Progressive interleaved delivery of interactive descriptions and renderers for electronic publishing of merchandise

• US 6,230,162 B1
• Filed: 06/20/1998
• Issued: 05/08/2001
• Est. Priority Date: 06/20/1998
• Status: Expired due to Fees

• Current Assignee: International Business Machines Corporation
• Original Assignee: International Business Machines Corporation
• Inventors: Kumar, Keeranoor, Menon, Jai, Lipscomb, James
• Primary Examiner(s): Alam, Hosain T.
• Assistant Examiner(s): Shah, Sanjiv
• Application Number:
  US09/100,418
• Time in Patent Office: 1,053 Days
• Field of Search: 707/104, 707/103, 707/102, 707/101, 707/100, 707/10, 707/512, 379/88.13, 348/7, 709/217, 709/219, 709/234, 709/226, 345/435, 345/428, 382/240, 375/265
• US Class Current: 382/240
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 16/9577 Optimising the visualization of content, e.g. distillation of HTML documents
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 21/234327 by decomposing into layers, e.g. base layer and one or more enhancement layers
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 21/23439 for generating different versions
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 21/262 Content or additional data distribution scheduling, e.g. sending additional data at off-peak times, updating software modules, calculating the carousel transmission frequency, delaying a video stream transmission, generating play-lists scheduling strategies for dispatcher in multiprogramming arrangements G06F9/4881; arrangements for scheduling broadcast services or broadcast-related services H04H60/06; flow control in packet networks H04L47/10; establishing a time schedule or organising the servicing of application requests H04L67/62
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 21/4621 Controlling the complexity of the content stream or additional data, e.g. lowering the resolution or bit-rate of the video stream for a mobile client with a small screen arrangements for using the results of monitoring on user's side in broadcast systems H04H60/65; flow control in packet networks H04L47/10
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 7/17318 Direct or substantially direct transmission and handling of requests
• CPC Class Codes: Y10S 707/914 Video
• CPC Class Codes: Y10S 707/915 Image
• CPC Class Codes: Y10S 707/916 Audio
• CPC Class Codes: Y10S 707/959 Network
• CPC Class Codes: Y10S 707/99945 Object-oriented database structure processing

Abstract

Network presentations to be displayed on the users screen are divided into increasing more detailed phases. In each phase, the code controlling the phase and the data displayed in the phase are segmented. In transmission over the network, the transmission of the code segment of each phase precedes the transmission of the data segment for that phase. Code transferred to the user'"'"'s terminal monitors the progress of the display of the current phase on the users screen. When sufficient data for the new phase showing then displayed scene enters the users storage, the code for the incoming phase takes over the presentation on the screen substituting data from the incoming phase for the proceeding phase. In this way, transitions are orderly and seamless.

Claims

1. A method for the presentation of heterogeneous media on a network comprising:

dividing the presentation of a scene into a sequence of multiple phases for transferring from a network server to a network client terminal, each succeeding phase in the sequence duplicating in greater detail one or more images in the preceding phase, with the code for each of the phases transferred before the data of that phase;

transferring to the client terminal code and data for two or more of the multiple phases and code to monitor and control the renderings of the presentation;

monitoring, at the client'"'"'s terminal, of the progress of the performance at least one of the phases as it is rendered at the clients terminal; and

using the transferred code for monitoring and controlling the rendering of the performance, changing at the client'"'"'s terminal the performance from the data of a rendered phase to the data of the more detailed rendition containing the duplicated images in the succeeding phase intermediate the transfer of the data of the second phase when sufficient data from the succeeding phase has been transferred to the client'"'"'s terminal and the rate of transfer to the client'"'"'s terminal is sufficient to provide from the point of change uninterrupted and seamless rendering of the images of the presentation.

2. The method of claim 1 including the step of providing a display of a still image in the data of the rendered phase and an animated sequence starting with that image in the data of the succeeding phase.

3. The method of claim 1 including the step of providing an animated sequence of images in the data of the rendered phase and a video sequence of those images in the data of the succeeding phase.

4. The method of claim 1 including the step of providing a video sequence of duplicated images of the scene in the data of the rendered phase and a more detailed video segment of the duplicated images in the data of the succeeding phase.

5. The method of claim 1 including the step of:

transferring to the user of the multiple phases wherein a first phase contains data for a still image of an object, a second phase contains data for an animated image of an object, a third phase contains data for a video image of the object and a fourth phase contains data for a more detailed video image.

6. The method of claim 1 wherein one or more of the sequence of multiple phases includes an audio presentation.

7. The method of claim 1 including transferring an additional one or more of the multiple phases.

8. The method of claim 1 including the step of transferring more than one phase of the sequence on a first request by the user for information and transferring additional phases on request by the user for further information.

9. The method of claim 1 including the step of transferring all the multiple phases of the sequence to the user on a first request for information.

10. The method of claim 7 including the step of:

making one or more of the transitions of the display from one phase to the other under the control of the client.

11. The method of claim 7 including the step of making the transition of the performance of a first phase to the performance of a second phase under the control of the client.

12. The method of claim 7 wherein one of the phases includes 3D geometric data.

13. The method of claim 1 wherein changing the presentation from a first phase to a second phase involves one or more of the following changes, adding a media type, changing from one media type to another media type, changing the size of a segment of a media type and changing the quality of a media type.

14. The method of claim 1 including transmitting the multiple phases in order of increasing complexity irrespective of the order in which they are requested by the client.

15. The method of claim 1 including providing code in the presentation to inform the server of the progress of the performance at the clients terminal.

16. The method of claim 1 including the step of including in the presentation file a framing format that identify the data segments in this file that correspond to key frames.

17. A software product on computer usable media for a heterogeneous media performance on a network comprising:

software for dividing a presentation of a scene into multiple phases for transferring from a network server to a client terminal, each succeeding phase providing greater detail of the scene in the preceding phase, with the code for each of the phases transferred before the data of that phase;

software for transferring to the client terminal code and data for two or more of the multiple phases;

software for monitoring at the client'"'"'s terminal the progress of the performance of the first of two phases as it is rendered at the clients terminal; and

software for changing at the client'"'"'s terminal the performance from the data of the first phase to the data of the second phase intermediate the complete transfer of the data of the more detailed rendition of the scene in the second phase when sufficient data from the second phase has been transferred to the client'"'"'s terminal and the rate of transfer to the client'"'"'s terminal is sufficient to provide from the point of performance uninterrupted rendering of the presentation.

18. A method for the presentation of heterogeneous media on a network comprising:

providing the same scene containing images of an object in a plurality different sequences each sequence providing a different level of detail to the object;

dividing the presentation of the scene into multiple phases for transferring from a network server to a network client terminal, each succeeding phase containing images of the object from one of the different sequences providing the object in greater detail than in the preceding phase, with the code for each of the phases transferred before the data of that phase;

transferring to the client terminal code and data for two or more of the multiple phases for rendering at the client'"'"'s terminal and code for monitoring and controlling the rendering of the performance at the client'"'"'s terminal;

monitoring and controlling at the client'"'"'s terminal the progress of the presentation of each of the phases as it is rendered at the client'"'"'s terminal; and

using the code on monitoring and controlling the rendering of the performance of the client'"'"'s terminal for changing at the client'"'"'s terminal the performance from the data of images of the less detailed phase to the data of images in the more detailed phase intermediate the transfer of the data of the more detailed phase when sufficient data from the more detailed phase will be available at the client'"'"'s terminal to provide from the point of change uninterrupted rendering of the presentation.

19. The method of claim 18 including the step of monitoring the transfer of data to the client'"'"'s terminal to determine if the data transferred and the rate of transfer is sufficient to provide sufficient data on the uninterrupted rendering of the presentation.

20. The method of claim 19 including the step of:

transferring to the user the multiple phases wherein a first phase contains data for a still image of the object, a second phase contains data for an animated image of the object, the third phase contains data for a video image of the object and the fourth phase contains data for a more detailed video image of the object.

21. The method of claim 19 wherein one or more of the multiple phases includes an audio presentation.

22. The method of claim 19 including the step of transferring more than one phase on a first request by the user for information and transferring additional phases on request by the user for further information.

23. The method of claim 19 including the step of transferring all the multiple phases to the user on a first request for information.

24. The method of claim 19 including the step of:

making one or more of the transitions of the display from one phase to the other under the control of the client.

25. The method of claim 20 wherein one of the phases includes 3D geometric data.

26. The method of claim 20 including transmitting the multiple phases in order of increasing complexity irrespective of the order in which they are requested by the client.

27. The method of claim 20 including providing code in the presentation to inform the server of the progress of the performance at the client'"'"'s terminal.