Markup Language for Interactive Geographic Information System

• US 20080016472A1
• Filed: 06/12/2007
• Published: 01/17/2008
• Est. Priority Date: 06/12/2006
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Google LLC (Alphabet Inc.)
• Original Assignee: Google Inc. (Alphabet Inc.)
• Inventors: Jones, Michael, Rohlf, John, McClendon, Brian, Hagemark, Bent
• Granted Patent: US 7,643,673 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 715/848
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 16/29 Geographical information databases
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 16/9537 Spatial or temporal dependent retrieval, e.g. spatiotemporal queries

Abstract

Data-driven guarded evaluation of conditional-data associated with data objects is used to control activation and processing of the data objects in an interactive geographic information system. Methods of evaluating conditional-data to control activation of the data objects are disclosed herein. Data-structures to specify conditional data are also disclosed herein.

Claims

1. A computer-implemented method of activating an object in an interactive visual environment:

receiving a request for content of the visual environment to be displayed in a first two dimensional display area of a display device;

identifying an object in the visual environment and a three dimensional volume associated with the object;

generating a second two dimensional area based on the three dimensional volume; and

responsive to determining the second two dimensional area to be viewable within the first two dimensional area, activating the object.

2. The method of claim 1, wherein generating a second two dimensional area comprises:

generating a projection of the three dimensional volume based on the two dimensional display area.

3. The method of claim 2, wherein generating a projection of the three dimensional volume further comprises:

identifying that the projection is not occluded by three dimensional objects in the visual environment.

4. The method of claim 2, further comprising generating a projection of the three dimensional volume based on an oblique angle of the content of the visual environment to be displayed in the first two dimensional display area.

5. The method of claim 2, wherein the three dimensional volume is associated with a range of pixel sizes, and identifying the volume to be viewable within the user viewport further comprises:

identifying the pixel size of the second two dimensional area to be within the range of pixel sizes associated with the three dimensional volume.

6. The method of claim 1, wherein activating the object comprises retrieving the object from a location and loading the object on the client device.

7. The method of claim 6, wherein the object is a graphic object and activating the object for interactive display further comprises rendering the object in the interactive visual environment based on the projection.

8. The method of claim 6, wherein the object is a video object and activating the object for display further comprises:

displaying the video object in the interactive visual environment; and

generating and providing to the user an interactive control for controlling the display of the video object.

9. The method of claim 1, wherein the object is a sound object and activating the object for display further comprises playing the sound object.

10. The method of claim 7, wherein the three dimensional volume is associated with a range of pixel sizes representing a range of transparencies and rendering the object further comprises:

rendering the object with a level of transparency of the range of transparencies based on the pixel size of the projection.

11. The method of claim 1, further comprising:

a link specifying a network location of a file containing a second data structure, the second data structure comprising a second object and a second three dimensional volume.

12. The method of claim 11, wherein activating the first object further comprises:

retrieving the file from the network location;

generating a third two dimensional area based on the second three dimensional volume; and

responsive to determining the third two dimensional area to be viewable within the first two dimensional area, activating the second object.

13. The method of claim 11, wherein:

the link is associated with a condition upon which to retrieve the object from a network location and load the retrieved object onto the client device; and

activating the second object further comprises retrieving the object from the network location upon the condition associated with the link and loading the retrieved object on the client device.

14. The method of claim 1 further comprising:

activating a plurality of objects to provide the object to the client device according to the method of claim 1, wherein a plurality of data structures comprise a plurality of objects; and

displaying a subset of the plurality of objects based on a plurality of priority values defined in the plurality of data structures.

15. A computer-readable storage medium encoded with a computer-readable data structure for describing an object and a three dimensional volume defining an activation condition of the object, the data structure readable by a computer processor to display the object, the data structure comprising:

at least one object markup language element, the object markup language element defining an object to be activated;

a plurality of object tags associated with the object markup language element wherein the plurality of object tags describe the object defined by the object element;

a plurality of coordinate markup language elements, each coordinate markup language element defining a three dimensional coordinate in a three dimensional space; and

a plurality of region tags, comprising a tag for each coordinate markup language element, wherein the region tags describe a three dimensional volume defining the activation condition of the object.

16. The computer-readable storage medium of claim 15, the data structure further comprising:

a minimum pixel markup language element defining a minimum number of pixels;

a maximum pixel markup language element defining a maximum number of pixels; and

a plurality of tags, comprising tags for the maximum and minimum pixel markup language elements, wherein the tags describe a visibility range under which the object is to be displayed.

17. The computer-readable storage medium of claim 15, further comprising:

a plurality of fade display markup language elements, each element defining a number of pixels over which to render the object with a level of transparency; and

a plurality of tags, comprising a tag for each element, wherein the tags represent interactive display values for the data object.

18. The computer-readable storage medium of claim 15, further comprising:

a location markup language element specifying a network location of the object; and

a plurality of location tags associated with the location markup language element.

19. The computer-readable storage medium of claim 18, further comprising:

a refresh markup language element defining a condition upon on which to retrieve the object from the network location; and

a plurality of refresh tags associated with the refresh markup language element.

20. A computer-implemented method of activating an object in an interactive geographic information system, comprising receiving a markup language specification of an object and conditional-data associated with the object, wherein the conditional-data specifies a condition to activate the object;

evaluating the conditional-data with respect to a visual environment generated by the interactive geographic information system; and

responsive to determining the condition specified by the conditional-data to be satisfied, activating the object.