METHOD OF PRESENTING A TOPOLOGY, USING A VISUAL OBJECT

• US 20100017418A1
• Filed: 12/20/2005
• Published: 01/21/2010
• Est. Priority Date: 12/22/2004
• Status: Abandoned Application

• Current Assignee: Koninklijke Philips N.V.
• Original Assignee: Koninklijke Philips Electronics N.V. (Koninklijke Philips N.V.)
• Inventors: Sisodia, Rajendra Singh, Gopalakrishnan, Ranjith
• Application Number:
  US11/722,105
• Publication Number:
  US 20100017418A1
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: N/A
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 16/954 Navigation, e.g. using categorised browsing

Abstract

The invention relates to a method of presenting a topology comprising a reference with at least one sub-reference, and an apparatus for presenting the topology. The method comprises the steps of: (110) obtaining topology data representing the topology, —(120) processing the topology data so as to represent the topology by means of a visual object (250) associated with the reference, said object being configured to be visualized in any of a plurality of visual modes, wherein a specific one of the one or more sub-references is associated with a specific one of the plurality of visual modes. A user may browse hierarchical information (the topology data), using the visual object, e.g. by rotating the visual object to a desired visual mode in order to find a desired element of the topology.

Claims

1. A method of presenting a topology comprising a reference with one or more sub-references, the method comprising the steps of:

(110) obtaining topology data representing the topology, and

(120) processing the topology data so as to represent the topology by means of a visual object (250) associated with the reference, said object being configured to be visualized in any of a plurality of visual modes, wherein a specific one of the one or more sub-references is associated with a specific one of the plurality of visual modes.

2. The method of claim 1, further comprising a step (130) of visualizing the visual object in the specific one of the plurality of visual modes associated with the specific one of the one or more sub-references.

3. The method of claim 1, further comprising a step (140) of selecting a particular one of the one or more sub-references of the topology.

4. The method of claim 3, further comprising a step (140) of changing the visual mode in order to select another one of the sub-references.

5. The method of claim 1, comprising a step of assigning, to the specific one of the sub-references, a specific code for identifying the specific one of the plurality of visual modes.

6. The method of claim 5, further comprising the steps of:

obtaining the topology data comprising the specific code via a client device (320), and

visualizing the visual object in the specific one of the plurality of visual modes identified by the specific code.

7. The method of claim 1, wherein the reference is associated with a URL-address (Uniform Resource Locator) of a collection of information items, and respective ones of the sub-references are associated with a respective URL sub-address of a respective one of the information items.

10. A computer program product enabling a programmable device, when executing a computer program of said product, to implement the method of Claim 1.

8. An apparatus (310, 320) for presenting a topology comprising a reference with one or more sub-references, the apparatus comprising a data processor (310, 330) operative to obtain topology data representing the topology, and to process the topology data so as to represent the topology by means of a visual object (250) associated with the reference, said object being configured to be visualized in a plurality of visual modes, wherein a specific one of the one or more sub-references is associated with a specific one of the plurality of visual modes.

9. The apparatus of claim 8, further comprising:

a memory (340) for storing the visual object, and

a visualizing unit (350) for visualizing the object in the specific one of the visual modes.

11. A data structure for presenting a topology comprising a reference with one or more sub-references, wherein the data structure comprises topology data representing the topology, and wherein the topology data is operative to represent the topology by means of a visual object associated with the reference, the object being configured to be visualized in any of a plurality of visual modes, and wherein a specific one of the one or more sub-references is associated with a specific one of the plurality of visual modes.