METHOD AND APPARATUS FOR GENERATING 3D CAROUSEL TREE DATA VISUALIZATION AND RELATED DEVICE

• US 20080295037A1
• Filed: 04/25/2008
• Published: 11/27/2008
• Est. Priority Date: 04/28/2007
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: International Business Machines Corporation
• Original Assignee: International Business Machines Corporation
• Inventors: Liu, Shi Xia, Su, Hui, Cao, Nan
• Granted Patent: US 8,621,359 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 715/852
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 16/904 Browsing; Visualisation therefor for navigating the web G06F16/954; browsing optimisation for the web G06F16/957
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 3/0482 Interaction with lists of selectable items, e.g. menus
• CPC Class Codes: G06T 11/206 Drawing of charts or graphs

Abstract

A method for generating 3D carousel visualization of large-scale tree data, which comprises the steps of: receiving a user'"'"'s selection of a node in the carousel; according to the radius of a sub-carousel corresponding to the user-selected node and the radius of a carousel at which the selected node is located, judging whether or not the sub-carousel can be expanded at the carousel at which the selected node is located; expanding the sub-carousel at the carousel at which the selected node is located, if it is determined that the sub-carousel can be expanded at the carousel at which the selected node is located. A device capable of implementing the method is provided. The number of carousel levels visualized on a visualization device can be adjusted dynamically, and the visualization of a focus becomes more prominent, and relationships between nodes at each level of the tree data visualization get more apparent.

Claims

1. A method for generating a 3D carousel tree data visualization, thecarousel tree data visualization tree data being visualized in the form of multiple levels of 3D carousels, the method comprising the steps of:

receiving a user'"'"'s selection of a node in the 3D carousel;

judging according to a radius of a sub-carousel corresponding to the user-selected node and the radius of a carousel at which the selected node is located, whether or not the sub-carousel can be expanded at the carousel at which the user-selected node is located; and

expanding the sub-carousel at the carousel at which the user-selected node is located, if it is determined that the sub-carousel can be expanded at the carousel at which the user-selected node is located.

2. The method according to claim 1, wherein the radius of the sub-carousel corresponding to the user-selected node depends on at least one of the operation conditions of a visualization device for visualizing the 3D carousel tree data, and the number of children nodes the selected node as a parent node has.

3. The method according to claim 1, wherein the radius of the sub-carousel corresponding to the user-selected node is calculated using the following equation:

r=A ln N+B

Wherein, r is the radius of the sub-carousel corresponding to the user-selected node, A and B are parameters of a visualization region visualizing the multiple levels of 3D carousels, and N is the number of children nodes the user-selected node as a parent node has.

4. The method according to claim 1, wherein the step of judging is according to the radius of the sub-carousel corresponding to the user-selected node and the radius of the carousel at which the selected node is located:

further comprising;

when an expansion of sub-carousel, at the carousel at which the selected node is located, determines that the sub-carousel can be expanded at the carousel at which the selected node is located if the radius of the sub-carousel is smaller than or equal to a threshold related to the radius of the carousel at which the selected node is located.

5. The method according to claim 1, wherein the expanding of the sub-carousel at the carousel at which the selected node is located comprises the steps of:

judging whether or not the number of expanded sub-carousels at the carousel at which the selected node is located is larger than or equal to a maximum number of expanded sub-carousels allowed at the carousel;

expanding the sub-carousel corresponding to the user-selected node at the carousel at which the selected node is located after collapsing at least one expanded sub-carousel at the carousel at which the selected node is located; and

determining that the number of expanded sub-carousels at the carousel at which the selected node is located is larger than or equal to the maximum number of expanded sub-carousels allowed at the carousel.

6. The method according to claim 5, wherein the step of expanding the sub-carousel corresponding to the user-selected node at the carousel at which the selected node is located further comprises the steps of:

judging whether or not there are other sub-carousels at the carousel at which the selected node is located;

calculating the minimum extending angle between respective sub-carousels if it is determined that there are other sub-carousels at the carousel at which the selected node is located; and

arranging, according to the minimum extending angle, the sub-carousel corresponding to the user-selected node at the carousel at which the selected node is located.

7. The method according to claim 6, wherein the minimum extending angle between respective sub-carousels is calculated according to the equation comprising:

the minimum extending angle=arcsin(r_i1/r_i)+arcsin(r_i2/r_i)

wherein, r_i1 denotes the radius of a first sub-carousel, r_i2 denotes the radius of a second sub-carousel; and

r_i denotes the radius of the carousel at which the selected node is selected.

8. The method according to claim 4, wherein a threshold related to the radius of the carousel at which the selected node is located is ¼

of the radius of the carousel at which the selected node is located.

9. A method for generating 3D carousel tree data visualization, the 3D tree data being visualized in the form of multiple levels of 3D carousels, the method comprising the steps of:

setting the total number of visible levels, which is the maximum number of carousel levels that can be visualized in a region where the multiple levels of the 3D carousels are visualized;

receiving a user'"'"'s selection of a node in the carousels;

keeping a carousel at which the node is located and a lower-level carousel thereof, and collapsing other carousels; and

expanding a sub-carousel corresponding to the user-selected node where a top-level carousel is the carousel in which the sub-carousel is expanded and the total number of the visualized carousels does not exceed the total number of the visible levels.

10. The method according to claim 9, wherein the step of expanding the sub-carousel corresponding to the user-selected node where a top-level carousel is the carousel in which the sub-carousel is expanded and the total number of the visualized carousels does not exceed the total number of the visible levels comprising the steps of:

judging, according to the radius of the sub-carousel corresponding to the user-selected node and the radius of the carousel at which the selected node is located, whether or not the sub-carousel can be expanded at the carousel at which the selected node is located;

expanding the sub-carousel at the carousel at which the selected node is located if it is determined that the sub-carousel can be expanded at the carousel at which the selected node is selected;

judging if the number of levels of carousels currently expanded in the region visualizing the multi-levels of the 3D carousels is smaller than the total number of visible levels if it is determined that the sub-carousel cannot be expanded in the carousel at which the selected node is located;

expanding sub-carousel at a upper level of the carousel at which the selected node is located if it is determined that the number of levels of currently expanded carousels is smaller than the total number of visible levels; and

collapsing a bottom-level carousel in the region visualizing a multi-level of the 3D carousels; and

expanding the sub-carousel at the upper level of the carousel at which the selected node is located, if it is determined that the number of levels of currently expanded carousels is not smaller than the total number of visible levels.

11. The method according to claim 10, further comprising:

navigating each level of the carousels and visualizing a carousel level appearing in a region visualizing the multiple levels of the 3D carousels through the navigating operation.

12. A device for generating the 3D carousel tree data visualization, for visualizing tree data in the form of multiple levels of the 3D carousels, the device comprising:

means for receiving a user'"'"'s selection of a node in the carousels;

means for judging, according to the radius of a sub-carousel corresponding to the user-selected node and the radius of a carousel at which the selected node is located, if the sub-carousel can be expanded at the carousel at which the selected node is located; and

means for co-level expanding the sub-carousel at the carousel at which the user-selected node is located, if it is determined that the sub-carousel can be expanded at the carousel at which the selected node is located.

13. The device according to claim 12, wherein the radius of the sub-carousel corresponding to the user-selected node is calculated using the following equation comprising:

r=A ln N+B

wherein, r is the radius of the sub-carousel corresponding to the user-selected node, A and B are parameters of a visualization region visualizing the multiple levels of the 3D carousels, and N is the number of children nodes the user-selected node as a parent node has.

14. The device according to claim 12, wherein judging comprises:

means for sub-carousel radius calculating the radius of sub-carousel;

means for radius threshold determining of a threshold related to the radius of the carousel at which the selected node is located; and

means for comparing the radius of the sub-carousel with the threshold related to the radius of the carousel at which the selected node is located; and

means for determining that the sub-carousel can be expanded at a carousel at which the selected node is located if the radius of the sub-carousel is smaller than or equal to the threshold related with the radius of a carousel at which the selected node is located.

15. The device according to claim 12, wherein the co-level expanding comprises:

means for judging the number of sub-carousels, for judging whether or not the number of expanded sub-carousels at the carousel at which the selected node is located is larger than or equal to the maximum number of expanded sub-carousels allowed at the carousel; and

means for carousel collapsing at least one expanded sub-carousel at the carousel at which the selected node is located, if it is determined that the number of expanded sub-carousels at the carousel at which the selected node is located is larger than or equal to the maximum number of expanded sub-carousels allowed at the carousel; and

means for expanding the sub-carousel corresponding to the user-selected node at the carousel at which the selected node is located if the number of expanded sub-carousels at the carousel at which the user-selected node is located is smaller than the maximum number of expanded sub-carousels allowed at the carousel.

16. The device according to claim 15, wherein the sub-carousel expanding comprises:

means for sub-carousel existence judging if there are other sub-carousels at the carousel at which the user-selected node is located;

means for minimum extending angle calculating to calculate the minimum extending angle between respective sub-carousels if it is determined that there are other sub-carousels at the carousel at which the selected node is located; and

means for selected the node sub-carousel expanding for arranging, according to the minimum extending angle, the sub-carousel corresponding to the user-selected node at the carousel at which the user-selected node is located.

17. The device according to claim 16, wherein the minimum extending angle between respective sub-carousels is calculated by the equation comprising:

the minimum extending angle=arcsin(r_i1/r_i)+arcsin(r_i2/r_i)

wherein, r_i1 denotes the radius of a first sub-carousel, r_i2 denotes the radius of a second sub-carousel, and r_i denotes the radius of the carousel at which the user-selected node is selected.

18. A device for generating a 3D carousel tree data visualization for visualizing a tree data in a form of multiple levels of the 3D carousels, the device comprising:

means for setting a total number of visible levels, the total number of visible levels being the a maximum number of carousel levels that can be visualized in a region where the multiple levels of the 3D carousels are visualized;

means for a user'"'"'s selection of a node in the carousels;

means for current level changing for keeping a carousel at which a node is located and a lower-level carousel thereof, and collapsing other carousels; and

means for expanding a sub-carousel corresponding to the user-selected node where a top-level carousel is the carousel in which the sub-carousel is expanded and the total number of the visualized carousels does not exceed the total number of the visible levels.

19. The device according to claim 18, wherein the expanding comprises:

means for current level expansion judging for judging according to the radius of the sub-carousel corresponding to the user-selected node and the radius of the carousel at which the selected node is located, depending on whether the sub-carousel can be expanded at the carousel at which the user selected node is located;

means for co-level expanding for expanding the sub-carousel at the carousel at which the user-selected node is located if it is determined that the sub-carousel can be expanded at the carousel at which the selected node is selected;

means for judging the number of visible levels, for further judging depending whether the number of levels of carousels currently expanded in the region visualizing the multi-levels of the carousels is smaller than the total number of visible levels if it is determined that the sub-carousel cannot be expanded in the carousel at which the selected node is located;

means for carousel expanding sub-carousel at a upper level of the carousel at which the user-selected node is located if it is determined that the number of levels of currently expanded carousels is smaller than the total number of visible levels, and for collapsing a bottom-level carousel in the region visualizing the multi-levels of the 3D carousels and expanding the sub-carousel at the upper level of the carousel at which the user-selected node is located, if it is determined that the number of levels of currently expanded carousels is not smaller than the total number of visible levels; and

means for carousel navigating each level of the carousels and visualizing a carousel level appearing in the region visualizing the multiple levels of the 3D carousel through the navigating operation.