Occlusion reducing transformations for three-dimensional detail-in-context viewing

• US 20040257375A1
• Filed: 07/07/2004
• Published: 12/23/2004
• Est. Priority Date: 09/06/2000
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Mind Fusion, LLC (Ascend Innovation Management, LLC)
• Original Assignee: David Cowperthwaite
• Inventors: Cowperthwaite, David
• Granted Patent: US 7,280,105 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 345/582
• CPC Class Codes: G06T 15/40 Hidden part removal
• CPC Class Codes: G06T 19/20 Editing of 3D images, e.g. changing shapes or colours, aligning objects or positioning parts
• CPC Class Codes: G06T 2219/2004 Aligning objects, relative positioning of parts
• CPC Class Codes: G06T 2219/2016 Rotation, translation, scaling

Abstract

In a data processing system that executes a program of instructions, a method for generating a detail-in-context presentation of a three-dimensional information representation comprising the steps of selecting a object-of-interest in the information representation; selecting a viewpoint; selecting a path from the viewpoint to the object-of-interest; and, displacing objects in the information representation away from the path to locations within the information representation where the objects remain visible when viewed from the viewpoint yet do not occlude the object-of-interest when viewed from the viewpoint to thereby generate the detail in context view.

Claims

1. A method for generating a presentation of a region-of-interest in an information representation for display on a display screen of a computer, comprising:

establishing a viewpoint for the region-of-interest;

establishing a path between the viewpoint and the region-of-interest;

establishing a mesh for the information representation, the mesh having regions defined by a plurality of vertex points;

displacing ones of the points away from the path according to a transformation function to locations within the mesh where substantially all of the points displaced remain visible and do not occlude the region-of-interest when viewed from the viewpoint; and

,

overlaying the information representation on the mesh to generate the presentation.

2. The method of claim 1 wherein the transformation function is constrained by a shaping function to control displacement of the points.

3. The method of claim 2 wherein, for each of the points, the displacing includes:

calculating a direction vector between a point and a nearest point on the path, the direction vector having a direction and a magnitude;

calculating a displacement vector having the direction and having a displacement vector magnitude given by the magnitude, the transformation function, and the shaping function; and

,

displacing the point in the direction a distance given by the displacement vector magnitude.

4. The method of claim 1 wherein the transformation function includes a detail-in-context distortion function.

5. The method of claim 1 wherein the path includes a line and a plane.

6. The method of claim 2 wherein the shaping function includes a continuous function and a non-continuous function.

7. The method of claim 2 wherein one or more of the transformation function and shaping function are selected by a predetermined program based on one or more features of one or more of the information representation and region-of-interest.

8. The method of claim 1 wherein the information representation includes a two-dimensional information representation, a three-dimensional information representation, and a multi-dimensional information representation.

9. The method of claim 1 wherein the regions are triangular in shape.

10. The method of claim 1 wherein the mesh is a plurality of parallel meshes.

11. The method of claim 1 wherein the overlaying is texture mapping.

12. The method of claim 1 wherein the displacing of the ones of the points further comprises displacing other of the points by interpolation.

13. The method of claim 1 wherein the mesh is comprised of a plurality of sections and the displacing of the ones of the points is performed on a first of the sections.

14. The method of claim 13 and further comprising generating other of the plurality of sections by reflection of the first of the sections.

15. The method of claim 13 wherein each of the sections is a quarter-section.

16. A system for generating a presentation of a region-of-interest in an information representation for display on a display screen of the system, the system having memory and an input device, the system comprising:

a processor coupled to the memory, display screen, and input device and adapted for;

establishing a viewpoint for the region-of-interest;

establishing a path between the viewpoint and the region-of-interest;

establishing a mesh for the information representation, the mesh having regions defined by a plurality of vertex points;

displacing ones of the points away from the path according to a transformation function to locations within the mesh where substantially all of the points displaced remain visible and do not occlude the region-of-interest when viewed from the viewpoint; and

,

overlaying the information representation on the mesh to generate the presentation.

17. The system of claim 16 wherein the transformation function is constrained by a shaping function to control displacement of the points.

18. A computer program product having a computer readable medium tangibly embodying computer executable code for directing a data processing system to generate a presentation of a region-of-interest in an information representation for display on a display screen of the data processing system, the computer program product comprising:

code for establishing a viewpoint for the region-of-interest;

code for establishing a path between the viewpoint and the region-of-interest;

code for establishing a mesh for the information representation, the mesh having regions defined by a plurality of vertex points;

code for displacing ones of the points away from the path according to a transformation function to locations within the mesh where substantially all of the points displaced remain visible and do not occlude the region-of-interest when viewed from the viewpoint; and

,

code for overlaying the information representation on the mesh to generate the presentation.

19. The computer program product of claim 18 wherein the transformation function is constrained by a shaping function to control displacement of the points.