Fenwick & West LLP
Scaleable camera model for the navigation and display of information structures using nested, bounded 3D coordinate spaces
 A computer implemented system and method provide navigation of information structures through corresponding graphical structures containing graphical nodes. Each graphical node has its own bounded volume defined in a relative 3D coordinate space. Each graphical node further may have a parent or child containment relationship with any other arbitrary graphical node. The containment relationships correspond to semantic containment relationships of corresponding information nodes in an information structure. As a result, the various 3D coordinate spaces are arbitrarily nested within each other, yet provide for a fully defined local coordinate frame of reference for contained objects. A viewer module manages a view volume in the coordinate space of a current one of the graphical nodes and associated current coordinate space. As the user moves a viewpoint in the current coordinate space, the view volume is dynamically rescaled in inverse proportion to the depth of the viewpoint in that space. The viewer module then dynamically selects for display only those child graphical nodes that have coordinate extents intersecting the rescaled view volume. The viewer module further allows navigation of the viewpoint from the coordinate space of a parent graphical node into the coordinate space of any of its child graphical nodes, representing a narrowing of a semantic scope within the information structure, and the reverse representing a broadening of semantic scope. A rate of change in the location of the viewpoint in the current coordinate space may be made proportional to the distance of the viewpoint from the rear plane of that bounded volume, preventing the viewpoint from ever reaching the rear plane, and providing a sensation of travel within a space of infinite depth. 
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G06F G06F
inventional inventional
Daniel R.
Green