System and method for navigating related data

• US 8,682,919 B1
• Filed: 12/23/2004
• Issued: 03/25/2014
• Est. Priority Date: 12/23/2004
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Google LLC (Alphabet Inc.)
• Original Assignee: Google Inc. (Alphabet Inc.)
• Inventors: Golliher, Geoffrey
• Primary Examiner(s): Pham, Khanh
• Assistant Examiner(s): Johnson, Johnese
• Application Number:
  US11/022,545
• Time in Patent Office: 3,379 Days
• Field of Search: 707/3
• US Class Current: 707/769
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 16/5854 using shape and object relationship

Abstract

A coordinate system is assigned to an object in a group of objects (e.g. an image in a digital photo album or a page in a document). The object is rendered on a display. A value correlated to the coordinate system is transmitted when another object in the group of objects is to be viewed. From this value, another related object (e.g. the next image in the album or the next page in the document) is identified and transmitted. This related object is then rendered on the display in place of the first object.

Claims

1. A method, comprising:

transmitting a first object in a group of related objects, the first object being a first digital photograph in a digital photo album, the digital photo album being the group of related objects associated with a sequential order of digital photographs in the digital photo album;

receiving a value that corresponds to a first coordinate of a coordinate system, the coordinate system assigned to the rendered first object after the first object has been transmitted and rendered, wherein the value indicates a user selection of the rendered first object at a distance along a first axis of the coordinate system to initiate a retrieval of a second object in the group of related objects;

in response to receipt of the value, determining from the value and the coordinate system, the second object in the group of related objects based on the value relative to the first axis of the coordinate system and the sequential order of digital photographs in the digital photo album; and

transmitting the second object being a second digital photograph in the digital photo album to replace the first object.

2. The method of claim 1, wherein the first and second objects are visual objects.

3. The method of claim 1, wherein the first and second objects are electronic files.

4. The method of claim 1, wherein the transmitting is over a computer bus.

5. The method of claim 1, wherein the transmitting is over a network.

6. The method of claim 5, wherein the network is a personal area network (PAN), local area network (LAN) or wide area network (WAN).

7. The method of claim 5, wherein the network is a wireless network.

8. The method of claim 7, wherein the wireless network is a mobile telephone network.

9. The method of claim 1, further including a client assigning the coordinate system.

10. The method of claim 1, further including a server assigning the coordinate system.

11. The method of claim 1, further comprising:

wherein the rendered first objet is a first portion of a visual image and the retrieved second object is a second portion of the visual image that is adjacent to the first portion.

12. The method of claim 11, further comprising:

wherein the visual image is a digital photograph with a resolution greater than a display that displays the first object and the second object.

13. The method of claim 1, wherein an origin of the coordinate system is assigned to the center of the first digital photograph, and wherein the second object in the group of related objects is determined to be a digital photograph that is after the first digital photograph in the digital photo album when the value is positive, and the second object in the group of related objects is determined to be a digital photograph that is before the first digital photograph in the digital photo album when the value is negative.

14. The method of claim 1, wherein an origin of the coordinate system is assigned to a top left corner of the first digital photograph, and wherein the second object in the group of related objects is determined to be a digital photograph that is after the first digital photograph in the digital photo album when the value is greater than half the width of the first digital photograph, and the second object in the group of related objects is determined to be a digital photograph that is before the first digital photograph in the digital photo album when the value is less than half the width of the first digital photograph.

15. A method, comprising:

transmitting to a client a first image in a group of related images, the first image a digital photograph in a digital photo album, and the group of related images associated with a sequential ordering of a group of digital photographs in the digital photo album;

receiving from the client a value that corresponds to a first coordinate of a coordinate system, the coordinate system assigned to the rendered first image after the first image has been transmitted and rendered, wherein the value indicates a client selection of the rendered first image at a distance along a first axis of the coordinate system to initiate a retrieval of a second image in the group of related images;

in response to receipt of the value, querying a data collection to determine the second image in the group of related images value relative to the first axis of the coordinate system and the sequential ordering of the group of digital photographs in the digital photo album, the querying to include a parameter to be associated with the value and the coordinate system; and

transmitting to the client the second image to replace the first image for display of a second digital photograph from the digital photo album.

16. The method of claim 15, wherein the first image and second image correspond to different image files.

17. The method of claim 15, wherein the value is to identify a coordinate of a cursor in the coordinate system.

18. The method of claim 15, wherein the value is to identify a relationship to the first object, the relationship to be derived from a coordinate of a cursor in the coordinate system.

19. The method of claim 15, wherein the value is to identify the second object, the value to be derived from a relationship to the first object, the relationship to be derived from a coordinate of a cursor in the coordinate system.

20. The method of claim 15, wherein the data collection is to be located remotely.

21. The method of claim 15, wherein the data collection is selected from a group consisting of a table, an array, a tab delineated list, a comma delineated list, an XML file, and a database.

22. A method, comprising:

displaying a first object in a group of related objects, the first object assigned a coordinate system only after being displayed, wherein first object is a first digital photograph in a digital photo album, and the group of related objects is associated with a sequential order of digital photographs in the digital photo album;

transmitting a value that corresponds to a first coordinate of the coordinate system assigned to the displayed first object, wherein the value indicates a user selection of the displayed first object at a distance along a first axis of the coordinate system to initiate a retrieval of a second object in the group of related objects based on the sequential order of digital photographs in the digital photo album indicated by the value;

receiving the second object, based on the value relative to the first axis of the coordinate system, in the group of related objects in response to the transmitting, the second object a second digital photograph in the digital photo album; and

displaying the second object in place of the first object.

23. The method of claim 22, wherein the transmitting is to a central processing unit.

24. The method of claim 22, wherein the transmitting is to a router or a server.

25. The method of claim 22, further comprising:

displaying a visual cue when a location of the cursor relative to the first axis is greater than a first value on the first axis of the coordinate system; and

varying the visual cue when the location of the cursor relative to the first axis is less than the first value on the first axis of the coordinate system.

26. The method of claim 25, wherein the visual cue is to overlap the object.

27. The method of claim 22, further comprising:

displaying a visual cue when a location of the cursor relative to the first axis is greater than a first value on the first axis of the coordinate system; and

varying the visual cue when the location of the cursor relative to the first axis is less than a first value on the first axis of the coordinate system, wherein the visual cue includes a thumbnail image that provides a preview of a digital photograph in the digital photo album that will be displayed in place of the first object in response to user selection at the first or second coordinate.

28. A method, comprising:

displaying a first image in a group of related images, the first image a digital photograph in a digital photo album, and the group of related images associated with a sequential ordering of digital photographs in the digital photo album;

assigning a coordinate system to the first image only after being displayed;

displaying a visual cue when a cursor is in a region of the first image;

recording, in response to an event, a first coordinate to indicate a location of the cursor along a first axis of the coordinate system assigned to the displayed first image at the time of the event;

determining a value from the first coordinate to initiate a retrieval of a second image in the group of related images, the second image a second digital photograph in the digital photo album;

transmitting the value;

receiving the second image in response to the transmitting based on the value relative to the first axis of the coordinate system and the sequential ordering of digital photographs in the digital photo album; and

displaying the second image in place of the first image.

29. The method of claim 28, wherein the event is an activation of an input device.

30. The method of claim 28, wherein the displaying is in a software application selected from a group consisting of a web browser, a digital photo album client, an email client and an image reader.

31. The method of claim 28, wherein the displaying is on a screen selected from a group consisting of a personal computer screen, a personal digital assistant (PDA) screen, a cellular telephone screen and a television screen.

32. The method of claim 28, wherein the first and second objects are in a format selected from the group consisting of joint photographies experts group (JPEG), graphics interchange format (GIP), tagged image file format (TIFF), portable network graphics (PNG), encapsulated postscript (EPS) and portable document format (PDF).

33. The method of claim 28, further comprising varying the visual cue when the cursor is in another region of the first image.

34. An apparatus, comprising:

a means for transmitting over a network a first object in a group of related objects, the first object a digital photograph in a digital photo album, and the group of related objects is associated with a sequential order of digital photographs in the digital photo album;

a means for receiving a value that corresponds to a first coordinate of a coordinate system, the coordinate system assigned to the rendered first object after the first object has been transmitted over the network and rendered for a user, wherein the value indicates a user selection of the rendered first object at a distance along a first axis of the coordinate system to initiate a retrieval of a second object in the group of related objects;

a means for searching, in response to the receiving, a data collection to determine the second object based on the value relative to the first axis of the coordinate system in the group of related objects and the sequential order of digital photographs in the digital photo album, the searching to include a parameter to be associated with the value; and

a means for transmitting over the network the second object being a second digital photograph in the digital photo album to replace the first object.

35. The apparatus of claim 34, wherein the means for searching include means for querying a local data collection and a remote server.

36. A non-transitory machine readable storage medium having instructions stored thereon, which when executed on a processing system, cause said processing system to perform a method comprising:

transmitting a first object in a group of related objects, the first object being a first digital photograph in a digital photo album, and the digital photo album being the group of related objects is associated with a sequential order of digital photographs;

receiving a value that corresponds to a first coordinate of a coordinate system, the coordinate system assigned to the rendered first object after the first object has been transmitted and rendered, wherein the value indicates a user selection of the rendered first object at a distance along a first axis of the coordinate system to initiate a retrieval of a second object in the group of related objects;

in response to receipt of the value, determining from the value and the coordinate system, the second object in the group of related objects based on the value relative to the first axis of the coordinate system and the sequential order of digital photographs in the digital photo album; and

transmitting the second object being a second digital photograph in the digital photo album to replace the first object.

37. The machine readable medium of claim 36, wherein the first object include a Uniform Resource Locator (URL).

38. The machine readable medium of claim 36, wherein the first object include a computer process identifier.

39. The machine readable medium of claim 36, wherein is to be stored in a local memory and the group of related objects is to be stored in a remote memory.

40. The machine readable medium of claim 36, wherein the second object comprises instructions to query a data collection with a parameter to be associated with the value.

41. A non-transitory machine readable storage medium having instructions stored thereon, which when executed on a processing system, cause said processing system to perform a method comprising:

displaying a first object in a group of related objects, the first object being a first digital photograph in a digital photo album, the digital photo album being the group of related objects that is associated with a sequential order of digital photographs in the digital photo album;

assigning a coordinate system to the first object only after being displayed;

transmitting a value that corresponds to a first coordinate of the coordinate system assigned to the displayed first object, wherein the value indicates a user selection of the displayed first object at a distance along a first axis of the coordinate system to initiate a retrieval of a second object in the group of related objects;

receiving the second object, based on the value relative to the first axis of the coordinate system and the sequential order of digital photographs in the digital photo album, in the group of related objects in response to the transmitting; and

displaying the second object being a second digital photograph in the digital photo album in place of the first object.

42. The machine readable medium of claim 41, wherein the transmitting include transmitting over a network.

43. The machine readable medium of claim 41, further comprising:

displaying a visual cue when a location of the cursor relative to the first axis is greater than a first value on the first axis of the coordinate system; and

varying the visual cue when the location of the cursor relative to the first axis is less than the first value on the first axis of in the coordinate system.

44. The machine readable medium of claim 43, wherein the visual cue is to overlap the object.

45. The machine readable medium of claim 41, further comprising:

displaying a visual cue when a location of the cursor relative to the first axis is greater than a first value on the first axis of the coordinate system; and

varying the visual cue when the location of the cursor relative to the first axis is greater than a first value on the first axis of the coordinate system, indicates a relationship between the first object and an object that will be displayed in place of the first object in response to user selection at the first or second coordinate.

46. A system, comprising:

a client system;

a database to store a set of related visual objects, the set to include a first visual object and a second visual object corresponding to a first digital photograph and a second digital photograph in a digital photo album, wherein digital photo album being the group of related visual objects that is associated with a sequential order of digital photographs in the digital photo album; and

a server coupled with the client and database to receive a value that corresponds to a position in a coordinate system assigned to the first visual object, the coordinate system assigned to the first visual object only after being transmitted by the server to the client system and after displayed on the client system, and the value indicates a client selection of the displayed first visual object at a distance along a first axis of the coordinate system to initiate a retrieval of the second visual object,

to determine the second visual object from the value based on the value relative to the first axis of the coordinate system and the sequential order of digital photographs in the digital photo album, and

to transmit the second visual object being the second digital photograph in the digital photo album to replace the first visual object.

47. The system of claim 46, wherein the system further comprises:

a first server to receive the value and transmit the second visual object; and

a second server, coupled with the first server, to store the set of related visual objects in the database.

48. The system of claim 46, wherein the value is a coordinate in the coordinate system and the determination includes translation of the coordinate to a relationship with the first visual object and identification of the second visual object from the relationship.