3D Spatial Zooming Interface for Hierarchical Data Navigation
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Solution Overview
Problem
Traditional two-dimensional interfaces limit users' ability to navigate and visualize the hierarchical relationships between content objects, preventing simultaneous viewing of content and its structure in a three-dimensional space.
Innovation Solution
A three-dimensional spatial zooming user interface that allows navigation through a hierarchy by moving in three-dimensional space, using a platform with a browser engine that renders data nodes in 3D, dynamically adjusts detail levels, and interprets user inputs for selection, zooming, and orbiting, while enforcing navigational constraints.
Engineering Contradictions & Design Principles
Engineering Contradiction Analysis
1Loss of information
If a traditional two-dimensional interface is used for content navigation, then the interface simplicity is maintained, but the ability to visualize hierarchical relationships and navigate content simultaneously is limited
Solution Approach 1:
The patent transitions from a two-dimensional interface to a three-dimensional spatial interface, allowing hierarchical relationships to be visualized through depth and spatial arrangement. Data nodes are positioned in 3D space with parent nodes and child nodes arranged hierarchically, enabling users to see both content and structure simultaneously without losing informational clarity.
2Ease of operation
If a three-dimensional spatial interface is implemented for navigating hierarchical content, then the visualization of content relationships is improved, but the complexity of the interface increases
Solution Approach 1:
The interface implements dynamic level-of-detail adjustment where the amount of detail displayed automatically changes based on the user's position in the three-dimensional space. As users move closer to or farther from data nodes, the system dynamically adjusts what information is visible, making navigation more intuitive while managing interface complexity through adaptive display.
Solution Approach 2:
The patent introduces a browser engine as an intermediary that handles the complex task of rendering three-dimensional data nodes and managing spatial relationships. This intermediary component translates user navigation actions into appropriate visual representations, shielding users from the underlying complexity of the 3D interface structure.
3Loss of information
If detailed content is displayed in a discrete window, then content readability is improved, but the user cannot simultaneously view the file structure and content relationship
Solution Approach 1:
The patent merges the content display function with the hierarchical structure visualization into a single unified three-dimensional interface. Instead of separating content viewing into discrete windows, data nodes are rendered directly in 3D space, allowing users to view content and its hierarchical relationships simultaneously in one integrated view.
Data Source
AI summary
Disclosed herein are systems, methods, and non-transitory computer-readable storage media for browsing objects organized in a hierarchy using a three-dimensional user interface. Some embodiments of the present technology involve a platform that renders an interface that represents objects that are hierarchically connected in three-dimensional space and that allows navigation through the hierarchy by moving through the three-dimensional space.