Method and system for display of video device status information

• US 20030202008A1
• Filed: 04/28/2003
• Published: 10/30/2003
• Est. Priority Date: 04/30/2002
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Cisco Technology, Inc. (Cisco Systems, Inc.)
• Original Assignee: Tandberg Telecom AS (Cisco Systems, Inc.)
• Inventors: Stephens, James, McDonald, Brian, McKibben, Wendy, Lemieux, James
• Granted Patent: US 7,349,000 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 715/736
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 67/12 specially adapted for proprietary or special-purpose networking environments, e.g. medical networks, sensor networks, networks in vehicles or remote metering networks
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 67/75 Indicating network or usage conditions on the user display
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 69/329 in the application layer [OSI layer 7]
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 9/40 Network security protocols

Abstract

The status of a video call is displayed in a simplified and intuitive graphical user interface that presents status information of individual video devices of the video call with graphical or color indications with a gauge metaphor, such as a vertically or horizontally aligned bar of icons. Each video device of the video call is represented by an icon having a display position or color so that the icons are arranged to depict video devices together that have similar states. For instance, a video call is represented by a bar of icons ordered by the status of each video device with icons having the same color located contiguous with each other so that a video call with an overall good status appears as a green bar and a video call with an overall poor status appears as a red bar with red icons indicating failed video devices. A summary icon summarizes the overall state of a video call by indicating the color or graphical information of the video device of the video call that has the problem of greatest concern.

Claims

1. A system for display of video device status information for plural video devices, each video device associated with one or more of plural video calls, the system comprising:

a video network platform operable to interface with the video devices to retrieve status information of the video devices;

a video call monitor engine interfaced with the video network platform and operable to analyze the status information to associate each video device with a video call and a display position; and

a graphical user interface in communication with the video call monitor engine and operable to display each video call as a bar formed by plural icons, each icon representing a video device of the video call, the icons aligned in order of the display position of the video device represented by the icon.

2. The system of claim 1 wherein the status information comprises video device state information and the display position comprises a ranking of relative importance of the state information for the video device compared with other video devices of the video call.

3. The system of claim 2 wherein the icons are aligned as a horizontal bar.

4. The system of claim 2 wherein the icons are aligned as a vertical bar.

5. The system of claim 2 wherein the video call monitor engine is further operable to associate one of plural colors with each video device state.

6. The system of claim 5 wherein the video call monitor engine associates video devices having a failed state with the color red and a predetermined display position, and wherein the graphical user interface displays a red icon bar to illustrate the severity of video device failures for a video call.

7. The system of claim 5 wherein the colors comprise red for video devices having a failed state and green for video devices having a normal state, the graphical user interface providing a visual depiction of the state of each video call by comparing the length of ordered red icons with ordered green icons for the bar of icons representing the video call.

8. The system of claim 1 wherein each icon further comprise a graphical image that represents the type of video device associated with the icon, the types of video devices comprising a video end point device, a MCU device or a gateway device.

9. The system of claim 1 wherein the status information comprises state and event information and wherein the graphical user interface is further operable to detect activation of an icon by an input device and to display desired state and event information of a video device upon activation of the icon associated with the video device.

10. The system of claim 1 wherein the graphical user interface further comprises a summary icon for each video call, the summary icon depicting a color associated with the lowest state of a video device associated with the video call.

11. A method for display of video device status information for plural video devices, each video device associated with one or more of plural video calls, the method comprising:

gathering status information for the video devices;

associating each video device with a video call;

ordering the video devices associated with each video call according to the status of each video device in the video call;

representing each video device as an icon; and

displaying a representation of each video call as a bar of icons, each video device of each video call associated with an icon, the icons ordered by the status of its associated video device in the video call.

12. The method of claim 11 wherein displaying a representation of each video call as a bar of icons further comprises displaying a horizontal bar of icons for each video call.

13. The method of claim 11 wherein displaying a representation of each video call as a bar of icons further comprises displaying a vertical bar of icons for each video call.

14. The method of claim 11 further comprising:

activating an icon; and

displaying state and event information of the video device associated with the icon.

15. The method of claim 11 wherein displaying each video device as an icon further comprises displaying each icon with a color, the color associated with a state of the video device represented by the icon.

16. The method of claim 15 further comprising:

displaying the icons contiguously by color; and

evaluating the state of a video call by comparing the relative size of colored portions of a bar of icons representing the video call.

17. The method of claim 16 further comprising displaying a summary of each video call represented by a single icon, each single icon having a color, the color being the color of the of the video device associated with the video call having the state with the most significant problem.

18. The method of claim 17 further comprising activating the single icon to display state information of video devices associated with the video call of the single icon.

19. A graphical user interface comprising:

plural bars, each bar representing a video call; and

plural icons disposed in each bar, each icon representing a video device of the video call;

wherein each video device has a state and each icon represents the state of its associated video device by one of plural colors, each bar having icons displayed contiguously by color to aid in visualization of an overall state of the video call associated with a bar.

20. The graphical user interface of claim 19 wherein video devices having a normal state are represented by green icons and video devices having an abnormal state are represented by red icons.

21. A graphical user interface for display of video device status information for plural video devices of plural video calls, the graphical user interface comprising:

plural icons, each icon representing a video device, the icons organized into sets by video call, each set of icons displayed to simulate a quantity gauge, each icon having one of plural colors, the color indicative of the status of the video device represented by the icon;

wherein the icons are further organized within a set of icons to have similar colors displayed contiguous to each other.

22. The graphical user interface of claim 21 wherein each set of icons simulates a bar quantity gauge.

23. The graphical user interface of claim 21 wherein each set of icons simulates an analog gauge.

24. A method for display of video device status information for plural video devices of one or more video calls, the method comprising:

determining the status of the video devices of the video call; and

displaying the status of the video devices by simulating a fuel quantity gauge.