Multiprocess input redirection in a 3D window system

• US 20050179703A1
• Filed: 02/09/2005
• Published: 08/18/2005
• Est. Priority Date: 02/17/2004
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Oracle America, Inc. (Oracle Corporation)
• Original Assignee: Sun Microsystems Incorporated (Oracle Corporation)
• Inventors: Johnson, Deron D.
• Granted Patent: US 7,487,463 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 345/632
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 3/04815 Interaction with a metaphor-based environment or interaction object displayed as three-dimensional, e.g. changing the user viewpoint with respect to the environment or object
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 9/452 Remote windowing, e.g. X-Window System, desktop virtualisation protocols for virtual reality H04L67/131

Abstract

A 3D window system allows the contents of conventional windows created by client applications to be painted onto the surfaces of 3D objects which are then displayed in a 3D environment. The 3D window system includes a window system server and a display server. The window system server and the display server access a shared visibility structure which contains information representative of a collection of 3D objects. The window system server determines which 3D object is selected by an input event, determines a window corresponding to the 3D object, and delivers event messages to client applications which have expressed an interest in receiving events relative to the window.

Claims

1. A method comprising:

a display server updating a shared visibility structure, wherein the shared visibility structure contains data representing a set of 3D objects;

an event manager reading at least a subset of the data from the shared visibility structure and processing said at least a subset of the data to determine a first of said 3D objects indicated by a picking shape in response to an input event;

the event manager sending a message to a client informing said client that a window corresponding to said first object is intersected by the picking shape;

wherein the display server and the event manager execute in separate processes.

2. The method of claim 1, wherein said processing of said at least a subset of data to determine a first of said 3D objects indicated by the picking shape includes:

performing a picking operation using said at least a subset of the data from the shared visibility structure to identify one or more of the 3D objects intersected by the picking shape;

wherein said first object is one of said one or more objects intersected by the picking shape.

3. The method of claim 2, wherein said first object indicated by the picking shape is a closest of one or more of the 3D objects intersected by the picking shape.

4. The method of claim 1 further comprising:

arbitrating access to the shared visibility structure between the display server and event manager using a mutex.

5. The method of claim 1, wherein said processing produces a point of intersection between said picking shape and said first object, the method further comprising:

determining whether the window is a conventional window;

embedding coordinate values of the intersection point in the message in response to a determination that the window is a conventional window, wherein the coordinate values are relative to a coordinate system of the window.

6. The method of claim 1 further comprising:

determining whether the window is a non-conventional window;

embedding in the message an identifier of the first object in response to a determination that the window is a conventional window.

7. The method of claim 1, wherein said processing produces a point of intersection between the picking shape and said first object, the method further comprising:

determining whether the window is a non-conventional window;

embedding 3D world coordinates of the intersection point in the message in response to a determination that the window is a non-conventional window.

8. The method of claim 1, wherein the shared visibility structure resides in shared memory.

9. The method of claim 1, wherein the shared visibility structure resides in a file that is memory mapped into both the event manager and the display server.

10. The method of claim 1, wherein the display server updates the shared visibility structure in response to receiving a request to update a scene graph.

11. The method of claim 1, wherein an direction of the picking shape is specified by the input event.

12. The method of claim 1, wherein a spatial parameter of the picking shape is specified by the input event.

13. The method of claim 1, wherein the client is a client that invoked creation of the window.

14. The method of claim 1, wherein the client is a client other than the client that invoked creation of the window.

15. The method of claim 1, wherein the window is a conventional window.

16. The method of claim 1, wherein the window is a non-conventional window.

17. The method of claim 1 wherein the event manager resides within the server process of the X11 window system.

18. The method of claim 1, wherein the display server resides outside the server process of the X11 window system.

19. The method of claim 1, wherein the shared visibility structure is a hull tree, wherein each leaf node of the hull tree specifies a hull which spatially bounds a set of geometry for one of the 3D objects.

20. The method of claim 19, wherein the hull tree is a binary hull tree.

21. The method of claim 1, wherein the shared visibility structure is an exact copy of a scene graph maintained by the display server.

22. The method of claim 1, wherein the shared visibility structure is a reduced version of a scene graph maintained by the display server, wherein said reduced version excludes non-geometric elements of the scene graph.

23. The method of claim 1, wherein the picking shape is a ray emanating from a current viewpoint.

24. A computer-accessible medium comprising program instructions, wherein the program instructions are configured to implement the method recited in claim 1.

25. A system, comprising:

a processor; and

a memory comprising program instructions, wherein the program instructions are executable by the processor to implement the method recited in claim 1.