Information management system facilitating user access to information content through display of scaled information nodes

• US 5,684,969 A
• Filed: 03/12/1996
• Issued: 11/04/1997
• Est. Priority Date: 06/25/1991
• Status: Expired due to Term

• Current Assignee: Fuji Xerox Company Limited (Xerox Holdings Corp.)
• Original Assignee: Fuji Xerox Company Limited (Xerox Holdings Corp.)
• Inventors: Ishida, Eiji
• Primary Examiner(s): Fetting, Anton W.
• Application Number:
  US08/614,104
• Time in Patent Office: 602 Days
• Field of Search: 395/155-161, 395/144, 395/139, 395/335, 395/342, 395/346, 395/762, 345/115, 345/127, 345/129, 345/130
• US Class Current: 715/800
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 3/0489 using dedicated keyboard keys or combinations thereof

Abstract

An information grasping system in which information is described as nodes, and the nodes are allocated in the virtual plane, and a user can easily grasp'"'"' the relationship between the whole information and the detailed information in a single display area while continuously zooming in and out the nodes, and easily grasp significance data. A virtual-plane-data managing unit generates and manages virtual plane data for allocating and displaying in a virtual plane the data entered by a user in various display modes, which are according to display rules stored in a rule storage unit. The system automatically calculates significance of nodes on the basis of the user'"'"'s operation data of nodes. The nodes are discriminatively displayed according to the significance in the virtual plane.

Claims

1. An information management system comprising:

display means, having a screen, including a zooming means for expanding and contracting contents of an information node such that the information management system concurrently displays the contents of the information node and a virtual plane on the screen;

virtual-plane-data managing means for generating control data to display the virtual plane on the screen of the display means, the virtual plane holding a plurality of information nodes;

rule storage means for storing rules for displaying the virtual plane and the plurality of information nodes; and

virtual scale-factor input means for entering a scale factor to scale the display of each of the plurality of information nodes held on the virtual plane.

2. The information management system according to claim 1, wherein said virtual-plane-data managing means includes logical structure storage means for storing logical structures of the information nodes, and said rule storage means includes logic-structure-display-rule storage means for storing rules for display corresponding to the logic structures.

3. The information management system according to claim 2, wherein said rule storage means includes edit-function-select-rule storage means for selecting edit functions according to display states, and wherein the information management system further comprises edit processing means for providing the edit functions according to the edit function select rules.

4. The information management system according to claim 1, wherein said rule storage means includes edit-function-select-rule storage means for selecting edit functions according to display states, and wherein the information management system further comprises edit processing means for providing the edit functions according to the edit function select rules.

5. An information management system comprising:

display means, having a screen, including a zooming means for concurrently displaying the contents of an information node and a virtual plane on the screen;

virtual-plane-data managing means for generating control data to display the virtual plane on the screen of the display means, the virtual plane holding a plurality of information nodes, said virtual-plane-data managing means includes attentive action pick-up means for picking up attentive action data for each of the plurality of information nodes, the attentive action data for any given information node being based on the zooming in and out of the given information node, and significance data generating means for calculating significance data of the given information node on the basis of the picked up attentive action data, said virtual plane being displayed reflects the significance data of the plurality of information nodes such that the attentive action data and the calculated significance data substantially indicate that the user actually intended to refer to the given information node instead of mistakenly accessing the given information node;

rule storage means for storing rules for displaying the virtual plane and the plurality of information nodes; and

virtual scale-factor input means for entering a scale factor to scale the display of each of the plurality of information nodes held on the virtual plane.

6. The information management system according to claim 5, wherein the attentive action data for the given information node being based upon a plurality of zoom out operations from the given information node.

7. An information management system comprising:

display means for displaying a virtual plane on a screen thereof, including a zooming means for concurrently displaying on the screen the contents of an information node and a virtual plane, the virtual plane holding a plurality of information nodes;

virtual scale-factor input means for entering a scale factor to scale the display of each of the plurality of information nodes held on the virtual plane;

attentive action pick-up means for picking up attentive action data for any given information node based upon the zooming in and out of the given information node during a scale factor entering operation for each of the plurality of information nodes, whereby the attentive action data substantially indicates that a user actually intended to refer to the given information node, instead of mistakenly accessing the given information node;

significance data generating means for calculating significance data of the plurality of information nodes on the basis of the picked up attentive action data; and

virtual-plane-data managing means for generating control data for controlling the display of the virtual plane in accordance with said significance data, the virtual plane being displayed in accordance with the significance data of the plurality of information nodes.

8. The information management system according to claim 7, wherein the attentive data for any given information node being based upon a plurality of zoom out operations from the given information node.

9. An information management system comprising:

display means having a screen;

zooming means for expanding and contracting contents of an information node such that the information management system concurrently displays the contents of the information node and a virtual plane on the screen;

virtual-plane-data managing means for generating control data to control the display of the virtual plane on the screen of the display means, the virtual plane holding a plurality of information nodes;

each of the plurality of information nodes having display data selected from the group consisting of text type, graphics type and table type with the display data including, as display data elements, plane information and one or more attributes displaying the plane information in respective fashions;

rule storage means for storing rules for displaying the virtual plane and the plurality of information nodes;

virtual scale-factor input means for entering a scale factor for scaling the display of each of the plurality of information nodes held on the virtual plane; and

the rules at least defining which of the display data elements are used for different scale factors inputted by the virtual scale-factor input means.