Pictorial tour process and applications thereof

• US 6,224,387 B1
• Filed: 02/10/2000
• Issued: 05/01/2001
• Est. Priority Date: 02/11/1999
• Status: Expired due to Fees

• Current Assignee: Jones, Michael J.
• Original Assignee: Jones, Michael J.
• Inventors: Jones, Michael J.
• Primary Examiner(s): Cheng, Joe H.
• Application Number:
  US09/502,173
• Time in Patent Office: 446 Days
• Field of Search: 434/247, 434/252, 434/257, 434/131, 434/307 R, 434/308, 434/365, 473/17, 473/131, 473/168, 473/169, 473/407, 473/409, 473/453, 463/29, 463/16, 463/40-42, 340/311.1, 380/251, 455/456, 455/566, 455/567, 342/21, 342/42, 342/44, 342/125, 342/127, 396/2, 700/91, 705/1, 705/17, 705/26, 705/27, 705/35, 705/36, 707/10, 707/103, 707/104, 709/201, 709/202, 709/217-219, 709/236, 709/250, 713/180, 725/37, 725/110, 725/134
• US Class Current: 434/252
• CPC Class Codes: A63B 2069/068 kayaking, canoeing
• CPC Class Codes: A63B 2071/0625 Emitting sound, noise or music
• CPC Class Codes: A63B 2071/0638 Displaying moving images of recorded environment, e.g. virtual environment
• CPC Class Codes: A63B 2071/0691 Maps, e.g. yardage maps or electronic maps
• CPC Class Codes: A63B 2102/32 Golf
• CPC Class Codes: A63B 2220/12 Absolute positions, e.g. by using GPS
• CPC Class Codes: A63B 2220/13 Relative positions
• CPC Class Codes: A63B 2220/14 Geo-tagging, e.g. for correlating route or track location data with specific information related to that specific location
• CPC Class Codes: A63B 2220/20 Distances or displacements
• CPC Class Codes: A63B 2225/20 with means for remote communication, e.g. internet or the like
• CPC Class Codes: A63B 57/505 Hole information stands, e.g. tee-boxes
• CPC Class Codes: A63B 69/18 for skiing
• CPC Class Codes: A63B 71/0622 Visual, audio or audio-visual systems for entertaining, instructing or motivating the user

Abstract

A pictorial tour process acquires material for producing pictorial tours from given amusement venues and then publishes those pictorial tours on an Internet website so the web users can get a “you are there” perspective of the given amusement venue. In particular as applied to the game of golf, a golf website presents pictorial tours of various golf courses by means of shot-by-shot teachings from a player'"'"'s perspective of the recommended play of a given hole. Such a shot-by-shot teaching tour entertains, teaches as well as allows a web user to judge whether the given course is attractive or suitable to that user. The web users get to see not just the beauty and skill-challenge of the course, but also check such factors as whether the course will adversely challenge to their health if they have conditions of, eg., weak heart or impaired walking mobility, or otherwise cause discomfort because of eg., desert heat or mountain coolness, and so on. Some course allow carts, others don'"'"'t. Thus a hilly course up on a cool plateau is not likely appealing to someone who might be stricken by such things. Accordingly, that sort of “someone” ought to forego the course even if the beauty and skill-challenge aspects are otherwise appealing.

Claims

1. A method of informative amusement with a website database containing a plurality of teaching pictorial tours of holes of diverse golf courses, comprising the steps of:

providing a website with a database having a plurality of pictorial tours, wherein each pictorial tour features one hole of a golf course, the database having pictorial tours of multiple holes of diverse golf courses;

providing a user with a machine for implementing a web browser and allowing selective playback of the pictorial tours;

providing a global computer information network for handling the transmissions between the website and the user machine;

arranging each teaching pictorial tour as an episode for continuous play from a beginning to an end and featuring a single hole, each episode comprising a series of scenes, sequenced together for automatic playback from beginning to end, which series of scenes are taken from a corresponding series of staging areas comprising at least;

one staging area around the tees looking down the target line over the fairway to a prospective first-shot target zone for the original shot off the tee, as from a player'"'"'s perspective;

another staging area around the first-shot target zone looking either rearwards back to the tees or forward ahead to a second-shot target zone; and

a further staging area around the greens looking back up the fairway; and

then,

allowing a user to choose any episode for playback vis-a-vis the user'"'"'s machine and browser; and

,

allowing the user informative amusement with playback of the given single-hole episode, the user being limited in the informative amusement with the given single-hole episode by the content such that the pictorial tour only gives shot-by-shot evaluative information respecting the play of the hole by excluding promotional content for promoting the golf course as well as excluding golf-lesson content respecting general lessons on skills for playing the game of golf applicable to any hole, whereby the user is freed of extraneous content that diverges from informing the user respecting the shot-by-shot strategy how to play the hole and so allows the user to see himself in the context of his play through the hole vis-a-vis playback of the given episode.