Method for displaying image, image display system, host system, image display apparatus, and interface for display

• US 6,778,168 B2
• Filed: 02/14/2001
• Issued: 08/17/2004
• Est. Priority Date: 02/14/2000
• Status: Expired due to Term

• Current Assignee: AU Optronics Corporation
• Original Assignee: International Business Machines Corporation
• Inventors: Mamiya, Johji, Tomooka, Takatoshi, Yamauchi, Kazushi
• Primary Examiner(s): Shankar, Vijay
• Assistant Examiner(s): Dharia, Prabodh M.
• Application Number:
  US09/782,976
• Publication Number:
  US 20010030649A1
• Time in Patent Office: 1,280 Days
• Field of Search: 345/204, 345/112, 345/334, 345/344, 370/395, 370/253, 725/29, 725/31, 463/41
• US Class Current: 345/204
• CPC Class Codes: G09G 2370/047 using display data channel standard [DDC] communication
• CPC Class Codes: G09G 5/006 Details of the interface to the display terminal specific for a display terminal using a CRT G09G1/167; using a flat panel G09G3/2096; circuits for interfacing with colour displays G09G5/04
• CPC Class Codes: G09G 5/14 Display of multiple viewports
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 69/22 Parsing or analysis of headers
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 69/40 for recovering from a failure of a protocol instance or entity, e.g. service redundancy protocols, protocol state redundancy or protocol service redirection management of faults, events, alarms or notifications in data switching networks H04L41/06
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 9/40 Network security protocols

Abstract

An image display system includes a host system for executing an application program, a display connected to this host system, and an interface for connecting the host system to the display and used to display an image on the display. This interface enables packetized data including ID information to be transferred from the host system to the display. The interface is composed of a first interface for transferring packetized data together with packet order information and a second interface for enabling less data than the capacity of the first interface to be transferred from the display to the host system together with information of a packet transfer error recognized according to the order information.

Claims

1. A method for displaying an image on a display connected to a host system that executes an application program by transferring said image from said host system to said display via an interface, the host system including a two-bit host counter and the display including a twelve-bit display counter, the method comprising the steps of:

causing said host system to control a group of image data belonging to a window according to a sub window, which is a division of said window on said display, said window being an area meaningful as a whole in an image space recognized by said application program;

packetizing a group of said image data controlled by said host system;

adding order information denoting a packet order from the host counter to said packetized data to be transferred to said display via said interface;

developing said image data transferred via said interface in a panel memory of said display;

causing said display to detect a packet skip by comparing the order information with the least significant bits of the display counter; and

causing said host system to know via said interface the status of said packet skip detected by said display.

2. The method of displaying an image according to said claim 1, wherein said method further comprises the step of causing said host system to re-transfer image data to said display via said interface according to the status of said packet skip known by said host.

3. The method of displaying an image according to claim 2, wherein:

said re-transferring of image data is done for every sub window belonging to said window; and

said developing of image data in said panel memory is done again only for a sub window in which said packet skip is detected by said display.

4. The method of displaying an image according to claim 2;

wherein said re-transferring of image data is done for a sub window in which said packet skip has occurred and it is known by said host system.

5. The method of displaying an image according to claim 1, wherein:

said order information is order counter information stored in a header of said packet; and

said display detects said packet skip according to a value of its own order counter.

6. An image display system for displaying an image on said display, comprising:

a host system for executing an application program;

a display connected to said host system; and

an interface for connecting said host system to said display,

wherein said interface comprises;

a first interface for transferring packetized data including ID information from said host system to said display together with two-bit order information denoting a packet order; and

a second interface for transferring data from said display to said host system together with error information of said packet transfer recognized according to said order information, wherein the error information is generated by comparing the order information with the least-significant bits of a twelve-bit display counter.

7. The image display system according to claim 6, wherein:

said host system transfers image data that is not developed yet via said first interface; and

said display has a panel memory for developing said image data transferred via said first interface and transfers error information of said image data developed in said panel memory via said second interface.

8. An image display system, comprising:

a host system for controlling a group of image data belonging to a window according to a sub window, which is a division of said window, said window being an area meaningful as a whole in an image space recognized by an application program;

a display connected to said host system and used to display an image; and

an interface for connecting said host system to said display, wherein;

said host system packetizes a group of said image data and transfers said packetized image data to said display via said interface, said packetized image data being added with an ID for distinguishing said window from others and count information counted up for each said ID; and

said display develops said image data included in said packet transferred via said interface in said panel memory, said display having a counter counted up for each transferred packet so that said system recognizes an individual transfer error according to a result of comparison between a least-significant value of said counter and said count information included in said packet, wherein the maximum count of the count information is less than the maximum count of the counter.

9. The image display system according to claim 8, wherein:

said display has a plurality of handlers used for processing image data with respect to each said ID; and

said counter is provided for each of said plurality of handlers.

10. A host system connected via an interface to a display for displaying an image, said host system being used for executing an application program, comprising:

an order information setting device for allocating order information to each window, which is a display area meaningful as a whole in an image space recognized by said application program;

an image data transferring device for transferring image data to said display, said image data being divided into predetermined spatial areas in said window and added with said order information allocated by said order information setting device; and

a display counter configured to count up for each received image data so that the display recognizes an individual transfer error according to a comparison between a least-significant value of the display counter with the two-bit order information, wherein the capacity of the order information is smaller than the capacity of the display counter.

11. The host system according to claim 10, wherein:

said image data is transferred as packetized data; and

said order information allocated by said order information setting device is count information counted up for each transferred packet with respect to each window.

12. The host system according to claim 10, wherein said image data transferring device adds an ID allocated for each window to said image data before said image data is transferred, separately from said order information.

13. The host system according to claim 10, further comprising a receiving device for receiving a transfer error state detected according to said order information from said display,

wherein said image data transfer device re-transfers image data according to said transfer error state received by said receiving device.

14. An image display apparatus, comprising:

a panel, for displaying an image;

a receiving device for receiving packetized data including a two-bit count information via an interface from a host system, the host system being adapted for executing an application program;

a counter for counting said packetized data received by said receiving device sequentially;

a comparing device for comparing a value of least-significant bits of said counter with said two-bit count information included in said packetized data received by said receiving device; and

a detecting device for detecting packetized data in which a transfer error occurs, according to a result of comparison executed by said comparing device;

a notifying device for notifying said host system of a transfer error detected in packetized data according to a result of detection executed by said detecting device, said receiving device receives packetized data re-transferred from said host system; and

a frame buffer memory for developing image data from said packetized data received by said receiving device and to be transferred to said panel, wherein no image data is developed in said frame buffer memory from packetized data in which a transfer error is detected by said detecting device while image data is developed in said frame buffer memory according to said re-transferred packetized data if said receiving device receives re-transferred packetized data.

15. An image display apparatus, comprising:

a receiving device for receiving image data from a host system that executes an application program, said receiving device including a counter, said image data being packetized in predetermined divisions of an image space recognized by said application program and including a packet count, wherein the capacity of the packet count is less than the capacity of the counter;

a panel memory for sequentially developing image data consisting of said packetized data received by said receiving device;

a panel for displaying an image according to image data developed by said panel memory; and

a notifying device for recognizing a transfer skip of said packetized data received by said receiving device and notifying said host system of information about said transfer skip recognized in a unit of packetized data developed in said panel memory, said notifying device configured to compare the least-significant bits of the counter with the packet count.

16. The image display apparatus according to claim 15, further comprising a register for storing information of packetized data in which a transfer skip is detected,

wherein said transfer skip notifying device notifies said host system of information about a transfer skip according to information of said packetized data stored in said register.

17. An interface for display, used to transfer image data to a display with respect to a window, which is an area meaningful as a whole in an image space recognized by an application program, said image data being packetized for each predetermined sub window belonging to said window,

wherein said packet is structured so as to comprise:

a header including information denoting a window to which said packet belongs and count information of said packet, the capacity of the count information being smaller than the capacity of a packet count maintained by the display;

a body including image data belonging to said sub window of said display; and

a footer including information for confirming a transfer error.

18. The interface for display according to claim 17, wherein said header includes information for identifying whether or not said packet is a re-transferred one so as to re-transfer image data.