DISPLAY APPARATUS, DISPLAY METHOD AND PROGRAM

• US 20130239034A1
• Filed: 05/31/2012
• Published: 09/12/2013
• Est. Priority Date: 06/09/2011
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: NTT Docomo Incorporated (Nippon Telegraph and Telephone Corporation)
• Original Assignee: NTT Docomo Incorporated (Nippon Telegraph and Telephone Corporation)
• Inventors: Ota, Manabu, Morinaga, Yasuo, Tsukamoto, Masakatsu
• Granted Patent: US 9,223,468 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 715/765
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 16/9577 Optimising the visualization of content, e.g. distillation of HTML documents
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 3/04817 using icons graphical or visual programming using iconic symbols G06F8/34

Abstract

One aspect of the present invention relates to a display apparatus communicatively connected to a distribution apparatus, comprising: an information storage unit configured to store one or more information contents of external information distributed from the distribution apparatus and/or internal information of the display apparatus, an icon associated with each of the information contents and a placement area for placing the icon; a template storage unit configured to store one or more templates having one or more placement areas for placing icons; a display icon determination unit configured to determine which of the information contents and the icons from the information storage unit are to be displayed and select from the template storage unit a template where the determined information contents and icons are displayable; and an image generation and display unit configured to generate and display an image to be displayed by embedding the determined icon in a placement area of the selected template corresponding to a placement area associated with the determined icon.

Claims

1. A display apparatus communicatively connected to a distribution apparatus, comprising:

an information storage unit configured to store one or more information contents of external information distributed from the distribution apparatus and/or internal information of the display apparatus, an icon associated with each of the information contents and a placement area for placing the icon;

a template storage unit configured to store one or more templates having one or more placement areas for placing icons;

a display icon determination unit configured to determine which of the information contents and the icons from the information storage unit are to be displayed and select from the template storage unit a template where the determined information contents and icons are displayable; and

an image generation and display unit configured to generate and display an image to be displayed by embedding the determined icon in a placement area of the selected template corresponding to a placement area associated with the determined icon.

2. The display apparatus as claimed in claim 1, wherein if multiple icons associated with the different information contents to be displayed have a common placement area, the display icon determination unit aggregates the multiple icons into one icon, and the image generation and display unit embeds the aggregated icon in a placement area of the selected template corresponding to the placement area associated with the aggregated icon.

3. The display apparatus as claimed in claim 1, wherein the display icon determination unit selects a template among the one or more templates stored in the template storage unit, the template at least including placement areas required to represent the determined icons and having the least placement areas.

4. The display apparatus as claimed in claim 1, wherein the display icon determination unit compares a number of icons to be displayed with a predefined number of information items recognizable to a user on a screen of the display apparatus and aggregates the multiple icons into one icon until the number of icons reaches the predefined recognizable number of information items.

5. The display apparatus as claimed in claim 1, wherein the display icon determination unit compares a number of icons to be displayed with a predefined minimum number of icons and if the number of icons is less than the predefined minimum number of icons, determines multiple icons associated with the information contents to be displayed as the icons to be displayed.

6. The display apparatus as claimed in claim 1, wherein the display icon determination unit compares a number of icons to be displayed with a predefined number of information items recognizable to a user on a screen of the display apparatus and deletes an icon associated with the information content having a lower display priority from the information contents to be displayed until the number of icons is less than or equal to the predefined recognizable number of information items.

7. The display apparatus as claimed in claim 1, wherein the image generation and display unit evaluates visibility indicative of complexity of the generated image and if the evaluated visibility is lower than a predefined threshold, instructs the display icon determination unit to determine an information content and an icon to be further displayed.

8. The display apparatus as claimed in claim 7, wherein the image generation and display unit receives a predefined number of combinations of icons to be displayed and selected templates from the display icon determination unit, generates an image for each of the combinations and selects an image having the highest visibility in the generated images as the image to be displayed.

9. A method executed by a display apparatus communicatively connected to a distribution apparatus, the method comprising:

acquiring one or more information contents of external information distributed from the distribution apparatus and/or internal information of the display apparatus and storing an icon associated with each of the information contents and a placement area for placing the icon in an information storage unit;

determining which of the information contents and the icons from the information storage unit are to be displayed and selecting a template, where the determined information contents and icons are displayable, from one or more templates having one or more placement areas for placing the icons; and

generating and displaying an image to be displayed by embedding the determined icon in a placement area of the selected template corresponding to a placement area associated with the determined icon.

10. A storage device for storing a program executed by a processor in a display apparatus communicatively connected to a distribution apparatus, the program causing the processor to:

acquire one or more information contents of external information distributed from the distribution apparatus and/or internal information of the display apparatus and store an icon associated with each of the information contents and a placement area for placing the icon in an information storage unit;

determine which of the information contents and the icons from the information storage unit are to be displayed and select a template where the determined information contents and icons are displayable from one or more templates having one or more placement areas for placing the icons; and

generate and display an image to be displayed by embedding the determined icon in a placement area of the selected template corresponding to a placement area associated with the determined icon.