Screen display sharing system

• US 5,654,726 A
• Filed: 05/26/1994
• Issued: 08/05/1997
• Est. Priority Date: 05/27/1993
• Status: Expired due to Term

• Current Assignee: International Business Machines Corporation
• Original Assignee: International Business Machines Corporation
• Inventors: Sakairi, Takashi, Mima, Yoshiaki, Ando, Fumio
• Primary Examiner(s): Brier, Jeffery
• Application Number:
  US08/249,587
• Time in Patent Office: 1,167 Days
• Field of Search: 345/1, 345/2, 345/145, 345/146, 273/433-438, 434/323, 463/40-42
• US Class Current: 345/2.2
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 3/04892 Arrangements for controlling cursor position based on codes indicative of cursor displacements from one discrete location to another, e.g. using cursor control keys associated to different directions or using the tab key arrangements for controlling cursor position based on coordinate signals G06F3/038
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 3/1454 involving copying of the display data of a local workstation or window to a remote workstation or window so that an actual copy of the data is displayed simultaneously on two or more displays, e.g. teledisplay

Abstract

A pointing object display technique that can manipulate a pointing object without the user being aware of a difference in display time between sites in a distributed computing environment is disclosed. It is so designed that with whatever level of time difference the receiver side receives a pointing object is displayed and confirmed using an auxiliary pointing object on the sender'"'"'s screen and the positional difference on the display is absorbed. In addition, the receiver side predicts the current position of the sender'"'"'s pointing object by taking the time difference on the display into account and displays a pointing object at the predicted position on the receiver'"'"'s screen.

Claims

1. A screen display sharing apparatus for use with a plurality of computer systems connected through a communication network, each of said plurality of computer systems having a display screen and a pointing object, said screen display sharing system comprising:

means within a first computer system for displaying a cursor object moveable on a display screen of said first computer system in accordance with movement of said pointing object;

means within said first computer system for transmitting movement data associated with said cursor object to a second computer system through said communication network;

means within said second computer system for displaying a counterpart cursor object on a display screen of said second computer system in accordance with said movement data associated with said cursor object;

means within said second computer system for transmitting movement data associated with said counterpart cursor object to said first computer system through said communication network; and

means within said first computer system for displaying a first auxiliary cursor object on said display screen of said first computer system at a current predicted location of said counterpart cursor object and for displaying a second auxiliary cursor object on said display screen of said first computer system in accordance with said transmitted movement data associated with said counterpart cursor object, said first and second auxiliary cursor objects each comprising an outline display of said cursor object.

2. The screen display sharing system according to claim 1, further including means for eliminating display of said first and second auxiliary cursor object on said display screen of said first computer system after said cursor object stops moving for a predetermined period of time.

3. The screen display sharing system according to claim 1, wherein said predicted location of said counterpart cursor object is determined based upon estimated transmission times.