Method and system for display of video device status information

• US 7,349,000 B2
• Filed: 04/28/2003
• Issued: 03/25/2008
• Est. Priority Date: 04/30/2002
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Cisco Technology, Inc. (Cisco Systems, Inc.)
• Original Assignee: Tandberg Telecom AS (Cisco Systems, Inc.)
• Inventors: McDonald, Brian, McKibben, Wendy, Stephens, James, Lemieux, James
• Primary Examiner(s): Lo; Weilun
• Assistant Examiner(s): PHANTANA ANGKOOL, DAVID
• Application Number:
  US10/425,522
• Publication Number:
  US 20030202008A1
• Time in Patent Office: 1,793 Days
• Field of Search: 709/204, 715/719, 715/749, 715/736, 715/772, 715/859, 715/751, 715/756, 345/719
• US Class Current: 715/719
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 67/12 specially adapted for proprietary or special-purpose networking environments, e.g. medical networks, sensor networks, networks in vehicles or remote metering networks
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 67/75 Indicating network or usage conditions on the user display
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 69/329 in the application layer [OSI layer 7]
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 9/40 Network security protocols

Abstract

The status of a video call is displayed in a simplified and intuitive graphical user interface that presents status information of individual video devices of the video call with graphical or color indications with a gauge metaphor, such as a vertically or horizontally aligned bar of icons. Each video device of the video call is represented by an icon having a display position or color so that the icons are arranged to depict video devices together that have similar states. For instance, a video call is represented by a bar of icons ordered by the status of each video device with icons having the same color located contiguous with each other so that a video call with an overall good status appears as a green bar and a video call with an overall poor status appears as a red bar with red icons indicating failed video devices. A summary icon summarizes the overall state of a video call by indicating the color or graphical information of the video device of the video call that has the problem of greatest concern.

Claims

1. A system for display of video teleconference device status information for plural video teleconference devices, each video teleconference device associated with one or more of plural video teleconference calls, the system comprising:

a video teleconference network platform operable to interface with the video teleconference devices to retrieve status information of the video teleconference devices;

a video teleconference call monitor engine interfaced with the video teleconference network platform and operable to analyze the status information to associate each video teleconference device with a video teleconference call and a display position;

a graphical user interface in communication with the video teleconference call monitor engine and operable to display

plural bars, each bar representing a video teleconference call; and

plural icons disposed in each bar, each icon representing a corresponding video teleconference device of the video teleconference call, each of said plural icons including a graphical representation uniquely corresponding to a type of video device represented, the types of video teleconference devices comprising a video teleconference end point device, a multi-point call unit device or a gateway device,

wherein each video teleconference device has a diagnostic state and each icon represents the diagnostic state of its associated video teleconference device by one of plural colors, with icons of devices involved in the video teleconference call displayed contiguously by color to aid in visualization of an overall diagnostic state of the video teleconference call, and

an icon of a calling video device corresponding to the type of the calling video device, but assuming a status indication corresponding to a called device.

2. The system of claim 1 wherein the status information comprises video teleconference device state information and the display position comprises a ranking of relative importance of the state information for the video teleconference device compared with other video teleconference devices of the video teleconference call.

3. The system of claim 2 wherein the icons are aligned as a horizontal bar.

4. The system of claim 2 wherein the icons are aligned as a vertical bar.

5. The system of claim 1 wherein the video teleconference call monitor engine associates video teleconference devices having a failed state with the color red and a predetermined display position, and wherein the graphical user interface displays a red icon bar to illustrate a severity of video teleconference device failures for a video teleconference call.

6. The system of claim 1 wherein the colors comprise red for video teleconference devices having a failed state and green for video teleconference devices having a normal state, the graphical user interface providing a visual depiction of a state of each video teleconference call by comparing a length of ordered red icons with length of ordered green icons for each video teleconference call.

7. The system of claim 1 wherein the status information comprises state and event information and wherein the graphical user interface is further operable to detect activation of an icon by an input device and to display desired state and event information of a video teleconference device upon activation of the icon associated with the video teleconference device.

8. The system of claim 1 wherein the graphical user interface further comprises a summary icon for each video teleconference call, the summary icon depicting a color associated with a lowest state of a video teleconference device associated with the video teleconference call.

9. A method for display of video teleconference device status information for plural video teleconference devices, each video teleconference device associated with one or more of plural video teleconference calls, the method comprising:

gathering status information for the video devices;

associating each video teleconference device with a video teleconference call;

ordering the video teleconference devices associated with each video teleconference call according to a status of each video teleconference device in the video teleconference call;

representing each video device as an icon;

displaying plural bars, each bar representing a video teleconference call; and

displaying plural icons disposed in each bar, each icon representing a corresponding video teleconference device of the video teleconference call, each of said plural icons including a graphical representation uniquely corresponding to a type of video device represented, the types of video teleconference devices comprising a video teleconference end point device, a multi-point call unit device or a gateway device, wherein

each video teleconference device has a diagnostic state and each icon represents the diagnostic state of its associated video teleconference device by one of plural colors, with icons of devices involved in the video teleconference call displayed contiguously by color to aid in visualization of an overall diagnostic state of the video teleconference call, and

an icon of a calling video device corresponding to the type of the calling video device, but assuming a status indication corresponding to a called device.

10. The method of claim 9 wherein displaying a representation of each video teleconference call as a bar of icons further comprises displaying a horizontal bar of icons for each video teleconference call.

11. The method of claim 9 wherein displaying a representation of each video teleconference call as a bar of icons further comprises displaying a vertical bar of icons for each video teleconference call.

12. A graphical user interface comprising:

plural bars, each bar representing a video teleconference call; and

plural icons disposed in each bar, each icon representing a corresponding video teleconference device of the video teleconference call;

each of said plural icons including a graphical representation uniquely corresponding to a type of video device represented, the types of video teleconference devices comprising a video teleconference end point device, a multi-point call unit device or a gateway, wherein

each video teleconference device has a diagnostic state and each icon represents the diagnostic state of its associated video teleconference device by one of plural colors, with icons of devices involved in the video teleconference call displayed contiguously by color to aid in visualization of an overall diagnostic state of the video teleconference call,

an icon of a calling video device corresponding to the type of the calling video device, but assuming a status indication corresponding to a called device, and

a display for displaying said bars and icons.

13. The graphical user interface of claim 12 wherein video teleconference devices having a normal state are represented by green icons and video teleconference devices having an abnormal state are represented by red icons.

14. A method of displaying video teleconference device status information for plural video teleconference devices associated with one or more video teleconference calls, the method comprising:

determining a capacity status of the video teleconference devices of the video teleconference call;

displaying the capacity status of the video teleconference devices by simulating a fuel quantity gauge;

displaying a calling video device with an icon corresponding to a type of the calling video device, but assuming a status indication corresponding to a called device; and

displaying a graphical representation corresponding uniquely to a type of video device represented by the icon, the types of video teleconference devices comprising a video teleconference end point device, a multi-point call unit device or a gateway device.