Method for the automatic generation of an interactive electronic equipment documentation package

• US 20040004636A1
• Filed: 07/08/2002
• Published: 01/08/2004
• Est. Priority Date: 07/08/2002
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: ASM International NV
• Original Assignee: ASM International NV
• Inventors: van Driel, Marinus A.
• Granted Patent: US 7,356,762 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 345/760
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 16/84 Mapping; Conversion

Abstract

An interactive electronic equipment document production system is disclosed. Documents from different sources are standardized in a conversion process, provided with tags in a tagging process that provides information connecting an initial locating with another location and are evaluated in a building process where tags and tag information are evaluated. Though the use of associated files, CAD files and generic pictures can be provided with tags and links without modifying the actual CAD file or generic picture.

Claims

1. A method to produce an interactive electronic equipment documentation package, the package comprising multiple documents with hyperlinks, the method comprising:

providing input documents;

providing tags to the input documents, each of the tags including tag information defining a request for the formation of a link and the formation of a click-button relating to the tag;

storing the tagged documents in a storage medium;

providing a project definition;

selecting from the tagged documents in the storage medium the tagged documents based on the project definition; and

creating links and click-buttons for the selected tagged documents based on the tag information associated with each tag.

2. The method of claim 1 wherein the step of creating links and click-buttons for the input documents based on the tag information comprises providing a building rule base and creating the links and click-buttons based on instructions in the building rule base and the tag information.

3. The method of claim 1 wherein the step of providing tags to the input documents comprises providing a tagging rule base and creating the tags automatically, based on the instructions in the tagging rule base.

4. The method of claim 1 wherein the tags comprise high level tags that contain parameters defining a link to be formed which require interpretation during a build phase and low level tags that contain parameters that uniquely define a link to be formed.

5. The method of claim 4 wherein the high level tags include a link destination that is dependent on the interpretation during the build phase.

6. The method of claim 4 wherein for the high level tags the decision to form a link is dependent on the interpretation.

7. The method of claim 3 wherein in the step of creating the tags automatically, based on the instructions in the tagging rule base, further comprises using, the format of selected pieces of information in the input documents to create the tags.

8. The method of claim 1 wherein the step of providing input documents comprises the step of providing input documents with a known file format

9. The method of claim 8, wherein the step of creating the tags automatically further comprises using the known file format to create the tags.

10. The method of claim 8 wherein the step of providing documents with the known file format is followed by converting the input document with the known file format into a document with a predefined, standardized file format.

11. The method of claim 1 wherein the project is viewed using a viewer program, the viewer program comprising a single user interface through which the interactive electronic document package, including files with different file formats, can be viewed and wherein the user interface window comprises at least one of a menu bar with pull-down menus and an icon bar with icons.

12. The method of claim 11 wherein the information in the interactive electronic equipment documentation package is divided into two or more catagories, and the user interface of the viewer program includes selection fields to select a category of information of a project and to switch from one category to another.

13. The method of claim 1 wherein the step of creating a link comprises creating links to a drawing file or a picture file by using an associated file to store link information.

14. The method of claim 1 further comprising providing a generic picture with a generic associated file, the generic associated file comprising a generic tag, and further providing the generic picture and its generic associated file with a link file, the link file linking the generic picture to a specific file.

15. A method for producing an electronic documentation package comprising:

providing a plurality of source documents;

tagging the plurality of source documents with tags comprising information defining the location of click-buttons and hyperlinks to produce a plurality of tagged documents; and

processing the plurality of tagged documents to produce a plurality of final documents that include click-buttons and hyperlinks.

16. The method of claim 15 further comprising viewing the final documents using a viewer program.

17. The method of claim 16 wherein the viewer program is capable of viewing different file formats and wherein the viewer program comprises a single user interface through which the different file formats can be viewed.

18. The method of claim 16 where in the viewer program includes tabs or selection buttons selectable to showing different parts of the project.

19. The method of claim 15 wherein the step of providing a plurality of source documents comprises providing a plurality of documents with a known file format.

20. The method of claim 19, further comprises converting the plurality of documents with the known file format into a plurality of documents with a predefined file format using a standardization rule base.

21. The method of claim 15 wherein the step of tagging the plurality of standardized documents further comprises providing an associated file to store tag information associated with a drawing.

22. The method of claim 15 wherein the step of tagging further comprises using a tagging rule base to determine the tags.

23. The method of claim 15 wherein the step of tagging further comprises providing different levels of tags comprising high level tags that contain parameters, defining a link to be formed, which require interpretation during a building phase wherein the links are created based on tag information and low level tags that comprise parameters which uniquely define a link to be formed.

24. The method claim 15 where in the step of processing the tags further comprises using a build rule base to process the tags.

26. The apparatus of claim 24, further comprising a conversion processor operable to convert one or more input documents with known file format into one or more standardized input documents with predefined standardized file format.

32. The apparatus of claim 26, wherein the conversion processor, the tagging processor, and the building processor are provided as a single processor.

33. The apparatus of claim 26, wherein the electronic documentation package is viewable through a viewer program.

25. An apparatus for producing an electronic documentation package comprising:

a tagging processor operable to provide tags to one or more input documents with known file format to produce tagged documents; and

a building processor operable to select specific tagged documents from a collection of tagged documents to produce an electronic document package.

27. The apparatus of claim 25, wherein the tagging processor further comprises a tagging rule base for automatically determining the location of tags in the input document with known file format.

28. The apparatus of claim 27, wherein the tagging rule base defines high level tags and low level tags, the high level tags defining a link that requires further evaluation and low level tags defining parameters that uniquely define a link to be formed.

29. The apparatus of claim 25, wherein the location of tags is determined by the format of information in the input document with known file format.

30. The apparatus of claim 25, wherein the input document is a graphic file and the tag processor is operable to produce an associate file containing an association between a drawing position number in the graphical file and information defining a link.

31. The apparatus of claim 25 wherein the building processor comprises a building rule base operable to evaluate high level tags and produce the links and click-buttons for high level tags and low-level tags.

34. An electronic documentation package assembler comprising:

conversion means for converting one or more input documents to one or more standard documents;

tagging means for providing tags to the one or more standardized documents to produce standardized tag documents; and

a building means for selecting specific standardized documents to produce an electronic documentation package.

35. The assembler of claim 34, wherein the tagging means further comprises a tagging rule base for automatically determining the location of tags in the standard document.

36. The assembler of claim 35, wherein the tagging rule base defines high level tags and low level tags, the high level tags defining a link that requires further evaluation and low level tags defining parameters that uniquely define a link to be formed.

37. The assembler of claim 35, wherein the location of tags are determined by the format of information in the standard document.

38. The assembler of claim 35, wherein the input document is a graphic file and the tag means is operable to produce an associate file containing an association between a part number in the graphical file and information defining a link.

39. The apparatus of claim 35 wherein the building means comprises a building rule base operable to evaluate high level tags and produce links and click-buttons for high level tags and low-level tags.

40. The apparatus of claim 35, wherein the electronic documentation package is viewable through a viewer program.

41. A method for viewing interactive electric equipment documentation project comprising;

displaying an initial information screen comprising a number of hyperlinks that, when selected by a user, displays additional windows of information;

displaying a drawing file having one or more predefined clickable areas;

reading an associated file associated with the drawing file when one of the predefined clickable areas is selected;

determining a destination screen associated with the predefined clickable area from the associated file; and

displaying the destination screen.

42. The method of claim 41 wherein the drawing file is a CAD file and the destination screen is a bill of material.

43. The method of claim 41 wherein the drawing file is a generic picture file.

44. The method of claim 41 further comprises the step of selecting one or more tabs to navigate through different part of a project.