Three dimensional graphical display of information
First Claim
1. An apparatus for representing information in a display in a computer system, said information describing entities and relationships between pairs of entities, said apparatus comprising:
- means for displaying a surface representation on said display;
means responsive to said information for displaying a plurality of entity representations on said display, each of said entity representations corresponding to one of said entities; and
means responsive to said information for displaying a plurality of arcs at positions appearing at least in part disposed from said surface representation on said display, each of said arcs connecting the entity representations of a pair of entities, wherein the position of each of said arcs relative to said surface representation is a function of an attribute of the relationship between a pair of entities.
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Abstract
A method and apparatus for the three dimensional graphical display of information. Information is displayed as nodes and arcs connecting nodes. The nodes and arcs are displayed with their three dimensional characteristics used to encode data attributes. In one embodiment, the nodes and arcs represent geographic network data and are displayed on a representation of a globe. The height of the arcs above or below the surface of the globe encodes a link attribute of the data, while the height of the nodes above or below the surface of the globe encodes a node attribute of the data. Three dimensional characteristics of the nodes and arcs other than height may also be used to encode data attributes. In addition, the three dimensional representation of the data allows for novel thresholding techniques, such as drawing certain nodes and arcs below the surface of the globe and using the globe as a clipping surface. User interaction is also enhanced, for example by allowing users to interactively manipulate the clipping surface as well as the three dimensional display characteristics of the nodes and links.
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Citations
31 Claims
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1. An apparatus for representing information in a display in a computer system, said information describing entities and relationships between pairs of entities, said apparatus comprising:
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means for displaying a surface representation on said display; means responsive to said information for displaying a plurality of entity representations on said display, each of said entity representations corresponding to one of said entities; and means responsive to said information for displaying a plurality of arcs at positions appearing at least in part disposed from said surface representation on said display, each of said arcs connecting the entity representations of a pair of entities, wherein the position of each of said arcs relative to said surface representation is a function of an attribute of the relationship between a pair of entities. - View Dependent Claims (2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11)
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12. An apparatus for representing information in a display in a computer system, said information describing relationships between pairs of entities, said apparatus comprising:
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means for displaying a representation of the surface of a first sphere on said display, said first sphere having a first center; means responsive to said information for displaying pairs of entity representations corresponding to pairs of related entities on said display; and means responsive to said information for displaying a plurality of arcs connecting the pairs of entity representations, wherein the maximum radial distances of said arcs from said first center are a function of an attribute of the relationship between pairs of entities. - View Dependent Claims (13, 14, 15, 16, 17)
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18. An apparatus for displaying information describing entities, in a three dimensional representation on a computer display, said apparatus comprising:
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means responsive to said information for displaying graphical glyphs on the display screen such that the position of each of said glyphs in a first dimension and a second dimension is a function of an attribute of a particular one of said entities; and means responsive to said information for displaying a plurality of arcs at positions appearing at least in part disposed from a surface of said representation on said display, such that the position of each of said arcs in a third dimension relative to said surface is a function of at least one attribute of said particular one of said entities. - View Dependent Claims (19, 20, 21, 22)
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23. A method for displaying network information in a three dimensional representation on a display in a computer system, said network information representing relationships between pairs of nodes in said network, said method comprising the steps of:
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displaying a surface representation on said display; displaying a plurality of nodes on said display; and displaying a plurality of arcs at positions appearing at least in part disposed from said surface representation on said display, said arcs connecting pairs of nodes, wherein the position of each of said arcs relative to said surface representation is a function of an attribute of the relationship between a pair of nodes. - View Dependent Claims (24, 25, 26, 27)
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28. A method for representing information describing a plurality of nodes on a three dimensional display in a computer system, said information comprising node attributes, the method comprising the steps of:
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displaying a representation of a curved surface on said display, said surface defining a first and second dimension; and displaying a plurality of three dimensional nodes on said display wherein the characteristics of said nodes displayed in the third dimension are a function of said node attributes. - View Dependent Claims (29, 30, 31)
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Specification