Methods for computing a navigation path

• US 20070168852A1
• Filed: 01/13/2006
• Published: 07/19/2007
• Est. Priority Date: 01/13/2006
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Ricoh Company Limited
• Original Assignee: Ricoh Company Limited
• Inventors: Berkner, Kathrin, Erol, Berna, Joshi, Siddharth, Schwartz, Edward
• Granted Patent: US 7,761,789 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 715/234
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 16/4393 Multimedia presentations, e.g. slide shows, multimedia albums
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 16/489 using time information
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 16/9577 Optimising the visualization of content, e.g. distillation of HTML documents

Abstract

A method, apparatus and article of manufacture for creating visualizations of documents are described. In one embodiment, the method comprises receiving audible, visual, and audiovisual document elements, computing time attributes associated with the audible, visual, and audiovisual document elements based on display and application constraints, computing information content attributes associated with the audible, visual, and audiovisual document elements based on display and application constraints, selecting a set of one or more of the audible, visual and audiovisual document elements for inclusion into a multimedia representation based on the time and information content attributes, and composing the multimedia representation using the set of one or more of the audible, visual and audiovisual document elements.

Claims

1. A method comprising:

receiving audible, visual, and audiovisual document elements;

computing time attributes associated with the audible, visual, and audiovisual document elements based on display constraints;

computing information content attributes associated with the audible, visual, and audiovisual document elements based on display constraints;

selecting a set of one or more of the audible, visual and audiovisual document elements for inclusion into a multimedia representation based on the time and information content attributes.

2. The method defined in claim 1 wherein computing the information content attributes is based on one or more of an application and user specific constraints.

3. The method defined in claim 1 wherein one visual document element comprises a visual text element, and wherein computing time attributes comprises computing a time attribute for the visual text element by:

computing a zoom parameter;

determining any necessary pan operations; and

determining a time required to perform the pan and zoom operations.

4. The method defined in claim 3 wherein the zoom parameter is for readability.

5. The method defined in claim 3 wherein the zoom operation causes zooming to transition from an unreadable resolution to a readable resolution.

6. The method defined in claim 1 wherein computing the time attribute for the visual text element further comprises determining readability of the visual text element for a first view based on display constraints and document information;

and

setting the time attribute equal to a product of a speech synthesis constant and a number of characters in the visual text element if the visual text element is determined to be readable.

7. The method defined in claim 6 wherein determining readability is based on one or more of an application and user specific constraints.

8. The method defined in claim 6 further comprising, if not readable in the first view:

determining readability of the visual text element in a zoom view, and

setting the time attribute equal to a product of a speech synthesis constant and a number of characters in the visual text element plus a constant indicative of a time necessary to zoom to a title in the visual text element in the zoom view if readable in the zoom view.

9. The method defined in claim 8 further comprising, if not readable in the first or zoom view:

computing a zoom factor indicative of an amount of zooming that is necessary for readability of text in the visual text element,

determining a time required for panning; and

setting the time attribute based on a time necessary to zoom to text in the visual text element in the zoom view and pan over text element.

10. The method defined in claim 6 wherein the first view comprises a thumbnail view.

11. The method defined in claim 6 wherein the display constraints comprise display width and display height and the document information is based on page width and page height.

12. The method defined in claim 1 wherein one audiovisual document element comprises an audiovisual element having a text portion, and wherein computing time attributes comprises computing a time attribute for the audiovisual element as a maximum of the time required to visually navigate the text portion of the audiovisual element and the time required to play back synthesized text associated with the audiovisual element.

13. The method defined in claim 1 wherein one audiovisual document element comprises an audiovisual element having a figure portion, and wherein computing time attributes comprises computing a time attribute for the audiovisual element as a maximum of the time required to visually comprehend the figure portion of the audiovisual element and the time required to play back synthesized text associated with the audiovisual element.

14. The method defined in claim 1 further comprises composing the multimedia-representation using the set of one or more of the audible, visual and audiovisual document elements.

15. The method defined in claim 14 wherein composing the multimedia representation using the set of one or more of the audible, visual and audiovisual document elements comprises outputting a navigation path representation by which the set of one or more of the audible, visual and audiovisual document elements are processed when creating the multimedia representation.

16. The method defined in claim 1 further comprising reordering the set of the audible, visual and audiovisual document elements in reading order.

17. The method defined in claim 1 wherein selecting a set of one or more of the audible, visual and audiovisual document elements based on the time and information content attributes comprises:

selecting either a combination of the visual and audiovisual information or a combination of audible and audiovisual information;

selecting a first set of document elements to maximize information contained in first set subject to a given time constraint; and

selecting a second set of document elements to maximize information contained in the second set subject to an amount of time remaining to complete the multimedia representation after maximizing the selected document elements.

18. The method defined in claim 17 wherein selecting either combination is performed in response to an input from one or more of an application and a user.

19. The method defined in claim 17 wherein selection of either the combination of audible and audiovisual information or visual and audiovisual information is based on an input that is based on one or more application constraints.

20. The method defined in claim 17 wherein maximizing selected document elements is subject to a page thumbnail constraint.

21. The method defined in claim 1 wherein the display constraint is display size of a device for which the multimedia presentation is being generated.

22. The method defined in claim 1 further comprising splitting a time attribute associated with a selected document element to enable the selected document element to fit within a display width.

23. The method defined in claim 22 wherein a point at which the time attribute is split is chosen by one or both of a user and an application.

24. An article of manufacture having one or more recordable media with instructions thereon which, when executed by a system, cause the system to perform a method comprising:

receiving audible, visual, and audiovisual document elements; and

selecting a set of one or more of the audible, visual and audiovisual document elements for inclusion into a multimedia representation based on the time and information content attributes computed based on display and time constraints and at least one of application and user specific inputs.

25. The article of manufacture defined in claim 24 wherein selecting the set of one or more of the audible, visual and audiovisual document elements comprises:

computing the time attributes associated with the audible, visual, and audiovisual document elements based on display and at least one application and user specific constraints; and

computing the information content attributes associated with the audible, visual, and audiovisual document elements based on display and application constraints.

26. The article of manufacture defined in claim 24 wherein selecting the set of one or more of the audible, visual and audiovisual document elements comprises:

composing the multimedia representation using the set of one or more of the audible, visual and audiovisual document elements.

27. An apparatus comprising:

an input to receive audible, visual, and audiovisual document elements; and

a selector to select a set of one or more of the audible, visual and audiovisual document elements for inclusion into a multimedia representation based on the time and information content attributes computed based on display and time constraints and at least one of application and user constraints.

28. The apparatus defined in claim 27 wherein the multimedia representation generator composes the multimedia representation using the set of one or more of the audible, visual and audiovisual document elements.

29. A method comprising:

receiving an audiovisual document element of a document; and

computing a time attribute for the audiovisual element as a maximum of the time required to visually navigate a text portion of the audiovisual element and the time required to play back synthesized text associated with the audiovisual element.

30. A method comprising:

receiving an audiovisual document element of a document; and

computing the time attribute for the audiovisual element as a maximum of the time required to visually comprehend a figure portion of the audiovisual element and the time required to play back synthesized text associated with the audiovisual element.

31. A method comprising:

receiving a visual document element of a document;

computing a time attribute for the visual element by;

determining any necessary pan and zoom operations; and

determining a time required to perform the operations based on one or more resolutions at which the operations are performed.

32. The method defined in claim 31 wherein computing the time attribute for the visual text element further comprises

determining readability of the visual element for a first view based on display and application constraints and document information;

and

setting the time attribute equal to a product of a speech synthesis constant and a number of characters in the visual element if the visual element is determined to be readable.

33. The method defined in claim 32 further comprising, if not readable in the first view:

determining readability of the visual element in a zoom view, and

setting the time attribute equal to a product of a speech synthesis constant and a number of characters in the visual element plus a constant indicative of a time necessary to zoom to a title in the visual element in the zoom view if readable in the zoom view.

34. The method defined in claim 33 further comprising, if not readable in the first or zoom view:

computing a zoom factor indicative of an amount of zooming that is necessary for readability of text in the visual element,

determining a time required for panning; and

setting the time attribute equal to a product of a pan pixel constant and a difference between the original text width and height of one line and the display width,

plus a constant indicative of a time necessary to zoom to a title in the visual element in the zoom view,

plus a product of a speech synthesis constant and a result of subtracting a quotient of display height to a minimum readability height from the number of characters in the visual text element.

35. The method defined in claim 32 wherein the display constraints comprise display width and display height and the document information is based on page width and page height.

36. The method defined in claim 32 wherein the first view comprises a thumbnail view.

37. An article of manufacture having one or more recordable media with instructions thereon which, when executed by a system, cause the system to perform a method comprising:

receiving a visual text document element of a document;

computing a time attribute for the visual text element by;

determining any necessary pan and zoom operations; and

determining a time required to perform the operations based on one or more resolutions at which the operations are performed.

38. A method comprising:

receiving a visual document element of a document;

computing a time attribute for the visual element by

performing a zoom operation to a minimal readable character height;

checking width of the element to determine whether the elements fit the display width;

performing a panning operation if the element width doesn'"'"'t fit in the display width.

39. A method comprising:

receiving a visual document element of a document;

computing a time attribute for the visual element by

performing a zoom operation to a first view;

performing panning if the element is not completely visible.

40. A method comprising:

receiving audible, visual, and audiovisual document elements;

selecting either a combination of the visual and audiovisual document elements or a combination of the audible and audiovisual document elements for inclusion in a multimedia representation of the document based on the time and information content attributes;

selecting a first set to maximize information contained in set subject to a given time constraint; and

selecting a second set to maximize information contained in set subject to an amount of time remaining to complete the multimedia representation after maximizing the selected document elements.

41. The method defined in claim 40 wherein selection of either the combination or the audible information is based on an input that is based on one or more application constraints.

42. The method defined in claim 40 wherein maximizing selected document elements is subject to a page thumbnail constraint.

43. The method defined in claim 40 further comprising ordering visual and audiovisual document elements based on ratios of an information content attribute associated with the document element to a time attribute associated with the document element, and wherein selecting either the combination of the visual and audiovisual document elements or the audible document elements for inclusion in the multimedia representation comprises selecting visual and audiovisual document elements to maximize the summation of the information content of the visual and audiovisual document elements while a summation of time attributes associated with selected visual and audiovisual elements is less than a presentation duration of the multimedia presentation.

44. The method defined in claim 43 wherein selecting either the combination of the visual and audiovisual document elements or the audible document elements for inclusion in a multimedia representation further comprises selecting audible elements for inclusion in the multimedia representation to maximize the summation of the information content of the audible document elements while a summation of time attributes associated with selected audible elements is less than a difference between a presentation duration of the multimedia presentation and the time to present the selected visual elements.

45. An article of manufacture having one or more recordable media with instructions thereon which, when executed by a system, cause the system to perform a method comprising:

receiving audible, visual, and audiovisual document elements;

selecting either a combination of the visual and audiovisual document elements or the audible document elements for inclusion in a multimedia representation of the document based on the time and information content attributes;

selecting a first set of document elements with respect to maximizing information contained in first set subject to a given time constraint; and

selecting a second set of document elements with respect to maximizing information contained in the second set subject to an amount of time remaining to complete the multimedia representation after maximizing the selected document elements.

46. A method comprising:

receiving audio and visual elements;

determining audio and visual focus points;

selecting audiovisual elements; and

creating a navigation path for a presentation in a preset time in a constrained display area based on selected audiovisual elements and a combination of the audio and visual elements not part of the selected audiovisual elements.

47. An apparatus comprising:

an input to receive audio and visual elements;

an audio and visual focus point determiner to determine audio and visual focus points;

an audiovisual element selector to select audiovisual elements; and

a navigation path creator to create a navigation path for a presentation in a preset time in a constrained display area based on selected audiovisual elements and a combination of the audio and visual elements not part of the selected audiovisual elements.