Exposing various levels of text granularity for animation and other effects

• US 20060227142A1
• Filed: 04/06/2005
• Published: 10/12/2006
• Est. Priority Date: 04/06/2005
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Microsoft Technology Licensing LLC (Microsoft Corporation)
• Original Assignee: Microsoft Corporation
• Inventors: Brown, David C., Chaoweeraprasit, Worachai, Yang, Zhanjia
• Granted Patent: US 7,924,285 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 345/473
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 40/103 Formatting, i.e. changing of presentation of documents automatic justification G06F40/189; automatic line break hyphenation G06F40/191

Abstract

Described is a system and method by which text elements to be rendered on a computer display (e.g., paragraph, line or any subset of text including a character or glyph) may be individually or collectively animated, at an author-selected level of granularity. Animation of text may be specified by setting animation properties via direct coding (e.g., in markup) or by specifying animation code to execute on text-related data, just prior to rendering. The text to animate may be static, or dynamically obtained at runtime from an external source. The text to animate is maintained as a whole with other text of the same element, in a text object, until a processing level that produces separate glyph runs, with an animation transform associated with each glyph run to be animated. Also described is an API that supports text animation.

Claims

1. In a computing environment, a method comprising:

obtaining text to render;

receiving information indicating that part of the text to render is to be animated;

producing a separate glyph run for the part of the text to be animated; and

associating animation information with the separate glyph run.

2. The method of claim 1 further comprising, receiving information indicating that a different part of the text to render is to be animated, and associating different animation information with the different part of the text.

3. The method of claim 1 wherein obtaining the text to render comprises obtaining the text dynamically, from a source external to a source of the information that indicates that part of the text to render is to be animated.

4. The method of claim 1 wherein associating the animation information with the separate glyph run comprises calling animation effect code identified with a source of the information that indicates that part of the text to render is to be animated.

5. The method of claim 1 wherein receiving the information indicating that part of the text to render is to be animated comprises interpreting markup.

6. The method of claim 1 further comprising, laying out the text prior to producing the separate glyph run.

7. The method of claim 1 wherein receiving the information indicating that part of the text to render is to be animated comprises interpreting markup, wherein obtaining the text to render comprises dynamically obtaining the text from a source external to the markup, and wherein associating the animation information with the separate glyph run comprises calling code identified in the markup.

8. At least one computer-readable medium having computer-executable instructions, which when executed perform the method of claim 1.

9. In a computing environment, a method comprising:

processing markup specifying that one part of a text element is to be animated, in which the part to be animated is less than all of the text element'"'"'s text;

maintaining the text of the text element together until the text is laid out as part of a line of text; and

associating animation information with the part to be animated after the text is laid out as part of the line of text.

10. The method of claim 9 wherein associating the animation information comprises separating the part to be animated from another part.

11. The method of claim 10 wherein separating the part to be animated from another part comprises producing a separate glyph run for the part to be animated.

12. The method of claim 10 further comprising, associating other animation information with at least some of the other part of the text to animate at least two different parts of the text in different ways.

13. The method of claim 9 further comprising, obtaining the text dynamically, from a source external to the markup.

14. The method of claim 9 wherein associating the animation information comprises calling animation effect code identified in the markup.

15. At least one computer-readable medium having computer-executable instructions, which when executed perform the method of claim 11.

16. In a computing environment, a system comprising:

a text object, the text object including a text element for containing text and having a property associated therewith indicating that part of the text of the text element is to be animated;

a text handling stack, including at least one layout component for layout of the text and a glyph or character run production component that operates after layout; and

means for associating animation information with the part of the text element that is to be animated, the animation information associated with the part of the text element that is to be animated during glyph or character run production by the glyph or character run production component.

17. The system of claim 16 wherein the animation information corresponds to an animation transform, the animation transform comprising at least one type of transform of a set containing, a movement-related transform, a rotation transform, a shear transform, a scale factor transform, a translation transform, a clip region transform, an appearance related transform, a color-related transform, and an opacity-related transform.

18. The system of claim 16 wherein the text to be animated corresponds to a glyph run representative of a set of at least one character or glyph.

19. The system of claim 16 wherein the means for associating the animation information with the part of the text element that is to be animated comprises a named set of executable code that accepts at least one parameter.

20. The system of claim 16 further comprising means for obtaining the property, and wherein the text is obtained dynamically, from a source external to the means for obtaining the property.