INTERACTIVE GRAPHICAL SURFACE-RENDERING DATA VISUALIZATION TOOLS FOR TABULAR DATA AND SPREADSHEETS

• US 20170262425A1
• Filed: 05/22/2017
• Published: 09/14/2017
• Est. Priority Date: 09/02/2009
• Status: Abandoned Application

• Current Assignee: Lester F. Ludwig
• Original Assignee: Lester F. Ludwig
• Inventors: LUDWIG, Lester F.
• Application Number:
  US15/601,892
• Publication Number:
  US 20170262425A1
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• 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 40/18 of spreadsheets form-filling G06F40/174

Abstract

Graphical tools and primitives are provided for visualization of graphical surfaces from tabular data such as in a spreadsheet. The invention can be used for simple business analysis as well as advanced engineering and science. Visualizations of a two-dimensional surface is rendered from provided data according to position, orientation, and viewpoint, some or all of which can be controlled by a user interface. The surface can also represent interactively controlled filtered or stochastically processed tabular data. The visualization can be displayed together with the display an electronic spreadsheet or other tabular data representation. The surface can be suspended over a region of the displayed tabular data or displayed in other ways. The visually rendered surfaces can comprise symbols, colors, textures, or glyphs representing data, and virtual illumination. The surface can be suspended over a region of displayed tabular data. Visual height measuring and level sets slicing tools can be provided.

Claims

1. An interactive visualization system for visualizing tabular data for an electronic spreadsheet, the interactive visualization system comprising:

a first graphics rendering algorithm for presenting a plurality of data values from tabular data, the tabular data comprising data values organized as an array, the plurality of data values rendered in a form of a visual table by the first graphics rendering algorithm, the visual table rendered in a first visual display area on a graphical display screen;

an interactive data processing algorithm for applying at least one pre-visualization operation to the plurality of data values to produce a plurality of processed data values, the at least one pre-visualization operation arranged to be interactively controlled by visualization control information provided by an interactive user interface;

a second graphics rendering algorithm for rendering a two-dimensional surface visualization of a two-dimensional surface, the rendered two-dimensional surface visualization computed from the plurality of processed data values, the two-dimensional surface visualization rendering further computed from position data, orientation data, and viewpoint data, and wherein the visualization of the two-dimensional surface is rendered in a second visual display area on the graphical display screen by the second graphics rendering algorithm;

wherein information response to the visualization control information is arranged to be stored for later retrieval, and

wherein the interactive visualization system is arranged, upon later retrieval, to be used for subsequent rendering of the two-dimensional surface visualization.

2. The interactive visualization system of claim 1, wherein the position data is provided from the interactive user interface.

3. The interactive visualization system of claim 1, wherein the orientation data is provided from the interactive user interface.

4. The interactive visualization system of claim 1, wherein the viewpoint data is provided from the interactive user interface.

5. The interactive visualization system of claim 1, further comprising:

rendering the visualization of the two-dimensional surface concurrently to displaying the tabular data of the electronic spreadsheet.

6. The interactive visualization system of claim 5, further comprising:

displaying the tabular data within a visual display area.

7. The interactive visualization system of claim 6, further comprising:

rendering the two-dimensional surface visualization suspended over a region of the displayed tabular data within the visual display area.

8. The interactive visualization system of claim 1, wherein the two-dimensional surface visualization is rendered as a 3-dimensional visualization.

9. The interactive visualization system of claim 1, wherein the rendered two-dimensional surface visualization further comprises a color, the color representing a value responsive to the tabular data.

10. The interactive visualization system of claim 1, wherein the rendered two-dimensional surface visualization further comprises a parameterized locally varying texture, the texture representing a value responsive to the tabular data.

11. The interactive visualization system of claim 1, wherein the rendered two-dimensional surface visualization is supplemented with at least one symbol rendered on the rendered two-dimensional surface visualization, the at least one symbol representing a value responsive to the tabular data.

12. The interactive visualization system of claim 1, wherein the rendered two-dimensional surface visualization is supplemented with at least one parameterized glyph rendered on the rendered two-dimensional surface visualization, the at least one parameterized glyph representing a value responsive to the tabular data.

13. The interactive visualization system of claim 1, wherein the rendered two-dimensional surface visualization is virtually illuminated by at least one virtual light source.

14. The interactive visualization system of claim 13, wherein an attribute of the at least one virtual light source can be controlled by the interactive user interface.

15. The interactive visualization system of claim 1, further comprising:

rendering a visual height measuring tool in the two-dimensional surface visualization.

16. The interactive visualization system of claim 1, further comprising:

a slicing function to provide level set data from the two-dimensional surface.

17. The interactive visualization system of claim 1, wherein the two-dimensional surface represents filtered versions of the tabular data.

18. The interactive visualization system of claim 17, wherein the filtering is controlled by an interactive parameter.

19. The interactive visualization system of claim 1, wherein the two-dimensional surface represents statistically processed of the tabular data.