure of the digital content,

organizing the data content of the objects into a data content structure, and

providing a set of pointers that associate the document objects within the document structure with the data content stored in the data content structure.

2. A method according to

claim 1

, further including creating an indirection list that stores the set of pointers that associate the document objects with the data content.

3. A method according to

claim 1

, wherein receiving a source of data comprises receiving a stream of data generated from an application program.

4. A method according to

claim 1

, wherein receiving a source of data comprises receiving a stream of data generated from streaming data from an application program.

5. A method according to

claim 1

, wherein receiving a source of data comprises receiving a stream of data from a peripheral device.

6. A method according to

claim 1

, wherein receiving a source of data comprise receiving a stream of data from a plurality of sources of data.

7. A method according to

claim 6

, further comprising

merging document objects found in a first source of data and a second source of data for building a composite document structure.

8. A method according to

claim 1

, wherein organizing the document objects into a document structure that represents the structure of the digital content, includes filtering the document objects to select a sub set of document objects for the document structure.

9. A method according to

claim 1

, wherein organizing the document objects into a document structure that represents the structure of the digital content, includes organizing the document objects into an arrangement that differs from the structure of the source of data.

10. A method according to

claim 1

, wherein organizing the document objects into a document structure that represents the structure of the digital content, includes adding document objects to alter the structure of the digital content.

11. A method according to

claim 1

, wherein organizing the data content of the objects into a data content structure, includes filtering content to select content for the internal representation.

12. A method according to

claim 1

, wherein organizing the data content of the objects into a data content structure, includes adding content to select content for the internal representation.

13. A method according to

claim 1

, further including processing the pointers to rearrange the association between the data content and the document objects, whereby data content from one source may be substituted with data content from another source.

14. A method according to

claim 1

, further comprising a process for compacting document objects stored in an internal representation by combining document objects having similar attributes.

15. A method according to

claim 1

, further including, building a resource table for storing identified within a source of data.

16. A method according to

claim 15

, wherein the resources include resources selected from the group consisting of fonts, color lists, styles and links.

17. A method according to

claim 1

, including a data delivery process wherein the data content can be stored or delivered independently from the document structure.

18. A method according to

claim 1

, including a compression process for compressing the data content.

19. A method according to

claim 1

, including an encoding process for encoding the data content.

20. A method according to

claim 1

, including a compression process for compressing the document structure.

21. A method according to

claim 1

, including an encoding process for encoding the document structure.

22. A method according to

claim 1

, wherein a document object may include position information representative of a position of content within a document.

23. A method according to

claim 22

wherein the position information may be relative or fixed position information.

24. A method according to

claim 1

, wherein a document structure defines position information representative of the location of an object relative to other objects in a document structure.

25. A method according to

claim 1

, wherein the document structure includes document objects having a set of defined parameters including dimensional, temporal and physical.

26. A method according to

claim 25

, wherein a visual position for content in an internal representation is tracked separately from a structural position of that content in a document.

27. A method according to

claim 1

, wherein the digital content includes content selected from the group consisting of text, graphic, audio, video, interactive, script and audio-visual.

28. A method according to

claim 1

, further comprising a process for exporting digital content.

29. A method according to

claim 28

, wherein the process for exporting digital content includes a process for exporting digital content in a format representative of the internal representation.

30. A method according to

claim 28

, wherein the process for exporting digital content includes a process for exporting content in a format compatible with a selected known file format.

31. A method according to

claim 29

, wherein the format representative of the internal representation may be based on a structure selected from the group consisting of a binary data structure, a textual description, a marked-up text description, and a luminance/chrominance colour model.

32. A method according to

claim 29

, wherein the format representative of the internal representation may be based on a universal text encoding model including an encoding selected from the group consisting of Unicode, shift-mapping and big-5.

37. A system according to

claim 24

, further comprising a set of object types representative of types of content that are present in a source of data.

39. A method according to

claim 37

, wherein the set of objects types include a bitmap object type, a vector graphic object type, video type, animation type, button type, script and a text object type.

33. A computer readable medium having stored thereon instructions for a method for representing digital content, comprising

receiving a source of data representative of the digital content,

processing the source of data to identify objects that occur within the source,

for each object, creating a document object that represents an internal representation of the encountered object and that separates the structure of the object from the data content of the object,

organizing the document objects into a document structure that represents the structure of the digital content,

organizing the data content of the objects into a data content structure, and

providing a set of pointers that associate the document objects within the document structure with the data content stored in the data content structure.

34. A system for representing digital content, comprising

an input mechanism for receiving a source of data representative of the digital content,

a document agent for processing the source of data to identify objects that occur within the source, and for creating a document object that represents an internal representation of an encountered object and that separates the structure of the object from the data content of the object, and for organizing the document objects into a document structure that represents the structure of the digital content, and for organizing the data content of the objects into a data content structure, and

providing a set of pointers that associate the document objects within the document structure with the data content stored in the data content structure.

35. A system according to

claim 34

, including a plurality of document agents, each being capable of understanding a file format of a respective type of source of data.

36. A system according to

claim 34

, including a document agent capable of understanding a plurality of file formats.

38. A system according to

claim 34

, wherein the document agent identifies a file format from processing a characteristic selected from the group consisting of file content, file name, network type, transport mechanism, and disc type.