CACHING INTERMEDIATE DATA FOR SCROLL VIEW RENDERING

• US 20120284664A1
• Filed: 05/06/2011
• Published: 11/08/2012
• Est. Priority Date: 05/06/2011
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Microsoft Technology Licensing LLC (Microsoft Corporation)
• Original Assignee: Microsoft Corporation
• Inventors: Zhao, Keping
• Granted Patent: US 9,552,212 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 715/784
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 3/0485 Scrolling or panning
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 9/451 Execution arrangements for user interfaces

Abstract

Data to be rendered for a scrolling display is processed into an intermediate format. The intermediate format includes data that maps directly to the rendered, displayed format with little computation, yet is smaller in size than the rendered data. This intermediate format is cached, and is rendered on demand during scrolling. During idle times of the display, original data, likely to be accessed in response to scrolling the display, can be prefetched and transformed to the intermediate format.

Claims

1. A computer-implemented process comprising:

receiving a portion of original data into memory;

transforming the portion of the original data into an intermediate format in which data has a direct mapping to a display format

rendering the data in the intermediate format into the display format; and

displaying the rendered data.

2. The computer-implemented process of claim 1, wherein when a user indicates that another portion of the original data is to be viewed, the process further comprises:

receiving the other portion of the original data;

transforming the other portion of the original data into the intermediate format;

rendering the data in the intermediate format into the display format; and

displaying the rendered data.

3. The computer-implemented process of claim 1, further comprising:

caching the data in the intermediate format.

4. The computer-implemented process of claim 3, further comprising:

as a user controls a view of the data to request display of different portions of the original data, if a requested portion of the original data already has its intermediate format in the cache, then requesting the data in the intermediate format from the cache, rendering the data into the display format, and displaying the rendered data.

5. The computer-implemented process of claim 4, further comprising discarding the display format data when no longer used.

6. The computer-implemented process of claim 3, further comprising prefetching the original data and transforming the prefetched original data into data in the intermediate format during idle times of the display based on a prediction of likely portions of the original data to be requested.

7. An article of manufacture comprising:

a computer storage medium;

computer program instructions stored on the computer storage medium which, when processed by a processing device, instruct the processing device to perform a process comprising;

receiving a portion of original data into memory;

transforming the portion of the original data into an intermediate format in which data has a direct mapping to a display format

rendering the data in the intermediate format into the display format; and

displaying the rendered data.

8. The article of manufacture of claim 7, wherein when a user indicates that another portion of the original data is to be viewed, the process performed further comprises:

receiving the other portion of the original data;

transforming the other portion of the original data into the intermediate format;

rendering the data in the intermediate format into the display format; and

displaying the rendered data.

9. The article of manufacture of claim 7, wherein the process performed further comprises:

caching the data in the intermediate format.

10. The article of manufacture of claim 9, wherein the process performed further comprises:

as a user controls a view of the data to request display of different portions of the original data, if a requested portion of the original data already has its intermediate format in the cache, then requesting the data in the intermediate format from the cache, rendering the data into the display format, and displaying the rendered data.

11. The article of manufacture of claim 10, wherein the process performed further comprises discarding the display format data when no longer used.

12. The article of manufacture of claim 9, further comprising prefetching the original data and transforming the prefetched original data into data in the intermediate format during idle times of the display based on a prediction of likely portions of the original data to be requested.

13. A computing machine comprising:

a transform module having an input for receiving data in an original format and an output providing the data in an intermediate format for storage in memory in which data has a direct mapping to a display format;

a rendering module having an input for receiving the data in the intermediate format and an output providing the data rendered into the display format; and

a display having an input for receiving the rendered data and displaying the rendered data.

14. The computing machine of claim 13, wherein the transform module further comprises an input for receiving an indication that another portion of the original data is to be viewed, the transform module further retrieving the other portion of the original data and providing at the output the other portion of the original data transformed into the intermediate format, such that the rendering module processes the other data in the intermediate format into the display format and the display displays the rendered data.

15. The computing machine of claim 14 further comprising a cache for storing the data in the intermediate format, such that the rendering module processes intermediate data from the cache in response to an indication that another portion of the original data is to be viewed and the intermediate data for the other portion is in the cache.

16. The computing machine of claim 15, wherein the computing machine does not retain the data in the display format data when no longer used by the display.

17. The computing machine of claim 15, further comprising a prefetch module having an output instruction the transform module to transform a portion of the original data during idle times of the display based on a prediction of likely portions of the original data to be requested.