Identification, Selection, and Display of a Region of Interest in a Document

• US 20100174979A1
• Filed: 06/07/2009
• Published: 07/08/2010
• Est. Priority Date: 01/02/2009
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Apple Inc.
• Original Assignee: Apple Inc.
• Inventors: Levy, Michael Robert, Mansfield, Philip Andrew, Clegg, Derek B.
• Granted Patent: US 9,460,063 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 715/234
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 16/93 Document management systems
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 40/10 Text processing natural language analysis G06F40/20; semantic analysis G06F40/30; processing or translation of natural language G06F40/40
• 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 40/106 Display of layout of documents; Previewing
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 40/117 Tagging; Marking up details of markup languages G06F40/143; Designating a block; Setting of attributes style sheets, e.g. eXtensible Stylesheet Language Transformation [XSLT], G06F40/154
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 40/126 Character encoding
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 40/143 Markup, e.g. Standard Generalized Markup Language [SGML] or Document Type Definition [DTD]
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 40/163 Handling of whitespace
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 40/174 Form filling; Merging
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 40/186 Templates
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 40/205 Parsing
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 40/40 Processing or translation of natural language natural language analysis G06F40/20; semantic analysis G06F40/30
• CPC Class Codes: G06V 30/413 Classification of content, e.g. text, photographs or tables
• CPC Class Codes: G06V 30/414 Extracting the geometrical structure, e.g. layout tree; Block segmentation, e.g. bounding boxes for graphics or text

Abstract

Some embodiments provide a method for displaying a structured document that includes a hierarchy of structural elements. The hierarchy is constructed by analyzing an unstructured document. The method displays the structured document on a device. The method receives a selection of a position of interest in the document. Based on the position of interest, the method identifies a structural element within the hierarchy as a region of interest. The method modifies the display of the document to highlight the identified region of interest.

Claims

1. A computer readable medium storing a computer program which when executed by at least one processor displays a document, the computer program comprising sets of instructions for:

defining a structured document comprising a hierarchy of structural elements, the hierarchy constructed by analyzing an unstructured document;

displaying the document on a device;

receiving a selection of a position of interest in the document;

based on the position of interest, identifying a structural element within the hierarchy as a region of interest; and

modifying the display of the document to highlight the identified region of interest.

2. The computer readable medium of claim 1, wherein the device is a small-screen device.

3. The computer readable medium of claim 2, wherein the device is a handheld device.

4. The computer readable medium of claim 2, wherein the unstructured document comprises a plurality of unassociated primitive elements, wherein the set of instructions for defining the structured document comprises sets of instructions for:

creating associations between the primitive elements to define structural elements; and

defining the hierarchy of structural elements.

5. The computer readable medium of claim 1, wherein the set of instructions for identifying the structural element comprises sets of instructions for:

identifying the structural element at a lowest level of the hierarchy that includes the position of interest; and

identifying structural elements at higher levels of the hierarchy that include the structural element identified at the lowest level of the hierarchy until a structural element qualifying as a region of interest is reached.

6. The computer readable medium of claim 5, wherein the structural element at the lowest level of the hierarchy is a set of glyphs associated as a word, and the structural element qualifying as a region of interest is a paragraph that includes the word.

7. The computer readable medium of claim 5, wherein the position of interest is within a graphic element and the region of interest is the graphic element.

8. The computer readable medium of claim 1, wherein the set of instructions for receiving a selection of a position of interest comprises a set of instructions for receiving a double tap at a particular position on a touchscreen device.

9. The computer readable medium of claim 1, wherein the set of instructions for modifying the display of the document comprises a set of instructions for a combination of zooming, rotating, and translating of the document in order to center the region of interest.

10. The computer readable medium of claim 1, wherein the set of instructions for modifying the display of the document comprises sets of instructions for:

defining a rectangle of interest based on the structural element that is the region of interest; and

zooming the display to maximize the size of the rectangle of interest while displaying the entire rectangle of interest.

11. The computer readable medium of claim 10, wherein the rectangle of interest is zoomed such that a length of the rectangle in a first direction is equal to a length of a display on the device in the first direction, wherein the set of instructions for modifying the display of the document further comprises sets of instructions for centering the rectangle of interest in the display in a second direction.

12. The computer readable medium of claim 11, wherein the first direction is horizontal and the second direction is vertical.

13. The computer readable medium of claim 11, wherein the first direction is vertical and the second direction is horizontal.

14. The computer readable medium of claim 1, wherein the computer program further comprises sets of instructions for:

receiving an input to move from the region of interest; and

modifying the display of the document to highlight a structurally related region of interest.

15. The computer readable medium of claim 14, wherein the structurally related region of interest is a structural element that is previous to the identified structural element in a reading order.

16. The computer readable medium of claim 14, wherein the structurally related region of interest is a structural element that is after the identified structural element in a reading order.

17. The computer readable medium of claim 14, wherein the structurally related region of interest is a structural element on a different page in the document than the initial region of interest, wherein the structured document includes a link between the region of interest and the structurally related region of interest.

18. The computer readable medium of claim 1, wherein the unstructured document is a vector graphics document.

19. The computer readable medium of claim 1, wherein the unstructured document is a portable document format (PDF) document.

20. A computer readable medium storing a computer program for a handheld display device, the computer program for execution by at least one processor, the computer program comprising sets of instructions for:

analyzing an unstructured document that comprises a plurality of unassociated primitive elements to define a structured document comprising a hierarchy of structural elements, the structural elements defined by associating sets of primitive elements;

displaying, on the handheld display device, a particular portion of the structured document in a first layout when the display device is at a first orientation;

displaying, on the handheld display device, the particular portion of the structured document in a second layout different than the first when the display device is at a second orientation.

21. The computer readable medium of claim 20, wherein the first orientation is a horizontal orientation and the second orientation is a vertical orientation.

22. The computer readable medium of claim 21, wherein the portion of the structured document comprises text that is arranged in one column, wherein the first layout displays the text in three columns and the second layout displays the text in two columns.

23. The computer readable medium of claim 20, wherein the handheld display device comprises an accelerometer for determining the orientation of the display device.

24. The computer readable medium of claim 20, wherein the handheld display device is an iPhone®

.

25. A method for defining a program for displaying a document, the method comprising:

defining a module for defining a structured document comprising a hierarchy of structural elements, the hierarchy constructed by analyzing an unstructured document;

defining a module for displaying the document on a device;

defining a module for receiving a selection of a position of interest in the document;

defining a module for based on the position of interest, identifying a structural element within the hierarchy as a region of interest; and

defining a module for modifying the display of the document to highlight the identified region of interest.

26. The method of claim 25, wherein the program is defined for firmware of a handheld device.