System for efficient remote projection of rich interactive user interfaces

• US 20060227141A1
• Filed: 03/30/2005
• Published: 10/12/2006
• Est. Priority Date: 03/30/2005
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Microsoft Technology Licensing LLC (Microsoft Corporation)
• Original Assignee: Microsoft Corporation
• Inventors: Hogle, Francis M.
• Granted Patent: US 7,667,704 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 345/473
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 3/147 using display panels
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 69/329 in the application layer [OSI layer 7]

Abstract

An exemplary method of communicating between a host device and a rendering device for controlling a user interface of the rendering device includes generating messages, encoding the messages in a buffer as blobs of data and communicating the blobs of data to the rendering device. Various other exemplary methods, devices, systems, etc., are also disclosed.

Claims

1. A computer-readable medium having stored thereon a data structure, comprising:

blobs of data wherein the data include a batch of messages that instruct a renderer to render one or more components of a graphical user interface.

2. The computer-readable medium of claim 1 comprising a network buffer.

3. The computer-readable medium of claim 1 wherein at least some of the messages of the batch of messages originate from an application executing on a host computer in communication with a remote device executing the renderer.

4. A method of communicating between a host device and a rendering device for controlling a user interface of the rendering device, the method comprising:

generating messages;

encoding the messages in a buffer as blobs of data; and

communicating the blobs of data to the rendering device.

5. The method of claim 4 wherein the generating comprises receiving one or more commands issued from a remote control to the rendering device and, in response to the one or more commands, generating the messages by an application executing on the host device.

6. The method of claim 5 wherein the application relies on a user interface framework executing on the host device to generate the messages and to encode the messages in the buffer.

7. The method of claim 4 wherein communication between the host device and the rendering device occurs asynchronously.

8. The method of claim 4 wherein communication occurs according to a communication protocol that comprises a graphics model for rendering graphics and animations.

9. The method of claim 4 wherein the rendering device displays frames of images at a frame rate and wherein the rendering device renders according to the blobs of data without disrupting of frames at the frame rate.

10. The method of claim 4 wherein the buffer comprises a network buffer.

11. The method of claim 4 further comprising communicating data from the rendering device to the host device.

12. The method of claim 4 further comprising encoding additional information in the buffer unrelated to the messages and optionally related to one or more subsequent messages.

13. The method of claim 4 further comprising, after the communicating, generating additional messages, encoding the additional messages in the buffer as blobs of data, and communicating the blobs of data to the rendering device prior to receipt of a message by the host device sent from the rendering device.

14. The method of claim 4 wherein the communication occurs according to a communication protocol that comprises at least one member selected from a group consisting of a broker object as a root object in the protocol, a context object that represents a logical computation site, a render port callback object for callback from a render port in runtime, a data buffer callback object for reporting on the status of bulk data transfers, and a data buffer object that represents bulk data on a remote node.

15. The method of claim 4 wherein the last message comprises a call instructing the rendering device to send a message to the host device.

16. The method of claim 4 wherein the messages comprise one or more graphics or animation commands.

17. The method of claim 4 wherein the messages comprise one or more commands associated with a software interface for graphics or animations.

18. The method of claim 4 wherein one or more of the messages rely on at least one member selected from a group consisting of a render builder object to hold a packet of drawing commands, a window object that represents a presentation container, a visual object that represents a discrete coordinate space, a device callback object for the reporting on the status of the rendering device, a rendering device object that represents a rendering technology driver, a surface object that represents a logical container for image bits, a surface pool object that represents a physical container for image bits, a gradient object for modification of color space in a container scope, an animation manager object that serves for animation control, an animation callback object that reports on an animation, and an animation object that describes a logical animation sequence.

19. The method of claim 4 comprising a plurality of buffers.

20. A computer-readable medium having computer-executable instructions for performing a method on a host device comprising:

generating messages;

encoding the messages in a buffer as blobs of data; and

communicating the blobs of data to a rendering device.