586 results about "Level of detail" patented technology

An Integrated Routing/Mapping Information System (IRMIS) links desktop personal computer cartographic applications to one or more handheld organizer, personal digital assistant (PDA) or "palmtop" devices. Such devices may be optionally equipped with, or connected to, portable Global Positioning System (GPS) or equivalent position sensing device. Desktop application facilitates user selection of areas, starts, stops, destinations, maps and/or point and/or route information. It optionally includes supplemental online information, preferably for transfer to the PDA or equivalent device. Users' options include route information, area, and route maps. Maps and related route information are configured with differential detail and levels of magnitude. Used in the field, in conjunction with GPS receiver, the PDA device is configured to display directions, text and map formats, the user's current position, heading, speed, elevation, and so forth. Audible signals identifying the next turn along the user's planned route are also provided. The user can pan across maps and zoom between two or more map scales, levels of detail, or magnitudes. The IRMIS also provides for "automatic zooming," e.g., to show greater detail or closer detail as the user approaches a destination, or to larger scale and lower resolution to show the user's overall planned route between points of interest. The IRMIS also enables the user to mark or record specific locations and/or log actual travel routes, using GPS position information. These annotated location marks and/or "breadcrumb" or GPS log data can be saved, uploaded, displayed, or otherwise processed on the user's desktop geographic information or cartographic system. The IRMIS application and data may be distributed online and/or in tangible media in limited and advanced manipulation formats.

A data structure visualization tool visualizes a data structure such as a decision table classifier. A data file based on a data set of relational data is stored as a relational table, where each row represents an aggregate of all the records for each combination of values of the attributes used. Once loaded into memory, an inducer is used to construct a hierarchy of levels, called a decision table classifier, where each successive level in the hierarchy has two fewer attributes. Besides a column for each attribute, there is a column for the record count (or more generally, sum of record weights), and a column containing a vector of probabilities (each probability gives the proportion of records in each class). Finally, at the top-most level, a single row represents all the data. The decision table classifier is then passed to the visualization tool for display and the decision table classifier is visualized. By building a representative scene graph adaptively, the visualization application never loads the whole data set into memory. Interactive techniques, such as drill-down and drill-through are used view further levels of detail or to retrieve some subset of the original data. The decision table visualizer helps a user understand the importance of specific attribute values for classification.

Systems and methods according to the present invention provide graphical user interfaces coupled with an optionally free-space control device for collection of the basic control primitives of point, click, scroll, hover and zoom which permit for easy and rapid selection of media items, e.g., movies, songs etc., from large or small collections. The remote control maps natural hand movements and gestures into relevant commands while the graphical display uses images, zooming for increased/decreased levels of detail and continuity of GUI objects to provide easy navigation among the media items by a user.

Methods, devices and systems for detecting suspicious or performance-degrading mobile device behaviors intelligently, dynamically, and/or adaptively determine computing device behaviors that are to be observed, the number of behaviors that are to be observed, and the level of detail or granularity at which the mobile device behaviors are to be observed. The various aspects efficiently identify suspicious or performance-degrading mobile device behaviors without requiring an excessive amount of processing, memory, or energy resources.

The subject invention provides a unique system and method that facilitates management and navigation of various data objects by making use of a unique time-line based navigation tool. In particular, objects can organized into a plurality of bands based on their respective subject matter. Each band can be created to designate a particular topic. Objects are organized within the appropriate bands based in part on a time parameter such as a time or date that the object was created, for example. The navigation tool allows a user to navigate or browse through the bands and objects according to a desired time parameter or range of time. Zooming and other browsing options are available to the user to view objects of interest at varying levels of detail. The objects are represented as ASCII thumbnails that are operational. Thus, the content of any object can be modified directly via the thumbnail.

An audio beacon system, apparatus and method for collecting information on a panelist's exposure to media. An audio beacon is configured as on-device encoding technology that is operative in a panelist's processing device (e.g., cell phone, PDA, PC) to enable the device to encode an acoustic tone and transmit it for a predetermined period of time. The acoustically transmitted data is received and processed by a portable audience measurement device, such as Arbitron's Personal People Meter™ (“PPM”), or other specially equipped portable device to enable audience measurement systems to achieve higher levels of detail on panel member activity and greater association of measurement devices to their respective panelists.

Configurations for a cellular user interface are provided. In one embodiment, a client configuration includes a viewer and a content development kit. A content server distributes cellularized content among several client viewers. Connectors in a scheduled configuration regularly acquire updated content from data sources. An integration server interfaces between the connectors and the content server for distributing content. A monitoring agent assists with content updating upon detecting source changes. A registration server enables cell content update in client viewers through the content server. Cells in the cellularized environment include a visual proxy component and a metadata component. The visual proxy component can be configured for displaying different content at various levels of detail. The metadata component enables intelligent organization and display of content through queries, channels, and data updates. In addition, procedural geometry in the cellularized environment automates the content presentation and provides a flexible arrangement of the cells.

Tools for providing bill aggregation and/or payment services. In an aspect, such tools aggregate all payments over a given period of time, allowing a user to make a single payment to ensure that all appropriate bills are paid in timely fashion. In another aspect, the tools determine, without requiring user input, an amount due on each bill, as well, in some cases, of a due date for each payment. Optionally, the tools can provide a consolidated statement to inform the user of payments to be made over a given period. Such statements can provide a varying level of detail, depending on the implementation and/or on user preferences. In some cases, a consolidated statement might provide line items and/or detailed support for each payment to be made. In other cases, the consolidated statement might simply provide a single consolidated payment amount.

An audio beacon system, apparatus and method for collecting information on a panelist's exposure to media. An audio beacon is configured as on-device encoding technology that is operative in a panelist's processing device (e.g., cell phone, PDA, PC) to enable the device to encode and/or process media data and acoustically transmit it for a predetermined period of time. The acoustically transmitted data is received and processed by a portable audience measurement device, such as Arbitron's Personal People Meter™ (“PPM”), or other specially equipped portable device to enable audience measurement systems to achieve higher levels of detail on panel member activity and greater association of measurement devices to their respective panelists.

A proxy-server system (15) connected preferably to a computer-telephone system (10) intercepts, processes, and analyzes as traffic-analysis results (68A-C) all forms of real- and non-real-time electronic communication passing over the network in the form of raw traffic data (61). The proxy-server system normalizes each communication into the measure of time needed by recipient(s) of the communication to understand the information contained therein. Once normalized, the data may be aggregated into summary reports (69A-C). As part of the analysis, the aggregated communication records are compared with user-defined rules to provide alerts if the individual or aggregated durations exceed boundaries set by the rules. In one embodiment, the summary reports may be integrated with general-ledger data (94) and other raw business data (74) via a relational database (72) to derive more accurate records of activity-based-costing information (76). Additionally, the data of the summary reports may be visualized in two- or three-dimensional representations of communication-flow patterns to illustrate in an intuitive and semantically scalable manner the desired level of detail for time and time-based expense consumed by the electronic interactions of an individual or organization.

A method and apparatus wherein complex physical interactions and collisions are modeled at a high level of detail while reducing the computational demands placed on the processing system. In one embodiment the method comprising the steps of defining a first object and a second object, each object adapted for colliding with the other object; assigning an interaction type for at least one of the first and second object in response to an object parameter; and selecting between a continuous simulation of a collision and a discrete simulation of the collision in response to the interaction type.

A method for estimating rendering times for three-dimensional graphics objects and scenes is disclosed. The rendering times may be estimated in real-time, thus allowing a graphics system to alter rendering parameters (such as level of detail and number of samples per pixel) to maintain a predetermined minimum frame rate. Part of the estimation may be performed offline to reduce the time required to perform the final estimation. The method may also detect whether the objects being rendered are pixel fill limited or polygon overhead limited. This information may allow the graphics system to make more intelligent choices as to which rendering parameters should be changed to achieve the desired minimum frame rate. A software program configured to efficiently estimate rendering times is also disclosed.

A method for recording a sequence of user actions made when interfacing with objects associated with an executable code is provided. In this method, a selection of a level of detail to record when user actions enable interfacing with the objects associated with the executable code is enabled. Subsequently, the sequence of user actions is recorded. The recorded sequence of user actions is defined by the selected level of detail. Thereafter, the recorded sequence of user actions is parsed by applying rules that enable the generation of a defined number of data types. The data types are capable of being utilized by an application that is designed to generate information that is related to one or more of the data types.

A primitive of a base mesh having at least three base vertices is dynamically tessellated to enable smooth changes in detail of an image rendered on a screen. A respective floating point vertex tessellation value (Fv) is assigned to each base vertex of the base mesh, based on a desired level of detail in the rendered image. For each edge of the primitive: a respective floating point edge tessellation rate (Fe) of the edge is calculated using the respective vertex tessellation values (Fv) of the base vertices terminating the edge. A position of at least one child vertex of the primitive is then calculated using the respective calculated edge tessellation rate (Fe). By this means, child vertices of the primitive can be generated coincident with a parent vertex, and smoothly migrate in response to changing vertex tessellation values of the base vertices of the primitive.

A process is set forth for viewing an enlarged area of an image. The image is stored on a server and re-sized for viewing on a mobile communication device based on screen size and colour display capabilities of the device. The image is enlarged within the server by modifying binary raw data of the original image based on crop rectangle coordinates entered at the mobile communication device. The process allows users to quickly retrieve any relevant part of a large image attachment that has been resized by the server. This minimizes bandwidth usage, device memory/CPU consumption, and request/response latency while still allowing the user to view an image area in its original level of detail.

A system generates linked sets of drill-down-enabled reports of increasing levels of detail from one or more databases. Linking relationships between reports are defined using the query language of the databases. Result sets are obtained that includes (1) the sought-after data, and (2) metadata that identifies drill-down reports to be generated if related report elements are selected. When the query is executed, the system passes the sought-after data to a reporting application programming interface, which generates a report (e.g., a pie chart, 3-D bar chart, cross-tabbed table). If an end-user selects one of the report elements (e.g., a bar on the chart), the system maps the reported event to the associated data of the result set. If the associated data has corresponding meta-data containing a drill-down directive, the system then generates the report identified by the drill-down directive.

A method and apparatus is disclosed that facilitates realistic navigation of visual content by displaying an interpolated image during navigation and a more exact image when the navigation ceases. Methodologies are disclosed for rendering and displaying “tiles”, portions of the visual content at different levels of detail to minimize perceivable discontinuities.

A multi-resolution texture mapping system suitable for large scale terrain rendering using commodity graphics processing units (GPU). The GPU vertex and fragment shaders are used to implement the clip-mapping functionality. The terrain texture is represented by a combination of a mip-map and a multi-level clip-map having independent origins and off-set values. The independent clip-map levels may be independently updated. The offset values allow the origins to be associated with a reference point in a scene to be rendered. The desired clip-map level to be used to render a particular fragment may be determined using the base 2 logarithm of the maximum screen-space derivative of the source texture required by the terrain geometry to be drawn. If the desired clip-map level is non-integer and lies between two clip-map levels, appropriate texel data is created by interpolating between the bounding clip-map levels. This interpolation allows a multi-resolution texture mapping to be displayed.

The subject invention provides a unique system and method that facilitates management and navigation of various data objects by making use of a unique time-line based navigation tool. In particular, objects can organized into a plurality of bands based on their respective subject matter. Each band can be created to designate a particular topic. Objects are organized within the appropriate bands based in part on a time parameter such as a time or date that the object was created, for example. The navigation tool allows a user to navigate or browse through the bands and objects according to a desired time parameter or range of time. Zooming and other browsing options are available to the user to view objects of interest at varying levels of detail. The objects are represented as ASCII thumbnails that are operational. Thus, the content of any object can be modified directly via the thumbnail.

In a video delivery context, collection and analysis of viewing data can provide insight into viewer interaction with video and the Internet. The viewing data can be transmitted in a controlled manner to a data repository. The system can selectively target specific viewers/households to obtain viewing data, which can be combined with demographics, anonymized, and encrypted. Embodiments enable precision selection of media opportunities, by determining detailed characteristics associated with broadcasts including movement of audiences and specific viewer behavior, such as visits to websites on the Internet. The effective yield of broadcasts, including promotional spots and advertisements, can be determined and predicted based on concrete data at a level of detail down to individual viewers. Accordingly, embodiments enable improvement of the effectiveness and return on investment for programming, promotional spots, and advertisements.