METHOD AND APPARATUS FOR DISPLAYING A POLYHEDRAL USER INTERFACE

• US 20130132909A1
• Filed: 08/08/2012
• Published: 05/23/2013
• Est. Priority Date: 11/22/2011
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Toshiba Samsung Storage Technology Korea Corporation (OPTIS Co., Ltd.)
• Original Assignee: Toshiba Samsung Storage Technology Korea Corporation (OPTIS Co., Ltd.)
• Inventors: Song, Byung-youn, Choi, Nag-eui
• Granted Patent: US 9,256,289 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 715/848
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 2203/04802 3D-info-object: information is displayed on the internal or external surface of a three dimensional manipulable object, e.g. on the faces of a cube that can be rotated by the user
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 3/017 Gesture based interaction, e.g. based on a set of recognized hand gestures interaction based on gestures traced on a digitiser G06F3/04883
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 3/0346 with detection of the device orientation or free movement in a 3D space, e.g. 3D mice, 6-DOF [six degrees of freedom] pointers using gyroscopes, accelerometers or tilt-sensors
• 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

Abstract

Provided is a method and apparatus for providing a three-dimensional (3D) polyhedral user interface. A first polyhedron may be formed of a plurality of blocks which are mapped with a plurality of pieces of information. A user may manipulate rotation of some of the blocks to generate a second polyhedron.

Claims

1. A method for displaying a polyhedral graphical user interface, the method comprising:

generating a first polyhedron comprising a plurality of blocks, the plurality of blocks being mapped with a plurality of pieces of information;

displaying the first polyhedron as a graphical user interface;

rotating one or more of the blocks from among the plurality of blocks; and

displaying a second polyhedron as a graphical user interface which corresponds to the first polyhedron after rotating the one or more blocks.

2. The method of claim 1, wherein the first and second polyhedrons are a hexahedron, a square pillar, a hexagonal pillar, a regular tetrahedron, or a regular octahedron.

3. The method of claim 1, wherein the plurality of blocks are arranged in a matrix of n rows and n columns on each surface of the first and second polyhedrons, where n is a natural number equal to or greater than 2.

4. The method of claim 1, wherein the plurality of pieces of information are mapped to an outer surface of each of the plurality of blocks on the first polyhedron in a one-to-one manner.

5. The method of claim 4, wherein the plurality of pieces of information mapped to the surface of the plurality of blocks rotate along with the rotation of the one or more blocks.

6. The method of claim 1, wherein the rotating of the one or more blocks comprises rotating blocks in a plane including a block pointed to by a pointer and blocks that are on a dragging direction of the pointer.

7. The method of claim 1, further comprising rotating the second polyhedron.

8. The method of claim 7, wherein the second polyhedron is rotated in a dragging direction of a pointer, in response to the pointer being dragged while being placed outside the second polyhedron.

9. The method of claim 1, further comprising resetting the second polyhedron back to the first polyhedron.

10. The method of claim 9, wherein the resetting is performed in response to detecting that a remote controller is continuously moved in a predetermined pattern.

11. The method of claim 1, wherein a pointer displayed on a display unit moves according to a movement of a remote controller.

12. An apparatus for displaying a polyhedral graphical user interface, the apparatus comprising:

a display unit configured to display a first polyhedron as a graphical user interface comprising a plurality of blocks mapped with a plurality of pieces of information; and

a user interface controller configured to generate a second polyhedron by rotating one or more of the blocks from among the plurality of blocks, and to display the second polyhedron on the display unit as a graphical user interface.

13. The apparatus of claim 12, wherein the first and second polyhedrons are a hexahedron, a square pillar, a hexagonal pillar, a regular tetrahedron, or a regular octahedron.

14. The apparatus of claim 12, further comprising a communication module configured to receive a selection of a user to rotate a block,

wherein the user interface controller rotates blocks in a plane including the selected block and blocks placed on a rotation direction of the selected block.

15. The apparatus of claim 12, wherein the user interface controller rotates blocks in a plane including a block pointed to by a pointer and blocks placed on a dragging direction of the pointer.

16. The apparatus of claim 12, wherein the user interface controller rotates the first polyhedron in a dragging direction of a pointer in response to the pointer being dragged outside the first polyhedron, or rotates the second polyhedron in a dragging direction of the pointer in response to the pointer being dragged outside the second polyhedron.

17. The apparatus of claim 12, wherein the user interface controller resets the generated second polyhedron back to the first polyhedron, in response to detecting that a remote controller moves in a predetermined pattern.

18. The apparatus of claim 12, further comprising a remote controller configured to generate a control command to control a movement of a pointer displayed on the display unit.

19. The apparatus of claim 18, wherein the remote controller comprises a motion sensor for detecting a self-movement, and the user interface controller moves the pointer on the display unit according to the movement of the remote controller.

20. A computer-readable storage medium having recorded thereon a program for executing a method for displaying a polyhedral graphical user interface, the method comprising:

generating a first polyhedron comprising a plurality of blocks, the plurality of blocks being mapped with a plurality of pieces of information;

displaying the first polyhedron as a graphical user interface;

rotating one or more blocks from among the plurality of blocks; and

displaying a second polyhedron as a graphical user interface which corresponds to the first polyhedron after rotating the one or more blocks.