Resolution Independent Vector Display of Internet Content

• US 20070288855A1
• Filed: 04/23/2007
• Published: 12/13/2007
• Est. Priority Date: 06/12/2000
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: SoftView LLC
• Original Assignee: SoftView LLC
• Inventors: Sherman, Scott, Rohrabaugh, Gary
• Granted Patent: US 7,823,083 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 715/760
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 16/95 Retrieval from the web
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 16/9537 Spatial or temporal dependent retrieval, e.g. spatiotemporal queries
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 16/957 Browsing optimisation, e.g. caching or content distillation
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 16/9574 of access to content, e.g. by caching
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 16/9577 Optimising the visualization of content, e.g. distillation of HTML documents
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 16/958 Organisation or management of web site content, e.g. publishing, maintaining pages or automatic linking
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 16/986 Document structures and storage, e.g. HTML extensions
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 2203/04806 Zoom, i.e. interaction techniques or interactors for controlling the zooming operation
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 2212/1048 Scalability
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 3/0481 based on specific properties of the displayed interaction object or a metaphor-based environment, e.g. interaction with desktop elements like windows or icons, or assisted by a cursor's changing behaviour or appearance
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 3/0488 using a touch-screen or digitiser, e.g. input of commands through traced gestures
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 40/103 Formatting, i.e. changing of presentation of documents automatic justification G06F40/189; automatic line break hyphenation G06F40/191
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 40/134 Hyperlinking
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 40/143 Markup, e.g. Standard Generalized Markup Language [SGML] or Document Type Definition [DTD]
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 9/451 Execution arrangements for user interfaces
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 30/02 Marketing; Price estimation or determination; Fundraising
• CPC Class Codes: G09G 2340/0407 Resolution change, inclusive of the use of different resolutions for different screen areas
• CPC Class Codes: G09G 2340/0492 Change of orientation of the displayed image, e.g. upside-down, mirrored
• CPC Class Codes: G09G 5/24 Generation of individual character patterns
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 67/02 based on web technology, e.g. hypertext transfer protocol [HTTP]
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 67/04 : specially adapted for terminals or networks with limited capabilities; specially adapted for terminal portability
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 67/565 : Conversion or adaptation of application format or content adding application control or application functional data H04L67/561

Abstract

Apparatus, methods and software for facilitating resolution-independent vector display of Internet (Web) content to allow Web pages to be scaled (zoomed) and panned for better viewing and/or to fit any resolution or screen size. According to one aspect, novel server-side processing of HTML-based Web content is provided that translates the Web content to produce translated scalable content comprising a scalable vector representation of the Web content. The translated scalable content is then processed by a client device to enable the Web content to be rapidly rendered, zoomed, and panned. According to another aspect, vector-based display lists are generated to provide further enhancements in rendering speed.

Claims

1. A method comprising:

enable a user to request, via a client device, access to a Web page comprising HTML-based content defining an original page layout and attributes of content on the Web page; and

, in response thereto,

receiving, at the client device, translated scalable content comprising a scalar vector representation of the HTML-based Web content associated with a Web page; and

employing the translated scalable content and/or data derived therefrom to,

render at least a portion of the Web page on a display of the client device using a first scale factor; and

re-render the Web page on the display in response to associated user inputs to enable a user to iteratively zoom in and out a display of the Web page.

2. The method of claim 1, wherein the client device comprises a mobile phone.

3. The method of claim 1, wherein the translated scalable content is generated by a proxy server employed to translate the HTML-based Web content into the scalar vector representation thereof.

4. The method of claim 3, further comprising:

generating a request of the Web page containing indicia indicating the request is to be routed to the proxy server for translation; and

sending the request to one of the proxy server or a service provider gateway via which the request is to be routed to the proxy server.

5. The method of claim 1, wherein the HTML-based Web content includes at least one hyperlink, the method further comprising:

enabling the user to select the hyperlink; and

, in response thereto,

receiving additional translated scalable content comprising a scalable vector representation of Web content associated with the hyperlink; and

employing the additional translated scalable content and/or data derived therefrom to render the display.

6. The method of claim 1, wherein the scalable vector representation of the HTML-based Web content includes vector-based page layout information.

7. The method of claim 6, wherein the Web page comprises a plurality of objects comprising at least one of text objects, graphic layout objects, graphic objects and/or image objects, and the translated scalable content includes an object vector and an object bounding box associated with each object.

8. The method of claim 7, further comprising:

mapping the object vectors and associated bounding boxes to a virtual display in memory on the client device; and

employing the virtual display to render the Web page.

9. The method of claim 8, further comprising:

determining a first scale factor and offset in response to one or more corresponding user inputs defining a user-selectable zoom level and pan corresponding to a rendered display of the Web page desired by a user;

determining a virtual display bounding box for the virtual display associated with the first scale factor and offset;

identifying object bounding boxes having at least a portion falling within the virtual display bounding box; and

,

for each of such object bounding boxes,

retrieving object content associated with that object bounding box;

determining an applicable datum offset at which the object content is to be rendered on the display;

determining an applicable scale factor to be employed to render the object content; and

employing the applicable datum offset and the applicable scale factor to render the object content on the display.

10. The method of claim 9, wherein the virtual display has a much greater resolution than the display.

11. The method of claim 9, wherein the virtual display is associated with a fixed reference frame, and the virtual display bounding box is maintained to have a size matching the resolution of the content display area defined for the display.

12. The method of claim 1, wherein the scalable vector representation of the HTML-based Web content includes a plurality of text objects, each text object including text associated with the object, a typefont and size for the text, and scalable layout information used for laying out the text on a scaled page layout, the method further comprising:

determining a layout location of a text object on a to be rendered page;

determining an applicable scale factor to be applied to render the text; and

applying the scale factor to a scalable typefont corresponding to the typefont of the text.

13. The method of claim 1, further comprising:

enabling the user to select an area of the display to zoom in on via an associated user input; and

in response thereto,

re-rendering the display such that content in the selected area is scaled to be rendered substantially across at least one of a width and a height of the display.

14. The method of claim 1, further comprising enabling the user to pan a display of the Web page substantially in real-time.

15. The method of claim 1, wherein the page layout of the Web page is defined to have an original aspect ratio, and wherein the translated scalable content and/or or data derived therefrom is scaled to render a display having a different aspect ratio.

16. The method of claim 1, further comprising enabling a user to view a column of the Web content at a higher resolution than a current resolution via an associated user input, wherein in response to the user input, the display is re-rendered such that content corresponding to the selected column is displayed across the display.

17. The method of claim 16, wherein the content of the column is reformatted to fit characteristics of the display when the display is re-rendered.

18. The method of claim 1, wherein the Web content includes at least one image, the method further comprising enabling a user to view an image at a higher resolution than a current resolution via an associated user input, wherein in response to the user input, the display is re-rendered such that the image is displayed substantially across at least one of a width and height of the display.

19. The method of claim 1, further comprising enabling a user to view a paragraph of the Web content at a higher resolution than a current resolution via an associated user input, wherein in response to the user input, the display is re-rendered such that content corresponding to the selected paragraph is displayed substantially across the display.

20. The method of claim 19, wherein the content of the paragraph is reformatted to fit characteristics of the display when the display is re-rendered.

21. The method of claim 1, wherein the translated scalable content includes text content, scalable layout information, and image content, the method further comprising:

receiving data corresponding to the text content and scalable layout information via a first connection; and

receiving content corresponding to at least one image via a second connection.

22. The method of claim 1, wherein the scalable translated content includes translated image content comprising image thumbnail data and image data corresponding to one of an original or compressed image content, the method further comprising:

receiving image thumbnail data for an image;

rendering the image thumbnail on the display;

receiving the image data associated with the image; and

processing and scaling the image data to re-render a portion of the display occupied by the thumbnail image to replace the thumbnail image with a scaled image.

23. The method of claim 1, further comprising:

generating a vector-based display list derived, at least in part, via use of the translated scalable content; and

employing the display list to re-render the display of the Web page.

46. The mobile device of claim 1, wherein at least a portion of the instructions comprise Java-based instructions configured to be executed on a Java virtual machine.

24. A mobile device, comprising:

processing means;

wireless communications means, to facilitate wireless communication with a network via which Web content may be accessed;

user input means, to facilitate user input;

display means, to display rendered content; and

storage means, in which a plurality of instructions are stored,

wherein, upon execution of the instructions by said processing means, the mobile device is enabled to perform operations, including,

rendering a browser interface via which a user is enabled to request to access a Web page comprising HTML-based Web content defining an original page layout of content on the Web page;

receiving translated scalable content comprising a scalar vector representation of the HTML-based Web content associated with a Web page; and

employing the translated scalable content and/or data derived therefrom to,

render at least a portion of the Web page on a display of the client device using a first scale factor; and

re-render the Web page on the display in response to associated user inputs to enable a user to iteratively zoom in and out a display of the Web page.

25. The mobile device of claim 24, wherein the mobile device comprises a mobile phone.

26. The mobile device of claim 24, wherein the translated scalable content is generated by a proxy server employed to translate the HTML-based Web content into the scalar vector representation thereof.

27. The mobile device of claim 26, wherein execution of the instructions performs further operations comprising:

generating a request of the Web page containing indicia indicating the request is to be routed to the proxy server for translation; and

sending the request to one of the proxy server or a service provider gateway via which the request is to be routed to the proxy server.

28. The mobile device of claim 24, wherein the HTML-based Web content includes at least one hyperlink, and wherein execution of the instructions perform further operations comprising:

enabling the user to select the hyperlink; and

, in response thereto,

receiving additional translated scalable content comprising a scalable vector representation of Web content associated with the hyperlink; and

employing the additional translated scalable content and/or data derived therefrom to render the display.

29. The mobile device of claim 24, wherein the scalable vector representation of the HTML-based Web content includes vector-based page layout information.

30. The mobile device of claim 29, wherein the Web page comprises a plurality of objects comprising at least one of text objects, graphic layout objects, graphic objects and/or image objects, and the translated scalable content includes an object vector and an object bounding box associated with each object.

31. The mobile device of claim 30, further comprising dynamic memory having at least a portion employed for rendering purposes, wherein execution of the instructions perform further operations comprising:

mapping the object vectors and associated bounding boxes to a virtual display in the dynamic memory on the client device; and

employing the virtual display to render the Web page.

32. The mobile device of claim 31, wherein execution of the instructions perform further operations comprising:

determining a first scale factor and offset in response to one or more corresponding user inputs defining a user-selectable zoom level and pan corresponding to a rendered display of the Web page desired by a user;

determining a virtual display bounding box for the virtual display associated with the first scale factor and offset;

identifying object bounding boxes having at least a portion falling within the virtual display bounding box; and

,

for each of such object bounding boxes,

retrieving object content associated with that object bounding box;

determining an applicable datum offset at which the object content is to be rendered on the display;

determining an applicable scale factor to be employed to render the object content; and

employing the applicable datum offset and the applicable scale factor to render the object content on the display.

33. The mobile device of claim 32, wherein the virtual display has a much greater resolution than the display.

34. The mobile device of claim 32, wherein the virtual display is associated with a fixed reference frame, and the virtual display bounding box is maintained to have a size matching the resolution of the content display area defined for the display.

35. The mobile device of claim 24, wherein the scalable vector representation of the HTML-based Web content includes a plurality of text objects, each text object including text associated with the object, a typefont and size for the text, and scalable layout information used for laying out the text on a scaled page layout, and wherein execution of the instructions perform further operations comprising:

determining a layout location of a text object on a to be rendered page;

determining an applicable scale factor to be applied to render the text; and

applying the scale factor to a scalable typefont corresponding to the typefont of the text.

36. The mobile device of claim 24, wherein execution of the instructions perform further operations comprising:

enabling the user to select an area of the display to zoom in on via an associated user input; and

in response thereto,

re-rendering the display such that content in the selected area is scaled to be rendered substantially across at least one of a width and a height of the display.

37. The mobile device of claim 24, wherein execution of the instructions perform further operations comprising enabling the user to pan a display of the Web page substantially in real-time.

38. The mobile device of claim 24, wherein the page layout of the Web page is defined to have an original aspect ratio, and wherein the translated scalable content and/or or data derived therefrom is scaled to render a display having a different aspect ratio.

39. The mobile device of claim 38, wherein execution of the instructions perform further operations comprising enabling a user to view a column of the Web content at a higher resolution than a current resolution via an associated user input, wherein in response to the user input, the display is re-rendered such that content corresponding to the selected column is displayed across the display.

40. The mobile device of claim 39, wherein the content of the column is reformatted to fit characteristics of the display when the display is re-rendered.

41. The mobile device of claim 24, wherein the Web content includes at least one image, and wherein execution of the instructions perform further operations comprising enabling a user to view an image at a higher resolution than a current resolution via an associated user input, wherein in response to the user input, the display is re-rendered such that the image is displayed substantially across at least one of a width and height of the display.

42. The mobile device of claim 24, wherein execution of the instructions perform further operations comprising enabling a user to view a paragraph of the Web content at a higher resolution than a current resolution via an associated user input, wherein in response to the user input, the display is re-rendered such that content corresponding to the selected paragraph is displayed substantially across the display.

43. The mobile device of claim 42, wherein the content of the paragraph is reformatted to fit characteristics of the display when the display is re-rendered.

44. The mobile device of claim 24, wherein the translated scalable content includes text content, scalable layout information, and image content, and wherein execution of the instructions perform further operations comprising:

receiving data corresponding to the text content and scalable layout information via a first connection; and

receiving content corresponding to at least one image via a second connection.

45. The mobile device of claim 24, wherein the scalable translated content includes translated image content comprising image thumbnail data and image data corresponding to one of an original or compressed image content, and wherein execution of the instructions perform further operations comprising:

receiving image thumbnail data for an image;

rendering the image thumbnail on the display;

receiving the image data associated with the image; and

processing and scaling the image data to re-render a portion of the display occupied by the thumbnail image to replace the thumbnail image with a scaled image.

47. The mobile device of claim 24, wherein the processing means includes programmed circuitry that is employed to perform at least a portion of the operations.

48. A machine-readable medium having stored thereon a plurality of instructions that when executed by a mobile device having a display performs operations comprising:

rendering a browser interface via which a user is enabled to request to access a Web page comprising HTML-based Web content defining an original page layout of content on the Web page;

receiving translated scalable content comprising a scalar vector representation of the HTML-based Web content associated with a Web page; and

employing the translated scalable content and/or data derived therefrom to,

render at least a portion of the Web page on a display of the client device using a first scale factor; and

re-render the Web page on the display in response to associated user inputs to enable a user to iteratively zoom in and out a display of the Web page.

49. The machine-readable medium of claim 48, wherein the mobile device comprises a mobile phone.

50. The machine-readable medium of claim 48, wherein the translated scalable content is generated by a proxy server employed to translate the HTML-based Web content into the scalar vector representation thereof.

51. The machine-readable medium of claim 50, wherein execution of the instructions performs further operations comprising:

generating a request of the Web page containing indicia indicating the request is to be routed to the proxy server for translation; and

sending the request to one of the proxy server or a service provider gateway via which the request is to be routed to the proxy server.

52. The machine-readable medium of claim 48, wherein the HTML-based Web content includes at least one hyperlink, and wherein execution of the instructions perform further operations comprising:

enabling the user to select the hyperlink; and

, in response thereto,

receiving additional translated scalable content comprising a scalable vector representation of Web content associated with the hyperlink; and

employing the additional translated scalable content and/or data derived therefrom to render the display.

53. The machine-readable medium of claim 48, wherein the scalable vector representation of the HTML-based Web content includes vector-based page layout information.

54. The machine-readable medium of claim 53, wherein the Web page comprises a plurality of objects comprising at least one of text objects, graphic layout objects, graphic objects and/or image objects, and the translated scalable content includes an object vector and an object bounding box associated with each object.

55. The machine-readable medium of claim 54, further comprising dynamic memory having at least a portion employed for rendering purposes, wherein execution of the instructions perform further operations comprising:

mapping the object vectors and associated bounding boxes to a virtual display in the dynamic memory on the client device; and

employing the virtual display to render the Web page.

56. The machine-readable medium of claim 55, wherein execution of the instructions perform further operations comprising:

determining a first scale factor and offset in response to one or more corresponding user inputs defining a user-selectable zoom level and pan corresponding to a rendered display of the Web page desired by a user;

determining a virtual display bounding box for the virtual display associated with the first scale factor and offset;

identifying object bounding boxes having at least a portion falling within the virtual display bounding box; and

,

for each of such object bounding boxes,

retrieving object content associated with that object bounding box;

determining an applicable datum offset at which the object content is to be rendered on the display;

determining an applicable scale factor to be employed to render the object content; and

employing the applicable datum offset and the applicable scale factor to render the object content on the display.

57. The machine-readable medium of claim 56, wherein the virtual display has a much greater resolution than the display.

58. The machine-readable medium of claim 56, wherein the virtual display is associated with a fixed reference frame, and the virtual display bounding box is maintained to have a size matching the resolution of the content display area defined for the display.

59. The machine-readable medium of claim 48, wherein the scalable vector representation of the HTML-based Web content includes a plurality of text objects, each text object including text associated with the object, a typefont and size for the text, and scalable layout information used for laying out the text on a scaled page layout, and wherein execution of the instructions perform further operations comprising:

determining a layout location of a text object on a to be rendered page;

determining an applicable scale factor to be applied to render the text; and

applying the scale factor to a scalable typefont corresponding to the typefont of the text.

60. The machine-readable medium of claim 48, wherein execution of the instructions perform further operations comprising:

enabling the user to select an area of the display to zoom in on via an associated user input; and

in response thereto,

re-rendering the display such that content in the selected area is scaled to be rendered substantially across at least one of a width and a height of the display.

61. The machine-readable medium of claim 48, wherein execution of the instructions perform further operations comprising enabling the user to pan a display of the Web page substantially in real-time.

62. The machine-readable medium of claim 48, wherein the page layout of the Web page is defined to have an original aspect ratio, and wherein the translated scalable content and/or or data derived therefrom is scaled to render a display having a different aspect ratio.

63. The machine-readable medium of claim 62, wherein execution of the instructions perform further operations comprising enabling a user to view a column of the Web content at a higher resolution than a current resolution via an associated user input, wherein in response to the user input, the display is re-rendered such that content corresponding to the selected column is displayed across the display.

64. The machine-readable medium of claim 63, wherein the content of the column is reformatted to fit characteristics of the display when the display is re-rendered.

65. The machine-readable medium of claim 48, wherein the Web content includes at least one image, and wherein execution of the instructions perform further operations comprising enabling a user to view an image at a higher resolution than a current resolution via an associated user input, wherein in response to the user input, the display is re-rendered such that the image is displayed substantially across at least one of a width and height of the display.

66. The machine-readable medium of claim 48, wherein execution of the instructions perform further operations comprising enabling a user to view a paragraph of the Web content at a higher resolution than a current resolution via an associated user input, wherein in response to the user input, the display is re-rendered such that content corresponding to the selected paragraph is displayed substantially across the display.

67. The machine-readable medium of claim 66, wherein the content of the paragraph is reformatted to fit characteristics of the display when the display is re-rendered.

68. The machine-readable medium of claim 48, wherein the translated scalable content includes text content, scalable layout information, and image content, and wherein execution of the instructions perform further operations comprising:

receiving data corresponding to the text content and scalable layout information via a first connection; and

receiving content corresponding to at least one image via a second connection.

69. The machine-readable medium of claim 48, wherein the scalable translated content includes translated image content comprising image thumbnail data and image data corresponding to one of an original or compressed image content, and wherein execution of the instructions perform further operations comprising:

receiving image thumbnail data for an image;

rendering the image thumbnail on the display;

receiving the image data associated with the image; and

processing and scaling the image data to re-render a portion of the display occupied by the thumbnail image to replace the thumbnail image with a scaled image.

70. The machine-readable medium of claim 48, further comprising:

generating a vector-based display list derived, at least in part, via use of the translated scalable content; and

employing the display list to re-render the display of the Web page.

71. The machine-readable medium of claim 48, wherein at least a portion of the instructions comprise Java-based instructions configured to be executed on a Java virtual machine.

72. A device comprising:

communications means for enabling the device to be linked to a network via which Web content may be accessed;

display means;

means for enabling a user to request access to a Web page including content having an original page layout and attributes;

means for receiving translated scalable content comprising a scalable vector representation of the Web page, said translated scalable content supporting a scalable resolution-independent display of the Web page that substantially retains the original page layout and attributes of the Web page content when it is rendered;

means for rendering a first display of the Web page on the display means via use of the translated scalable content using a first scaling factor; and

means for enabling a user to iteratively zoom in and out on user-selectable portions of the Web page on the display means via associated user interface inputs made by a user.

73. The device of claim 72, further comprising:

means for enabling a user of the device to select an area of the display means to zoom in on, and in response thereto, re-rendering the Web page to display the selected area substantially across the display means.

74. The device of claim 72, further comprising:

means for enabling a user to pan a display of the Web content on the display means in response to a corresponding user input.

75. The device of claim 72, further comprising:

means for enabling a user to view a column of the Web content at a higher resolution via an associated user input, wherein in response to the user input, the display means is re-rendered such that content corresponding to the selected column is displayed substantially across the display means.

76. The device of claim 72, further comprising:

means for enabling a user to view an image in the Web content at a higher resolution via an associated user input, wherein in response to the user input, the display means is re-rendered such that image is displayed substantially across the display means.

77. The device of claim 72, wherein the device comprises a mobile device, and the communication means includes a wireless transceiver to enable the device to be linked to the network via a wireless link.

78. The device of claim 72, wherein the translated scalable content includes scalable vector-based page layout information.

79. The device of claim 72, further comprising means for generating a scalable display list via user of the translated scalable content, wherein the scalable display list is scaled to render the Web page at different scale factors.