APPARATUS AND METHOD FOR DATA CHARTING WITH AN EXTENSIBLE VISUALIZATION LIBRARY

• US 20080180458A1
• Filed: 01/31/2007
• Published: 07/31/2008
• Est. Priority Date: 01/31/2007
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Business Objects Incorporated (SAP SE)
• Original Assignee: Business Objects SA (SAP SE)
• Inventors: Labouze, Marc, Favart, Christophe, Plumejeau, Bruno
• Granted Patent: US 7,880,749 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 345/630
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 9/455 Emulation; Interpretation; Software simulation, e.g. virtualisation or emulation of application or operating system execution engines

Abstract

A computer readable storage medium includes executable instructions to define an abstraction layer disposed between a business intelligence application and a set of visualization libraries. The abstraction layer provides an application programmer interface for the business intelligence application to the set of visualization libraries. A visualization settings model is defined within the abstraction layer. The visualization settings model describes a visualization that can be rendered by a visualization library in the of visualization libraries.

Claims

1. A computer readable storage medium, comprising executable instructions to:

define an abstraction layer disposed between a business intelligence application and a plurality of visualization libraries, wherein the abstraction layer provides an application programmer interface for the business intelligence application to the plurality of visualization libraries; and

define a visualization settings model within the abstraction layer, wherein the visualization settings model describes a visualization that can be rendered by a visualization library in the plurality of visualization libraries.

2. The computer-readable storage medium of claim 1 wherein the visualization settings model includes a hierarchy with a root and one or more elements selected from a layer, a region, a portion and a property.

3. The computer-readable storage medium of claim 2 wherein each element of the one or more elements has a modifiable value.

4. The computer-readable storage medium of claim 1 further comprising executable instructions to define a plurality of visualization setting models within the abstraction layer, wherein each visualization setting model of the plurality of visualization setting models describes a representative visualization that can be rendered by a subset of visualization libraries in the plurality of visualization libraries.

5. The computer-readable storage medium of claim 1 wherein the abstraction layer, the visualization library and the business intelligence application include executable instructions written in two or more programming languages.

6. The computer-readable storage medium of claim 1 further comprising executable instructions to pass a data feed from the business intelligence application to the visualization library through the abstraction layer.

7. The computer-readable storage medium of claim 6 further comprising executable instructions to:

select the visualization library from the plurality of visualization libraries, wherein the visualization library is selected based on aspects of the data feed; and

pass a data feed from the business intelligence application to the visualization library through the abstraction layer.

8. The computer-readable storage medium of claim 1 further comprising executable instructions to make a metadata description of the visualization library available to the business intelligence application.

9. The computer-readable storage medium of claim 1 further comprising executable instructions to define at least one of a data adapter object, a data descriptor object, a feeder object, and a graphic object.

10. The computer-readable storage medium of claim 1 further comprising executable instructions to maintain a data feed for rendering.

11. The computer-readable storage medium of claim 10 further comprising executable instructions to provide the visualization library a description of the data feed.

12. The computer-readable storage medium of claim 10 further comprising executable instructions to link the data feed to an instance of the visualization.

13. A computer readable storage medium, comprising executable instructions to:

define a setting model for a visualization, a definition to the setting model, and a value for a setting in the setting model; and

render an instance of the visualization incorporating the value for the setting.

14. The computer-readable storage medium of claim 13 further comprising executable instructions to serialize the setting model for the visualization and the value for the setting.

15. The computer-readable storage medium of claim 13 further comprising executable instructions to create the setting model for the visualization and the value for the setting from a serialized object.

16. The computer-readable storage medium of claim 13 wherein the definition to the setting model places the setting model in a hierarchy.

17. The computer-readable storage medium of claim 16 wherein the setting model is one or more types selected from a root, a layer, a region, a portion, a property, and a value.

18. The computer-readable storage medium of claim 13 wherein the visualization is of a type selected from a chart, map and table.

19. The computer-readable storage medium of claim 18 wherein the chart is of a type selected from status charts, variation charts, contribution comparison charts, rank compare charts, times series charts, frequency distribution charts, correlation charts, and combination charts.

20. The computer-readable storage medium of claim 13 further comprising executable instructions to define a plurality of visualization setting models.

21. The computer-readable storage medium of claim 13 comprising executable instructions selected from instructions to define the data consumption characteristics of the visualization, the reactions of the visualization to interaction, a list of visualizations available from a visualization library and the output formats from the visualization library.

22. The computer-readable storage medium of claim 13 wherein the setting model for the visualization is included in a hierarchal data file.

23. The computer-readable storage medium of claim 22, wherein:

the hierarchal data file is specified by a hierarchal data definition file; and

the definition to the setting definition is included in the hierarchal data definition file.

24. The computer-readable storage medium of claim 23 wherein the hierarchal data file is an eXtensible Markup Language (XML) file.

25. The computer-readable storage medium of claim 13, further comprising executable instructions selected from one or more executable instructions to:

parse, modify, read and create one or more of;

the setting model for the visualization, the definition to the setting model and the value for the setting.