ANNOTATION METHOD AND SYSTEM FOR CONFERENCING

• US 20120144283A1
• Filed: 12/06/2011
• Published: 06/07/2012
• Est. Priority Date: 12/06/2010
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Smart Technologies ULC (Hon Hai Precision Industry Co., Ltd.)
• Original Assignee: Smart Technologies ULC (Hon Hai Precision Industry Co., Ltd.)
• Inventors: HILL, DOUGLAS BLAIR, Garin, Alexander, Bax, Bradley James, Mahovsky, Jeffrey Adam
• Granted Patent: US 9,588,951 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 715/211
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 40/169 Annotation, e.g. comment data or footnotes
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 40/171 by use of digital ink

Abstract

A conferencing system comprises a plurality of computing devices communicating over at least one network during a conference session, at least one of the computing devices being configured to share content displayed thereby with other computing devices, the other computing devices displaying the shared content, at least one of the computing devices also being configured to accept input annotations made on the displayed shared content and to share input annotations with other computing devices over a channel independent of the shared content.

Claims

1. A conferencing system comprising:

a plurality of computing devices communicating over at least one network during a conference session, at least one of said computing devices being configured to share content displayed thereby with other computing devices, said other computing devices displaying the shared content, at least one of said computing devices also being configured to accept input annotations made on the displayed shared content and to share input annotations with other computing devices over a channel independent of the shared content.

2. The conferencing system of claim 1 wherein a plurality of said computing devices is configured to share content, to accept input annotations and to share input annotations with other computing devices.

3. The conferencing system of claim 2 wherein when a computing device is conditioned to share content, the computing device establishes an annotation connection with said other computing devices.

4. The conferencing system of claim 3 wherein each of said computing devices party to an annotation connection creates an annotation layer over displayed shared content, said annotation layer being configured accept input annotations and to display shared input annotations.

5. The conferencing system of claim 4 wherein the shared content comprises a portion of or an entire display screen image.

6. The conferencing system of claim 5 wherein each computing device configured to share content comprises a conferencing application and wherein each computing device configured to accept and share input annotations comprises an annotation engine, the conferencing engines and annotation engines of said computing devices communicating over separate connections.

7. The conferencing system of claim 6 wherein shared content received by each other computing device is displayed in a window of said conference application.

8. The conferencing system of claim 6 wherein each annotation engine is conditioned to an annotation mode to receive digital ink annotations in response to at least one of pointer interaction with an input surface or selection of a pointer icon.

9. The conferencing system of claim 8 wherein digital nk annotations are shared with other computing devices in segments.

10. The conferencing system of claim 9 wherein each ink segment comprises a plurality of ink sample points.

11. The conferencing system of claim 10 wherein each of said other computing device acknowledges receipt of ink segments.

12. The conferencing system of claim 11 wherein the computing device sharing ink segments adjusts the ink segments based on received acknowledgements.

13. The conferencing system of claim 12 wherein each ink segment comprises a plurality of ink sample points received over a segmentation time period and wherein the segmentation time period is adjusted based on received acknowledgements.

14. The conferencing system of claim 13 wherein the segmentation time period is increased or decreased depending on the number of acknowledgements received within a threshold time period.

15. The conferencing system of claim 10 wherein the other computing devices receiving ink segments display the received segments over the displayed shared content as the ink segments are received.

16. The conferencing system of claim 15 wherein each ink segment comprises a timestamp and wherein each received ink segment is drawn over the displayed shared content at a rate determined by the timestamp.

17. The conferencing system of claim 16 wherein the rate is substantially equal to the rate at which the ink segment of the digital ink annotation to be shared was input.

18. The conferencing system of claim 15 wherein the other computing devices predict and display ink points when expected subsequent ink segments are not received.

19. A method comprising:

accepting annotations input on an image displayed by a computing device that is shared with at least one other computing device; and

transmitting said input annotations to said at least one other computing devices via a connection that is independent of the connection over which the image is shared.

20. The method of claim 19 wherein the image and input annotations are shared with a plurality of other computing devices.

22. The method of claim 19 wherein the shared image is one of a portion or an entire display screen image.

23. The method of claim 19 wherein the input annotations are transmitted in segments.

24. A method of drawing a calligraphic ink portion layer, said ink portion comprising a plurality of input points, the method comprising:

determining whether the distance between consecutive input points of the ink portion being drawn does not exceed a threshold;

ignoring the latter consecutive sample point when said distance is less than said threshold, else joining said consecutive input points with a line and calculating an angle of said line; and

calculating a width of said pointer tip based on said angle, said width being applied to said ink portion drawn between said consecutive sample points.

25. The method of claim 24 wherein said step of calculating said angle of line L comprises the further steps of calculating the angle θ

₀ from the x-axis to line L in an x-y coordinate system, and subtracting said angle θ

₀ by a predefined angle φ

to obtain an adjusted angle θ

₁, wherein said x-y coordinate system is rotated said angle φ

.

26. The method of claim 25 wherein said width W is set within a range having a maximum value (W_max) and a minimum value (W_min), said range being determined based on said distance between said consecutive ink sample points.

27. The method of claim 26 wherein when it is determined that said length of line L is greater than said threshold, inserting points along line L between said consecutive sample points, and when it is determined that said length of line L is less than D_max, expanding said line L to its left and right for a total width of W.

28. The method of claim 27 comprising the further steps of calculating the number of points to be inserted along said line based on a percentage of width change per sample point.

29. A method of drawing a calligraphic ink portion, said ink portion comprising a plurality of input points, the method comprising:

calculating lines extending between consecutive input points;

determining shapes surrounding said input points, at least some of said shapes being selected based on the angle between adjacent calculated lines;

for each pair of consecutive input points, joining the perimeters of the shapes surrounding the consecutive input points with lines on opposite sides of the calculated line extending between the consecutive input points; and

using the lines and portions of the shapes to define an outline of the ink portion.

30. The method of claim 29 wherein the size of at least some of the shapes is selected based on the angle between adjacent calculated lines.

31. The method of claim 29 wherein the shape surrounding the last input point of said ink portion is selected based on the shape surrounding another input point.

32. The method of claim 31 wherein the another input point is the input point previous to the last input point.

33. The method of claim 29 wherein each shape has a gap therein confined with said outline.