Apparatus and method for page-retrieval using electronic book display

• US 5,909,690 A
• Filed: 06/17/1997
• Issued: 06/01/1999
• Est. Priority Date: 03/31/1993
• Status: Expired due to Fees

• Current Assignee: Matsushita Electric Industrial Company Limited (Panasonic Holdings Corporation)
• Original Assignee: Matsushita Electric Industrial Company Limited (Panasonic Holdings Corporation)
• Inventors: Nakano, Yoshio, Tanigawa, Hidekazu
• Primary Examiner(s): Hong, Stephen S.
• Application Number:
  US08/877,609
• Time in Patent Office: 714 Days
• Field of Search: 707/526, 345/350
• US Class Current: 715/236
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 15/0283 for data storage and retrieval
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 3/0483 Interaction with page-structured environments, e.g. book metaphor
• CPC Class Codes: Y10S 345/901 Electronic book with display

Abstract

An apparatus and method for page-retrieval for use with an electronic display, especially suited for so-called electronic books, wherein a current relative position of a current page of the book and the number of times a page has previously been displayed are graphically displayed. A document image is stored in a document image storage unit and the document image is displayed on a computer screen. A number of display times storage unit stores the number of times each page has been viewed by a user. A relative location image control unit determines the relative location within the book image of a currently displayed page and the electronic book is displayed on the screen showing a visual indication of the relative position of the currently displayed page. The pages of the electronic book are color shaded by a number of display times image generation unit to give a visual indication of the relative number of times each page has been displayed to allow frequently displayed pages to be quickly located by a user. A marker can also be displayed on the screen to indicate pages marked by a user.

Claims

1. A page-retrieval apparatus using an electronic-book display comprising:

means for displaying an index to each group on a fore-edge of a closed electronic-book, the groups collectively forming a document;

means for storing a total page number of the document and a total number of the groups as well as a total page number contained in each group;

means for designating a point in the fore-edge;

means for detecting an index by performing a calculation with a function by substituting a coordinate value of the designated point into the function as a parameter, and detecting a page number of a first page in the detected index;

means for storing contents of the document;

means for storing page numbers in relation with their respective addresses in the document storage means, a content of each page number being stored in their respective addresses;

means for reading two addresses respectively corresponding to the detected page and a following page from the page number storing means and selecting a content of the detected page and a content of the following page from the document content storage means at areas specified by the read two addresses; and

means for controlling the display means to end the index display when the address reading and content selecting means has selected the contents of the two pages, and subsequently displaying the selected contents in a two-page spread electronic-book with a first page including the content of the detected page and a second page including the content of the following page,

wherein the control means determines a size of each index by dividing a height of the fore-edge by the total number of the groups, and by dividing a width of the fore-edge by a ratio of the total page number of each group to the total page number of the document.

2. The page-retrieval apparatus using an electronic-book display of claim 1, wherein the indexes are alphabet characters arranged in the order.