Method and apparatus for freehand annotation and drawings incorporating sound and for compressing and synchronizing sound

• US 5,768,607 A
• Filed: 04/30/1996
• Issued: 06/16/1998
• Est. Priority Date: 09/30/1994
• Status: Expired due to Fees

• Current Assignee: Intel Corporation
• Original Assignee: Intel Corporation
• Inventors: Kogan, Dan, Held, James P., Drews, Paul C., Larson, James A.
• Primary Examiner(s): Burwell, Joseph R.
• Application Number:
  US08/640,345
• Time in Patent Office: 777 Days
• Field of Search: 395/773, 395/806, 395/807, 395/776-778, 395/332, 395/340, 395/343-345, 395/804, 345/302
• US Class Current: 715/203
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 2203/04804 Transparency, e.g. transparent or translucent windows
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 3/0481 based on specific properties of the displayed interaction object or a metaphor-based environment, e.g. interaction with desktop elements like windows or icons, or assisted by a cursor's changing behaviour or appearance
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 40/169 Annotation, e.g. comment data or footnotes

Abstract

A method and apparatus creates and plays objects and sound synchronously after eliminating the silent segments of the sound. The method inserts sequence marks into the object and sound data, deletes silent segments of the sound data including the sequence marks that reside in the silent segments, and re-inserts the last deleted sequence mark back into the sound data. In so doing, the system detects the silent segments of the recorded sound stream data and deletes the silent portions from the recorded data. Upon replay of an object and its associated sound, any drawing done during the silent segments are played at the computer'"'"'s full graphics drawing speed, only slowing down to real-time again when more sounds are encountered. Thus, the system plays "fast while silent" and slows to real-time when sounds are played. This saves the space required to stored the recorded sound, and the user does not have to wait through the silent periods.

Claims

1. A method for compressing a sound stream data and synchronizing an object data and said sound stream data, said method comprising the steps of:

storing said object data while inserting a plurality of first sequence marks into said object data, and recording said sound stream data while inserting a plurality of second sequence marks into said sound stream data;

deleting, without requiring user intervention, at least one silent segment of said sound stream data and any second sequence marks that reside in said at least one silent segment;

re-inserting the last deleted second sequence mark to said sound stream data in place of the deleted sound segment;

playing said sound stream data while searching for one of said second sequence marks; and

displaying said object data at the highest drawing speed from where said object data has last been displayed to one of said first sequence marks corresponding to said one of said second sequence marks found whereby said object data may be synchronized to said sound stream data if some said second sequence marks are missing.

2. The method according to claim 1 further comprising the steps of:

displaying said object data at the highest drawing speed until encountering one of said first sequence marks;

playing said sound stream data until encountering one of said second marks;

repeating, until all of said sound stream data is played and all of said object data is displayed, the further steps of;

displaying said object data at the highest drawing speed from where said object data has last been displayed to one of said first sequence marks corresponding to said one of said second sequence marks found whereby said object data may be synchronized to said sound stream data even if some said second sequence marks are missing;

playing said sound stream data while searching for one of said second sequence marks; and

finding said one of said second sequence marks in said sound stream data.

3. The method according to claim 1 further comprising the step of:

selecting a predetermined time interval between said first sequence marks prior to the step of storing said object,

wherein said predetermined time interval is also used between said second sequence marks.

4. A system for compressing a sound stream data and synchronizing an object data and said sound stream data, said system comprising:

means for inserting a plurality of first sequence marks into said object data;

means for inserting a plurality of second sequence marks into said sound stream data;

means for deleting, without requiring user intervention, at least one silent segment of said sound stream data and any second sequence marks that reside in said at least one silent segment;

means for re-inserting the last deleted second sequence mark to said sound stream data in place of the deleted sound segment;

means for playing said sound stream data while searching for one of said second sequence marks; and

means for displaying said object data at the highest drawing speed from where said object data has last been displayed to one of said first sequence marks corresponding to said one of said second sequence marks found whereby said object data may be synchronized to said sound stream data if some said second sequence marks are missing.

5. A computer program product comprising a computer readable medium having computer program logic recorded thereon for compressing sound stream data and synchronizing an object data and said sound stream data, said computer program logic comprising:

means for inserting a plurality of first sequence marks into said object data;

means for inserting a plurality of second sequence marks into said sound stream data;

means for deleting, without requiring user intervention, at least one silent segment of said sound stream data and any second sequence marks that reside in said at least one silent segment;

means for re-inserting the last deleted second sequence mark to said sound stream data in place of the deleted sound segment;

means for playing said sound stream data while searching for one of said second sequence marks; and

means for displaying said object data at the highest drawing speed from where said object data has last been displayed to one of said first sequence marks corresponding to said one of said second sequence marks found whereby said object data may be synchronized to said sound stream data if some said second sequence marks are missing.