Tiled packaging of vector image data

• US 7,925,100 B2
• Filed: 07/31/2007
• Issued: 04/12/2011
• Est. Priority Date: 07/31/2007
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Microsoft Technology Licensing LLC (Microsoft Corporation)
• Original Assignee: Microsoft Corporation
• Inventors: Fisher, Danyel, Howell, Jonathan R, Elson, Jeremy
• Primary Examiner(s): Couso; Jose L
• Application Number:
  US11/831,057
• Publication Number:
  US 20090037441A1
• Time in Patent Office: 1,351 Days
• Field of Search: 382232-233, 382/236, 382238-240, 382248-251, 345419-420, 345/422, 345/424, 345/428, 345/552, 345/582, 345/614, 345/619, 345/620, 701200-213, 3409951-99528, 708400-405, 708/203, 708/300, 708307-308, 708/313, 708316-317, 3483941-3951, 3484001-4031, 348/407.1, 348/409.1, 348/413.1, 348/416.1, 3484241-4251, 3484301-4311, 37524002-24003, 37524011-24012, 37524015-24016, 37524018-2402, 341/51, 341/63, 341/65, 341/67, 341/79, 341/107, 705/10, 705/22, 705/27
• US Class Current: 382/232
• CPC Class Codes: G06T 11/40 Filling a planar surface by adding surface attributes, e.g. colour or texture
• CPC Class Codes: G06T 9/00 Image coding bandwidth or redundancy reduction for static pictures H04N1/41; coding or decoding of static colour picture signals H04N1/64; methods or arrangements for coding, decoding, compressing or decompressing digital video signals H04N19/00
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 21/4312 involving specific graphical features, e.g. screen layout, special fonts or colors, blinking icons, highlights or animations
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 21/4314 for fitting data in a restricted space on the screen, e.g. EPG data in a rectangular grid
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 21/44012 involving rendering scenes according to scene graphs, e.g. MPEG-4 scene graphs
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 21/440263 by altering the spatial resolution, e.g. for displaying on a connected PDA
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 21/44029 for generating different versions
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 21/47205 for manipulating displayed content, e.g. interacting with MPEG-4 objects, editing locally
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 21/4782 Web browsing , e.g. WebTV
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 21/64792 Controlling the complexity of the content stream, e.g. by dropping packets intermediate media network packet handling H04L65/765; proxy provisioning conversion or adaptation for reducing the amount or size of exchanged application data H04L67/5651; negotiation of resources in wireless networks H04W28/16
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 21/8153 comprising still images, e.g. texture, background image

Abstract

Architecture for encoding (or packaging) vector-object data using fixed boundary tiles. Tiling a large vector database provides the same advantages that tiling provides for a large raster image. Tiling the dataset means that the set of all possible browser requests is finite and predetermined. The tiles can be rasterized on a client once the tiles have been received from a server. Alternatively, the server can do the tiling and rasterizing, and then send the raster data to the client for presentation and user interaction. Tiles can be precomputed on the server, with selected tiles then transmitted to the client for rasterization. Moreover, tiles can be cached for improved performance, and prefetched based on user interactivity on the client. Summarization of the vector-object data can be accomplished at the server using a configurable plug-in interface.

Claims

1. A computer-implemented image handling system, comprising:

an encoding component for encoding vector data into vector tiles having tile boundaries of a predetermined size, such that vector objects with extent are intersected within the tile boundaries so that each vector tile contains only vector data that belongs within the extents of the objects;

a conversion component for rasterizing the vector data of the vector tiles into bitmap data on at least one of a client or a server, and

a processor that executes computer-executable instructions associated with at least one of the encoding component or the conversion component.

2. The system of claim 1, wherein the vector tiles are precomputed on the server.

3. The system of claim 1, wherein the vector tiles are cached.

4. The system of claim 1, wherein the vector tiles associated with the bitmap data is prefetched.

5. The system of claim 1, wherein per-tile metadata is provided with the bitmap data.

6. The system of claim 1, wherein the client dynamically fetches subtiles of the vector tiles based on currently-displayed tile data, the subtiles having greater detail than the tile data.

7. The system of claim 1, wherein the vector tiles are managed according to a content budget based on at least one of a count of pixels of an object representation or a count of bytes of the object representation.

8. The system of claim 1, wherein the vector tiles are transmitted from multiple disparate servers.

9. The system of claim 1, wherein the vector tiles are organized into a multi-resolution tile pyramid.

10. The system of claim 1, wherein the vector tiles conform to a format compatible with a cylindrical projection of a spherical body.

11. A computer-implemented method of handling image data, comprising acts of:

accessing a server datastore for an image in the form of vector-object data comprising vector objects having extent;

partitioning the vector-object data into vector tiles having tile boundaries;

transmitting the vector tiles to a client;

intersecting the vector objects within the tile boundaries so that each vector tile contains only vector data that belongs within the extents of the vector objects;

rasterizing the vector tiles into bitmap data on the client; and

utilizing a processor that executes instructions stored in memory to perform at least one of the acts of accessing, partitioning, transmitting, intersecting, or rasterizing.

12. The method of claim 11, further comprising precomputing the vector tiles on a server.

13. The method of claim 11, further comprising caching the vector tiles.

14. The method of claim 11, further comprising generating and providing per-tile metadata with the bitmap data, the metadata and bitmap data presented via a browser application on the client for user interaction.

15. The method of claim 14, further comprising prefetching the vector tiles related to the bitmap data.

16. The method of claim 11, further comprising dynamically fetching subtiles of the vector tiles based on currently-displayed vector tiles, the subtiles having greater detail than the vector tiles.

17. The method of claim 11, further comprising establishing a budget for tiles of the vector objects based on at least one of pixel count or a byte count of a tile.

18. The method of claim 11, further comprising invoking summarization of the vector-object data prior to partitioning into vector tiles, both the summarization and the partitioning occurring on a server.

19. The method of claim 11, further comprising determining if to transmit rasterized vector-object data to the client based on quantity of the vector-object data.

20. A computer-implemented system, comprising:

computer-implemented means for accessing a server datastore of vector-object data comprising vector objects having extent;

computer-implemented means for partitioning the vector-object data into tiles having tile boundaries;

computer-implemented means for intersecting the vector objects within the tile boundaries so that each vector tile contains only vector data that belongs within the extents of the vector objects;

computer-implemented means for sending the tiles to a client;

computer-implemented means for rasterizing the tiles into bitmap data on the client;

computer-implemented means for presenting the bitmap data via a client browser application; and

a computer-readable medium on which resides at least one of the computer-implemented means for accessing, partitioning, intersecting, sending, rasterizing, or presenting.