Apparatus and method for turning of pages in a digitised virtual document

• US 20060176307A1
• Filed: 03/24/2003
• Published: 08/10/2006
• Est. Priority Date: 03/27/2002
• Status: Abandoned Application

• Current Assignee: Touch & Turn AB
• Original Assignee: Touch & Turn AB
• Inventors: Lagercrantz, Wilhelm
• Application Number:
  US10/509,100
• Publication Number:
  US 20060176307A1
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 345/473
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 3/0483 Interaction with page-structured environments, e.g. book metaphor

Abstract

An apparatus and a method for displaying a digitised document to an audience. A memory (20) is provided for storing of at least one digitised document in a computer readable file format, wherein a processing unit (10) is adapted to retrieve documents and process it into a near-identical document replica. Moreover, a display (30) visualises document and animation of the document, such as the turning of a layer, being controlled by the audience. The function of the apparatus is characterised by the audience indicating when real-time animation of a layer (51, 52) is about to begin or revert to its initial state, and the indication is governed by crossing a dividing line with an indicating element substantially in lateral direction.

Claims

1. Apparatus for displaying a digitised document to an audience, the digitised document for visualisation being printed media, such as high resolution photographs of pages in a book, the apparatus comprising,

persistent memory (20), for storage of at least one digitised document in a computer readable file format,

processing means (10), adapted to retrieve the digitised document from the persistent memory, and process the computer readable file format into a near-identical document replica,

display (30) for visualising the digitised document having interface (32) which represents a view of the digitised document, where animation of the document, such as the turning of a layer, being controlled by the audience,

an active field of the display is laterally enclosed by at least one dividing line (56),

characterized in that

the animation of a layer (51, 52) to be turned is adapted to either begin or revert to its initial state in real-time upon indications by the audience, the indications governed by substantially in lateral direction crossing of the dividing line with an indicating element.

2. Apparatus for displaying a digitised document according to claim 1, characterized in that

layers in a digitised document being visualised to the audience on the display are provided with edges being irregularly cut.

3. Apparatus for displaying a digitised document according to claim 1, characterised in that

layers in a digitised document are superimposed while still displaying edges so as to convey information to the audience on how far the visualised document is from the beginning and end of a stack of layers.

4. Apparatus for displaying a digitised document according to claim 1, characterised in that

digitised documents are retrieved from at least one database (40, 41) accessible from the processing means via the Internet or any other global interconnecting network.

5. Apparatus for displaying a digitised document according claim 1, characterised in that

the display is a touch screen, sensitive to signals governed by the audience by touching and dragging a finger tip on the visualised layer so as to indicate when a layer is to be turned.

6. Apparatus for displaying a digitised document according to claim 1, characterised in that

the indicating element is either a finger moved on a touch screen or a cursor moved by a cursor control device.

7. Apparatus for displaying a digitised document according to claim 1, characterised in that

the audience is able to adapt the default appearance of the visualisation, in order to choose among a predefined set of suitable perspectives for the visualisation of the digitised document.

8. Apparatus for displaying a digitised document according to claim 1, characterised in that

the persistent memory being any kind of storage location connected to the processor, such as CD-ROM, any kind of memory disk, flash memory, etc.

9. Apparatus for displaying a digitised document according to claim 1, characterised in that

the interface is provided with links to translations of the digitised document, the translations being into languages desired by the user and being accessible on user command.

10. Apparatus for displaying a digitised document according to claim 1, characterised in that

layers in a digitised document are displayed with delimiting intervals, the delimiting intervals being set in advance or on user command.

14. Computer program product for displaying a digitised printed media document to an audience, fully integrated in an apparatus according to claim 1.

11. Method for displaying a digitised printed media document to an audience by utilising a memory (20) for storing of at least one digitised document in a computer readable file format, wherein a processing means (10) is adapted to retrieve documents and process it into a near-identical document replica, a display (30) visualises document and animation of the document, such as the turning of a layer, being controlled by the audience, the method characterised by the steps of:

indicating by the audience when real-time animation of a layer (51, 52) is about to begin or revert to its initial state, the indication governed by crossing a dividing line with an indicating element substantially in lateral direction.

12. Method for displaying a digitised document according to claim 11, further characterised by the step of:

visualising on the display layers which have irregularly cut edges.

13. Method for displaying a digitised document according to claim 12, further characterised by the step of:

visualising superimposed layers forming a stack of layers, while still displaying their edges, thereby conveying information to the audience on how far the visualisation is from the beginning and end of the stack.