Visual content browsing using rasterized representations

• US 7,242,406 B2
• Filed: 01/23/2004
• Issued: 07/10/2007
• Est. Priority Date: 08/07/2000
• Status: Expired due to Term

• Current Assignee: DigiMedia Tech, LLC (IP Investments Group LLC)
• Original Assignee: Searchlite Advances LLC (Innovation Management Sciences, LLC)
• Inventors: Weiss, Howard P., Robotham, John S., Johnson, Charles Lee
• Primary Examiner(s): Sajous; Wesner
• Application Number:
  US10/764,341
• Publication Number:
  US 20040239681A1
• Time in Patent Office: 1,264 Days
• Field of Search: 345/418, 345/619, 345629-630, 345/632, 345/634, 345/650, 345/652, 715/500, 715/526, 715/700, 715/733, 715/744, 715/748, 715/751, 715/752, 715/764, 709/203, 709/219, 709/200, 709/201, 709/205, 709/213, 709/227, 709/232, 709/238, 709245-246
• US Class Current: 345/581
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 16/9577 Optimising the visualization of content, e.g. distillation of HTML documents
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 2209/509 Offload
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 3/14 Digital output to display device ; Cooperation and interconnection of the display device with other functional units
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 3/1454 involving copying of the display data of a local workstation or window to a remote workstation or window so that an actual copy of the data is displayed simultaneously on two or more displays, e.g. teledisplay
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 9/5055 considering software capabilities, i.e. software resources associated or available to the machine
• CPC Class Codes: G09G 5/39 Control of the bit-mapped memory
• CPC Class Codes: Y02D 10/00 Energy efficient computing, e.g. low power processors, power management or thermal management

Abstract

The present invention relates to display of visual content on a client device using server-side rasterization of visual content. Visual content is rendered on a server system, transformed into bitmaps compatible with the display attributes of a client device, and transmitted for display on the client device. The invention allows the server to perform, in effect, as a remote browser for displaying Web pages, e-mail, e-mail attachments, electronic document and forms, database queries and results, drawings, presentations, and images at the client device. The approach is “remote” because the server does the rendering and the client provides the interface; “multi-level” because rendered visual content is represented as a multi-level set of raster representations; and constitutes a “browsing system” because the client and server share data about the source visual content element being browsed, and the client performs a specific browsing function assisted by the server.

Claims

1. A method of displaying visual content on a client device, comprising the steps of:

establishing a communications link between the client device and a server;

providing a selection of versions of visual content on the server to the client;

determining a display attribute of the client device in response to the providing of a selection of versions of visual content on the server to the client;

automatically selecting a version of said visual content based on said display attribute of the client device;

preparing, in response to the selection of a version of said visual content a rendering of said selected version of said visual content;

at the server, transforming said rendered version of said visual content into a bitmap; and

transmitting said bitmap to the client device for display thereon.

2. The method of claim 1, wherein the attribute comprises a constituent component of the visual content.

3. The method of claim 1, wherein the attribute comprises a parameter of the visual content to be rendered.

4. A method of displaying visual content on a client device comprising:

establishing a communications link between the client device and a server;

providing a selection of versions of visual content on the server to the client;

preparing, in response to a selection of a version of said visual content, a rendering of said selected version of said visual content;

preparing a multi-level raster transformation of the rendered selected version of said visual content;

at the server, transforming said multi-level raster transformation of said visual content into a bitmap; and

transmitting said bitmap to the client device for display thereon.

5. A method of displaying visual content on a client device comprising:

establishing a communications link between the client device and a server;

providing a selection of versions of visual content on the server to the client;

preparing, in response to a selection of a version of said visual content, a rendering of said selected version of said visual content;

preparing a raster extraction of the rendered selected version of said visual content;

at the server, transforming said raster extraction of said visual content into a bitmap; and

transmitting said bitmap to the client device for display thereon.

6. A method of displaying visual content on a client device, comprising the steps of:

establishing a communications link between the client device and a server;

providing a selection of attributes of visual content on the server to the client;

determining a display attribute of the client device;

automatically selecting an attribute of the visual content based upon the determined display attribute;

preparing, in response to the selection of an attribute of said visual content, a rendering of said visual content having said attribute;

at the server, transforming said rendered visual content having said attribute into a bitmap; and

transmitting said bitmap to the client device for display thereon.

7. The method of claim 6, further comprising the step of multi-level raster transformation of the rendered visual content having said attribute prior to transforming said rendered visual content having said attribute to a bitmap.

8. The method of claim 6, further comprising the step of raster extraction of the rendered visual content having said attribute prior to transforming said rendered visual content having said attribute to a bitmap.